Lots of fascinating pictures of really small things from Microcosmos, a book about life up close. They were all taken with an electron microscope. An ant holding a microchip. A clutch of butterfly eggs sits on a raspberry plant. A mosquito head. Velcro! The surface of a silicon microchip. