Cool Tips

Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools site strikes again with some very neat ideas that make life slightly better:

My favorites:

• Get some Wintergreen oil (methyl salicylate) at the drugstore for a cheap, extremely effective way to loosen rusted or frozen bolts.
• Don't bother cleaning paintbrushes between uses, especially between coats. Put them in the freezer instead.
• Instead of expensive "clip chips", reseal opened bags with those office clip things.
• Olive oil is the best shaving cream.  It's been used for zillions of years and works as well as the $15/can stuff.

Amazon's secret price guarantee

I didn't know that Amazon has a secret price guarantee. They'll refund the difference if something drops in price within 30 days after you purchase.

There's even a website that will email you if that happens.

You have to call Amazon (no email) to get the refund. Call 1-800-201-7575; to get a human right away, dial extension 7.

Peak Oil in Seattle

I told you what I think of the Peak Oil movement (it's hogwash, based partly on simple math errors), so I raised my eyebrows a bit at the Seattle Times article profiling the group Seattle Peak Oil.

I don't know which way the price of oil will go long term -- though I presume it will go up -- but the amount of energy being put into finding alternatives is the classic way the Invisible Hand successfully solves problems like that.

These people remind me of the survivalists, who got some attention back in the 1980s when people were afraid that Ronald Reagan was going to bring us nuclear war.  It's not that their predictions are wrong (after all, they're right that the world will end some day).  But timing is everything. 

(more interesting discussion on Sound Politics)

Don't open the mail

As my son grows interested in coin collecting, and my daughter starts on stamps, I wonder how much longer the post office will continue dealing in physical, paper envelopes.

Here's a start-up in Kirkland that will take your (corporate) mail, scan it, and present it to you in your browser so you don't have to deal with it. They claim 50% of the envelopes they process for customers go unopened.

They just received $3.5M in Angel funding, which sounds like peanuts for how much they can use when they turn into a serious force. Can you imagine what they could do internationally? Imagine if your company could have its postal address in one place and you read all your mail the same day in another?

Best Vermont Cheese

When we visited Vermont last summer, I made a note to remember the excellent "Constant Bliss" cow milk cheese, made by Jasper Hill Farms.  Also check their Bayley Hazen blue cheese.

They're sold at Zingerman's, in Ann Arbor and at two places in Portland, Oregon, but apparently not in Washington state.

French Press

My other favorite Christmas present is this French Press from Bonjour Products:

It makes 3 cups of incredibly tasty, rich coffee or tea.  Just grind the beans (to the large French press size), plop them in, pour boiling water, and wait 4 minutes.

Cleaning up is the hardest part, but still very easy -- certainly easier than an espresso machine. Pouring water over the filter mechanism seems to get it clean enough for daily use. I should probably soak it in soapy water and rinse it thoroughly every so often just to keep it spotless.

Coffeegeek.com has thorough instructions for how to use press pots.

Handy headlamp

For Christmas this year I received this extremely useful headlamp which I'm now using all the time. The bright LED beam lasts a long time on tiny replaceable lithium batteries, making it great for doing little jobs around the house or the garage.

You can get it at Brookstone for $25.

Kevin Kelly (of Cool Tools) recommends the Zipka, from Petzl. It's about the same price but I think more clunky-looking than the Brookstone.