Captain's Log

Simply Limeade

Four years ago (wow this blog has been around that long...) I made a post about juices I like, and since then I've found some better options. Lately I've been hooked on Simply Limeade and Lemonade. The juices are made with 12% lime or lemon juice, water and sugar (no corn syrup), and that's it. No other ingredients and both juices taste great. I haven't tried their orange juice, which doesn't even have any sugar added. Just pasteurized orange juice, which is pretty impressive. A blogger at Slashfood shares my opinion, as do several friends who have tried it themselves. Simply Orange is actually a subsidary of Coca Cola, but they don't say so on their site, unlike Minute Made, Dasani, and other Coke children.

Another set of juices I've liked recently are Dole Chilled Juices, specifically the Orange Peach Mango flavor. We had some on our recent ski trip and everyone liked it then. Strawberry Kiwi was also good, but I wasn't excited by a lot of the other flavors. I'm not too keen on juices with banana or carrot flavor. Selection may vary from store to store, but you can probably find a combination that works for you.

It's pie month again.

Just thought it was worth mentioning that pie month is coming again in October. In case you don't remember what pie month is, check out my previous pie month post.

Cherry Limeades and Slurpees

This post might have been better at the beginning of the summer, but it's still really really hot here. If you are looking to cool down and get something to drink, here are my two favorite options: Cherry Limeades and Slurpees.

I got hooked on Cherry Limeades this summer after a few visits to Sonic. You end up getting a ton of ice, but that's made up for by how great they taste. You can find the recipe here (not a direct link). It's basically Sprite, some cherry juice, ice, and a whole fresh lime. They mix the Sprite and cherry juice and then squeeze the lime juice into the drink and drop the limes in. Those flavors work really well together and taste much better together than apart. (I originally used 'synergy' to describe this, but that word is misused too much. It should be benched until people stop screwing it up).

I've always loved Slurpees. I normally end up getting a Coke slurpee over most of the other flavors, because the others are often too sweet. One problem with Slurpees is that you can get a wide variety of quality depending on how well the store is running the machine, and it often happens that the flavor you want isn't always available. A Slurpee that is too watery is no fun. Add in the fact that Cherry Limeade flavor beats any Slurpee flavor, and you can see why Slurpees have fallen to #2 on my summer drink list. The one point where Slurpees excel is temperature. They are kept at 28 F in the machine and are much cooler than any plain liquid drink. So if you just want to cool down Slurpees are probably a little more effective.

Also large drinks are $0.99 at Sonic until the end of the summer (normally $1.49) so go grab one while it's hot and they're cheap.

Freebirds

Obligatory background for those who've never been: Freebirds is a burrito chain in Texas that I've eaten at a whole lot. They make great burritos, and they have a cool atmosphere. If you live in College Station, Austin, Houston, or DFW, and you haven't been to one, you should definitely make a trip. As a bonus you can order by phone, fax, or even online.

Reason for my posting: They have a promotion going on at the moment for their 15th anniversary. When you go to pay for your burrito, you can roll a pair of dice for a chance to get a free burrito next time you visit. You have to get two 'f's so it's a 1/36 chance. Not the greatest odds, but do you really need much incentive to go to Freebirds anyway?

The Memory Effect

Here's a really simple analogy for the memory effect, although it doesn't match up exactly. Don't try to read too much into it. Also I made this up myself (the sugar part), so it could be totally wrong.

Imagine you have a full container of sugar. Over time (a long time) the sugar tends to clump into a solid mass. If you take a full bottle of fresh sugar, you can spoon out the sugar without a problem. Say you take the container down to half full, and then fill the container up again, then start using it again. And then you keep doing that (stopping at about the same level in the sugar bottle). Also assume you don't shake the bottle, because that screws up the analogy. After a long time the sugar at the bottom has sort of hardened into a cake. The next time you need to get sugar below the halfway mark it'll be a lot harder to spoon it out, because you have to break up the cake that formed. If you then use the sugar all the way down to the bottom, it'll be a pain until you get to the bottom, but you can refill it with fresh sugar and your problem will be solved.

This is for the most part what happens in NiCd batteries (ONLY NiCd). If you only take the charge to a certain point every time, then the cadmium crystals at the "bottom" of the battery grow and form larger crystals. The larger crystals have a smaller surface area and react slower. So when it comes time to discharge in that region you get a depressed voltage. But it's not permanent just like the sugar, if you take the battery down most of the way and bring it back up then it'll breakup the large crystals and they will reform as smaller ones. If the crystal growth gets really really bad, then the battery might be toast because the large crystals just can't be broken down again. The solution is to occasionally cycle the battery all the way, but not too far (below 1 V/cell), because you can 'reverse' the cells.

Once again, this only affects nickel cadmium (NiCd) batteries. NOT lithium ion (Li-Ion) or nickel metal hydride (NiMH). If you buy a new cell phone or laptop it will almost surely use Li-Ion and not NiCd because of the power to weight ratio. Old camcorder batteries or old AA rechargables are probably the batteries you have to worry about in terms of the memory effect.

Good short links on the topic:
Sci.Electronics FAQ: NiCd Battery FAQ
Battery Reviews

Pie Month

A few months ago Alex and Martin introduced me to Marie Callender's pies. They are definitely tasty pies. Alex and Martin had gotten into the pies since it was pie month. Twice a year they have a $5.99 pie sale, where all pies are $5.99 plus a 60 cent deposit for the pie tin.

February is pie month again, so if you like pies at all, I suggest you take a look at their pie menu and make a trip over to the restaurant and pick one up. So far I've had Apple, Peach, and Boston Cream and they've all been great. Gautam didn't like the Coconut Cream that much, but I think it was just him. All pies are the same price, but the cheesecake is separate.

Unfortunately, you have to live in the western half of the US to enjoy the pies.

(Side note: the pies and Groundhog Day made an excellent combination.)

How Febreze Works

You can get a not-so-specific description at Febreze's website. I did a little searching and found out more details on how Febreze works. It has a little bit of fragrance, but if you've used it you can tell that's not a very strong. It hides odor by trapping odor causing things onto the clothing.

Everything you smell is either a gas, vapor, or suspended particle. If something has a piece of clothing has an odor, then it has a high concentration of the odor compound or particle adsorbed on the fibers. Since there is a lower concentration of the compound in the surrounding air, the compound slowly evaporates or detaches from the clothing, and diffuses into the air. That's what you smell. When you spray Febreze on a piece of clothing, a large sugar-based molecule traps the odor causing compounds and prevents them from entering the air. Since it's stuck to the clothing you can't smell it, even though it's still there. You aren't really removing the odor until you wash the odor (and Febreze) away with water. So think about that next time you have Febrezed a piece of clothing several times to get around washing.

For the chemically-inclined: The active compounds are cyclodextrins. They are cyclic glucose oligomers made up of 6, 7, or 8 glucose molecules. They are pretty good at complexing a wide range of organics, and are used to complex pharmaceuticals for better delivery in the body. I found a short chemical description (bottom of the page), and a drawing of the structure if you are curious.

Also cyclodextrins are the active ingredient in Downy Wrinkle Releaser. P&G is making a nice sum off the patents for these uses.

For the sake of referencing my original sources: I originally learned most of this stuff from a page on an automated clothes freshener, and this ACS article told me a little about the chemistry.

LiveStrong

Have you noticed people wearing what appears to be a stiff yellow rubber band around their wrists, and wondered what they were? I did for a little while this summer, until I ran into the explanation a few weeks ago.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation started a educational resources center for cancer survivors, called Live Strong.** The site and the main LAF site have tons of information for cancer patients and survivors. And Lance Armstrong himself is pretty inspirational when you consider what he's done. If you know someone who's been through or is going through cancer, you know the c-word has a devastating effect on the life of the person and their family. The yellow wristband is a reminder to simply live strong. It takes a major physical, mental, emotional effort to get through cancer. The band reminds everyone of what it takes to get through that and hopefully to remember that every day. The bands cost $1 each, and are sold in packs of 10, 100 or 1200. Proceeds from the sales go to the LAF.

The idea picked up big over the summer, and it's almost become an 'item' to have, however lame that might sound. Because demand is so high, at the moment they are backordered for 3-4 weeks from the LAF site. The demand has also driven sales to Ebay, and some people are trying to profit off the demand, although a few say they are donating the proceeds of the auction to the LAF, which is good.

In any case, I think it's a good way to remind yourself of how important life is and how insignificant most everyday problems really are. I might sport one myself sometime, if I can get one without having to pay a scalper.

