TNT Newsletter for November 18, 2006
Float your gravy boat, avoid those winter viruses, hack your wine glasses, high-tech ice cream, pecan geometry, and (why not) a little grammar, too.
You may not think of Thanksgiving as a particularly maker-friendly holiday, but not everyone agrees with you. Whether it's a recirculating gravy fountain (haven't you always dreamed of one of those?), a giant fractal pecan pie, or liquid-nitrogen-cooled ice cream, there are always makers out there eager to push the envelope. I've included links this week to a few of my favorite Thanksgiving-related Instructables to get you started, as well as including a quick tip for adding to your dish-drying capabilities on the big night. Don't worry, there are a few non-Thanksgiving reviews too, for those of you who hate turkey.
But no matter what, don't forget to be thankful for the ability to make.
Cheers,
Arwen O'Reilly
Staff editor, MAKE magazine
http://makezine.com
toolbox@makezine.com
Gravy Train
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/EMUI7PED5VEP28785W/
Instructables user Turkey Tek is full of creative ideas for Thanksgiving. This recirculating gravy fountain might just be my favorite, although it seems about as decadent as Caligula's Roman bashes. You've got a few days until Thanksgiving, so get cracking!
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/EMUI7PED5VEP28785W/
Instructables user Turkey Tek is full of creative ideas for Thanksgiving. This recirculating gravy fountain might just be my favorite, although it seems about as decadent as Caligula's Roman bashes. You've got a few days until Thanksgiving, so get cracking!
Flaky Fractals
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/E5JZ3ILC4AEP2877E4/
As if the recirculating fountain wasn't enough, Turkey Tek also constructed a giant pecan pie in the shape of a fractal. While this is probably more work than anyone in their right mind would want to do before Thanksgiving, just knowing that someone is out there calculating the crust to filling ratio makes me thankful.
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/E5JZ3ILC4AEP2877E4/
As if the recirculating fountain wasn't enough, Turkey Tek also constructed a giant pecan pie in the shape of a fractal. While this is probably more work than anyone in their right mind would want to do before Thanksgiving, just knowing that someone is out there calculating the crust to filling ratio makes me thankful.
Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/EA59UFHG7FEP2879FP/
Yet another of Turkey Tek's Thanksgiving innovations, this ice cream frozen in liquid nitrogen makes running out to the store for a last-minute Breyers run obsolete (assuming you have liquid nitrogen sitting around in your garage, that is).
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/EA59UFHG7FEP2879FP/
Yet another of Turkey Tek's Thanksgiving innovations, this ice cream frozen in liquid nitrogen makes running out to the store for a last-minute Breyers run obsolete (assuming you have liquid nitrogen sitting around in your garage, that is).
Spam I Ain't
Reviewed by Sohaib Khan
http://www.kaspersky.com/
The anti-virus industry is dominated by a selected elite, like Symantec and McAfee, and to some extent by the pseudo-elite like BitDefender and Sophos. They are major market-share holders because they offer other services besides their antivirus programs. But, for once, I was confronted with a problem that none of these could solve. A little-known program called Kaspersky Anti-Virus claimed to be able to come to my rescue...which it did.
My computer was afflicted by some malware that would take control of my homepage, leaving me unable to change it. This was in addition to eating up system resources (RAM) and multiple instances of Internet Explorer showing up in the task manager. Apparently, this problem was too obscure for the big guns to solve, so in desperation (only other solution was formatting my hard disk) I turned to Kaspersky; I wasn't too optimistic. But Kaspersky delivered, and that with aplomb.
Besides curing all afflictions, it also didn't hold my computer hostage for system resources, like the elite did. This was a major plus. The program uses a bare bones approach, giving you only the necessary options and using only the necessary graphics. I have been using it for over a month, am extremely happy with it, and so is my system; it has been stable throughout. I won't be turning back to those bulky resource-intensive programs any time soon--unless Kaspersky fails me, which seems highly unlikely.
P.S.: Beware of the hog-like scream each time a problem is detected! It makes me jump off my seat each time.
Reviewed by Sohaib Khan
http://www.kaspersky.com/
The anti-virus industry is dominated by a selected elite, like Symantec and McAfee, and to some extent by the pseudo-elite like BitDefender and Sophos. They are major market-share holders because they offer other services besides their antivirus programs. But, for once, I was confronted with a problem that none of these could solve. A little-known program called Kaspersky Anti-Virus claimed to be able to come to my rescue...which it did.
My computer was afflicted by some malware that would take control of my homepage, leaving me unable to change it. This was in addition to eating up system resources (RAM) and multiple instances of Internet Explorer showing up in the task manager. Apparently, this problem was too obscure for the big guns to solve, so in desperation (only other solution was formatting my hard disk) I turned to Kaspersky; I wasn't too optimistic. But Kaspersky delivered, and that with aplomb.
Besides curing all afflictions, it also didn't hold my computer hostage for system resources, like the elite did. This was a major plus. The program uses a bare bones approach, giving you only the necessary options and using only the necessary graphics. I have been using it for over a month, am extremely happy with it, and so is my system; it has been stable throughout. I won't be turning back to those bulky resource-intensive programs any time soon--unless Kaspersky fails me, which seems highly unlikely.
P.S.: Beware of the hog-like scream each time a problem is detected! It makes me jump off my seat each time.
Lifestyle Hack
Reviewed by Meg Hourihan
When I have a bunch of glasses that won't fit on my usual dish rack, I use a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet.
Reviewed by Meg Hourihan
When I have a bunch of glasses that won't fit on my usual dish rack, I use a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet.
While Away the Hours
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
MAKE's managing editor, Shawn Connally, pointed out the following grammar problem:
When “awhile” is spelled as a single word, it is an adverb meaning “for a time” (“stay awhile”); but when “while” is the object of a prepositional phrase, like “Lend me your monkey wrench for a while,” the “while” must be separated from the “a.” (But if the preposition “for” were lacking in this sentence, “awhile” could be used in this way: “Lend me your monkey wrench awhile.”)
What gives?
Well, the reason for this seems mostly to be convention and simple evoluton over time. The Word Maven over at the Random House Dictionary site points out that sometimes both usages are correct, depending on whether you see the sentence as employing an adverb modifying "waiting" or a noun phrase (a determiner plus a noun).
The Maven's advice is to plug in the phrase "for a short time" in place of the questionable form, keeping in mind that most usage is debatable and both versions have historical precedent.
Sigh. No easy answers for those of us with monkey wrenches.
Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
MAKE's managing editor, Shawn Connally, pointed out the following grammar problem:
When “awhile” is spelled as a single word, it is an adverb meaning “for a time” (“stay awhile”); but when “while” is the object of a prepositional phrase, like “Lend me your monkey wrench for a while,” the “while” must be separated from the “a.” (But if the preposition “for” were lacking in this sentence, “awhile” could be used in this way: “Lend me your monkey wrench awhile.”)
What gives?
Well, the reason for this seems mostly to be convention and simple evoluton over time. The Word Maven over at the Random House Dictionary site points out that sometimes both usages are correct, depending on whether you see the sentence as employing an adverb modifying "waiting" or a noun phrase (a determiner plus a noun).
The Maven's advice is to plug in the phrase "for a short time" in place of the questionable form, keeping in mind that most usage is debatable and both versions have historical precedent.
Sigh. No easy answers for those of us with monkey wrenches.
