Grab some toilet paper tubes or cut up some paper towel ones, fill each with one or two of the same kind of cable and arrange them inside of a box and voila.

[via: reddit.com]

[via: reddit.com/r/music]

Awesome concept to generate a green space within the city by renovating a unused trolley station in the lower east side.

[via:KickStarter]

Simply the best writing instrument.  Give them a shot, cheap enough to toss when either the lead or eraser are out and yet very comfortable to write with.

[via: Amazon.com]

[via: Reddit.com]

 

This is a really simple trick I have come with to create a simple air filter for about $30.  It does a great job of cleaning the air and moves a much greater volume of air than the $100-$200 fancy units you can buy in stores.

So here is how to do it, open everything up, place the filter on the intake side of the fan, and wrap the bungee cord across the filter and hook it into the outlet edge of the fan on the other side at the top and bottom of the fan to hold it in place.  Place this new unit into whatever area you want to clean the air in and turn the fan on.

Voila, clean air, you’re welcome for the extra $100 you just saved.

[via: Ximfinity.com]

I have had a number of people ask me how to build a website, and what they need to buy to do so.  Most recently many of these have been rooted in the interest of buying a domain and owning XYZ.com.  I typically suggest to people that they should avoid purchasing their domain from a host all wrapped up in one package.  The reason for this is it restricts you the option to switch one or the other later on when they decide, “Hey, Mr. loyal customer you aren’t going anywhere so the next year will cost you $100 rather than the $10 we charged you to start.”  If you decided at this time to switch to another company, they can restrict you from doing so for a period of time by taking hold of your DNS Lookup address.  However when you purchase the domain from one company and host from another one  its easy enough to switch one or the other at any time and just update the address manually on either end without much hassle as both are trying to keep you a happy customer rather than a dopey loyal one.

Lastly,  I am often asked for recommendations, though obviously biased as they are who I have been happily using for the past 2 years for multiple domains,  I use 1&1 for Domains and JustHost.com for Hosting.  Good luck and happy building.

[via: Ximfinity.com]

“In a 2003 article, Joseph J. Gallo and others looked at what physicians want when it comes to end-of-life decisions. In a survey of 765 doctors, they found that 64% had created an advanced directive—specifying what steps should and should not be taken to save their lives should they become incapacitated. That compares to only about 20% for the general public. (As one might expect, older doctors are more likely than younger doctors to have made “arrangements,” as shown in a study by Paula Lester and others.)”

Very interesting article on the reasons why a patient driven healthcare system has caused a rise in death preventative medicine which in turn has caused increased suffering to patients rather than improved life expectancy with a significantly high level of quality in life.

[via: WSJ.com]

“A more recent math project I was hired to edit was not only full of content errors, the books were so peculiar in the execution of math concepts and instruction that I hadn’t seen anything like it in all my 20+ years of experience. I asked the project manager if she’d ever seen math approached in this manner. She gave a resigned groan and said no, but this was what the publisher wanted. The books in question were a series of supplemental products designed for struggling students, which is sadly ironic because students of all abilities will indeed struggle to complete the lessons in these books. How could this happen, you might ask? Well, the books were published by a company that was reorganized a few years ago in order to boost profits. That’s when the bulk of the product development staff was let go and the budget for their department slashed. Meanwhile, the marketing and sales departments swelled, as did their budgets. And though many of those in charge now have lofty MBAs, few have little, if any, experience in publishing of any kind, never taught in a classroom, and haven’t the first clue of how to build a coherent educational book from start to finish. The lust for the bottom line—that is how this happens.”

This is what is educating the next generation of Americans. Not only does this type of material fail to educate students on math and science, it fails to inspire or excite students about learning these topics on their own.

[via: Annie Keeghan @ Salon.com]

Interesting TED talk on houseplants and office plants allowing occupants to grow fresh air.  This links into the growing concept of biology and the built environment.  This is the concept of providing a cleaner living/working environment by managing the biology of the surrounding environment within the HVAC system rather than forcing the system into sanitation.  When forcing the system into sanitation it creates ideal breeding grounds for the types of bacteria that humans are susceptible to.  By managing and purposefully allowing the bacteria that do not harm humans, the bad ones have to compete to survive and therefore are not nearly as successful at surviving host to host transmission.  Interesting stuff, much more to come from other sources I believe.

[via: TED]