Happy New Year?
“On Jan. 1, 300 million people in 12 countries will start using some funny-looking money they have never seen before. Months later their old familiar bills and coins will buy them nothing. Many of these people will have only a vague idea of what is going on....Read more“I’ve always liked the idea of a special Hugo to be awarded (by force, perhaps) to literary authors who write books dripping with themes filleted from mainstream SF and then deny that it’s science fiction ‘because it’s not about robots and spaceships’.”
— Terry Pratchett
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Albert Freakin' EinsteinUnavailable At Any Price?
At Coffee Review, Kenneth Davids has heaped praise on a select group of premium coffees, each of them Cup of Excellence auction lots. The winners — not surprisingly — are pretty much the Who’s Who of today’s specialty roasters, from left coast...Hurricane Stan: The Deadliest Storm You Never Heard Of
Utter the name Katrina, and the recognition is instant… the storm that howled through Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, and poured wave after wave of water into the urban bowl of New Orleans will leave physical and emotional scars long after the city...
Autumn 2005 Photos
Autumn has been a curious affair this year… the weather’s been unpredictable; the storied turning of leaves more so. I’ve been taking as many photos as I can, but it’s hit and miss. Here’s the best of the season so far, packaged in a...Such a Pretty Package… Millstone’s Mountain Moonlight Coffee
Rating: [rating:2.5/5] If you’re a parent, or have ever had the dubious joy of giving a gift to a small child (a niece, or a nephew, maybe) then you will be passing familiar with the experience of said child opening the pretty package, glancing appraisingly at...An Ode to the Old Machines
Espressolab waxes poetic on the machines of days gone by. Has something been lost in the translation from brass and chrome and Bakelite lever pulls to the high-performance, stainless steel, push-button ‘lectronic boxes of the present age? Romance,...Tasting: Equal Exchange Mind, Body & Soul
Rating: [rating:3.5/5] Equal Exchange is an unusual company. It’s not simply an employee-owned business (a growing number of companies are, for a given value of employee owned) but is instead a worker-owned cooperative… which is a very interesting and...For Want of Willing Workers?
Premium Gourmet Coffee beans from Puerto Rico go to waste because Puerto Rican coffee growers can’t find enough workers to harvest the beans, according to Julio Torres, executive vice president of Grupo Jimenez, the island nation’s leading producer....Tasting: Starbucks’ Rift Valley Blend
Rating: [rating:3/5] I’m surprised as anyone to find myself reviewing two dark-roasted coffees back-to-back, and more surprised to find that they’re both African origins (the coffee immediately prior was Ancora’s Kenya AA Nyeri “Fine...Those Frugal Vermonters
To say that the native Vermonter is frugal is something akin to suggesting that a Scotsman has a passing interest in plaid. That is to say, it so understates the depth and breadth of the Vermonter’s frugality that it belies the essential truth, which is that...
Pastores Farm & Beneficio
A new Flickr slideshow — this time the Pastores farm and beneficio just about ten minutes from Antigua, Guatemala. Pastores is a stunning place; a colonial-style oasis that doubles as a weekend spa and retreat from the hustle and bustle of Guatemala City....
Travel Mug Bargain
Don’t miss this Friday Sale bargain at Amazon… the spiffy Oxo Travel Mug is a no spill, no-drip, easy to operate with a single hand beverage containment device that’ll keep your coffee hot far longer than your commute requires. Unless you’re...
Flickr-ing Images
As you may have noticed in yonder sidebar, I’ve been slowly uploading photo sets to Flickr, and discovering nifty new ways to display them as a result. For example… this spiffy slide-show that takes you on a virtual tour of the La Voz coffee cooperative on...