The online calculator (of all sorts) is one of the innovations of the cyber-age that makes me wonder what we did, you know, BEFORE. My latest discovery is the site This to That, which comes to your rescue when you want to glue one material to another and you need to know which adhesive to use.

It was alarming how this calculator sucked me in. Once I started playing with it, I couldn’t stop.

First, I asked it what I should use to glue Styrofoam to metal. It answered with its recommendations and a bit of helpful advice to go with:

 

 

“Rust never sleeps.” I found myself enchanted by this dash of unexpected lyricism in a Do-It-Yourself project materials calculator.

But that’s not all! The calculator went on to offer useful information about Styrofoam:

 

 

Neat, right? Also, notice at the bottom that you can click to switch to French!

Next, I asked it what I should use to glue wood to glass. It advised:

 

 

And it added this extra little reminder at the end:

 

 

Finally, I told it that I wanted to glue wood to paper. It spat out options depending on the degree of wrinkling I was willing to risk:

 

 

…including if I didn’t care about wrinkling at all:

 

 

WELL. I’m impressed. Time-suckage with an actual purpose behind it? Yes.