Author: mike

The LEGO Movie was one of our favorite flicks of 2014. Not only was it hilarious and clever, it was packed with amazing animation which mimicked low-budget brickfilm style using CGI. They literally built each object brick by digital brick.
via The Awesomer
The LEGO Movie: Behind the Bricks

If your Google search just isn’t returning the quality content you want, this little URL trick might find more in-depth articles on the subject you’re searching for.

Alex Chitu at Google Operating System recently discovered that Google has a section for "in-depth articles", from which it features longer posts from sites like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired, The Economist, and more. It only seems to work in the US, and it only pops up sometimes—but you can manually bring it up by adding this to the end of your search URL:

&tbs=ida:1&gl=us

It doesn’t work all the time, and it’s certainly a bit limiting, but it’s worth a shot if Google just isn’t giving you the kind of results you want.

Find In-Depth Articles | Google Operating System

via Lifehacker
Find In-Depth Articles on Google with a URL Trick

Fascia boards are susceptible to water damage, which leads to rotting wood boards that can become loose and are unsightly. Repair your fascia boards for a subtle home makeover.

Fascia boards run horizontally under a roofs edge and can be made of wood or sheet metal. These boards are installed in segments and the seams should be lined up at the rafters which protects the ends from water damage.

If the paint is peeling from the fascia board (pictured above), but the wood is in good condition, then sand and repaint your boards. If you notice signs of rot, you will need to cut those sections out at the rafters and replace them. Check out the video above for instructions on mitering fascia boards to accommodate corners.

Avoid 16 penny common nails which can cause fascia boards to crack and splinter. Use 8 or 10 penny galvanized finishing nails to install the new fascia boards. Use wood filler to fill cracks at seams and corners and then sand.

Lastly, prime and paint your new fascia boards to complete the look. Check out the video above for more.

Repairing Fascia Boards | Paul Ricalde (YouTube)

Photo by Robin McShaffry

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Repair Damaged Fascia Boards for an Instant Home Facelift

When we tried the first iteration of Rustoleum’s seemingly magic, liquid-repelling spray, we were actually pretty damn impressed—water beading off toilet paper rolls! Now, though, NeverWet’s come out with a version that doesn’t leave a gross residue. And while this new NeverWet may indeed be less sticky, it is a hell of a lot more wet.

The main problem with the original hydrophobic spray was that it left a thin, chalky glove covering a treated object and everything it came into contact with. Not so with the outdoor fabric spray; as you can see from the below post-treatment photos, NeverWet Outdoor Fabric dried almost totally clear and with minimal, if any, residue.

Convenient! Unlike the actual treatment process. The application instructions read as follows:

Use outdoors or in a well ventilated area. Use when temperature is above 50ºF (10ºC) and humidity is below 85% to ensure proper drying. Avoid spraying in windy or dusty conditions. Allow to dry outside for 24 hours before use.

So if you live anywhere even remotely rainy. Or humid. Or windy. Or dusty. Or if it’s winter. Or late fall. Or early spring. If any of those apply, there’s a good chance you will be out of luck. Granted, the original NeverWet had an even more time consuming (and slightly more toxic) application process in general, but at least you weren’t confined to the tiniest sliver of workable weather conditions. To make sure we were giving our chosen specimens the best chance at success possible, it took us two and a half weeks after receiving the product to finally be graced with a day suitable to NeverWet’s many needs.

Once we did finally start spraying, we hit a few of the same road bumps as we did when we tested the original NeverWet. The bottles claim to cover 20 to 60 square-feet each, depending on what you’re spraying. It took us about three bottles just to cover the shirt, diaper, sponge, and formerly delicious snack cake you see below. And just like last year’s version, the spray itself comes paired with a nice throat-burning sensation and a general scent of poison.

If you ever want to cover anything actually substantial (say, the outdoor patio furniture this product is intended for), you are going to need to shell out for a whole lot of NeverWet. At $15 a pop, that can add up quick. And what’s more, it’s probably not worth it in the first place.

While the first NeverWet did have that unsavory residue problem, at least it kept your shit dry. It was for heavy duty jobs, after all, a little stickiness sloughing off is understandable. But this batch is for your more delicate needs. Your sneakers, shirts, gloves, jackets, tablecloths, etc. And for what it’s worth, Rustoleum definitely took that into consideration—it does dry to a near-invisible silky sheen. But with the less aggressive spray comes a far less effective product.

The sponge might as well have been freshly unwrapped. Unlike the original NeverWet-ed sponge before it, this sucked up water no problem. In fairness, it’s not meant for sponges. But the shirt didn’t hold up much better. There was barely any beading, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds of pouring before the garment was pretty much soaked.

With the diaper, we decided to see if maybe going to to town would help. And after expunging an entire bottle and a half of NeverWet on the baby bottoms, it sort of did! Water beaded for a good 30 seconds before totally permeating the fabric, at least. Which is more than we can say for the shirt. Also, never put NeverWet on something a baby will wear.

But! We did get an almost entirely impenetrable snack cake for a solid minute or so, which probably doesn’t say a whole lot about the snack cake but does at least show, with less porous materials, the new NeverWet can get the job done. It’s just too bad most fabric happens to be porous.

And either way, what we ended up with was nothing like what was being advertised:

Now, it should be noted that if you were to use NeverWet on, say, an umbrella or outdoor patio, furniture it would probably fair a little better. As you can see in the video below, it does at least help prevent stains on outdoor fabric. Does gunk bead and/or wipe off with the ease above? Not quite, and you’d probably have to reapply (god knows how many bottles) each time whatever you were hoping to keep dry would be getting any sort of heavy use.

Still, you have to use an absurd amount of product to cover such a small area. To do the same for the shirt that we did for the diaper, we would have needed to have gone through five or six bottles before coming out with something workable. So if you’re hoping this is the magic solution to your cloth-covered needs, you’re probably better off investing in the original set. Or better yet, just get a poncho.

via Gizmodo
NeverWet’s Clear Water-Repelling Spray: Less Magic, More Wet

Lasrick writes Dawn Stover describes the radioactive dirt behind the creation of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, from its inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act (the park legislation wouldn’t pass otherwise) and lack of funding for national parks in general to the lack of funding for cleanup at Superfund nuclear sites like Hanford. And then there is how the Parks Service is presenting exhibits: at least some of them are described in the past tense, as if nuclear weapons were a thing of the past. Here’s the description of the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota: "Nuclear war loomed as an apocalyptic shadow that could possibly have brought human history to an end." Can the National Park Service be ignorant of the fact that missiles remain on station, nuclear weapons are still being stockpiled, and saber rattling did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

via Slashdot
What’s Wrong With the Manhattan Project National Park

We’ve all worked with someone who we don’t like, and sometimes, you don’t even realize what you don’t like about them. Fast Company spoke with conflict consultant Kathleen Bartle, who suggests it’s best to recognize what about them sends you into a rage so you can deal with it better.

The idea here is basically to prepare yourself for a coworker who you don’t like and to watch for whatever it is that triggers your annoyance:

Take a look at what sets you off and who’s pushing your buttons. That way, you can prepare for when it happens again. When your teeth are on edge and your hands start to shake, you can check in with yourself and defuse your response. Therefore, you won’t end up erupting angrily in the moment, which is almost never a good idea in the workplace.

"If you can pause and get a grip on your adrenaline pump and go to the intellectual part of your brain, you’ll be better able to have a conversation and to skip over the judgment," Bartle says.

It’s similar to dealing with a frustratingly dumb coworker, but the caveat here is that the onus is on you to check yourself. We all have certain personality characteristics that we don’t along with and the workplace is a melting pot of those characteristics. You might not like it, but you have to learn to deal with it.

How to Deal with a Coworker You Can’t Stand | Fast Company

Photo by David Trawin.

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Track Your Triggers To Help You Deal with an Obnoxious Coworker

Our first look at Marvel’s next summer popcorn flick, the story of a superhero who can muster tremendous strength, but only when he shrinks down to the size of an ant. Stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas.
via The Awesomer
Ant-Man (Teaser)