Or, 'They'll Pry My Drink from My Cold Dead Hands' You know that detective-show trope where someone gets stabbed with a knife made of ice? And how it melts before the forensics team shows up? But they figure it out anyway from the watery nature of the blood or the trace amount of water-borne elements found at the scene? Well, this ice-bullet-making ice tray ups the ante. Now TV killers have a whole new M.O. The ice ammo resembles bullets from an AK-47. Not that you could actually fire one of these from an assault rifle, as Mythbusters proved in its first episode. $13.95, from findmeagift.com [via Uber Review]...
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Pixelgarten Deciding how much ice to put into your soda usually comes down to personal preference, some people like a lot and some none at all. Wired Magazine takes a more scientific approach to the issue, breaking down the cold, hard data. The Wired team went to their local cineplex and bought three Cokes with varying amounts of ice, here's what they found: No Ice, Please Temperature- 40° F Volume of Liquid- 31 oz Cost per Degree of Chilling- N/A Total Cost for Cold- 0¢ Verdict- Not fridge-frosty, but at 40 degrees you can't call it tepid. Easy On The Cubes Temperature- 36° F Volume of Liquid- 28 oz Cost per Degree of Chilling- 9.8¢ Total Cost for Cold-...
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Saw this on Boing Boing, where the sentiment seems to be that the talking R2D2 ice bucket is a near-sighted scrap pile but that the Han Solo–frozen-in-carbonite ice mold that comes with it stone cold awesome. One commenter there laments that the shape of the Han Solice would limit it to highball glasses but another envisions pressing it into duty as a chocolate mold. Unfortunately, the set, which was only available by pre-order in the U.K., now appears to have been removed from websites there....
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I must lead a deprived life, having never seen ice balls before. Ice balls are popular among drink connoisseurs because, due to the lower surface area, they melt more slowly than ice cubes. The ice mold from Japan-based Taisin makes a range of perfectly formed ice balls in different sizes. If you don't need that level of perfection, not martha shows you how to make your own with a simpler ice ball mold. Related Pre-Packaged Spring Water Ice Cubes Does Cold Water Boil Faster Than Hot?...
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Of course not! But "under the right circumstances," hot water can freeze faster than cold. "Part of the reason appears to be that hotter water loses mass to evaporation, and because it has less mass, less energy is needed to freeze it." And that is what's known as the Mpemba Effect....
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Print magazine's "Consumption Issue" takes a look at Ice Rocks, prepackaged spring-water ice cubes. They are: ... hermetically sealed, perforated cube trays of spring water. Don't let the name fool you—these cubes still require freezing, only the first hint of egregious over-consumption inherent in this product. Besides the plastic trays, the package includes peelable lids and a secondary structure with high-gloss UV coating for a wet look. Worst is the slogan: "The New Ice Age." ... Even if you made the argument that you didn't want plain ol' tap-water-based ice mixing with your precious bottled water or with your cocktails, wouldn't you be better off freezing the bottled water of your choice in your own ice trays? icerocks.com...
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Regina Schrambling on the third Identità Golose, The taste of things to come: At a most unusual chefs' conference, great ideas trumped pomp and pretention: "There were chefs quoting Kandinsky and Lars von Trier as comfortably as they evoked Escoffier. There were chefs filling balloons with spices to pop over dinner plates, and chefs demonstrating how to flavor the bread crumbs so ubiquitous in Italian cooking with lime zest and syrup. They were using all the new-wave toys — agar-agar and sous vide and digital thermometers and no end of Pakojets — but they were also sharing discoveries as basic as this: Baking butternut squash or sweet onions on a bed of rock salt will concentrate the flavor and texture."...
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