Monday, May 18, 2026

Every Jewellery Metal Ranked (Some Are Terrible)

I don't know Mason Mignanelli from Adam, but he clearly knows more about working with metals for jewelry than I do.

As an aside, sources seem to say that jewelry (as my browser wants me to spell the word) and jewellery (as Mason spells it in his video title) are both correct, but that the shorter spelling is more prevalent in the US (where I am) and the longer is more prevalent in the UK (where I assume Mason is).

As a warning, the video does have a couple of spicy words at 1:30 (s*** - spoken), 1:40 (s*** - spoken), 5:55 (s*** - spoken), 6:30 (s*** - spoken), and 7:20 (kicka** - shown on screen).

tl;dr - no one metal is perfect. They all involve tradeoffs or workability/hardness, cost, and appearance. 

Monday, May 11, 2026

Perfect Aircrete, Kitchen Ingredients.

I've said it before that I'm not much of a DIY-er, so I'm not likely to make my own cement blocks to build anything, but I like the idea of trying this as a project with my students to balance strength/weight/cost in a building material.

The short version of the above video is that a version of aircrete can be made with xanthan gum, rubbing alcohol, water, dish soap, and cement with some vigorous mixing (a kitchen blender, a drill with a drywall mud attachment, or a smallish cement mixer).

Monday, May 4, 2026

The pastry and marble counter myth

I demonstrate something like this in my classroom using Flinn's ice melting blocks and a knock-off MiracleThaw from a second-hand store.

As one of the comments for the above video notes, "Thermodynamics is often very counter-intuitive." 

See, it's funny because Adam's talking about counter materials in the kitchen.

I'll wait while you laugh.

Remember, vinegar leg on the right.