Jill and Eric Penne

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While your average gallon-sized milk jug hasn’t changed much in decades, it’s about to undergo a significant change destined to cut fuel, labor, and carbon costs all at the same time.

Turns out these new, alien-type jugs are cheaper to ship, better for the environment, cost less, and even provide fresher milk to the store; with some milk going from the cow’s udder to supermarket shelf within hours.

But that doesn’t mean everyone loves them.
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Adafruit has released a GPS logging Arduino shield, freaking cool! Pop this on to an Arduino and you can make your own GPS logger, locative art projects & more! The kit is available here.

This shield requires a GPS module (sometimes called an “engine board” or “engine module”) to receive the timecode data from GPS satelites. There are dozens of GPS modules on the market, each with slightly different specifications. The Adafruit GPS shield v1.0 supports 4 popular hobbyist modules and is geared specifically for the EM-406A: the required connector is already soldered on and ready to go. If you want to use a different module, check the parts list for the required connector as they are not included.

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Digg this!

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If your two-wheeled transport is in need of a seasonal tuneup or any kind of fix, The Bicycle Tutor can clearly explain what you’ll need to get it done. Run by a photography enthusiast and serious bike geek, the site offers plain-English tutorials in both hi-res video and full text. The streaming videos are free to watch on the site, but you can buy QuickTime videos for a buck or two to load on your iPod and bring out to where the work is. It’s a good bookmark for everything from changing a flat to replacing your chain rings.

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The May 12th earthquake in Sichuan province, China was completely devastating. In some towns near the epicenter, 80 percent of structures were destroyed.

With more than 5.5 million people left homeless and many more displaced, there is a huge urgency to create new living spaces and get people working again. Dramatic proposals for solutions to this huge challenge range from building entirely new cities in safer locations to relocating …

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Filed under: Spy Photos, Coupes, Chevrolet, GM

Click above for gallery of the 2010 Camaro hauling

The high price of petrol is causing people to do some pretty crazy things, but after seeing these photos of a Camaro pulling a U-Haul on public roads, we’re hoping pickup trucks don’t become that bad on gas that one would consider using a muscle car as a mule. An astute photographer nabbed a couple shots of the long-awaited 2010 Camaro as it was helping someone move or delivering the AllSpark to Optimus Prime. While performance coupes probably aren’t the best choice for pulling cargo, at least the Camaro’s 6.0L V8 has been quite the hauler for GM, albeit under the hood of trucks and SUVs. Thanks for the tip, Matt Bateman.

[Source: Picasa]

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© Corbis. All Rights Reserved.

How often have you stood in front of the overwhelming display of AA batteries and wondered: “How do I pick the best batteries for my money? And what is the best option to reduce the number of batteries I throw away?” With prices ranging from $11.94 and $29.87 for rechargables or $4.25 to $16.84 for disposables, how can you judge whether a higher priced battery will make up the investment in a longer lifespan?

Thankfully, the clever people at Popular Photography have carefully tested a wide range of both rechargable and disposable AA batteries. With int…

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If you’re a renter with a ceiling fan in your pad, or you just never thought about which way the thing was turning, the Simple Dollar says you should check to make sure it’s running for optimum temperature control. While the weather’s warm, do this simple test:

Most fans have a “clockwise” setting and a “counterclockwise” setting, each appropriate for a different season. Stand beneath the fan and turn it on. If you immediately feel a breeze from the fan, then it’s set on the “summer” setting, usually counterclockwise. Otherwise, turn off the fan, climb up near the base of the fan, and look for a little button or switch that sets the fan to run in the opposite direction.

In general, you want your fan to run counter-clockwise at higher speeds in the summer to move a breeze around, and clockwise at lower speeds to help distribute heat in the winter. While you’re optimizing your wind pushers, try a little TLC to rejuvenate a stand-up fan.

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The Home Depot has expanded the recycling program for compact fluorescent light bulbs begun last November in its Canadian stores to in 1900-odd stores in the United States. Customers can bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulb the store’s returns desk. “The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance.”
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photo by Rachel via flickr

More from the business side of renewable energy in the US today: first wind industry manufacturing expands, now ethanol production receives further investment…even if the corn won’t be knee-high by July and corn prices skyrocket….

