Solid Risk Search Results

How To: Install a tongue and groove floor

There are fewer things finer in a home than a hardwood flooring. For the do-it-yourselfer, however, it can be a fun, yet daunting task. Installing a hardwood floor can best be described as a combination of rough and fine carpentry. Pounding the nails home and bending warped flooring to fit is certainly rough work. However, it is detailed as well, because even small mistakes will show.

How To: Solder copper pipes for plumbing

Soldering copper pipes is a basic plumbing skill that once mastered will enable you to tackle many DIY home repair and home improvement projects - for instance, replacing copper water lines or installing a new spigot. It can be as much an art as it is a science, thus the more you get the "feel for it," the faster and easier it gets.

DIY Scientists Beware: When NOT to Use Household Chemicals for Your Projects

The only thing better than successfully pulling off a new experiment is doing it with household materials. You get to laugh in conceit as professional scientists everywhere spend all their grant money on the same project you just accomplished with some under-the-sink chemicals! However, there are times when DIY gets dangerous. Some household chemicals are not pure enough to use and some are just pure dangerous. Let's take a look at two problems I have encountered in the course of mad sciencing.

Glass Cutters Are for Tools: How to Dissolve Glass Using Sodium Hydroxide

Glass is one of the least reactive substances known to chemistry. It is the standard container material for almost all lab chemicals because it's so inert. But there are a couple of substances that have strong reactions with glass. Sodium hydroxide, aka solid drain cleaner or lye, can easily be stored in glass as a solid, but when molten, it reacts violently with glass and can actually dissolve it away! So, the next time you clog up your drains with broken glass beakers and flasks, rest assur...

News: Iconic Indie Game Publisher Interplay Struggles to Make a Comeback

For more than a decade, Interplay was arguably the best video game publisher in America. Their list of games is a who's-who of the most creative and forward thinking games of the '90s, including everything fromOut of This World to Alone in the Dark to Earthworm Jim to Descent. They've been around since 1983, but have fallen on hard times since 1997, when they became a public company. They were acquired by a French publisher who then went bankrupt. They were forced to close their internal deve...

News: Famous Indie Game Makers Immortalized in 'The Indie Game Legend'

The indie game scene is constantly expanding, but in 2008, Minecraft, Braid and Angry Birds had not been released, along with all of the other indie games that established the financial viability of the format. Indie games were the all-but-exclusive purview of free Flash game sites and the proud users of TIGsource.com. The Independent Gaming Source is a massive forum for indie game developers to share their projects with like-minded individuals, while seeking help and approval of their games.

How To: Make a Ringtone in iTunes for Your Apple iPhone

Granted the iPhone is an awesome phone... but their choice for default ringtones kind of, well, stinks. They have plenty of apps you can BUY to PURCHASE ringtones... but why waste money when you can make an unlimited amount of ringtones yourself forFREE? At first glance, it looks complicated and confusing, but I'll break it down so simply, you'll be making ringtones for everyone in iTunes.

How To: Print, Cut & Fold Your Own DIY Hermès Handbag

Yay, you can now own the iconic Hermès bag for next to nothing! There's one catch—it's made of paper. Hermès is currently offering several free downloadable templates for the "Kelly Paper Bag" on the company's Facebook page. Not exactly usable in the traditional sense, but it still comes directly from the official Hermès design studio, and who doesn't love papercraft?

Windows Security: Software Level

As many of you know Windows is not the most secure Operating System in the world, but then again no OS is really secure if the user doesn't know how to protect themselves. Later I will show you how to lower the risk even more on your (the user's) end.

Great Deal: $0.99 EA & Gameloft iOS Games for Christmas

Looking for last-minute Christmas gifts? Give the gift of mobile gaming! Electronic Arts (EA) and Gameloft are having their annual holiday sales just in time for Christmas. If you've got a gamer on your shopping list with an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, a mobile game will make the perfect last minute present. Games that are usually anywhere from $2 to $10 are now on sale for just $0.99, and there's lots to choose from.

