Yes, but how long until they finish the Cylon-sexbot that I keep hearing about?

Not to be nitpicky, but this is the internet and all, but it's a pie pantenna. A cake pantenna would have edges perpendicular to the base of the pan, not angled.

Unfortunately, I buy all of my cookware from the "pans that look like castles" section of the williams sonoma store, so I have to stick to tin foiling my walls. I call it my crazy-towntenna.

Happy Birthday, Mark's grandmother! My grandfather, would have been 107 this year as well (it's likely he was about 5 years older though, as he made quite a few "adjustments" after coming through Ellis Island). There are some pretty fantastic photos of him catting around with the ladies at an upstate Socialist summer camp, and a record of him being arrested for disturbing the peace in Brooklyn in 1920!

I remember him watching Sesame Street with me when I was a kid, and he would try to explain to me how amazing it was to be able to see a something like giraffe on tv, which I understand NOW.

I'm wishing your grandmother all the best today!

It seems like there are a lot of people complaining about the fact that their neighbors have complained about them, which is a little too meta for me on a Friday afternoon.

I want to go live next to this guy:

http://www.rottenneighbor.com/story.php?id=56899

Oh! I know this one! When they landed, everyone's watch was 25 minutes off and one of the passengers had gone missing. Yes? Yes?

Oh, and I forgot to say that I wish more things looked like phasers, and I'd totally incorporate this into my Halloween costume. I still think it blows as a tool. On further inspection, the handle is in the wrong place as well. Unless it's got a really heavy bit and a really light engine, this is going to be hard to use.

There are plenty of styles of drill guides on the market, including some similar to this (check out Rocklers)but none of them beat a steady hand.

When I worked as a carpenter we had these around, but seldom used them; guides that rest on your project slip and scuff, or require anchoring, and they prevent you from being able to really see what you're doing, clear plastic or no.

An experienced tool handler should be able to feel if the drill is level, in trusting a gizmo you run the risk of drilling through your whole project before seeing your mistake. If you really really need a perfectly straight bore, use a drill press, which is actually the right tool for that kind of thing.

I love the Zojirushi that I have (if you shop around you can get one for about a hundered bucks), and will say that it is far superior to other rice cookers I've used. I don't really understand what fuzzy logic means in terms of rice cooking, but this cooker makes whatever I put in it come out perfect, so that's enough for me. Not sure I need it to email me though, just cook brown rice properly.

I wonder if the risotto setting is simply the porridge setting renamed for the sad people of the west who can't get their heads around congee?

When my great uncle started loosing his marbles, he started getting a little confused about how many cats he had and ended up with a house full of raccoons and possums that all followed him around and came when he called. This was out in the sticks, and there were a lot of critters around, and the neighbors were not overly thrilled about animals being taught to come into houses and get food. I was a kid, and I thought the whole thing was just delightful, though even I had the good sense to stay the hell away from a raccoon.

I went to high school in Buffalo in the late 80's-early 90's, and this just gave me that queasy terrified feeling I get whenever anything reminds me too clearly of that time. These pictures cannot QUITE communicate the unbelievable amount of cologne those guys are wearing. Imagine them applying cologne with the same enthusiasm as self tanner, and you get the idea. In high school I had a reputation for being this big lesbian, which I encouraged because the thought of having to interact with those guys on ANY level gave me the shakes. Thanks Boingboing, for reassuring me that it was not all in my head.

New Jersey, come on now, WTF?

Someone beat me to recommending the Zassenhaus, but I second it. I used to have one (lost it in a breakup), and I loved it. I've been meaning to replace it, and this is a good reminder. You can adjust the grind the same way you would with a good pepper mill, by loosening or tightening the handle so the mechanics either sit really close together or not. My ex is a huge coffee snob, and would use this to grind and then make cold press coffee (which if you haven't had, I highly recommend). You can buy cold press coffee makers, (the Toddy is kind of bitchin'), or you can just soak and strain the coffee without.

This is a fantastic book. Another children's book I highly recommend for all or the steampunk/alt history folks is The Arrival, by Shaun Tan (see images at his website here:http://www.shauntan.net/books.html).

I know that publishy types were sad that this book was ineligible for the Caldecott, had it been, it would have been a strong contender. I bought a bunch of copies at a conference last weekend for kids in my life and have already managed to give them all away to adults...

Amen. I anticipate adding some unnecessary life to the globe some day, and the whole concept of "Push Presents", make me want to barf, starting with the horrible phonaesthetics and ending with the message they send that a child is something for which a woman should be compensated. In terms of feminism, rewarding a woman for a job well done in this instance seems practically medieval.

This is not to say that new fathers don't kind of owe it to their partners to make them feel less as if they've been turned inside out. I've seen pregnancy almost kill a few of my friends (no exaggeration) and having a partner who recognizes that women experience things that are painful, dangerous and scary during pregnancy makes a big difference.

Push presents (gak) seem as though they are designed to let dads off the hook for all of the real things they could be doing after a birth, such as cleaning baby poop off of everything they own, or caring for older children, or preparing dinner, or fending off relatives, etc.

I was all proud of myself for skipping the donut this morning after a solid month of Halloween bacchanalia at my job, IN A LIBRARY and now I'm thinking about getting one at lunch. Thanks a lot, Boingboing.

Can you put other things through the machine? I wonder if you could make some delicious pakoras?

When I used to work as a carpenter, anyone who knew what was what would customize their tools so that there was no way they would be accidentally sorted into someone else's collection. This usually involved gussying them up in the most obnoxious way possible (basically anything that was bright and stood out), but I think that most tool users would be hesitant to use these (I've seen them and they're ok for doing casual things in the house, but they're not something you would want to do a large project with). Plus, they're way more expensive than higher quality tools. What's wrong with dipping a regular old Craftsman in a bucket of pink paint?