Hasta La Gadget!

Clearly the chef cooking here is too stupid to be allowed into the kitchen, let alone given an iPad

Why spend 90 cents on a tough, reusable Ziploc bag when you could spend $20 on a pack of 25 disposable plastic film envelopes? That’s the great, great deal offered to you by the folks at Chef Sleeve, who will sell you thin, waterproof pouches for your iPad at “just” 80 cents apiece.

The Chef Sleeve is — as the name suggests — designed to protect your iPad from spills while cooking. Sized perfectly for the tablet, the bag seals the iPad in with a re-closeable sticky strip and lets the magic meat power of your fingers through to operate the touch screen. It’s also good for any other hostile environment, like the beach (as if you could read the screen anyway) or the bathroom.

It looks like a fine product, and the packaging even doubles as wobbly-looking iPad dock. But it is disposable, and this is not only environmentally hostile but bad for your budget. Yes, the sleeves are recyclable, but that still takes a lot of energy to do.

A Ziploc might be a little bulkier, but it will last forever in this task. And if you head to the FedEx store, you could pick up a zip-locking invoice sleeve. There’s one that seems perfectly sized for the iPad, and it’s probably free. It even comes with a sticky back for permanent refrigerator mounting.

Chef Sleeve product page [Chef Sleeve. Thanks, Michael!]

See Also:

• Watertight
• DIY Kitchen Hacks: Poor Man's Sous Vide
• Vacuum-Packed: Waterproof Case for Tablets
• How-To Make a Waterproof, Kitchen-Proof iPad Case and Stand …

One day in the future, we’ll all drive around in electric cars and gas pumps will be replaced by clean charging stations. Also, free ice cream. Until then, get in line — or better yet, reserve a spot online courtesy of ChargePoint‘s online database of alternative fueling stations. The Coulomb Technologies-run site displays charging stations on a Google Map, with a colored pin letting you know in real-time whether someone is currently topping off their Tesla. If you’re the type with foresight — you did buy an electric car, after all — you can schedule some quality time with an outlet on the site using your ChargePass card. The cost of charging is determined by the station’s manager, and appointments can be cancelled up to 24 hours in advance. The site has some serious competition on the EV charging map, courtesy of the newly launched GeoEVSE, a collaboration between US Department of Energy, Google, and 80 other companies. Maybe the new reservations feature will help ChargePoint win the race to your heart.

Continue reading ChargePoint lets you reserve electric charging stations, cuts down on alternative fueling fistfights

ChargePoint lets you reserve electric charging stations, cuts down on alternative fueling fistfights originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The spiral-shaped pen refill carries twice as much ink as a regular refill

How do you fit double the ink into the refill of a ballpen? By twisting the tube into a spiral, that’s how. Called the T&T Pen-Ink Chamber, the helical coil fits into any regular pen barrel and sits there for twice as long as a normal refill.

The concept design makes much the refill’s reduced environmental impact, claiming that you’ll create less plastic waste as you’ll be tossing away fewer pens. But what about the refill itself? The normal, skinny refills can be packed close together into shipping boxes, whereas the spiral will take up a lot more space. Still, it’s worth it, if only because most people throw away pens when they’re empty.

Double the ink means double the fun!

Or do they? I rarely get to finish all the ink in a pen before it breaks. You’ll be familiar with the problem: somehow, no matter whether it is stored nib up, nib down or horizontally, the tar-like, bitter-tasting* ink will slowly creep up the tube until it reaches the top, and it will then stickily ooze into the barrel of the pen itself. This is what needs to be fixed. Putting more ink into a spiral tube is just loading up more ink to be wasted later.

Spiral Makes a Difference [Yanko]

*No. I don’t remember how I know what the ink tastes like. I just know.

See Also:

• Pink Tactical Pen Sends Mixed Messages
• Dead Pen Challenge: Biro Cutlery Hack
• Metal Pen with Level and Screwdriver
• Rubber Pen Organiser Wraps Around Notebooks

GE’s 3-in-1 bulb lights up instantly yet still saves power

Can’t decide between a warm, instant-on halogen bulb, a long-lasting, low-power compact fluorescent or a plain old incandescent in its familiar bulb shape? You don’t have to. Just buy GE’s new hybrid and you get all three, in one handsome glass bauble.

The bulb looks like any bulb you may have bought in the last hundred years or so, but inside you’ll find a cool CF tube coiled spring-like around a hot halogen core. When you flip the switch, the halogen lamp lights up instantly, and the CF tube starts to warm up. When the tube reaches full power, the halogen lamp winks off.

The bulb, which will start showing up in stores this month, will come in two colors, both of them white: 2,700 Kelvin and a slightly warmer 2,500 Kelvin. They will burn for up to 8,000 hours, eight times the life of an incandescent. You’ll pay between $6 and $10 depending on the wattage and model you choose.

I like this, and I think I may send one to my parents to put in their computer room (yes, they still have a “computer room”). Whenever I Skype them, usually when it’s late and I’m drunk enough to want to talk to them, they flip on the CF light in their room and I am treated to ten minutes of dim orange shapes looming into view on my 27-inch monitor. Finally the lights come up to speed and I can actually make out my mother, at which time the gin finally kicks in and everything goes blurry again.

Three Bulbs in One: GE’s Hybrid Halogen-CFL with Incandescent Shape [GE. Thanks, David!]

See Also:

• What's Inside a Lightbulb? Twenty Inches of Tungsten Coil
• 'World's Only' Solar-Powered Light-Bulb
• Beautiful Sculpted Lightbulb Too Good for a Shade
• LED Lightbulb Lasts 19 Years, Claims Right to Vote

In what has become an annual tradition now, the WWF’s Earth Hour is presently sweeping across the globe, getting people to switch off non-essential lights and appliances for a sixty-minute kindness to Ma Earth and her finite energy resources. All you’ll need to do to participate is power down the old World of Warcraft questing station, turn the TV off, and maybe take a walk outside so your lights don’t have to be on, starting at 8:30PM tonight. Half the world’s already done its bit and it’s now coming around to those in the UK, Portugal and Western African countries to do the same. Will you be part of it?

Continue reading Earth Hour 2011 starts at 8:30PM your local time, wants you to switch off for a bit

Earth Hour 2011 starts at 8:30PM your local time, wants you to switch off for a bit originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 16:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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