** Beware this page redirects you if you aren't using Netscape 7.1 or IE, which doesn't include Firefox or new versions of Mozilla. Very very bad. But it's a good site with a very good cause, so you have to forgive it.

Edit (10/31): The page now supports Firefox just fine...

Picking locks

(Edit: See note at bottom) Just read a Yahoo! News story about how easily a Kryptonite bike lock can be picked. Apparently all you have to do is stick the end of a Bic pen barrel into the key slot, and then wiggle. That's it. So if you depend on one of these locks, you might want to rethink your security.

There's more info to read at this bike forum, and if you want to watch a little movie, you can use one of the links at the forum or pick one of these (they are different): mov or wmv.

The main reason I'm posting is that pretty much everyone I know who has a bike has a lock like this.

Edit: Apparently this 'technique' has been known for a long time, but it's making news now because of it's rediscovery and subsequent internet wildfire about a week ago. Full story (with better description than anything above) here.

Word Recognition in Reading

Yet another post of mine basically stolen from slashdot...

There's a research article from a researcher in the Typography group at Microsoft. The article is pretty long, and some would say too long to be worth reading, but this is the type of stuff I eat up, so I enjoyed reading it. There's a nice summary of a lot of research and experimentation, which is cool.

I started to try to pull neat tidbits out of the article, since I'm sure that most people will not click through, or even if they do, they will probably not read the whole article, but there's too much cool stuff that I'd have to skip over because it's not all bite site pieces of information. He goes into a little background on the different theories on word recognition, from word shape recognition to serial letter recognition, and finally the currently accepted parallel letter recognition.

There's some cool stuff you can learn about how fast we read with different distractions (all uppercase letters, mispellings, etc.), how our eyes move when we read, and even a little on neural networks for word recognition. It's cool stuff.

Added bonus: The author is a Longhorn.

Liquid Healing

So I managed to get two cuts in my mouth the past week. One from biting my own lip and the other from a frisbee to the face. They didn't seem to be healing that quickly on their own, because of where they were, so I decided to take some action. I went out an bought a box of BAND-AID Brand Liquid Bandage to use on my lips. I read all I could to make sure it was ok for oral use and I couldn't find anything that said that it wasn't. So I tried it out, and it was pretty easy to apply, just like it said in the instructions. You put 4 drops of the liquid on the applicator stick, and then quickly apply to the cleaned cut. It provides a water tight barrier that adheres well to the skin and won't come off with soap and water.
It ended up not working very well on the inside of my lip, because the area is always wet, is constantly being rubbed my teeth, and it's stretched when my lip stretches. I've been told by Nick and Mike's girlfriend April that it works great on normal skin. It's especially good for places that bandages don't stay like joints and fingertips.
There's a lot more info at the FAQ on Johnson and Johnson's website if you are interested (including the ingredients for those of you interested in what this stuff is).

Eating Cookie Dough

Cookie dough is just awesome. The softer the cookie the better. Cookies fresh from the oven that fall apart before you can pull them off the pan are good cookies. Eating the dough is just the extreme of that. Unfortunately the old saying 'You can never have too much of a good thing,' doesn't apply here. If you get a standard size Pillsbury Chocolate Chip tube, I wouldn't recommend eating more than 3 inches, unless you want your stomach turning over. I say this, but one night back in the dorms, we cracked open a tube, and we all ate a pretty good amount. There was still a quarter tube left after we had our fill, but then Garet took the rest down. I assume he has a stomach of steel or something.

Also there's the risk of salmonella. A lot of perishable products you buy at the store use pasteurized eggs, so in theory there isn't a worry there. On the other hand if you are eating cookie dough you made yourself, you might want to hold back. Before you start scarfing down the store bought dough, consider that Pillsbury does not recommend eating raw cookie dough. I've consumed at least 3 rolls/tubes of this stuff and I haven't gotten sick, but as they say on those silly stock commercials, past performance is not indicative of future results.

So enjoy at your own risk.

Corkscrew Troubles

File this under the 'how to uncork a bottle without a corkscrew' drawer:

Parker got a bottle of wine today, but he realized that we have no corkscrew at our apartment, the heavy drinkers that we are. So it was time to improvise. Parker first though of screwing a screw in with a regular screwdriver, then he realized that I had a drill. He suggested drilling through the cork, but I figured you'd end up getting cork in the wine, which would be no good. We put the ideas together and used the drill to screw in the screw into the cork, but then of course we still had to pull the screw/cork out. Parker tried pulling with pliers, and that probably would have worked with some real effort, but before we tried to hard at that, I went and grabbed the hammer. Using the claw, we pulled the first centimeter out easy until we ran out of bottle to pry against. We were close to completion, so we just muscled our way to the finish, with Parker pulling down on the bottle, and me pulling up on the hammer. 'Muscled' being relative of course. Now Parker could enjoy his wine and I could come here and tell all of you about it.

Now that's engineering in action. If you are nerded out by this story then you shouldn't be here in the first place =)

Toys - Gyro Wheel

A few years ago I saw a cool toy at Book People called the gyro wheel. It was only a few dollars, and I had enough fun in the first 2 minutes to justify the purchase, so I snagged it. It's a pretty simple toy, but it can provide hours of distraction. It's a single metal rod, bent into a rail for a magnetic 'gyro' wheel to roll on. The wheel sticks to the rail since the wheel is magnetic, and it can roll along one side and then flip to the other when the rail gets wider than the wheel. You kind of have to see it to fully understand the magic, so hopefully the video below will give you some of the feel if you've never seen this before.

It's a great toy for a coffee table or desk, since people immediately pick it up and wonder what it is and how it works. I've given gyro wheels to a ton a friends, since everyone loves it (or at least I think they do.) Here's a link to the manufacturer's page and a link to a Google search that results in a bunch of merchants selling the toy - if you are looking for one yourself.

Campbell's Soup at Hand

I've had lots of microwaveable small lunch items, like the ravioli or other italian food products that come in a little plastic containers. For the most part I've disappointed with the taste of the microwaveables so I've stayed away from them. Then I saw the commercial and ads for Campbell's Soup at Hand, and I thought I'd give it a try. You just remove the lid, pop the top, microwave, stir, put the lid back on, and you are ready to go, much like most other microwaveables. The difference is that this stuff tastes pretty good. I've only had the classic tomato, but I liked it a whole lot. There are 4 flavors to choose from but there are more coming. It's a little salty, like all canned products, but not so much that it tastes bad.

I think it's pretty handy for the too lazy to prepare lunch types like me. So if you like Campbell's soups give this a try. It's $1.27 at the HEB near me, which is a bit steep for a can of soup, but you are paying for the convenience to overcome your lack of time, lazniess, or lack of can opener at work.

Toys - Jacob's Ladder

On a visit to Sonia's place, I was introduced to a new toy, Jacob's Ladder. (new to me) I don't think I had found a new toy that was as cool in a long long time. In principle the toy it pretty simple. First, you take two rectangular blocks, place them side by side, and attach the far side of each block to the near side of the other block. This makes a 'double hinge' where the block can swing to either side of the other. Then you repeat that process and add 4 (or more) blocks. It sounds more confusing than it actually is, so maybe these pictures will help.

Now if you unfold the ladder, so the blocks are hanging down, and then flip one block over, all the blocks below will flip also. It gives the illusion that the top block is somehow falling down the chain. In fact they are all really just staying in place and flipping 180 degrees. This is one of those little tricks that I can watch or mindless perform for hours. You can see a little video I made here.

There are a lot of other neat tricks you can do, along with just making a clickety-clack noise with the wooden blocks. I've been searching for a page with details on some of the better tricks, but I haven't been able to find one. The one I have now came with a 'trick book' but I had figured out a lot of those just by playing around, or they weren't that cool to begin with.

The Jacob's Ladder pictured was actually a gift from Sonia. I got a one from Toy Joy, but it was multi-colored (reduces the block falling effect), and not as smooth. So thanks to Sonia for both introducing me to and giving me a Jacob's ladder.

Schlitterbahn

I was looking at my website stats and saw that I bunch of people had come to my site by searching for Schilitterbahn, and all I did was say I went there. Also a bunch of my friends who have lived in Austin for years have never been there, so I decided to actually post about Schlitterbahn.

If you're wondering what Schlitterbahn is, it's an awesome water park in New Braunfels, TX. Schlittern means to sled and bahn means way or road, which makes sense as the park has a ton of waterslides. If you want details on the attractions, go to the Schlitterbahn website. They even have 'e-rides.' (Quicktime movies to show you what the ride is like) Some of the highlights are the Master Blaster, the 5 time voted 'best water ride in the nation.' It's the best water ride I've ever been on. Also you can spend hours circling the Torrent River, which is way more fun than it looks or sounds.

If you haven't been there, you should plan a trip sometime because it's a lot of fun. You don't even have to be able to swim, as the water doesn't get more than 4-5 feet deep anywhere. But bring plenty of sunscreen if you go. Even Sunny and I have burned there (with no sunscreen). Also be prepared for long lines on popular rides (like the Master Blaster). Get there early (10 am) and go on the rides, and relax in the pools or on the less crowded rides later.

Windshield Washer Fluid, take 2

So the little formula I created has caused me nothing but problems in terms of windshield washing. I thought it was ok for the first few days, but the combined smell of the isopropyl with the vent open and the lack of washing ability (the main criteria) has led me to think I need to leave the engineering to the pros. So until someone spends the time to figure out what you really need to get the job done well, then we'll be at the mercy of the blue stuff.

Windshield Washer Fluid

Do you guys buy the $2 gallon jugs of windshield washer fluid to refill your cars when your car runs out? I used to, but then I figured I could just make my own. Although it almost never freezes where I live, I figured it would be good to stick to a standard recipe with something to lower the freezing point. Using what I had in my apartment I filled a 64 oz. Juicy Juice bottle with some water, about a cup of 70% isopropyl alcohol (didn't measure), and a little bit of dishwashing soap. I tried it out and it seems to work great. Not sure if you'd need to up the alcohol percentage to keep the freezing point up. You definitely don't want the stuff freezing in the pump/lines. I don't know how good this stuff would be at melting ice. Maybe add some salt? This would take some experimentation, which I'm sure the companies that make this stuff have done. I found a recipe that said 9 cups water, 1 cup isopropyl, and 1 tablespoon dishwashing liquid, which is pretty close to what I figured myself. Isopropyl alcohol is rubbing alcohol, btw.

In case you are wondering about why you'd do this, here are my quick reasons.

1. It's silly to pay $2 for a gallon of water with a little bit of soap and antifreeze.
2. It's easy to make, and the ingredients are cheap and easy to get.
3. It's probably more environmentally friendly and less toxic that what you buy at the store. You probably shouldn't be drinking isopropyl alcohol, but if you spilled this stuff or got it on your skin you wouldn't really need to worry too much.

Another note to those who are going to try this: From the past few days of experience, it definitely seems like I can smell the isopropyl volatilizing if I have the air set to draw from the outside and I'm going over 20 mph. Not sure where the air intake is, but it's definitely interesting to know that the air that some of the air that flows over the front of the car goes into the intake. I'm going to investigate this further to make sure there aren't any leaks or anything. You'll know more when I do.

Juice!

So what's on the menu today? Juice! If you drink soda every day, you should think twice before you grab you next drink. The caffeine is addictive, and a very large percentage of the population in the US is hooked. On top of that most soda will literally dissolve your teeth over time. Most sodas are carbonated and also contain phosphoric acid, which drops the pH down to 2.5 (That's low trust me). Juice is an excellent alternative, and here are two you should try.

Juicy Juice rocks. It's 100% juice, not watered down. On top of that, there's no sugar added, but they still manage to have 26 grams of sugar in 8 ounces of juice. I'm still not sure how they pull that magic off. Also it tastes great. I've switched over from Capri Sun to the juice boxes, and I love it. I know some of you might have a strong allegiance to Capri Sun, with the cool pouches and childhood memories, but it just isn't on the same level as Juicy Juice. The taste difference is astonishing. Also don't let the kids marketing campaign deter you. Unlike Trix, it not just for kids. (aside: I feel your pain, Rabbit.) When it comes to Juicy Juice flavors, I go with Kiwi Strawberry, and sometimes Berry, but they are all pretty good.

For a more 'grown-up' drink, try Ocean Spray Ruby Tangerine juice. It's got grapefruit bite with tangerine to mellow things out - but not too much. The taste and tanginess of this juice are hard to beat. I can't get enough of this stuff. If tangerines aren't your thing, there's a whole line of Ruby products including Mango, Strawberry, Lemonade, and of course, pure Ruby.

So next time you are at the supermarket, think twice about your coke/soda (not pop) and get some Juice!