Milk crates were surely one of the first accessories ever strapped to a bicycle. It’s the simplest way to add significant carrying capacity to any bike. One of the first things I did when I got my bike was add a rack and a milk crate – but I wasn’t quite smart about it.

I wanted the crate to be removable, so rather than securing it with zip ties, I recycled some old tire tubes and inter-wove them with the rack and the holes in the crate. It seemed pretty solid, so I thought I’d make a trip to the liquor store. The problem with the tubes is they’re made of rubber, so they stretch. They stretch a little too much for a beer-laden milk crate.

When I got out of the saddle, rocking the bike ever so slightly was enough to stretch the tubes, and send my beers flying. I burst some Surly’s halfway home. Lesson learned.
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No I haven’t been giving my 2-year-old wine, scotch, or beer. The point is, I don’t have to. She acts like a drunk 24/7. If you don’t believe me, I present for your amusement, the ways a 2-year-old is like a drunk…

They’re easily incited. If a chant is started, they’ll quickly join in, whether or not the chant goal meets their needs, they just want to join in the fun.


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When you want to carry some stuff beyond a 6-pack of beer on your bike, trailers are the way to go. Minneapolis, being the bike-friendly city it is, is home to the “Little Red Trailer” – a neat little trailer that’s made from recycled wood.

David of Dayworks Inc. builds sets for theater productions, and when it’s time to strike, he uses the wood to fashion the trailer. It has a metal frame at the base and 12″ pneumatic tires.
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From touring Miller & Budweiser breweries, I noticed both sites have caves – which have steady year-round temperatures. I assume the caves were used to lager, which means “storage” in German.  Lager yeasts, unlike ale yeast which ferment at room temperature, do their primary fermentation in the mid-50 degree range.  During secondary fermentation the temperature is dropped steadily to slowly deactivate the yeasts.  Back in the day, the barrels could be moved deeper into the cave day-by-day to slowly lower the temperature from the mid-50s down to almost freezing (35°F).

Yogurt Maker?

I had an idea to automate this process using an Arduino, especially after reading Chris Reilly’s Arduino yogurt maker from Make Magazine volume 25.  Everything I’ve done here was based on that, so I’ll assume you’ve read it.

Lagering is essentially the same process except instead of using a heat source (crock-pot), we use a cooler (refrigerator).  Getting the refrigerator to maintain temps above 40°F can be tricky, so normally an external temperature regulator is used.  But this requires me going out to the fridge every day to lower the temperature by one degree.  So why not automate it?  Laziness FTW!
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Ahh, the Internet.  It’s primary usage has changed over the years, from file sharing, to pornography, to movie streaming.  But one thing has always been at the fore-front: social interaction.  But before the advent of Facebook, there were bulletin boards, newsgroups, and forums (some of which are still in use)… and all of these discussion outlets, once they hone in on a particular subject or subculture, become cesspools of riotous mobs, ready and willing to press THE CAPSLOCK KEY, and add copious amounts of exclamation marks at will!!!!!!!111one

A friend of mine said:

There’s something about the niche nature of [insert forum topic here] that attracts supercilious and argumentative people.

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