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I first became interested in what is now known as lifehacking because of a simple problem: I wanted to be able to get through all of my emails in 15 minutes, rather than the 15 hours it seemed to take. Then I became interested in personal finance. After that, it was study skills, and then project management. These areas are fairly disparate, but my exploration of each came down to the fact that I just wanted to make my own life a little easier.

Most of us take winding paths to productivity, subdividing our searches into different areas of personal development. If we are entrepreneurs, we’ll spend months on improving that skill set, but we’ll also explore personal finance separately. The problem that I’ve run into, time and again, is that my life is not so compartmentalized. If I have a problem with managing my time, odds are pretty good that I’ll have an equally difficult time managing my money — whether for my business or for my home life.

A System Here, A System There

I like Mint’s money management interface. I think Remember the Milk may be one of the best ways to control my tasks. And TiddlyWiki (or another wiki) is just plain perfect for project management. But do I really need to flit back and forth between all these different systems? Now, I don’t think that the perfect productivity suite, able to handle every type of lifehack rolled into one piece of software, has been written yet — if you disagree, point me to your recommendation in the comments please. But some systems can do double duty, and eliminate a little of that virtual running around.

Multitaskers and Unitaskers

I’m a big Alton Brown fan and, if you’ve watched even one episode, you’ll know that man hates unitaskers — kitchen gadgets that do just one thing. Many admittedly awesome web applications share that flaw. Sites like Mint are cool, but they only handle one facet of the big pile of productivity options that is your life. Instead, we want multitaskers wherever possible.

We won’t be able to get rid of all unitaskers, of course, unless we really want to roll our own productivity suites. And, honestly, considering the tools already out there, building our own may not be the most productive use of our time. So, where can we start?

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

Take a good look at the sites you go to on a daily or weekly basis. Personally, half of mine are Google-based, along with several very slick web applications. Most important to my day is Remember the Milk. It’s the second thing I check in the morning, only because I’m a bit of an email addict even after years of working on that particular problem.

I’m not entirely sure if one is allowed to stop using Google products after one starts, but I’ve noticed that my usage of Google Calendar, at least, has significantly dropped off. I used to plan out my day in extreme detail on GCal, but I’ve slowly moved more towards listing appointments as tasks on Remember the Milk. It’s a matter of simplicity — I can Jott a reminder of an appointment to Remember the Milk from anywhere I have cell reception. I still use Google Calendar to an extent — Remember the Milk isn’t practical for long-term planning, but most of my short term planning is now organized as tasks.

Making the Best of Complicated Situations

It can be extremely difficult to narrow down the tools you use to the ones that actually help you. As a general rule, any time I have type the same information twice, I probably don’t need a given tool. But specifics are far more complicated. The great thing about applications like Mint is that they do all the hard work for you — they pull a whole bunch of information into one place for you. And if your multitasking solution would require you do all that aggregation by hand, I have to tell you to ignore my advice to consolidate.

But it may make sense to bring other solutions together: for a single project, do you really need both a project wiki and a Basecamp account? Even if you’re storing different types of information in each, it seems likely that creative tagging or page creation would allow you to consolidate to just one project management option.

Downsized

Many of us rush out and try each new productivity application. It’s fun to see what people come up with. But staying loyal to the absolute minimum of tools can help reduce the amount of running around we do online — the amount of time we spend measuring our productivity, rather than actually being productive.

This week, I managed to downsize my personal toolbox by two tools — two unitaskers that I used to help myself keep track of ideas and information. I’ve been dumping the same material into a special list on Remember the Milk and I’ve already noticed that I’m more likely to actually do something with that information now that I don’t have to open another tab to find it.

I’ve still got a few unitaskers I rely on — I’m torn on whether email is actually a unitasker or not, though I’m leaning towards a yes. Some I don’t see ever being able to get rid of, but I am enjoying having to keep track of a few less tools.

Thursday Bram is a freelance journalist of over five years experience. She studied Communications at the University of Tulsa and is currently working on her MA in Communication Design. Her work has focused primarily on entrepreneurial topics. More information about Thursday is available at thursdaybram.com.

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George Carlin - Ten days ago, on a rainy Friday evening, I had the extraordinary privilege of talking to George Carlin. As far as I know it was the last in-depth interview he gave before he passed away yesterday at age 71.

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The Iowa Stored Energy Park will use wind to generate electricity and will store unused wind underground. Learn about the Iowa Stored Energy Park.

