Insta-rugged bulletin board

More in my crusade to spruce up the blank walls in my hallway: I came back from Expozine this year with lots of things that desperately wanted to be pinned to a bulletin board. Real cork boards are, of course, too expensive. Padded, fabric covered boards are far too fussy for my tastes. Solution: Rip a box apart. Corrugated cardboard has a nice, industrial look to it. Nail some strips to the wall and bam! Insta-rugged bulletin board.

Proper nouns on the Internet

While doing a little writing about traffic shaping and such things, it occurred to me that I don't know whether the name "Net Neutrality" actually qualifies as a proper noun. Many people treat it like a proper noun, capitalizing the first letter of each word, but there are also loads of people who don't. This inconsistency leaves me wondering whether it really should be a proper noun and some people are just being lax, or whether some people are just being overzealous with their capitalization. I've been hunting around to find out what exactly makes something a proper noun in English. According to the Wikipedia, a proper noun represents a unique entity. It then goes on to give examples like cities, the names of people, and specific physical things (like Bill of Rights, which may embody concepts, but has a physical manifestation all the same). But all of the things (not people, not cities, but things) mentioned are tangible. So, can movements and concepts be proper nouns? Net Neutrality isn't tangible. Is it allowed to be a proper noun? I'm thinking yes, given the capitalization of political ideologies and systems of thought. If Marxism and Liberal and Atheist can be proper nouns, surely so can Net Neutrality. I think, then, that I've answered my own question. Is Net Neutrality a proper noun? Yes.

Blogs in print

I've just thought of one of those ideas that qualifies as stupid-smart. So: Blogs use tags. Tags are what allow readers to check out other posts similar to posts that they like. Sometimes, reading things on paper is nicer than on a screen.

My stupid-smart idea: Make little zines or books or magazines of specific tags from blogs. If you were to do that to my blog, for example, you might make a zine based on the "clever ideas" tag. The whole thing would be a compendium of things that I classify as clever ideas.

I'm trying to decide whether this idea has enough merit to actually do. Of course, in the free market spirit, I could just make up a few copies of such a thing, take them to Expozine with me, and see if they have merit.

Vegan trading cards

Finally, after years of being asked what vegans eat, I'm tired of answering. As a result, I've devised a clever solution: vegan trading cards. Imagine little trading cards which, instead of featuring hockey players, picture and explain vegan food. Each card would have a picture of a typical vegan dish on the front (think: curry, stir fry, hummus, tabouleh, etc.) and stats about that dish on the back. The stats would show ingredients as well as nutritional information. It would be a fun way to answer a question that does get a little wearing after a while. Not only that, but the nutritional information would prevent the second question that non-vegans normally ask, namely "Where do you get protein/iron from?" They could look at the card, see that vegans eat a variety of tasty food, and then be shocked by how nutritionally complete those foods actually are. It would save the valuable minutes of my life that I currently wind up spending, trying to remember what I've eaten for the last few days.

Instead of art

Boring walls? No art to hang? No problem. Here's a spectacularly cheap and easy way to break the monotony of long stretches of wall: hang your clothes. Just shove some screws into the wall at varying heights and hang your most interesting (or most frequently used) clothing. In my front hallway, I've hung all my outerwear and bags. It not only makes it way easier to find sweaters, but also gives the hall the benefit of some extra colour. Win-win!

Taft on a Horse

For your enjoyment, a picture I found while hunting through the Wikimedia Commons. It's Taft on a horse. For some reason, it strikes me as an intensely funny picture.

The week-old pizza flowchart

I humbly present to the reading few a handy tool for deciding whether or not to eat the pizza that's been sitting out for a week. I take no responsibility for any un-tastiness or food poisoning that might result from consulting this chart.

Cyclist pants

Fact: most cyclists cinch or roll one leg of their pants so that it won't get caught in the bike chain.
Logical conclusion: Make a pair of pants with one leg shorter than the other.

How to be lazy in the city

I've realized that when I live in big cities, there are far more ways to be lazy than when I live in small ones. Without further ado, method number one for being lazy in a big city.

Don't dry your hair. If you take the subway to work or school, you'll never need to blowdry your hair again. Towel it dry a little, so that you don't drip on others, but there's no need to finish the job. Instead, just stand under the vent in the subway car. There's that spot near the doors, where the ceiling has a great big round vent. On dry hair, it has the effect of mussing. On wet hair, however, it's super handy. If your subway trip is any distance, you'll get your hair blowdried, without running up your own electricity bill or wasting time. Huzzah!