Our guest this week is Amber Case. Amber studies the interaction between humans and computers and how technology is changing everyday life. Amber was named one of Inc. Magazine's 30 under 30, and Fast Company's Most Influential Women in Technology. She was named the National Geographic Emerging Explorer. She won the Claude Shannon Innovation Award from Bell Labs. She was the co-founder and CEO of Geoloqi, a location-based software company. Right now she's a 2021 Mozilla Fellow and she's working on the future of money, alternative business models for the web, and creator compensation. She's an advisor to Unlock Protocol and Puma Browser. You can follow her work on Medium and Twitter @caseorganic.

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Show notes:

A light switch
The first tool is very straightforward. It is a light switch. And the reason why I like a light switch is because as a really small kid, it's something that my parents would lift me up to reach and I could turn on and off the light. And I think as a kid, it gave me a feeling of control over the universe. Let there be light and there was light. But really, it's interesting because the history of electricity is that you don't have to be an electrician to use a light switch. Even if you get home late at night, it's dark, you're in an unfamiliar place, you can kind of tap the wall and find a few various kinds of light switches. For me, it's kind of an example of a calm technology, something that's there when you need it. It doesn't draw attention to itself when you don't need it. The complexity is hidden behind the scenes and we really respect the electricity that's dangerous, but the user interface is straightforward so much that we don't care. And that invisible technology I think that's really crucial to kind of reexamine and revisit these mundane objects in our life and consider just how brilliant they are.

A foot pedal
My second cool tool is inside the car and also on sewing machines and also on trash cans. It's the foot pedal. Foot pedal is something that we've forgotten about when we switched into the computer mouse, but Doug Englebart's early mouse actually did have a foot pedal so you could scroll down the screen. The foot pedal is so cool. Because it makes use of an extra appendage of our body. You can work with it without having to see it. It's kind of a peripheral tool. And for sewing machines, for social distance door opening, you can press something in, throw something in a trash and especially on a car. We use it all the time. We don't even think about it. And now gamers are starting to get it back with little pedals that they're having with their computers so that they can send responses to people funding them on any of these stream platforms. So I love the foot pedal because we all have feet and that's still a user interface.

Unlock Protocol
We're switching into super futuristic here. There is a small startup that I discovered called Unlock Protocol. And I met Julian who's the founder of it back in the IndieWeb days. So I don't know how much everybody knows about the IndieWeb, but the IndieWeb movement was something that was founded by me and Crystal Beasley and Aaron Perreki. And the idea was that unlike today, where you just post on other services and they keep your information, you would post on your own site and syndicate elsewhere. This would be this kind of going back to run a server in your closet and run your own website. So I was thinking, over time, we went very centralized and so to predict the future, sometimes you can just flip the axis. The future becomes decentralization. Right now, if you want to sponsor somebody online, you use Patreon and Patreon takes a cut. You might make your living on Patreon or eBay or OnlyFans for instance. And it's very hard. When I was researching as a Mozilla fellow, I was looking at the one of the error codes that was not filled out on the web, which is the 402 payment required error that said, "Reserve for future use." And I said, "Well, what is this? Why isn't there a good protocol for the web?" We got eBay and PayPal and Venmo, the zillion different ways to pay people, but there's a lot of intermediaries. So Unlock Protocol is a protocol that allows you to put a lock of content on your own site and have somebody unlock it with a credit card or crypto, and there's no intermediary. So even if the company goes out of business, you can still make a living off of sites that you run without all of that extra. You just go to the Unlock Protocol website and you can click on the app. And a lot of people are using MetaMask wallet as a kind of crypto wallet for the web. So you would just authenticate with your web wallet and then you could make a lock and either embed that onto your site, and have some sort of content get unlocked based on that. Or you could have a little miniature checkout page that could basically token gate a link. So let's say I have a Dropbox doc and I want people to pay a little bit of money for it. They could go through and pay. It's all live and it's been live and working since 2018. And so I'd say it's probably the earliest version of what we're going to see happen online in terms of kind of token gated communities and peer-to-peer payments and things like that.