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thats when you know you hang out at the mall a bit
too much

Posted 14 hours ago by “thunderbear”

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You’ve been watching Craigslist for a good deal on a hedge trimmer, but you just aren’t having any luck. By the time you find a good listing, it’s been up for an hour and the HedgeHog XR is long gone. You could sit and refresh the farm+garden category constantly, but that’s a waste of time. (Besides, what would your boss think?) Fortunately, there’s a better way.

Did you know it’s also possible to watch Craigslist searches via RSS feed?

Instead of subscribing to entire categories (and then having to wade through countless irrelevant results), you can subscribe to specific searches. Let’s say, for example, that I wanted to buy a Mini Cooper. Because it’s such a huge expense, I might want to wait for exactly the right car to come along. Instead of navigating to the Craigslist site a dozen times per day, I could simply subscribe to a search that features all the results I’m interested in. It’s easy to do.

Step One: Search Craigslist
Simply search for the item you want. If you need to refine the search by category or by price, enter the additional parameters. The results page will list the current matches.

Step Two: Subscribe to Feed
The final step has a tiny trick to it: You have to find the RSS feed. You can’t just use the RSS icon in your browser’s address bar. (Well, I can’t anyhow.) Instead, scroll to the bottom right corner of the page. There, tucked out of sight, is the RSS feed for your search.

Right-click on the icon to grab your feed!

This is an efficient way to grab great deals on cheap hedge trimmers or sports cars. But it can also be a handy tool for finding a job or apartment. Last February, Tim at the Seattle Bubble blog shared a great tip about how to use Craigslist and RSS to find a great rental.

(And don’t forget: Last year I shared 24 of my top Craigslist tips, tricks, and resources gleaned from several years of experience.)

—
Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• The Bargainist
• Get Quality Stuff For Cheap from Local College Students
• How to Find Garage Sale Gold
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• Cheap Moving Boxes

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Since I’ve been writing GM/BM, I’ve frequently mocked Christian
fundamentalists who make stupid arguments based on bad, or (even
worse) no math. I’ve also taken on some Muslim idiots a couple of
times. But I’ve frequently receieved emails asking why I’ve never done
the same thing to Jewish idiots. (Actually, it’s usually not really
asking, but more making accusations that I go easy on Jewish
arguments because I’m a Jew. Usually as a part of some nasty screed
about how I’m part of the Great Jewish Conspiracy to Take Over the
World.)

The real reason that I haven’t dealt with Jewish fundies before is
just because people don’t send me good links. Until now, I haven’t
known of any particularly good Jewish fundy nonsense to write about.
The only major bit of Jewish bad math that I knew about was the infamous “Torah
codes” or “skip codes”, which had been well and thoroughly done to
death long before I started blogging.

Then, a few weeks ago, someone sent me a great link to a
relativity denial thing, arguing that the Torah demonstrates the
falsehood of relativity using some really wretchedly bad
math. It managed to combine a bunch of my favorite kinds of lunacy,
all in one hysterical package: religious stupidity, horribly bad math,
relativity denial, gematria, bizzare interpretations passed off as
literalism - it hit pretty much all the buttons! It was glorious, the
kind of stupidity that I really relish! I didn’t immediately write
about it, because I wanted to wait until I had time to do it justice.
A quick off-the-cuff mocking wasn’t enough for such high-grade insanity.
And then, being an idiot, I lost the link!

Yes, I really am an idiot sometimes. I could have sworn that put
that link in my “crackpottery” folder in my Safari bookmarks. But no,
it’s not there. And I only keep one week of history in my browser, so
it’s not there either. I lost one of the best cranky links ever to
come my way! If anyone happens to come across an argument from
gematria on why relativity can’t possibly be true, please
forward it to me. I really want to find that gloriously idiotic
mess!

But fear not - all is not lost. (Looking at this as I’m doing a
final editing pass, I’ve got to say that I’m sounding like Orac lately. But hey,
he’s the guy who inspired me to start GM/BM, so how bad could that
be?) While googling to try to find it, I found something almost - not
quite, but almost - as good. It’s a website run by an organization
called the “Torah Technology Institute”, which features an article by
David Bar-Cohn, called Kehushah and Time
Dilation, which attempts to argue that there’s a connection
between relativity and the presence of God: they argue that a literal
reading of the Torah shows that the presence of God has a relativistic
time-dilation effect.

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