DIY Lens Cap Saver Is Ingeniously Inventive
If you take photos with anything other than a little point and shoot, you will have, once in your life, lost a lens cap. Shortly afterwards, you would have found out that a simple plastic disk can be sold for almost $20 (or even $40).
This stung, you will be particularly pleased with this little hack from Benny Johansson. It’s a lens cap saver, and unlike the annoying commercial products which dangle the cap from a cord stuck to the camera body, this one is elegant, functional and free.
The holder consists of two parts. First, you cut a hook from an old shampoo bottle and slide it onto the camera’s neck-strap. Next, you drill a couple holes in the edge of the cap itself and thread through a short elastic cord. Now, when you take off the cap you can hang it by this little elastic loop. Benny has thoughtfully provided a PDF template so you can cut the hook to make a snug enough fit.
A further improvement can be made if you only ever use one lens, or have a fixed lens on the camera. You still hang the cap from the plastic hook, but the cord can be permanently attached twixt cap and camera as an extra safety measure.
We prefer the version without the “cute” animal faces, and as soon as I get home from the Wired office, where they won’t let me near the scissors, I shall be making a couple.
SkottiRotta Lens cap holder [Benvelo via DIY Photography]
«REW Cable Wrangler Has An Old-School Design
By Andrew Liszewski
Oh Fred! Besides brightening my occasional trips to hipster-mecca Urban Outfitters and providing perfect gift ideas for people I don’t really care about, you also occasionally come up with something that even I wouldn’t mind using. «REW not only cleans up those dangling headphone cables by spooling them inside a snap-shut case, but it’s got a retro cassette-tape design that lets everyone know you’ll always have a soft spot for your first Walkman, even if you’ve long since sold your soul to Apple.
[ Fred - «REW ]
CES: LG’s N+ Multi Computing solution
LG’s N+ solution allows 31 flavors of users on one system.
Originally posted at 2010 CES
Reebok’s new Easytone shoe: Does it really tone muscles?
Reebok recently started selling a walking shoe, called Easytone, that is supposed to tone your leg and butt muscles while you walk.
And the buzz machine swung into action. The Easytone shoe has made a huge splash–TV appearances, newspaper and magazine articles, buzz, buzz, buzz.
If the shoe fits, does it really firm up those muscles? Does the Easytone shoe work?
Dan Ariely is James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University is skeptical. He points out that the scientific evidence is thin. Reports of Easytone effectiveness may, he speculates, may be due to the placebo effect. (Placebos are inert pills or any item that can’t possibly be of direct medical benefit, but still makes people get better.)
The placebo effect is enormously important in medicine. When a new drug is tested on people and turns out to be effective, a notable number of people in the control group, who received a sham pill rather than the real thing, always get better too.
As it turns out, the placebo effect contributes heavily to the positive effects of exercise too. When people are told (falsely) that a particular activity is good exercise, many of them believe it so strongly that they lose weight and body fat and their blood pressure even goes down. Which has me wondering how I can convince myself that reading in bed, sleeping late, and taking long hot showers will make me thinner.
Denim jeans protect you from snakebite
You’ve always loved your jeans, and now here’s another reason: denim protects you from snakebite.
Of course, to be fully protected, you may need to give up those skinny jeans that show off your, um assets. Go shopping instead for something like the technology breakthrough fabric invented in the 18th century but still beloved in the 21st: Armor-like heavyweight denim fashioned into Mom jeans.
