Companion Cube ice-trays

Wow 'em at your next Portal-themed cocktail party with ThinkGeek's Companion Cube ice-cube molds, at $12.99 per.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

madopal

Anyone else think the ice in that picture looks suspiciously not like ice?
Paul Renault

GlaDICE?

The Turrets would make great soda water dispensers.
http://benjscott.com thunderhammer

I bought one of these trays and it doesn’t actually work very well. The ice expands (obviously), resulting in not-cubic shapes.
LogrusZed

Those may not be actual ice cubes, but I do recall hearing or reading that boiling water prior to filling the tray gets rid of bubbles and a lot of deforming due to expansion. Boiling or using distilled water.
- Bottle Imp
  
  Camper English did a whole sequence of posts on this at his Alcademics site, cumulating in a post at Wired about how to make clear ice at home. He didn’t find a significant benefit in boiling or distillation, or at least not a big enough benefit to really be worth bothering with.
- giantasterisk
  
  Distilled water might not be the best choice. In my experience, it seems to have less integrity the good old mineral-and-contaminant-laden water when frozen. Distilled water ice cubes shatter when you try to take them out of the tray.