When I was little, I used to love those brightly colored triangular pencil grips. I liked adding color to my pencil, and I always thought they felt funny. By the time I started teaching, the pencil grips had taken on a cylindrical shape and were built in to higher-end mechanical pencils. They also started leaving a callous on my finger.

Oddly enough, in the past year the rubber grips on mechanical pencils have taken on a more triangular shape, softer on the corners than the old hard rubber grips I loved as a child which seems to lead to that callous being aggravated less often.

This afternoon, I was drinking a Soup at Hand. I don’t drink them very often, but I find them convenient when I don’t want to break my working stride. When they first came out, I liked the hourglass shape of the can because it fit my little hand without making me feel like I have small hands. (It’s hard to find products that comfortably fit my hand.) But the cans I picked up while I was sick aren’t round; they’re slightly triangular in shape.

Fascinated, I shifted the can around in my hands a few times while I thought about the design change. As much as we’d all like to believe otherwise, our hands really don’t naturally wrap in a round fashion. I found grabbing the triagular grip, regardless of how the can was oriented, was far more comfortable, and I had a better grip on it than I did when I held the round section of the can.

I wonder if we’re going to see more handheld cylindrical items take on a triangular shape, or if this is a design fad.

I’m an avid tea drinker, so I really like the design behind I Love Obento’s Tea Tumbler.

Personally, I’ve never been afraid to throw tea bags into my spill-proof travel mug, but I also have a handful of loose teas that really don’t lend themselves well to being brewed in the mug. I could get one of those metal egg-shaped infusers, but it would just get in the way of trying to drink the tea and would become one extra thing to keep up with.

The built-in strainer solves that worry, though, making this a compact, useful travel mug for the tea drinker on the go.

I was reading a disappointing article on Montessori (read: The headline suggested there would be some useful information pertaining to Montessori education. The article really didn’t have so much to do with Montessori at all except to say it’s better for most preschoolers than traditional day care without delving much into the defense of that position.) on a science blog.

Fortunately, something more interesting caught my eye. Above the comment area, there was a place to add your own comment. There was no disclaimer about how the comment would be moderated until a pack of rabid monkeys could verify that you were not a spambot. There was no captcha destroying your eyesight.

Instead, the human verification system consisted of a simple math problem, and I thought to myself, Hey, that’s pretty cool! My second thought was, How cool! Now you can get a brief math refresher with your comment posting!

I’m sure a spambot will soon have the system defeated, but for now, that’s just a really amusing, impressive human verification system. It requires a second (or less, if you’re up on your math facts) of thought. It’s encouraging!