Lisa Katayama

Review: Two weeks with the simplehuman dual bin rectangular step can

Trash cans have always been a challenge in my household. Let me explain. My dog Ruby is a notorious trickster who can climb any counter and knock down any container if there's food to be had. For years, I had no trash can, piled my recycling high above her reach on top of the fridge, then weighted down my previous cylindrical floor can with heavy metal chains so she couldn't knock it down.

Those days are over, thanks to simplehuman's steel bar rectangular step can, new this month with two compartments for separating garbage. Unlike most larger trash receptacles for the house, this one is wider than it is tall, which makes it really hard for a little nine-pound dog to knock down. Also, since it holds both the recycling and the regular trash, there are no more paper bags full of empty yogurt cups and milk cartons for Ruby to go to town on.

My favorite things about this trash can, though, are the little details that make throwing away garbage feel kinda classy. For example, it has a lid that doesn't slam and a hook you can engage so that you can keep it open while you change trash bags without stepping on the pedal. And to minimize stench while keeping it open, it has a little nook on the lid for a carbon filter — it doesn't eliminate the smell of dog poop completely, but it definitely seems to help. Speaking of the pedal, it's really nice and wide and sturdy so you don't have to search for it at all with your foot — and fingerprint-proof stainless steel means smudges rarely show up on its surface. The bins also have holes on the sides that you can tuck excess plastic from the bags into, so little dogs can't tug at its ends. (simplehuman cans have had this for years, but it's still worth noting.)

At $225 for the 38L and $250 for the 55L, this is not a cheap trash can, at all — but if you think of it as an investment into the overall cleanliness of your cooking space, I think it's totally worth it.

Lisa Katayama

Pretty designer juicer with integrated seed-stopper

Not only does this lemon squeezer look good, it also has a little scoop that catches seeds and prevents them from falling into the juice.

[Joseph Joseph via Dezeen]

Lisa Katayama

Review: Two weeks with the Dyson DC31

According to its inventor James Dyson, the DC31 handvac has the fastest motor in the world at 104,000rpm &mdash five times as fast as a Formula 1 race car engine! That's cool, but what I really want to know is, does it bust dust cleanly and efficiently? I have been using its predecessor, the DC16, for about two years, and I'm sad to report that it has become virtually obsolete &mdash the suction is weak, the battery only lasts 2-3 minutes, and dust accumulates relentlessly at the nozzle. This review will not give an answer as to whether the newer DC31 will have a longer lifespan than that, but here's what I think of it so far after a couple of weeks of use.

The DC31 is lighter, smaller, and doesn't require a giant docking station. These are all great improvements. It definitely has a lot more power than the 16 ever had &mdash it swept up everything from dog hair to human hair to wood chip fragments without hesitation. The .09-gallon bin is small but easy to empty, you just push a lever down &mdash I actually prefer it small because it urges you to empty it more often, which prevents old dust from hanging out in there for too long.

There are two problems I wish Dyson would fix in their next iteration of a handvac, though: 1. This thing is still pretty loud. I would be willing to give up some of that motor power for a more quiet dust-busting experience. 2. This might sound nitpicky, but there are air holes in the top back portion that blow out a significant amount of air while the nozzle is doing all its high-power sucking. That's fine when you're bending down to vacuum the floor, but when you're working on a parallel or multi-tiered surface like on stairs or between furniture, this actually blows dust and hair away. Which is kind of annoying.

And then there is the meta problem of handvacs being inefficient to begin with &mdash they're nice for daily upkeep, and I like having one in the house, but a device that only cleans a couple of square inches at a time with a 10-minute battery life that makes lots of noise may be a dying breed of gadgetry.

Product page [Dyson]

Lisa Katayama

Review: A shower with the SimpleHuman bamboo adjustable caddy

I recently switched out my dinky plastic Target two-tiered caddy for this $50 bamboo adjustable shower caddy made by simplehuman. They're both the type that hang over the showerhead, so it didn't seem like it would be a huge change &mdash but it turns out that a quality shower caddy is one of those things that I didn't know I needed until I got one. Now I'm not sure how I showered without it for so many years.