Ableton software
The fourth tool is Ableton software. Ableton is a way of processing signals for audio and what it does, it's a digital audio workstation. But it's been around since 2001, 20 years ago, and it looks very similar to what it looked like in the past. And it's very interesting because it was built from homemade software. And I think when we look at music, we look at a lot of software and it's not always well built, but with audio, you have to do a good job because you're working with something invisible, like sound is invisible. When you visualize it, it's waves and all you're doing with signal process is changing the shape of the wave. And that changes the sound. And then changing more shapes so that when you play multiple sounds at the same time, they don't conflict with each other and then changing them more to give them a weird overtone or mood that you want to give them. You can record into it. You can arrange it. You can mix, you can master, you can cross fade, you can do whatever, but the reason why I like it is, when you open it up, it is horrifying looking to somebody who's never used it. It is the most utility-oriented thing. And then what happens is there's suddenly this aha moment after a couple months of using it. And then everything is exactly in the right shape and place. And it just feels like it matches your brain, everything you want to do. I think it's just a completely different world that you get into when you're working with pure aesthetics and moods and feelings. It doesn't have to be perfect just like a picture. It doesn't have to be perfect to convey an emotion and to express something that you can't say declaratively, you can't say in words. And I think for a lot of programmers who are used to being very articulate and declarative, approaching music from that kind of unknowing perspective is a mystery. And it's interesting and exciting. And I think Ableton is a fun way to approach it.

About Calm Technology:

I'm a Mozilla fellow, so I'm researching web economics. And part of what I'm studying is a little bit of that 402 payment required error about how can we make money work better online. A little bit of the origin of micropayments and where that came from in the 60s. And then also, that kind of goes along with Interledger and Unlock and all these different new technologies and protocols that are showing up. So that's part of the work, but I think the larger work is continuing to make strides in Calm Technology, which was a framework developed in the 90s at Xerox PARC, by John Seely Brown and Rich Gold. During my thesis on mobile phones in 2007, 2008, I stumbled upon this just very small research paper by these amazing thinkers. And it was written in a way that just seemed like it was written today. It's just timeless human technology universals. They say, the fourth era of computing is many devices will share a single person. And then in the beginning, many people shared one device. The maturity is when a device takes the least amount of attention and only when necessary, that you can embed information. I was just reading this and saying, oh my gosh, most of these people died before they saw, the ubiquitous computing era. And then a lot of what we think of as ubiquitous computing and smart objects has been built super poorly. And now as Freud would say in his book Civilization and Its Discontents, "We are marred by a future of ill fitting prosthetics." And how unfortunate that is because we could have these more harmonious systems around us that don't have to assume that we need certain things —where we still have agency. We have smarter humans instead of smarter objects. I was super inspired by that. So more recently, very large companies have been showing up and saying, "We have a mono in this market, and now we're stuck because people don't like our stuff, what do we do?" And doing little workshops and just trying to revive an era where at Xerox PARC, you could kind of make the future and then understand what problems the future might have, and then write about how these futures could be designed better, I suppose. So that's kind of the big work that gets applied to pretty much everything I do. And the companies that I advise and the future writing I'm going to work on. The easiest place to go is you could go to calmtech.com, which probably won't change very much because it's supposed to be around for 30 or 40 years and not go out of date, hopefully. And then you can go on my medium. I have about 50 articles detailing, various different applications of either web economics or Calm Tech.

https://youtu.be/q8532z5_FQI

Recomendos:
SHOWNEW Garden Hose Quick Connectors
Professional Hair Cutting Shears
Hayes Waterslide Decal Paper
Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic Spray Paint
Sweese Coffee Mugs
Gareth’s Tips, Tools and Shop Tales
Make Amazing Waterslide Decals for Tumblers, Mugs, and Glasses!

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Silent mouse

I had a mouse that made a loud noise when I clicked it. It distracted  peopled I Zoomed with, so I replaced it with a Logitech M590 Silent Touch Mouse, which hardly makes a sound, yet has the same click feel as a regular mouse. — MF

Video Poem
The Diamond is a gem of a short 16-minute documentary. Utterly brilliant. People come to shift though the dirt in crater looking for rough diamonds, but what are they really hunting for? Bigger things. — KK

Find yourself a third place
I love the concept of a third place — a public space that is not your home or work that can offer respite from your daily routine. Examples of third spaces can be a bookstore, pub, cafe, or park. “Third places offer a neutral public space for a community to connect and establish bonds.” Wellness blogger Patricia Mou wrote a great 3-part series on third spaces where you can learn more about the definition of third spaces and the state of them in America today, as well as their future. This past year I’ve mostly had one space, but there is a library that just re-opened within 5 blocks of me that I hope to become more familiar with. — CD

Education in money
A free newsletter I find myself reading more than I thought would is Money Stuff by Matt Levine. I am not that interested in finance, debt structure, bond rates, macro-economics, or really money itself, but Levine makes it so easy and clear, I can’t help reading and learning. Here is a typical sentence: ”Your job, as an investment banker, is to become close to the people who possess giant piles of money, in the hopes that one day they will do giant deals with their giant piles of money and give you some of it.”  Money Stuff seems to arrive every weekday, and most days I read most of it, always learning. — KK

