TOOLBOX
Electric Spin Dryer
$135 laundry-alternative.com
I love drying my clothes on the line, both for environmental and aesthetic
reasons (not much beats the smell of clothes dried in the sunshine), but my
shady San Francisco courtyard is only practical at the height of summer — the
rest of the year, I can hang a towel out from dawn to dusk and it just won’t dry.
Enter Laundry Alternative’s cool electric spin dryer. A small portable electric
device, it spins up to 12lbs of wet clothes at 3,200rpm for about 4 minutes,
leaving your clothes just a touch damp. I was amazed at how much water came
dripping out of the little spigot (almost a quart), and when I hung the clothes
out on the line, they dried in less than an hour, even in the late afternoon.
While that won’t help me on foggy winter days, it will significantly extend my
clothesline season, and cut down on the length of time I use the dryer on rainy
days. Next up: testing out their hand-cranked washing machine!
—Arwen O’Reilly Griffith
Movie Madness
$1–$5 rifftrax.com
Have you ever seen a really bad movie
that you really wish would be ripped
to shreds? The people at Riff Trax have,
and they continuously rip lame movies
to pieces in the form of humorous
commentary. Comedic genius Michael
Nelson of Mystery Science Theater
3000 fame and his cohorts from the
same show, Bill Corbett and Kevin
Murphy, take famous movies such as
Twilight, Casablanca, Transformers,
Jurassic Park, and Ocean’s Eleven and
add some of the funniest observations
on the internet. Each riffing costs only
a few bucks, and then you sync the
commentary to the movie using audio
cues, and you’re set.
If you think you’re funny enough, you
can even upload your own commentary
for profit. I’ve tried, and it’s given me
a renewed respect for what these guys
do. Riff Trax is the best and funniest
website you aren’t visiting.
—Eric Ponvelle
158 Make: Volume 21
Whiteboard Your World
$99 and up ideapaint.com
When you have an idea, you write it down. But
just as chalkboards made their way out of our
lives, it’s time for whiteboards to do the same.
Get IdeaPaint instead, which turns almost any flat
surface into a whiteboard. Simply figure out what
color you want — IdeaPaint comes in ten colors
— and where you want to apply it.
Our interns Kris Magri and Tyler Moskowite
tested it out here in the MAKE Labs. While it’s a bit
of a long process (the paint is supposed to cure for
7 days), it’s a lot of fun once you start. If you can’t
find Daniel Carter, our creative director, at his desk,
he’s probably in the Labs, drawing away. You can
watch the whole process at vimeo.com/7671005.
—Ed Troxell
