Thence to the butteries!

I like making toast on the stovetop - you can use the warm pan to melt the butter that goes on the toast! I wonder, though, how many children brought up in the age of toasters have ever done it this way. Or how many have ever boiled water in a teakettle.

I have a very small kitchen and very few appliances. Here are some of the things I've done away with:

1. Microwave. Just about the only thing I miss is reheating rice and pasta. What amazes me the most is how amazed people are when I tell them I don't have one.
   
2. Toaster. Turns out this just doesn't do as good of a job as the stovetop.
   
3. Coffee maker. I live within walking distance of a coffee shop that makes better coffee than I ever could. If I need something at home I make tea.
4. Garbage disposal. Ok, I kind of miss this one. However, one beneficial side-effect is that my trash goes out almost every day, keeping my kitchen nice and tidy. It also makes my trash really, really nasty which prevents the alley scavengers from digging through it too much.
5. Dishwasher. I really miss this one, actually. I don't like doing dishes at all.
   
6. Counter-top blender. I use a hand blender, which does a better job on smoothies and is easier to clean, to boot.

Looking over these discarded items, it's interesting to note that they all run on electricity. So I'm probably saving money and the environment along with space and ownership headache.

I will note, however, that teakettles do seem to encourage drinking more than just one cup of tea. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing yet.

(I also love the fact that my apartment came with a quite serviceable four-burner gas range, with a smallish stove underneath. Gas rocks for real cooking, and the small stove is a huge benefit in terms of time - a small stove heats up much faster than a large one. I kind of like the soft "wooshing" sound it makes, too. :)

Extra credit to the person who knows where the title for this post comes from.

An interesting side-effect of web-based mail: non-repudiation

The thing about web-based mail is that you can't mess with the data. If you run you're own mail server, you can mess with the data. This is actually a very good reason to use webmail, even if you have the skill and desire to run your own webserver. Indeed, if you get in the habit of sending signed messages, it's even better.

Of course, privacy is very good reason to NOT use webmail.

There is an elegant solution that allows one to have both: encrypted web mail. FireGPG is a wonderful little plugin that modifies the gmail interface so that you can sign, encrypt, or sign & encrypt outgoing email.

The only drawback is that your recipient has to know how to deal with such messages, which is a nontrivial problem. (even with nice tools like GnuPG, FireGPG it's a tough row to hoe. PKI (public key infrastructure) is difficult for people because not only does it require the installation of special software, but it absolutely requires that they have some bits with them (their private key) and remember a password (to unlock the private key). There can be no "I forgot my password" function in the system (at least, AFAICT).


P.S. Solving the PKI adoption problem is bound to be more social than technical. However, one could go a long way by a) pre-installing PKI tools in operating systems and web interfaces, b) offering hosted private keys (very safe if password is strong), and c) reducing the number of passwords people have to remember to 1 and making sure that they never forget it (which really helps achieve b), too).