Some interesting comments, especially on the Norway Maple. As a kid (some nearly 60-years ago) we had two Norway Maples in our back yard, and two Silver Maples (we called them Rock Maples) in the front yard. The Silver Maples took 30+ years to produce decent shade, while the everyone that ever came to our house…

Decent tree selection offering in this article. I’ve found it hilarious over the years, how many go running after the ‘instant shade’ from such offerings as the mythical ‘Austree’ (a hybrid Australian Willow). While it can grow 10-12 feet a year, even more in some zones, it also becomes ‘brittle’ after about 40-feet,…

While 80-percent or so of this list is a pretty-good hit, I’m not sure what happened when you placed ‘The Babadook’ and ‘It Follows’ at 3 and 4 on your list. Zombie-induced-lobotomy, possibly? For the ‘noob’ to horror, replace these with ‘Trick-r-Treat’ and ‘The Gravedancers’ (two lower-budget, but rather awesome Indy…

Only if you promise to always stay 100-ft from me, never come out at night or enter into crowded hot areas that I might have to be present in, and breathe the vapors from. Otherwise, it’s like forced car exhaust inhalation torture to smell the microbial rot of others who aren’t wise enough to wash their clothes, or…

EXACTLY! Consider this, those of the grunge, never-bathe ilk, you consume anywhere from a half-gallon to a gallon of liquids a day. While your normal body functions expel at least half-that, the OTHER HALF or so leaves you constantly in a vapor that cools your skin. Think of it as ‘sweat sublimation’. The same thing…

The implied ‘filth’ of this article matches what Levi CEO Chip Bergh recommends, and goes directly against what science has learned over 500-years of recovery from bacteria and viral studies. This mentality would say ‘never clean your bathroom, as it never goes outside or gets ‘dirty’, or ‘only clean your bathroom…

FYI, the budget in jeopardy this week is actually the PAYMENT for what the government has already done and spent in 2015, not the future 2016. The reason the government shuts down on Oct. 1, is that the 2015 bills are not paid. Our government operates in arrears, and as a result, we have spent one whole year of money…

Interesting. This simple chart addresses one big question about 4k, and that’s ‘do we really need it?’ Obviously, the answer is a screaming ‘NO’, unless you have a 10-foot screen that you watch from only 7-feet away. This enters into ‘ping-pong’ geometry (where you have to constantly ‘scan’ the screen, or turn your…

Yeah, just imagine a product like Duke Nuke’em, had you bought it on pre-order in 1995. What a steal!

Yeah, just imagine a product like Duke Nuke’em, had you bought it on pre-order in 1995. What a steal!

I found over the years, that the best thing to do is to have a grill that is weather durable (stainless is expensive, but you don’t have to cover it with expensive wraps, then, either); keep your tank attached all the time, use it frequently (even in winter), and if it doesn’t get used for a while, do a quick…

The problem with ‘adding chemistry’ to wash chemicals, is that you don’t know what you are doing enough to realize whether you are ‘benefitting’ the wash, or totally cancelling out what the original detergent was formulated to do. Most cleaning happens in a ‘mildly-alkaline’ state. Somewhere around a pH of 9.0, most…

In reality, ‘sterilizing’ at home never was really ‘sterilizing’ anyhow. It requires either a day of saturation in an ethylene oxide (poisonous) gaseous environment, or autoclave temperatures (steam above 250-degrees) to actually ‘sterlilize’ anything. Dropping glass bottles into boiling water was never ‘sterilizing’…

Once again, Microsoft works dilligently to convince me (and many others) that I have a choice, become a programmer, or pass their products up for fear they’ll get me to liking a program that they only want to support for one or two OS’s before they kill them. Explaining to them that if I sold them a car with the same…

I’ve had some form of ‘mobile phone’ since 1990 (hello, Motorola 8000 brick phone), but after a terrible bout with a specific carrier, I quit running for the most-recent ‘tech phone’ I could get. This was right before the iPhone was launched. As a result, I ‘downgraded’ to a more-conventional ‘non-smart phone’. I’m…

Bottled water is quite an interesting discussion, considering the fact that water-contamination is the world’s most accepted method of introducing ‘old-world’ deadly diseases (like cholera) into society. A few of us (engineers) got to discussing this in-depth one day, and decided to do a small ‘lunchtime’ test on…

Bottom line: If you don’t personally own it, or personally clean it, treat it like a septic tank pump truck. Same goes for water-fountains at the same terminals, a coliform test (test for septic bacteria) on most water founts find unacceptable levels of ‘life’ there, too. Can we say ‘bottled water’ in the airports?…

The absolute-best boards are, in fact, bamboo. They require very little maintenance, don’t damage your knife edges as much as plastics, rarely warp, and can be oiled just like wood ones (mineral or olive oils). Try a bamboo board, and you won’t return to wood ones anytime soon. Oh, yeah, and they scar less when cut…

DON’T forget to oil your cutting boards (if they are bamboo or wood)! Natural wood-type material boards have a natural oil in them when they are new, and as you wash-and-wash-and-wash them, this oil is stripped away (making them warp or bust when left in water any length of time). Wash the board, dry it, and then…

Few actually understand that good tape measures have MANY features designed into them, and a reason for most ‘strange’ nuances that most don’t use properly. For example, the two rivets that allow the chrome tip to ‘float’ actually allow for inside and outside measurements. If you hook the tip on a board, then take the…

While the list is pretty decent, I have to argue two ‘worst items’ on that list, and those are batteries and soda. Batteries are tricky because they are usually ‘discounted by volume’ (you get cheaper as you buy more, per unit cost). This gives the club-stores an advantage (48 AA-batteries, anyone?). Comparing a…