thumb stealth

Keychain Browser

Portable Firefox 1.0

Free, http: // johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox

Fit Firefox on a USB Drive

Portable Firefox can be installed and run entirely from a USB thumb drive on any Windows machine.

You can stroll into your local fern bar/internet cafe/buddy’s house, plug in your thumb drive and have your browser, your bookmarks, your passwords, etc., all instantly available. Plus, all browser-cache activity is redirected to the thumb drive as well, so all your detritus comes with you when you unplug the drive. You leave no personal “footprints” on the host machine. —Bob Scott

Better Biking Through Science

Bicycling Science: Third Edition,
by David Gordon Wilson
$23, ISBN 0262731541,
www.mitpress.com

TOOLBOX

Tamperproof screws meet their match.

Screw Buster Boxer TP62 Security Kit $30, www.calcentron.com

Once I got a Boxer TP62 screwdriver kit, I realized the world was held together with tamperproof screws and started carrying it with me everywhere. Previously, if I came across an obscure tamperproof screw, I would grind an Allen wrench until I could jam it in or mickey

mouse some sort of welding rod and Vise-Grip contraption.

The Boxer TP62 is a standard removable bit, plus a ratcheting screwdriver with not only the expected standard Phillips and flat bits, but also 57 high-security tamperproof bits to open damn near every machine meant to remain unopened. From the sinister Snake Eyes Spanner to the three-blade Phillips, there are bits for screws I didn’t even realize were removable. With the Boxer, you think, “For now, you bastard screws will remain impervious, steadfastly guarding against the random reordering of tenant listings. But make no mistake, should I desire, I could have every damn one of you removed in seconds. And I would eat you like hot peanuts.” —Mister Jalopy

Released in April 2004, David Gordon Wilson’s updated Bicycling Science fills the gap between, on the one hand, shop manuals and training guides, and on the other, contemporary literature on human-powered vehicles.

Wilson, profes- Exploring the sor emeritus at physics of MIT, navigates pedal-powered physics and locomotion. physiology to produce a hefty source of insight.

He splits his book into three sections: the biology of human-power generation including the role of oxygen uptake and distributing, the physics of turning complicated muscle motions into linear velocity, and radical redesigns of the standard diamond-frame bicycle.

Bicycling Science can be used as a handbook for the armchair designer of human-powered vehicles or as a way to answer the nagging science questions that arise after a thoughtful bike ride.

Perhaps its most inspiring use, however, is as a bed-table compendium of standalone investigations into what engineers have come up with on a device that has been perfected, again and again, for decades longer than the internal combustion engine.

—Simon DeDeo

Make: 179