The coolest aspect by far is the adjustable shelves &mdash there are two shelves that are already generous in length and width, but the most space-saving thing about them is that they move up and down, left and right to accommodate awkward-shaped bottles. I was able to move all of those stray shampoo and body scrub bottles from the corners of the tub onto the caddy, which makes the tub feel a whole lot bigger and cleaner. The caddy also has little indentations on both sides for razors to hang from, a small soap tray, and a suction cup for stability with a hook in its center for hanging loofahs and sponges from. The shelves are made of bamboo with a soft brown finish, which gives a nice nature-y touch to my otherwise all-white bathroom.

The only minor issue I have with it right now is that the suction cup isn't as strong as it could be, so it sometimes slips off and the caddy leans to one side. Considering how overloaded it is with shower shit, though, I don't think this is such a big deal.

Product page [simplehuman]

Steven Leckart

Power On Self Test: Beech Wood Flashlight

[via gnr8]

Steven Leckart

Mac Cake: Sweet 16 = Twilight

Steven Leckart

HOWTO Build an Outdoor Pizza Oven

Remember when I modded my conventional kitchen oven with $13.50 worth of ceramic firebricks? In that post, I linked to a variety of outdoor ovens that seemed intriguing, like the Peruvian igloo.

Well, Serious Eats's Slice blog reports on Mark Wilkie, a Brooklynite who spent two months constructing a Pompeii brick oven in his backyard based on plans from Forno Bravo. Mark's posted some great photos documenting the process, including a few fun time-lapses:

If you've got the space, seems well worth the effort.

images by Mark Wilkie

[via Kottke]

Lisa Katayama

Frankie Flood's pizza cutter designs

I love these custom pizza cutters designed by Frankie Flood. He has over half a dozen different designs, each with a different theme. This one is called the Gold Knuckle.

Frankie Flood main page via Neatorama

Lisa Katayama

1932 banana-ice cream injector patent

Someone named P. Marchio filed this patent for a "banana extractor and ice cream injector" in 1932. What a wonderful idea! Unfortunately, there's no evidence that this was ever actually made, nor is there any sign that a banana with ice cream in it will ever replace the classic banana split.

[via Gizmodo]

Steven Leckart

Retro Mega-Fridge: Huge, Red and $10K!

Forget hacking an ice box for energy-efficiency. Go big or go home with this roughly-$10,000 all-in-one from Meneghini.

[via Unplggd via Freshome]

Rob Beschizza

Kitchen Timer

Emma Caselton's ingenious design for a recipe holder has a little bar that moves down the sheet, telling the cook exactly what to do and when to do it. Brilliant! [Yanko design]

Steven Leckart

DIY Low-NRG Fridge: Coolest Ice Box Ever?

Tom Chalko built this low-energy refrigerator out of a chest freezer. He rigged it with a SparOmeter that measures power consumption (bottom left) and a $40 external thermometer (top right) with a battery-operated internal relay that cuts the power at a set temp.

Says Tom:

In the first 24 hours my new chest fridge took 103 Wh (0.103 kWh) of energy. About 30% of this energy was consumed during the initial power up and re-arranging of the fridge content. The room temperature varied from 21oC during the day to 15oC at night. The fridge interior temperature was kept between +4o and +7o C. The fridge compressor was working only for about 90 seconds per hour. When the thermostat intervened - the fridge consumed ZERO power. The only active part was a battery powered temperature display.

Results of my experiment exceeded all my expectations. My chest fridge consumes as much energy in 24 hours as a 100W light bulb does in just an hour. Not only it is energy efficient. I have never seen a fridge that was SO quiet. It only works 90 seconds or so every hour. At all other times it is perfectly quiet and consumes no power whatsoever. My wind/solar system batteries and the power sensing inverter simply love it. With my new chest fridge I have power to spare and I can use it to warm up my house in winter with a heat pump. I wonder why no one has ever thought of a chest fridge controlled by a digital thermostat...

Instructions are available at Build It Solar (links to PDF).

[via Home Design Find]

Rob Beschizza

A space invader, short and stout

[Vesselideation via Gamer Grrlz via Technabob and Gizmodo]

Lisa Katayama

Customizable ceramic kitchen radio

Check out this ceramic kitchen radio from the designers at Israel's Studio Lama. The greatest thing about it is that you could decorate it any way you want.