News: Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

Richard Sweeney is an incredible artist whose body of work consists mainly of sculptures made from paper. His art is often related to origami, and much of his work is related to geometrical forms. I personally really love his modular forms in paper. Many of them are based off of the platonic solids, which have been discussed in previous posts this week. Below are a small number of his sculptures, which are very geometric in nature.

News: Pokemon + Jabbawockeez + YouTube = Kusarine Project

Japan has a tendency to produce things that boggle the Western mind. Its citizens are already responsible for without a question the weirdest music video in the history of the medium. With that said, here is a video reenactment of several Pokemon (Pocket Monster in Japan) games released by Japanese performance art troupe Kusarine Project: Kusarine Project and their amazing YouTube channel first became known through the Japanese video sharing site/meme originator NicoNicoDouba. Their white mas...

News: World's Smallest 3D Printer Makes Super Tiny Solid Objects

If you liked the idea of cutting duplicate keys from a personal 3D printer, then you might be interested to know that researchers at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have successfully designed the smallest 3D printer to date. The prototype device is smaller than a shoebox and weighs only 3.3 pounds. It uses stereolithography compared to the RepRap's extruding molten plastic, and it's not a self-replicating machine and costs a bit more, at nearly $1,800 each. But compare that to ...

News: E3 Sneak Peaks of Sony's Next Generation Portable

In just a few days, the biggest expo in the video game industry will unleash the newest games and hardware from all of the major companies. Nintendo is set to unveil its Wii-replacing Project Café and Konami will showcase its upcoming lineup, including new Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid games. But what will Sony be presenting at E3 in Los Angeles this year?

Chromebook: The World's First Web-Only Laptop Computer Coming Soon

It's been about five months since Google first unveiled their prototype future computers running Chrome OS, and the time is nearly here for the Chromebooks to be unleashed on the public. But there are a lot of qualms over the release of Chromebooks, with most criticism coming from their lack of traditional laptop-based features such as an optical drive, storage space and the ability to run comprehensive software programs like Adobe Photoshop.

News: Möbius Pasta + Jell-O Jigglin' at 6200 FPS

Food is the meeting place of left and right brainers: Culinary arts call for creativity, but is also deeply rooted in the What, Why and How of basic science—baking powder vs. baking soda, the rising of dough, the falling of a cake, etc. Below, two plays on left brain principles—the Möbius strip and the law of gravity—both executed with right brain flair.

How To: Market As a Balloon Artist Entertainer

Whether you are part time or full time as an entertainer, anyone can use help in marketing or advertising. Below are a few suggestions for helping get your name out as an entertainer in your area. For a more detailed list, be sure to check out www.BalloonLibrary.com where you can find an eBook on market domination and restaurant entertainment as well.

How To: Prevent Post-Earthquake Nuclear Meltdown in the US

After getting slammed with a crazy-big earthquake/tsunami, the Japanese nuclear plant Fukushima Daiichi might be on the brink of meltdown. Not as bad as Chernobyl, but maybe as bad as Three Mile Island. Nobody wishes such a disaster on anyone...anywhere in the world. In the US, there are about 100 nuclear facilities, about 8 of which are located near hot beds of seismic activity.

News: The youtube converter

the converterhave you ever wanted a voutube video or song from youtube on your ipod but either cannot find it or don't have money to pay? well we can help. copy the youtube video's url and go to this link and click your country. it should take you to the next page and pop up some annoying adds. exit out of those and click audio converter for sound or video converter for video. we will assume for this guide that you want a song, but the same principal applies to video. click on audio converter...

News: 11 Dirty Tricks Played by Crooked Web Designers

Ever been Privacy Zuckered? Roach Moteled? Friend Spammed? If you've been on the net long, odds are you have — and worse! Fortunately, there's a new resource for keeping track of the web's worst design practices; it's called "Dark Patterns" and it aims to "name and shame" sites that employ "user interfaces that have been designed to trick users into doing things they wouldn't otherwise have done."

How To: Make Strawberry Ice Cubes

Having company for cocktails? How about adding a special twist (and yummy conversation piece) to your guests' drinks? These strawberry ice cubes are a delightful way to dress up a drink. They're super-simple to make, and guaranteed to make a splash!Watch video demonstrationYou'll Need: