W.W.B.G./L.S.D. - What would Bear Grylls/Les Stroud do?

A simple method for finding south using nothing but an analog wristwatch and the sun:

Hold a watch with 12 o'clock at left. Move your arm so the hour hand points at the sun. The spot halfway between the hour hand and the 12 is south.

A few important caveats. First, if you're in the southern hemisphere, you would point 12 o'clock at the sun but still split the difference between 12 and the hour hand for north. Also, if you practice daylight saving time, you should subtract one hour from the hour hand.

Use your wristwatch as a compass. [Lifehacker]

It's just that, well frankly, they're offensive...smelling. I mean they smell bad.

Deodorize...

• Your kitchen sink
• Your freezer
• Your car
• Food storage containers
• Your clothes
• Your carpet
• Your pet's bedding
• Your basement

Eight surprising household deodorizers. [Real Simple]

Bite my shinny, metal microbrewery.

Good news, everyone! Here is a story about building my very own Bender. This, as everyone should know, is the foul mouthed, cigar smoking, booze drinking, shiny metal arsed, bending robot from the program Futurama. More information can be found in the Wikipedia Futurama entry.

Of course just having a Bender that doesn't do anything would be a waste of time so mine shall be used for a practical purpose. One Bender himself would be proud of. I'll use him to make beer! This was actually done in the show in the episode "The Route of all Evil". The idea was suggested to me by my drinking buddy Dave. I didn't remember this until he provided the proof (typos and all):

[3/30/2007 9:21:20 AM] Simon Jansen says: Everytime I watch Futurama I want to build a bender.
[3/30/2007 9:24:14 AM] David Moore says: do you remember the episode where they brew beer inside Bender?
[3/30/2007 9:24:26 AM] David Moore says: you should build that.... a Bender brewer
[3/30/2007 9:24:28 AM] Simon Jansen says: Vaguely.\
[3/30/2007 9:24:37 AM] David Moore says: he gets all maternal
[3/30/2007 9:24:42 AM] Simon Jansen says: I could buil done out of real steel.
[3/30/2007 9:26:49 AM] David Moore says: season3 episode12: The Route of All Evil
[3/30/2007 9:26:56 AM] David Moore says: title refers to money, not beer
[3/30/2007 9:27:27 AM] Simon Jansen says: How about a Bender beer fridge? Get one of those mini fridges and build that into him?
[3/30/2007 9:28:00 AM] David Moore says: no a brewer

So, credit where credit is due!

The latest entry is from August 5, 2007 - Check back for progress reports.

Building Beer, Brewing Bender. [asciimation.co.nz]

What's wrong with your drummer? He looks a little crazed.

The debate will probably rage on as long as there is music in any format, but let the record show that TIBTP believes that vinyl is best...well at least most of the time. On occasion we do take the time to appreciate leather and lace...ahem, we mean digital formats.

Pretty much everyone these days under the age of 60 has a digital music collection of some kind. It might be in the tens of thousands, it might only be a single CD ripped to the hard drive. For most people, however, they have a good sized library that likely takes more than a few seconds to scroll through and is comprised largely, if not solely, of MP3s [we at TIBTP prefer FLAC, but you take what you can get].

Usually these sizable libraries are assembled from various sources, and depending on the generation you belong to, some may or may not be authorized. Over the course of time it has taken to collect this music it is likely that one does not have complete uniformity across each file. The naming format differs, the volume and quality are not consistent, there is likely not album art and if there is there is only a 50/50 chance it is even the right band, and the base level of information making up the file (metadata) is probably about as jumbled as...well the morning jumble in the newspaper.

At some point the task to organize and create uniformity across the collection crosses one's plate and usually the job is frighteningly big, and threatens to be even more tedious. However, there are some fantastic ways out there to make this experience easier, you just have to know what to do and how to do it.

Go ahead and thank our friends over at Lifehacker for breaking things down.

Whip your MP3 library into shape, Part I - Level the volume. [*]
Whip your MP3 library into shape, Part II - Album art. [*]
Whip your MP3 library into shape, Part III - Metadata. [Lifehacker]

Because you can't make a decent mini survival pack using a Sucrets box, that's why an Altoids tin.

Make a Survival Kit out of an Altoids Tin (and Two More DIY Life Saving Projects). (Field and Stream)

You weren't going to read War and Peace anyway.

Not all of us can be hiding a rock hammer we use to tunnel through the walls of our cell, a secret can of microfilm containing the secrets of the US government over the last half century, or a computer disk copy of a much maligned garbage file. However, a hollow book might come in handy to hide a key or important documents we'd like to see a potential intruder never find. Here is a do-it-yourself tutorial to create a hollow book that anyone could find a use for.

How to make a hollow book. (wikihow.com)