Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting, but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch. By the way, much
(but not all) of our delicious Popcorn comes from articles we’ve posted on our Facebook page. If you’re on Facebook, please stop by and “Like” us and we’ll keep a fairly-constant-but-not-frequent-enough-to-be-annoying stream of these coming to your virtual door!
You’ll kick yourself for not knowing these tricks already
We found a wonderful article full of “lifehacks”; simple, inexpensive, creative ways to solve problems you might not even know you had. There are pages of these ideas, and most are simple enough to get across in a picture or a couple sentences. “CD spindle makes a great bagel tote” is a good example, but you’ll also find out how to fold a shirt in under 2 seconds, how to Google effectively, how to make an iPhone speaker from a toilet paper roll, how to remove unpopped kernels from microwave popcorn, how to remove egg yolks using a plastic bottle, and much more.
10 incredibly simple things you can do to protect your privacy
Edward Snowden’s revelations (among many others) pretty much confirmed that there is no such thing as privacy anymore. Whether it’s Big Government Brother or Big Corporate Brother, there’s a powerful entity peeking (or at least able to peek) over your shoulder at everything you do. While it may not be possible to ever rebuild the firewall between you and the world, there are things you can do to put up an attractive fence that could still keep out riff-raff like identity thieves. Here’s a list of 10 quick and simple things you can do to get started.
Tom Dwyer enters the world of sports
Here’s some breaking news from the world of sports… there’s a new power in town when it comes to darts. Tom Dwyer Automotive Services has fielded a dart team to participate in this year’s Portland Area Dart Association league play. Our dartists(?) are Andrew Mayer, Sarah Heidler, Matt McKenzie, and Charles Letherwood, and the team, named “The Mechanics”, is chartered out of the Sellwood Public House. No one knows how well (or even if) our players can play, but we’ll find out over the 8-week season. Stay tuned… we’ll keep you posted on the outcome!
Do you have what it takes to vote in 1965 Alabama?
One of the most popular newsletter articles we’ve run in a long time was one in which you could take the US Citizenship test. The point of our article was how shamefully illiterate Americans are in civics… when Newsweek gave the test to 1000 US citizens, 38 percent failed. But this story is about another test, one that was amazing for the number of people who passed… voters in the Jim Crow South had to take a literacy test to qualify to vote. There were different questions for Black and White applicants… how would you do if your right to vote was on the line?