[via Dezeen]

Lisa Katayama

Water carbonator looks like a sex toy

This looks like a deformed dildo, but it's actually a kitchen tool, a home water carbonator for those of you who prefer agua con gaz over normal tap water. It was designed by Aemillios Grohmann and André Kieker for water treatment machine maker WasserMaxx.

via MoCo Loco

Steven Leckart

Camp Stove Burn Wood, Fire Make Hot

GearJunkie has the goods on the StoveTec, a small wood-burning cook top that costs $35 and would make a caveman proud:

Aprovecho has created a simple wood-burning stove with a clay elbow that focuses the heat and fire in the combustion chamber directly toward a cooking pot. According to the organization, this setup dramatically reduces fuel consumption compared to open fires used for cooking by millions around the planet...

With its success in the humanitarian realm, StoveTec has made an unlikely expansion into the consumer camping market...

I tested the StoveTec GreenFire One Door stove. It has the same type of efficient combustion chamber as on the humanitarian stoves though with a handle, metal case walls, and a painted exterior finish. It comes with a pot skirt to focus flame heat and a stick support shelf where the wood sits.

It is heavy and not very portable. It does not have the jet-like flame output of a canister stove. But in my test, the GreenFire proved to be easy to use and efficient, requiring just a few small pieces of wood to boil water or cook a meal in a pot.

Here's a thorough demo of the two-door model:

Steven Leckart

What's So "Smart" About An Automated Kitchen?

Anvil Motion is revolutionizing the kitchen:

Simply wave your hand and cabinet panels and doors rise and fall vertically with precision, concealing or revealing contents. Using a wireless touch-screen device, cabinets can also be programmed to open in unison or individually through preprogrammed scenes that customize your living space to the need at hand. In the kitchen, for example, a baking scene would open cabinets that house ovens, baking implements and standard baking ingredients.

The hand-crafted kitchen also comes with "biometric security," which means future teenagers will have to drug their parents to commandeer eyes and/or faces just to raid the liquor cabinet.

Awesome.

[via New Launches via Gizmodiva via Electronic House]

Rob Beschizza

Review: 15 minutes with Pledge's Fabric Sweeper for Pet Hair

Pledge's $5 hair box is a plastic gadget equipped with rollers. Designed to squeeze up pet hair regardless of which direction it's rolled, it's more expensive than adhesive rollers--but claims to be better. I picked one up at Target and put it to the dog bed. Thoughts:

• It works as well as a roller, but not better.
• Definitely not as gross as roller sheets.
• It's ridiculously designed to make it impossible to empty.
• But it works just fine if you empty and re-use it.

Pledge's decision to to mold the cover permanently to the base is a cheap attempt at screwing customers, but it's a neat gadget all the same--and nothing an Xacto knife can't fix.

Update: Reader I Am At Work offers a useful Instructable on re-using them.

Rob Beschizza

Review: A week with Dyson's DC22 Motorhead

Dyson's DC22's is a compact and powerful canister vac that looks like a cyberpunk chain gun. Though it's extremely good at its job, the $800 price tag highlights its few flaws and places it out of the price range of many shoppers.

READ THE REST

Steven Leckart

HOWTO: Build A Milk Crate Toilet Composter

The folks at Homegrown Evolution, authors of The Urban Homestead, put together a great guide for creating one of these "humanure" Johns out of a five-gallon bucket, milk crate, seat, cable ties, and some scrap wood.

Assembly is straightforward and requires only basic tools, including a jigsaw or keyhole saw.

If you're going to try preparing poop-manure, be sure to read up beforehand.

If you're not interested in compost, this badboy could also make a fine emergency toilet.

Rob Beschizza

Reading Lamp

Designed by Jun Yasumoto, Alban Le Henry, Olivier Pigasse and Vincent Vandenbrouck, this reading lamp turns itself off when you drape a book over it. Genius. [Core77]

Steven Leckart

BBQ Coffee Roaster

I've never roasted my own coffee, but I'm game to try it. The GEN2 Coffee Roaster drum kit is an aluminum cage and rotisserie you place on a standard bbq. Seems like a simple, potentially useful way to heat your beans.

