How To Make a Sourdough Starter

...here’s no need for all the crazy things I’ve heard suggested: adding potatoes, grapes, yogurt and certainly not commercial yeast. And the yeast that makes sourdough happen is on the flour itself in far greater quantities than in the air. After following the simple steps I demonstrate in this video you’ll end up with a small amount of starter that you use to “inoculate” a larger batch of starter to use in a bread recipe. Keep your starter at room t...

Read…

Self-Irrigating Gutter Update

...rel so that if there is a leak, I won’t lose all the water at once. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEeCgGAbvwk If I were to do this project again, I’d also use a refinement that Larry Hall just posted in the video above. This improvement on the design replaces the lower gutter with a 4-inch drain pipe. The drain pipe is easier to keep water-tight. And instead of using a gutter filled with soil I might use a series of pots (an idea that’s also in t...

Read…

Self-Righteousness Fail: We Bought a Car

...stem works especially well if you ride a bike. This was a hitch for Kelly. Understandably, she’s nervous about riding a bike in traffic here. While the bike network is getting better, it’s got a long way to go. Bike lanes have been squeezed in where it’s been convenient for engineers and politicians to do so. To make the bike network really work we’re going to need to begin a more uncomfortable conversation about taking away driving lanes and park...

Read…

Shock the Worm

...From the November 1932 issue of Modern Mechanix, an idea from an era when people were a lot more cavalier about electricity. Personally, I prefer the safer worm grunting method. Via Modern Mechanix. Update: Reader Don pointed out the similarity of this idea to the plot of a 1970s horror movie in which a downed power line causes a upward migration of killer worms. Here’s the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyTpkR2cwLo...

Read…