ricketyclick

I don’t have a laptop, but I still think this is cool:

This is the adapter for Logitech’s VX Nano Cordless mouse. Its tiny profile reduces the risk that it will catch on something and either break off or crowbar your laptop open.

Via Fred Gallagher, who needs to be working on the comic, darn him.

…And my kitchen. Hm, maybe the living room would look good in tile.

Whatever. As long as I have a good excuse to get me one a these:

ring-bladed saw with mirrored table

I really like the ring-blade idea. Very clever.

Plus: “The Ring Blades”. Great name for a rock-n-roll band that plays wedding gigs, ne?

I’m a tool user, and proud of it.

I’m also a clumsy idiot, which means I occasionally sometimes at least once a week either cut a finger tip or break a nail. My experience is that even if the original injury is negligible, over the next day or so, it gets infected and becomes very annoying. Therefore, I’ve gotten pretty rigorous about putting some triple-antibiotic ointment on even the smallest finger wounds, and applying a bandage.

I long ago gave up on the standard strip bandage. My favorite bandage is the fingertip bandage, which has an hourglass shape that allows it to fold neatly over the tip of the finger. Unfortunately, I can’t buy just a box of these; they always come packaged with knuckle bandages, which are great if you scrape a knuckle, but…well, I’ve got three boxes of knuckle bandages, and no fingertip bandages.

So, I’m about to order a couple of boxes of fingertip bandages online. While hunting down a source, I found this page of how to use all sorts of interesting adhesive bandages.

While checking into this Slashdot story about a guy who beat a speeding ticket using data from the GPS tracker his parents installed in his car, I found this story about another kid who’s using a Hot Wheels toy radar gun to pop speeders in his neighborhood. I’m guessing the gun trips their radar detectors, and…

Wait a minute.

Hot Wheels Radar Gun?

Yeah buddy. It’s real, and you can get one through Amazon for about $40. Forty bucks for an honest to Marconi 10+ GHz radar gun.

Here’s a quick intro into how to hack it: how it works, how to take it apart, how to use it for other things.

I’ve got to wonder: if the police radar gun could be beaten in court by the GPS, maybe their guns aren’t any more sophisticated than this.

Warning to the cops: You are not the only ones with the cool toys anymore. You watch us…but we watch you back.

Don’t like it?

Well, as you guys like to say when we complain about red-light cameras, searches, wire taps, and the like, “What have you got to hide?”

I had my left leg casted when I was in kindergarten. When it was time for the cast to come off, the doctor used a power saw. I was worried that it would cut me, but the doctor put the blade against his skin, and turned it on — it buzzed, but did not cut him! He put it against my hand — nothing! Then he put it against the cast — and it cut through in a whiz!

Years later, I figured out that the blade was vibrating. Flexible flesh would simply be wiggled back and forth, but rigid casting plaster would be cut. (Doctors know this little gem as the Stryker saw, and also use it to cut bone without cutting surrounding soft tissue.)

Yesterday I saw the same thing on TV, adapted for the home shop: The Fein Multimaster. [Caution: A loud TV ad automatically begins playing. It's in a tiny window, upper left hand corner. Click to get the controls.] The great thing about the Multimaster is the triangular blades, which, since they don’t rotate or reciprocate,  can go into tight spots.

What? Oh, of course Toolmonger’s discussed it. The key to loving it, though, is to see it as a saw, not a detail sander, which is apparently how many folks were introduced to it.

I want one. Great little tool.

Urgh, but $300 plus? Urgh,