Make a Moss Terrarium for Low-Maintenance Greenery

If you want some greenery in your home or office but you're not too keen on, or skilled at, tending a high-maintenance plant, a moss terrarium is a hassle-free bit of greenery you practically have to try to kill.

Make a Moss Terrarium for Low-Maintenance Greenery

The Basics

For grinders, your best bet is to go with Hario, a Japanese company whose engineering is unrivaled. The Skerton (shown above) is what we personally use. You can manually adjust the settings depending on what size grounds you're seeking, and since it's a burr grinder, you can depend on it to grind your coffee evenly. Best of all, it's durable.

To make sure our coffee stays fresh and that it doesn't get damaged during travel, we like to use a dry bag similar to those offered by Outdoor Research. Unlike a Ziploc, or—God forbid—the bag your coffee actually came in, the roll top stays closed even under pressure, which will make sure your clothes don't end up smelling like coffee. On the other hand, if smelling like coffee is your thing, who are we to stop you?

Rounding out the basics is an OXO jigger which we use to measure our coffee beans. One and a half ounces weighs about fifteen grams ( one and a half ounces by volume equals fifteen grams by weight), so with this figure in mind you can scale up or down depending on how much coffee you'll be making. For added convenience, the jigger fits neatly inside the canister of the Skerton grinder. It's the perfect compromise between precision and portability.

How to Make (and Take) Great Coffee Anywhere

How To Test If a Battery Is Dead

An Amazingly Simple Way To Test If a Battery Is Dead

It turns out that when the alkaline in a battery wears down, it produces a gas that fills the inside. So if you've got a box of random batteries you want to test, and don't have access to a voltmeter or any other device, you can simply drop them vertically a short distance onto a hard surface. 

A charged battery will make a solid thump sound and often remain standing, while a dead battery makes a muffled sound, bounces repeatedly, and then topples over.

Via: http://gizmodo.com