Stealing? No. Not from this backpack.

Designers are doing miracles these days. It was very nice of them to create a netbook backpack from which no one can get anything when it sits on your back. This particular model has a zipper on the backside, and it can be opened only when the owner takes it off his shoulders. Great for metro, buses, suburban trains, well, for any crazy city.

Update: After an extensive discussion with our readers we decided to add that while this backpack cannot protect your purse properly, it is still very good for keeping your laptop safe.

Holding hot stuff

We’ve seen that chemists use a really cool device to take hold of hot stuff. They take two small pieces of a rubber hose, cut them from one side, put them on the fingers and can hold any hot test tubes, flasks and glasses without getting burnt. This device protects the fingers and provides a firm grip at the same time. Katya’s mom even has this thing at home.

Be small. Sit low.

In cities traffic lights are always well above cars, and that is why they are so difficult to see. Drivers have to stretch their necks real hard in order not to miss the right signal. To prevent accidents small traffic lights have been installed across the whole of Europe… at eye-level to drivers. Sometimes getting smaller means getting better.

Mirror, mirror in the hall

Imagine yourself as a retired person visiting cathedral. Your neck is not as flexible as it used to be. In this case you would probably say thank God for the mirrors placed on the floor so that you could admire the reflection of marvelous arches without throwing back your head. It’s so thoughtful and so easy to do.

Save the bread

What happens if you love bread? One day you buy too much, and it gets stale. Inevitably. And then you have to do something about it. In Portugal people have a number of recipes for yesterday’s bread. Their Acorda de Marisco is the best one. It is a kind of shellfish bread stew, both tasty and good for satisfying a coal miner’s appetite. And what do you do with stale bread?

Antifreeze in a toilet bowl

In winter owners of summer houses in Russia face a major challenge: how to save their toilet bowls from splitting. The problem is that even when the owner removes all the water from the bowl before closing down the house for the winter season, and it still cracks as soon as the temperature outside reaches -10 degrees C. The solution came in the form of any car antifreeze – a wise owner just needs to pour it in the toilet bowl and leave it there till the next spring.

Shoot the wine

Yeah, we are obsessed with food and drink, so here is another one. Every time our colleague likes her wine in a restaurant, she gets her mobile and takes a picture of the label. We appreciated this practice after spending about half an hour in a wine shop trying to explain what kind of wine we wanted: “you know, white, rather sweet, very intense, German, or not…” Fortunately the owner of the shop understood us and delivered the bottle. But one cannot be this lucky every time, so now we are shooting the wine we like.

Flood the bog – get the cranberries

Cranberries have pockets of air inside the fruit. And that means they float in water. So, for years people are using the knowledge: the bogs, where cranberries grow, are flooded with water, then harvesters use water reels to stir up the water. This way the ripe berries are removed from the vines. And then they have a field of floating cranberries ready to be picked up. And besides the fact that it is an extremely clever way to harvest, it is also a spectacular look – a red sea of cranberries.

Flowers beat the wind

Have you seen vases with flowers on tables in street cafés? Heavy vases? Sure, you have. Lots of people believe that a vase with flowers is a good way to decorate a café. In fact, it is also a great way to press the table cloth to the table so that it did not fly away. Such café owners definitely know which way the wind blows.

Tell a story

Stories are the best way to deliver a message, and the best way for people to remember things. In short, we are story-guided animals. It is still unclear if we were created this way or acquired the feature in the course of evolution. But it does not matter. What matters is that if you want someone to remember what you’ve just said – tell a story. For example, the Little Red Riding Hood is still the best way to convince a child he or she should never talk to strangers.

Loose tea in a filter bag

In Russia there is almost no doubt that the taste of loose tea beats the tea in filter bags. But! Who has the time to go to all this trouble of preparing the tea pot: heating, brewing, washing it afterwards, plus the cups? In Latvia we’ve seen a really nice way out: an open filter bag, where one can put loose tea, a toothpick to keep it from drowning in the cup. And the cup. And that’s it – loose tea in a tea bag.

Rice and salt

Every Mediterranean restaurant puts a few grains of rice in the bottoms of the salt shakers. It’s a great idea because rice absorbs the moisture, and the salt runs free.

Lazy Fridays foster relationships

It’s a new Australian official advice not to call an office worker after 3 pm on a Friday. This relatively new trend is called Lazy Fridays and means that all staff moves from offices to the nearest entertainment point such as a pub, bar, garden umbrella, etc. Now people have a golden opportunity to gossip, chat, and share happy stories in a more relaxed atmosphere. Of course, on Thursday they are glad to stay and work a little bit later.

The movement to treat staff with a bit of respect is sure to be smart. Apparently, if you want to be smarter please don’t call your Aussie colleague at work after 3 pm on a Friday.

Mirror ceilings in pools

Thanks a lot to the first person who decided to install a mirror ceiling in the pool. It is so nice to swim on the back and still know what happens around you. It is a really great idea!

Eating sushi with hands

Moscow eats sushi with chopsticks, which is kind of difficult, because the rice part tends to fall apart the second you dip it into soy sauce, even if you do it right – the fish side down. The Japanese, by the way, prefer eating sushi with hands and strongly believe this is the best way to do it. We agree with them. Let’s eat sushi with hands!

Caffe sospeso

There is a tradition in Naples to order a caffe sospeso – a coffee for someone else. In this case you order one coffee for yourself and one more (or more) cups of coffee as caffe sospeso. These cups of coffees are meant for people who are unable to pay for coffee. So, later during the day a person can come and ask for a caffe sospeso, and get a coffee as an anonymous present from you. Theoretically any drink or food can be “sospeso”, but the coffee tradition is especially strong.

Road etiquette

On a narrow two-lane intercity road a truck driver may notice that a car behind cannot overtake his vehicle for a long time. In this situation the truck driver turns on his right signal light when it is safe to overtake, and left signal – to indicate danger ahead. It is also a good idea for the car driver to flash hazard warning lights two or three times to say thank you when he is ahead of the truck. This tradition is followed in Russia, and as we heard, in Europe too.

Door handles

To prefer a door lever handle to a traditional door knob if at least one person in the family has arthritis is a definite sign of intelligence.

Desert cooler

In late sixties Katya's father worked at a construction site in Iraq. And he told us about an incredible device that Iraqies invented to fight the heat. It was a large frame, size about 5 by 2 meters, about 30 cm thick, stuffed with dry seaweeds or grass. It was installed the way it could catch the wind, and then assigned people poured water on the device. The temperature in its shadow was a lot lower than the one in the sun. A similar device existed in Iran, basically it is the same concept of an evaporative cooler, but not portable: the windcatcher (Bâd gir).

Leave your number if you double park

Double parking is definitely impolite, but in big cities it is quite common. So, it is a good idea to leave your mobile number under the windshield so that the person, whose car you blocked, could call you and set his car free. You can see this sign of intelligence at Presnenskaya quay in Moscow, where parking is real nightmare.

Hello!

We are Katya, Anna, Misha and Oleg. The reason we started the blog is because we wanted to collect cool things and habits demonstrating there is a clever person behind them. Things which are simple, clever and responsible at the same time. In Russian we call them "priznaki uma" - the signs of intelligence. And we'll try to make it fun!