Then again, it costs $110. Not terrible, but that's several times the price of an old popcorn popper, which can roast just fine and doesn't require manual turning. Aside from handling larger batches, I'd love to know why the bbq roaster is preferable.

[via Cooking Gadgets]

Lisa Katayama

Ceramic knives inspired by cavemen

New York designer Matthias Kaeding has an interesting new idea for kitchen knife designs &mdash why not take it back a few years and resurrect designs from the Stone Age? His Neolithic knives, made with high quality ceramic, actually work really well for cutting, mincing, chopping, and slicing. Cavemen were really good at making durable utensils &mdash apparently, a lot of the prehistoric tools kept in museums today are still perfectly functional.

Matthias Kaeding's web site [via Dezeen]

Lisa Katayama

Ironing board doubles as a full-length mirror

Multifunction is great when it can be pulled off without compromising style. This ironing board designed by Aissa Logerot flips back into a full-length mirror.

Aissa Logerot's web site [via MoCo Loco]

Steven Leckart

Kenyan Builds DIY Smart Home

Using an array of salvaged electronics, Kenyan tinkerer Simon Mwaura turned his cell phone into a remote control that lets him turn on lights, monitor his front door, and even brew tea.

[via AfriGadget]

Joel Johnson

Video Review: Vita-Mix 5200 Blender

Make no mistake: A Vita-Mix 5200 blender is overkill for the home kitchen. It's $450, to start. And its laudable blending ability doesn't even make itself apparent unless you're blending quite a bit of food at once. But over the course of the last month, I've yet to find food it can't turn into a healthful slop—eventually.

(You can buy a smaller blending carafe that makes it more suitable for home use, but that'll set you back nearly another $100.)

Steven Leckart

BBQ Tip: Try An Infrared BBQ & Talking Thermometer

To celebrate 4th of July, I dropped by Wired to play with the Solaire Anywhere Portable Grill and Oregon Scientific's Wireless Talking BBQ Thermometer. Note: Sorry for the pre-roll ad. No more pre-roll. Thanks, YouTube!

Steven Leckart

O Beautiful For Spacious Bag, For Amber Waves of Beer

Timbuk2's Dolores Cooler messenger sack can hold a 12-pack of canned PBR*. The lining is insulated. One of the straps features a red pop top. All you need now is a designated cyclist.

*Person who comes up w/the best addendum, wins.**

**The prize: respect and admiration from your peers.

Rob Beschizza

A toilet made of poo

LOOWATT: Toilet Made From Poo Transforms Excrement into Energy
by Mike Chino [Inhabitat]

Joel Johnson

EZGrill, a single-use portable charcoal grill

There's not much to an EZGrill, the single-use aluminum pan filled with charcoal. It's impossible not to look at the thing and think "I could make that myself in about ten minutes." And maybe you can.

But can you fill it with 100% natural charcoal?* EZGrill has—enough to grill for an hour-and-a-half. Tear off the top, light a match on the starter paper, and let the coals flame down for about 15 minutes and you should be good to go.

Perhaps it's wasteful—warding people away from "unsanitary grills at the park" puts my teeth on edge, as there's no more lovely sanitizer than fire—but I can think of a few scenarios where a five-dollar little grill could be very handy. (I mentioned it was only five bucks, right?) Camping at the beach, for instance, or anywhere where fire pits are not welcome or provided. Quick outdoor cookouts at the end of a backpacking session. Or even just on the back porch for people who don't want to bother with buying a grill.

It should even be possible to recycle the grill when it's done by washing out the ashes. They're already using recycled aluminum, too.

If you want one now, you'll have to find a Winn-Dixie. If you don't know what that is (it's a southern grocery chain), then you'll just have to wait, because there's no online ordering.

* How "natural" is hard to say, and it's certainly not lump or chunk charcoal, but the manufacturer does at least note that they don't use sulfur, borax, or contaminated clay—a welcome touch, even if it will make recreating the nuance of street food a challenge that can only be solved with an infusion of carbon monoxide and Clorox.