Easiest way to watercolor
It was always a painstaking process for me to color in between lines, and painting is too slow and methodical for my messy ways. I wish I had these Faber-Castell Watercolour Pencils when I was a kid. It’s the easiest way to watercolor paint — and the fastest! I just scribble in a little color here and there and use a water brush pen like this to transform the pigments into paint. I started with the 12 color set for around $20 and then upgraded myself to the 36 color set ($50) after I got more consistent with it. Maybe someday I’ll earn the 120-color set. — CD

Thousands of book covers
I love book cover design so it was a treat to discover Ivan Checkov’s Flicker gallery of book covers from the 1900s to the 1960s. Two of my favorites are the cover for The Monster Men (1913) by Edgar Rice Burroughs, illustrated by J. Allen St. John, and the cover for A Silver Spade (1950) by Louisa Revell, illustrated by Denis McLoughlin. (This review of A Silver Spade makes me want to read it). — MF

https://youtu.be/fGbpCVFyPXg

Recomendos:
Zometool Basic Creator Kit
Lilly Brush Mini Pet Hair Detailer
Scotch Tear By Hand Packaging Tape

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Juris Kristobans is the creator of Modern Different. Modern Different is a resource and newsletter that lets you discover modern and practical products that can improve your home environment and help you get a better quality of life.

It is my first work from home setup. I like to add and remove things often. I have removed every unnecessary object from my desk and left with a bare minimum to do the work. And I love my massive desk (180 x 90cm) even though I don’t have much stuff on the desk. When I do research, I have a ton of books and magazines on my desk. It’s nice to have plenty of space so I can keep every magazine open.

Elgato Key Light Air ($110)
I thought it is ok to use a table lamp (or nothing) for Zoom and Skype calls, but Key Light Air has been instrumental. Lights are compact and easy to pack away if I don’t need them. I also like that I can easily adjust the height, brightness, and change color range. And they keep cool for a very long time, allowing me to work without breaking a sweat.

Casio TQ-140-1EF Wake Up Timer Alarm Clock ($14)
I bought this Casio clock as the second alarm if my phone wouldn’t wake me up on time. I keep it on my desk. When the alarm goes off, I must get out of the bed and walk to the other room to turn it off. And during the day it is helpful because I don’t have to reach for my phone to see the time. It is super loud and will wake me (and neighbors) up within seconds. It has a silent mechanism. I am not a big fan of the sound tik, tak, tik, tak … Fun Fact! My phone has never failed me.

Oak Monitor Stand (DIY)
I spent far too much time looking at monitor stands. It’s hard to get a beautiful monitor stand, and the biggest issue for me is that they are too low. I am pretty tall, and I noticed that my posture wasn’t great because I have to look down. Inspiration came from Jeff Sheldon (google: Jeff Sheldon monitor stand), and Dad made it for me. It is a combination of Ikea legs, a slab of oak, and matte varnish.

Hightide Marbled Desk Tray ($18)
There is a specific place on my desk for everything. Always! I keep all small things like pens, scissors, sharpies, and post-it notes in this tray. It is convenient because it has the right size, and it lets me organize everything nicely. And Hightide is a Japanese company. That’s a bonus.

https://youtu.be/ch5sm3NCjt0

Recomendos:
40x Handheld Magnifier
Bondhus Balldriver and Hex T-handles (Metric)
Bondhus Balldriver and Hex T-handles (Imperial)
Vapur Element Flexible Water Bottle

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https://youtu.be/i6d2YLi1DkQ

Recomendos:
Gerber Shard Keychain Tool
LapGear Lap Desk
Cable Clips
3M Double Sided Tape

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I am a tropical biologist and explorer known for my studies of animal social life, and especially the behavior of ants, and I’m acclaimed as well as an insect photographer. Because I often work in remote places, I need to cram any and all tools I might need into a bag that I keep on my back day after day.

Pictured are the small items that I carry to watch ants and other insects —tools I describe below starting at the left and proceeding clockwise:

1. A small mirror to follow ants moving under objects within the leaf litter — surprising how often this helps. I have tracked ants many yards over periods of hours with this mirror, an insane job.

2. A vial of sugar water dyed red to keep track of which ants are which (the ones that turn cherry red belong to my colony, hooray!).

3. One of the vials of 70-80% ethyl alcohol I carry for preserving insect specimens.

4. A vial of dilute honey and a vial cooking oil, used as baits to assess what tasty diet my ants prefer and then to follow the ant workers back to their nest.

5. 20X loupe (magnifier) on a silver chain that I wear around my neck when I need it often.

6. Face mask made from blue cords and the sleeve of an old yellow t-shirt that I should perhaps replace with a mask against Covid — this I put on to avoid disturbing insects (breathing on certain kinds of ants can make them very angry!).

