Taxpayers Principle Search Results

How To: Install blown-in insulation

Have you ever felt cold in your older home, even with the heat cranked? Ever feel drafts that seem to come from nowhere? And conversely, in the summer, is your home an oven? Many older houses are improperly insulated, if there is any insulation at all. This can have a large impact on your heating and cooling bills. Loose-fill insulation can be blown into your walls and attic to help increase the efficiency of your house, significantly decreasing your heating and cooling expenses.

How To: Make an Airsoft Machine Gun (AKA Halo Mobile Turret)

Airsoft doesn't get any better than a cloud chamber BB machine gun, aka Cloud BBMG. This design has an incredible rate of fire. If you've got a full charge of compressed air, it can easily fire more than 50 rounds per second at a 350 ft/s muzzle velocity. Since this is a legit airsoft build, it should be handled safely with the same care as any other airsoft firearm, and you should be wearing the same protective gear—protective mask, safety glasses, etc. My video details the build of this bea...

How To: Handle and restrain a mouse for injections

This Animal Welfare Foundation two-part video tutorial is from expert veterinary staff demonstrating the correct procedures for handling small mammals for clinical examination and medication. Its aim is to show that the primary consideration should be for the the welfare of the animal. This video guide will show you practical animal handling for a mouse.

Freedom watch: Not a single Democrat voted for ending raids on raw milk

Here’s some news for those who still somehow believe the political left in Washington cares about the People. After U.S. Senator Rand Paul introduced an amendment that would have ended armed FDA raids on raw milk farmers (http://www.naturalnews.com/035966_Rand_Paul_FDA_censorship.html) and legalized free speech about the curative properties of medicinal herbs, nutritional supplements and superfoods, are you curious how many Democrats voted in favor of this?

How To: Decode Body Language

Your boss is pursing her lips and drumming her fingers on the table during your presentation. Your best friend is gazing downwards and crossing his arms when you ask him why the car you lent him for the weekend has a big dent. What could these body language signals all mean?

How To: Make a Self-Watering Greenhouse

I've been hell-bent on complete self sufficiency for a long time now. There was a point where I was living in a self-sustaining community in the mountains in Colorado, and we had a very large greenhouse there. Dragging the hose around to water plants was a real pain, and that stuck in the back of my mind even after I left the place. It would have been much easier to integrate watering into the frame at construction time than doing that hose dance every day.

Receipt Racer: A Paper and Laser Tangible Video Game

Video games have been a purely digital medium for some decades now. They exist in the electronic nether, embedded on discs and projected on screens. Since digital distribution has gained popularity, even the physical manifestation of the game disc is going away, leaving games (especially digitally distributed indie games) more ethereal than ever before. It is unclear whether this slightly unsettling fact was on the minds of the three people who made Receipt Racer, but regardless, it stands as...

How To: Make Your Own Roman Sahdes

Making Your Own Roman Shades Are you an everyday Martha Stuart? You know, one of those do it yourself creative people who can make better household items than you can find at the store. It so, I found a great (quick to the point) video that will help you design and make your very own set of Roman Shades.

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.

News: Zoetrope + Bicycle Wheel = Cyclotrope

Kudos to student Tim Wheatley, who came up with this incredibly nifty DIY animation using a bicycle wheel, cardboard cut-outs, and wire to create a magical reinvention of the classic zoetrope, Earth's earliest form of animation (it first surfaced in China around 180 AD!). Simply give it a spin, and the animation comes to life. Inspired to make your own? First, learn the basic principles of the zoetrope here or here. Next, take a little advice from Tim to add the "cyclo" element:

News: Building a Bonafide Solar Death Ray Sounds Too Easy

Eric Jacqmain is one smart cookie. Borrowing from the same principles of Archimedes’ mythological death ray, the Indiana teenager used an ordinary fiberglass satellite dish and about 5,800 3/8" mirror tiles to create a solar weapon with the intensity of 5000x normal daylight. The powerful weapon can "melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant."

News: Metal Isn't Flammable... Right?

Theo Gray of Gray Matter explains the principle behind sending steel up in flames- as long as it's steel wool, of course. The process is beyond simple. Spend 2 bucks and 2 minutes: purchase a steel wool pad, hold in pliers, light with a match. But the question is, why is steel wool flammable, while other forms of metal are not? Explanation below the video. Theo says:

How To: A/C Broke? Keep Your Car Cool with This DIY Solar-Powered Air Conditioner

If a solar-powered air conditioner that requires no electricity or moving parts sounds to good to be true, well, then you're not as ambitious as this clever high school student. Instructables user Fozzy13 put together an awesome DIY tutorial on how he built his own air conditioning unit in his car that works using the principles of evaporation, convection, and capillary action. This air conditioner works by using sunlight to heat air at the bottom of the unit. The hot air rises, allowing the ...

News: Gassho and Kokoro

At the beginning of every class, or almost every class, we do a series of exercises. The Japanese word for this sort of calisthenic exercise isundo. These exercises derive from the Goju style of karate created by Miyagi Sensei in Okinawa in the early part of the 20th Century. In devising these exercises Miyagi no doubt borrowed liberally from the Chinese, whose influence on the southernmost island of the Japanese archipelago was immense.

How To: Use a plunge wood router

If you're looking to rout, or hollow, out a length of wood as part of a DIY project, you'll need a wood router. In this handy tutorial, Darren Baensch reviews the three basic principles while walking you through a cut. Watch this video and learn the basics of plunge routing. Use a plunge wood router.

How to Make a Jacob's Ladder: Chained Lightning

In this article, I'll show you how to create a simple yet accurate demonstration of the "rising ionized gas" principle. In other words, a transformer, two metal prongs and lots of evil laughter. Remember those large "towers" in the background of Frankenstein movies with a "lightning bolt" rising upwards every few seconds? That's called a Jacob's Ladder; one of the coolest awe-inspiring demonstrations of high voltage. Here's a video of the final product: Materials and Tools

How To: Create Google+ RSS Feeds

Earlier last month, I wrote on how to subscribe to Google+ users using PlusFeed. I used it, and then I realized that I wasn't getting my own feed anymore. I discovered that the free service had been disabled due to cost issues, as detailed by the creator +Russell Beattie. The code is open source, and you can roll your own service, if you have the know-how and the time. If you don't, but still want to create RSS feeds for your own public posts, or just to track your favorite Google+ users, the...

News: Creepy Theremin Utensils Howl the Pain of Slaughtered Ghost Chickens

One of the creepiest musical instruments ever is undoubtedly the theremin, a device originating from the early 20s that emits eerie sounds with a just a wave of the hand. If you've seen the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, you know what I mean—freakishly creepy. Playing the theremin can be off-putting for some, since it's a relatively pricy gizmo, but a new geek gadget called the EaTheremin aims to make all of us professional, dinnertime theremists.

News: If the World Were Made of Pixels...

Texas based artist Shawn Smith brings the digital world to reality with his woodcut pixelated sculptures. The combination of a traditional material (wood) with a contemporary concept results in surprisingly fresh work. Plus, the craftsmanship appears to be impeccable. Check out his artist statement below.