7. Strong twine that can be employed, for example, to tie back any vines that get in the way of my access to a study subject so that I don’t need to cut down any annoying plants.

8. Orange flagging tape to mark the location of an ant nest or some other study subject.

9. Sometimes I see something big! This is a small monoscope with a carabiner to attach it to one flank of the camera bag, which I use to quickly identify a distant subject like a bird before I pull out the 100-400 mm lens from my bag should I decide to study it further, or to take its picture.

10. A featherweight forceps, which allows me to pick up an insect without hurting it (though I’m fearless about using my fingers — ouch!).

11. A black-stoppered aspirator, used to suck bugs into a small plastic container to examine later.

12. A Swiss army knife with all the fixin’s (though I’ve grown cautious about bringing one on trips because before arriving at the airport I often forget to move it over from my camera bag into a check-in bag, and so airport security officials have looked at me crossly and confiscated several).

13. A cheap compass because the one in a phone or GPS can fail in dense forests ( #$%!!! Where am I???).

14. Extension arms that I adjust to position one or two camera flashes exactly where I want them to give my small subjects the best beauty treatment. (Notice the red tape I’ve put around one arm, which makes this device harder to miss should I put it down in the leaf litter — I stick a bit of this bright colored tape to every small item of camera gear I own, such as my lens caps.) This is the only piece of actual camera gear from my bag that I show here. But, FYI: For insect photography I carry a 60 mm Canon macro lens, a 1-5X Canon macro lens, three 25 mm extension tubes and a Canon macro twin light (ring lights flatten the subject and should be avoided unless you’re photographing postage stamps).

https://youtu.be/0Yb3A6iUT7Q

Recomendos:
Classic Building Bricks
Clipa2
Clear Travel Pouches

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Best video shorts
Short videos are an emerging art form. With the advent of phone cameras and free editing software they are within reach of almost any maker. One of my favorite seats to see the best art video shorts is to go to the Vimeo Staff Picks. They go through an ocean of new creations and curate the best video shorts. — KK

Four different ways to read books
The Curious Reader has a great outline of the 4 different reading levels and sub-types pulled from “How to Read a Book.” The first level being Elementary Reading — where the main question of reading is “What does the sentence say?” Level two is Inspectional — where you ask, “What is the book/article about?” This is how I read most news articles and blog posts. Level three is Analytical — when you want to really understand the topic by asking questions and chewing and digesting it. The fourth level of reading is my favorite: Syntopic Reading. This is where you read multiple books on the same subject and compare and contrast the ideas. Each reading level serves a different purpose, so it’s helpful to ask yourself before reading, “What do I want out of this book or article?” — CD

Easy boiled eggs
The easiest way I know to boil eggs is with an Instant Pot pressure cooker. Put one cup of water into the pot, add 1-6 eggs (use a steamer basket if you have one), and cook using low pressure for 3 minutes. Let the pressure subside without releasing the valve. You’ll have perfectly boiled eggs. — MF

Saline nasal spray
I stopped using a neti pot to irrigate my sinuses with salt water because of the risk of infection. I switched to pressurized aerosol saline mist, called Simply Saline by Arm & Hammer. It’s sterile and convenient. It never fails to get rid of my phantosmia whenever it flares up. — MF

Extended flame
The most useable flame lighter I have is a Bic Reach. This design takes your usual Bic flick lighter, and outfits it with an extended 1.5” (35mm) pipe that ignites the flame away from your thumb. I find those long butane lighters with a two-button safety switch to be both fussy and unreliable, but a regular Bic can’t reach where I want the flame, so this Bic Reach is just perfect for lighting candles, fireplaces, camp stoves, etc., reliably on the first try. It’s probably not what you’d carry everyday in your pocket, but perfect in the utility drawer. — KK

Ways people improved their quality of life
“What improved your quality of life so much, you wish you did it sooner?” was asked by u/colorfulsoul_ on Reddit and the thread is worth scanning for ideas to adopt. Someone suggested placing your phone on permanent “Do not Disturb” only allowing calls from “Contacts” — which would save me from a lot of spammers. Other life improving tips were: breathing exercises, buying a good kitchen knife, separate blankets in beds for couples, and buying a cart that will carry all your groceries from your car to inside in one trip. — CD

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Mark Frauenfelder is the co-founder of BoingBoing, and the founding editor of Make magazine. He is a research director at Institute of the Future, and the author (and illustrator) of seven books. Every week he shares useful tips and recommendations of things that interest him, like interviews, recipes, quotations, and more, in his newsletter The Magnet.

For one reason or another a bunch of random stuff has ended up in this smallish plastic bin I keep in my closet. Every time I look at it I’m surprised by what I find in it.

When I was an engineer at Memorex in the mid-1980s, a coworker gave me a photocopy of a self-published booklet by Timothy Leary called Starseed: Transmitted from Folsom prison. I haven’t read it in 35 years, but it had something to do with Comet Kohoutek and how it was going to either destroy all life on the planet or lift human consciousness to a higher level. (You can read a scan at the Internet Archive)

I got this little plastic tool kit from the amazing Tokyu Hands department store in Tokyo. I think the plastic is made of some kind of composite material because it feels very hard, and I’ll bet it would really work as a tool kit. But I like the way it looks attached to the mold sprues so I keep it intact.

I picked up this nose hair removal kit from a store in Tokyo called Village Vanguard. It comes with little plastic beads that you put in the microwave and heat until soft, then attach a plastic wands to it and stick up your nose. When the plastic cools down you pull it out and your nose hair is stuck to it like a nightmarish lollipop. I tried it and it hurt a lot. When I posted about it on Boing Boing people told me it’s a good way to get a nasal infection, and having an infection in your nose is really bad because it’s close to your brain. I’m not going to use it again. I use a nose hair trimmer instead.

My daughter bought this little plastic statuette in Chiang Mai, Thailand for me. It served as the inspiration for a project I’ve been working on for a year and a half. I’m drawing 4900 little creatures in a notebook. Here’s a video of my progress.

https://youtu.be/6nDelF84aMQ

Recomendos:
Pixel Thoughts
Triplet Magnifier, 20x
BrushPicks Interdental Toothpicks Dispenser

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https://youtu.be/JJaOwgPaUWg

Recomendos:
Reversible Micro USB Cable
Minimalism Art Hard Cover Notebook
Ritadeshop Trash Can Bands

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Favorite social puzzle
The simplest toys are the best. Our favorite family social puzzle is a tangram, an old classic from China made of 7 geometric pieces that you arrange to fulfill a required silhouette. With two sets you can race to finish. It is much harder than it looks, yet doable and fun for small folk. You can make a tangram from cardboard, or 3D print one yourself, but the version we grab is Tangoes, a tidy travel case with two sets of pieces, plus cards (with solutions) for all the target images. We own 3 or 4 Tangoes ($12), enough for larger groups.  — KK

A better Arduino clone
An Arduino is a small easy-to-program device that lets you add interactivity to your projects. Because Arduino is open source, you can buy inexpensive clones. My favorite is the Keyestudio Plus. An Arduino Uno is about $25, and this clone is half the price. The best thing about Keyestudio Plus is that it has a USB-C jack instead of the bulky USB-A jack found on the Uno. It has a lot of other useful features like additional pins for power and a switch to change the voltage from 5V to 3.3V. Here’s a photo of one next to an Arduino Uno. (If you want to learn how to use an Arduino, I have a class on Skillshare you can take using this link for a one-month free trial). — MF

Arts and craft analog
I’ve ceased all subscriptions to the paper version of newspapers or magazines — except one. I subscribe to Uppercase, a paper-based magazine celebrating art and crafts. Each issue is overflowing with exuberant examples of creativity from non-famous artists. Painting, textiles, ceramics, patterns, vintage, printmaking, etc. It’s a hand-made quarterly, with no ads, unabashedly analog, and basically the work of one woman, who tends to feature art that is invigorating, positive, and joyous. The periodical itself is a work of art that reflects the passion of an artisan, and I derive immense pleasure from its curated pages. — KK

How to find the right therapist
Here is some great advice on how to find the right therapist. One of the first steps is to figure out what kind of therapeutic framework you need. When I first started therapy I had anxiety that sometimes resulted in panic attacks. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy taught me how to redirect a thought so that it doesn’t create overwhelming feelings that would affect my behavior. Now, 8 years later, I have a person-centered therapist that I talk to about all aspects of my life. Each session feels like I’m catching up with my very insightful and intelligent friend who I can vent to and ask for advice. I always tell my friends that you are allowed to break up with your therapist if the fit isn’t right. I saw three therapists before I found my most recent one, who I’ve been seeing for three years now. Finding the “right therapist” feels like you’ve acquired a super power. — CD

Discover pieces of poetry across an animated land
Wayfinder is a soothing online game that involves traversing a vast landscape collecting fragments of seasonal-inspired poetry to restore balance to the natural world. The game itself is short but uses machine learning to create thousands of combinations of verses and visuals so that you have a completely new experience each time you play. It’s very lovely. — CD

Netflix secret genre cheat sheet
To find a list of all the Netflix titles in a specific genre, zero in on a movie genre using the codes listed here. Add the code to this URL: https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/CODE. For example https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/10398 shows you Netflix’s Japanese movies, and https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/7687 shows you film noir titles. — MF

In my ambitious quest to reach 4000 subscribers by my 100th issue, I need a lot of new subscribers. Can you do me a huge favor? Can you talk to just one of your fellow maker/DIY enthusiasts and get them to sign up and give the newsletter a try? If a bunch of you do this, we’ll reach that goal in no time. Thank you!

***

Coming next issue: The triumphant return of the Molding and Casting Skill Set series!

Building a Motor on a PCB

Last issue, I included Kevin Kelly’s project consideration flowchart which ends with the question: “Would anyone else ever do this?” (If Yes, then don’t do it). If ever there was an electronics engineer who works by a similar credo, it’s Carl Bugeja. Folding circuits, jumping circuits, holographic LEDs, transformer robots, and more, Carl has explored them all. In this recent video, he updates his PCB-based motor project.

Camping Cooler Improvements

In this Laura Kampf video, she looks at 3 things you can do to improve a large camping cooler: Use the outside, use the lid, and add shelves. There is a meta tip here that’s applicable to any storage situation: Always consider the full volume of the available space, or as an organizationally-obsessed friend used to put it: Work the cube!

Magnetizing Your Snips to Catch Metal Offcuts

James at Stumpy Nubs has started a new series of “Weekend Workshop Tips.” This is great news for tips nerds like myself ‘cause he is a constant source of great ideas. In this first episode, among 4 woodworking tips, he shares an idea that can apply to anyone who uses snips in the shop. You have undoubtedly experienced clipping off a brad or other metal piece and had that piece fly into the ether, never to be seen again. By placing a rare earth magnet in the jaws of your snips, that’s where the offcut will go.

Making Drill and Charger Station for the Small but Mighty

Well-known YouTube maker, Izzy Swan, has a new shopmate, Maggie. Izzy is 6'2" and has designed his shop to accommodate his long reach. Maggie is… well… NOT 6’. They will need to make changes in the shop to accommodate her. In the first such project, they create a drill holder and charging station that has a hinged shelf that pulls down to access the charging units there. In the video, Izzy and Maggie use a Grabo tool, a cool vacuum device that allows both of them to more easily move sheet goods around the shop.

Using Desoldering Annoy on Hard-to-Desolder Parts
https://youtu.be/GAnHoWHl2C4
In this Collin’s Lab Notes, Adafruit’s Collin Cunningham offers an idea for dislodging a particularly stubborn component that you can’t seem to remove using standard desoldering. Desoldering alloy can be applied and then re-heated to remove the old solder and reluctant component.

Is It Safe to Listen to Music in the Workshop?

In this Stumpy Nubs video, Jim answers the question: Is it safe to listen to music in a shop amongst power tools and other dangers? His basic answer: As in most things in life, your mileage may vary. He offers an experiment: work for an hour doing something (non-dangerous) that requires full concentration while listening to an audio book. If, at the end of that hour, you can’t remember much of what you’ve heard, you may be OK listening to music or podcasts or other things you don’t mind backgrounding. I personally can only listen to non-lyrical, ambient music in the shop if concentration is required. Anything more engaging is too distracting and feels dangerous to me. Jim also points out that you can always wear wireless headphones that have a pause button and engage that when operating a power tool.

Maker's Muse

Watch Chinese master carpenter, Granpa Amu, cut and carve a foldable Luban stool from a single piece of wood. [Via Laughing Squid]

Shop Talk
In response to my item on chalk spray makers for hole marking, Kurt G writes:

I use the FastCap markers myself, but if a hole is too deep, or I need greater precision, I would use a transfer punch. If I was away from my shop, I would get a dowel or bamboo cocktail stick, dip it into paint, and use that as an improvised deep hole marker. I really enjoy your newsletter!

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Kristina Budelis is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and product manager based in LA. She is currently working as a Senior Product Manager at The New York Times, where she is focused on a new, pre-launch product for kids. She’s also a documentary filmmaker (in the past year, she’s had films premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, on NewYorker.com, and NBC Digital) and the cofounder of KitSplit. You can find Kristina on Twitter @kbudelis.

I have a bunch of different bags, ranging from highly practical (shout out to my highly ergonomic Tikbuk2 backpack) to purely aesthetic (a number of fun colorful purses, mostly vintage). But right now, my go-to when I don’t need to carry much is this small fanny pack (which I wear as a purse, not as a fanny pack) from Forever 21, which was around $20 and has really held up despite heavy use over 3+ years!

Skin Aqua Moisture Milk Sunblock ($15): I live in LA and have very pale skin, so good sunblock is a must. I’ve tried a ton of different options. My friend/ skincare guru Ben Feinberg recommended this one, and I’m totally obsessed with it. It is lighter in texture than any other sunblock I’ve tried; super powerful; and moisturizing, too. I also like the form factor—this little bottle fits in a pocket or a tiny bag. While it’s not cheap, I think it’s worth it and it lasts a while!

Green leather phone case and wallet ($20): This case is just $20, and comes in a number of different colors. It looks cute and holds my phone, a few credit cards, and some cash. I like having my wallet & phone combined so I just have to grab one thing when I walk out the door (especially because I have a smartlock, so I don’t carry keys anymore). I also like that this one covers my phone screen when it’s closed, so I can have my phone out but be a little less distracted by it since the screen is out of sight when I’m not using it.

Sunglasses ($16): As an LA resident I need to carry sunglasses everywhere. I have a few pairs, bu these are my current favorites. They look similar to the much more expensive Ray Ban sunglasses that are popular right now. But I’m prone to losing sunglasses, so I generally stick to affordable options. These are $17, flattering, stylish, and polarized. They also came with a cloth case (not pictured).

Burt’s Bees lip shimmer ($5): I love this little guy! It’s really moisturizing and feels like chapstick (in a good way), but looks flattering / more like lipgloss. It has a subtle taste/smell of peppermint, is just $5, and super easy to find (available at most drugstores, many grocery stores, etc).

https://youtu.be/tBDNaXNzOYs

Recomendos:
Streamlight Nano Keychain Flashlight
TuTu Shop Under Table Drawer
Japanese Design Motifs
Japanese Emblems and Designs

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This is a special episode of the Cool Tools podcast, because we have our regular crew of the small Cool Tools team of Claudia, Kevin, and I, and we're each going to talk about two of our favorite tools.

Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page

Show notes:

YouTube Premium Subscription ($12 per mo.)
I am using YouTube Premium as an alternative to Pandora or Spotify. You can listen to YouTube on your phone, but the issue that I was having was that you cannot close the app and continue to listen to whatever you're streaming without paying for it. So I debated for a long time, whether or not I was going to subscribe. Then I realized that I was listening to a lot more YouTube soundscapes than I was Pandora and that's pretty much what I listen to all day while I'm working or taking walks. I needed the ability to close out of YouTube on my phone and still be able to listen to whatever I was streaming. And I've had it now for a few months and I canceled my Pandora account because I realized this is all I pretty much need. With YouTube Premium, you also get access to YouTube Music, which is a separate music streaming app, like Pandora and Spotify.

SAMSUNG T7 Portable SSD 1TB ($150)
This is for a portable hard drive, and I think most people are familiar now with these USB powered portable hard drives. All you have to do is have a USB cable. There's no power adapter or anything. They're very convenient. They're very rugged. They're pretty inexpensive now. I think you can get like a one terabyte for under a hundred, but I did get this solid state one for the first time. They are much, much smaller, much lighter and super fast. It's a great way to back up your stuff quickly or for a scratch disk, if you're doing audio or video editing and things like that. I am now going to just start using SSDs for everything and not use spinning media anymore because that stuff is like antiquated junk.

30 Ft Retractable Extension Cord Reel ($38)
It's a workshop tool. It's a tool I have been putting into my studio anywhere where I've had extension cords. My solution up until now has been to cable chain these long extension cords. Just dealing with long extension cords is a hassle. And the solution is kind of like an automatic roll up that's very similar to what you have in the vacuum cleaner in your house, where you pull the cord out and then you can kind of tug it. It clutches, and then you can undo it and it spools back in. If you have an area where you are always trotting out an extension cord, this is the way to do it. You put one of these in. You can hang them from the ceiling and put them on the side or underneath something. And you just unroll it when you need it and you tug it and it closes up and it's done.

Mindful Beta (Free Chrome Extension)
My second tool is a Chrome extension because I basically live in Chrome and it's called Mindful. It's designed by a designer at Google. It's a text editor. Every time I open a new tab in Chrome, I go back to my ongoing list. For me is it's a growing list of things to do, reminders, links to things I want to check out. And because it's saved in Chrome, I go back to the same list, whether I'm on my desktop or my laptop. So if I move, every time I open a new tab, my to-do list is just there in my face waiting to be checked off. This project was inspired by Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, whose concept is "What you see is all there is." So the only notes you remember are the ones you see.

Trader Joe's 100% Natural Ginger Drink Mix ($14)
This is something that I discovered a few weeks ago at Trader Joe's, but people are reselling them on Amazon and it is an amazing powdered ginger. There's no sweeteners or anything. It's not just a powdered ginger root, but it is the powdered ginger juice. You can mix it into hot or cold water, and then you have like a really great ginger beverage that you can make as strong or as dilute as you want. You can add honey or lemon, and it's really refreshing. I will mix a half a pack with about eight ounces of hot water and it makes for a really good herbal tea. I feel like it kind of clears your nasal passages and it's an astringent. So it just feels really cleaning to your mouth and nose and throat. Also, I feel like just the pepperiness is an alternative to caffeine. It can kind of make you feel a little perky when you're a little sleepy. What I love about it is how easily it dissolves, too. So you have a pure solution and that makes a big difference in the mixing and the enjoying of it.

Justrite 8 oz Polyethylene Red Dispenser Can ($33)
In a workshop, you often need to have a solvent to clean things. That's kind of a really common thing where you were cleaning something to prepare for painting, or just to clean it in general. Degreasing, cleaning a surface for a 3D printer pad. There's just tons and tons of uses. And because it's a solvent, you have to really make this tight. And so there's this thing of opening up a can of solvent from a really tight lid and then finding a cloth to pour it onto. Anyways, it's a hassle, but this little device has a seal that you just press on. You have a little finger hole and you turn it upside down, you press it and the solvent comes out. And when you let go, it's a complete seal that keeps the solvent in, which you can store it in. It's OSHA safe, meaning that it can't tip over very well and leak stuff out. It's not escaping. So it's a really, really convenient way to have a solvent on hand at all times very quickly so you can just pour something in, because otherwise, this is kind of a multi-step process that you would have to deal with. It's the size of a mug with a brass spring-loaded dispenser on top. And it has a kind of industrial look and it's about $30 and it should last forever.

https://youtu.be/knq_MPpfKsQ

Recomendos:
Artbreeder:
FriXion Clicker Pen
Stori Drawer Organizers

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Next big thing
I’ve been predicting that the next big thing after smart phones are smart glasses at work in a Mirrorworld or a Metaverse. That still has not happened, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen in the next few years. But I’m sticking with my prediction that it will be the next big thing. The best case I’ve seen for how this will be built is this very long technical essay by Matt Ball, which serves as the Metaverse Primer. — KK

Play the Terms & Conditions game
In this web-based game, Evil Corp attempts to con you into accepting its terms and conditions with 29 sneaky tricks (e.g., “Would you like to not receive our newsletter? Yes or No”). I managed to successfully outwit 27 of Evil Corp’s dastardly tricks. Let’s see if you can beat me! — MF

How to eat
I am enjoying Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s Mindfulness Essentials series of small “How to” books. How to Love is one I revisit often. Right now I am reading How to Eat — short meditations on connecting with the Earth, enjoying your food and eating with others. Below are three excerpts. — CD

• Wait without waiting — Standing in line at grocery store or a restaurant, or waiting for the time to eat, we don’t need to waste our time. We don’t need to “wait” for one second. Instead, we can enjoy breathing in and out for our nourishment and healing. We can use that time to notice that we will soon be able to have food, and we can be happy and grateful during that time. Instead of waiting, we can generate joy.
• Our ancestors are in the soil — In the soil are many people who have died, have been transformed, and have become part of the soil. Maybe in this mouthful of rice are also the bones of hundreds of generations as well as many leaves, worms and animal’s bones. Maybe in a previous life you had been there and died there, and your own bones have disintegrated in that land. During the time of eating, your practice is to look deeply into that grain of rice and enjoy all that has gone into its creation. There are so many things to enjoy and to discover in each bite.
• Eating and smiling — Sitting at the table and eating with other people is a chance to offer an authentic smile of friendship and understanding. The most important part of the practice is to look at each person and smile. Upon finishing your meal, take a few moments to notice that you have finished, that your bowl is now empty, and your hunger is satisfied. This is another opportunity to smile and be grateful that you have had this nourishing food to eat, supporting you on the path of love and understanding.

Inexpensive stock photography
I use a lot of stock photo images on the various websites I work on. I recently discovered Scopio, which is offering a lifetime subscription for $29. I like the selection of photos, and the fact that they don’t look as generic as a lot of stock photos. Here’s a sample for a search for “red and white books.” — MF

Tape adhesive
Often the best way to secure one object to another is with heavy duty double-sided tape. The bond may be as strong as screws or nails, without the need for holes. And unlike a glue joint, its tidy, and kinda removable. Put the two-sided tape on, zip off second coating, and squeeze together. Fast. I use this tape for mounting gear, electrical devices on walls and tables where I don’t want screws. The best brand is 3M Heavy Duty Mounting Tape. I am always surprised by how much weight it will hold. — KK

Reader recommended note app
After last weekend’s favorite note app recomendo. Multiple readers replied and recommended Simplenote as an alternative to Apple Notes and as a universal note-taking app. Reader Titus said, “I really like Simplenote. It provides a web interface as well as iOS and Android apps.” — CD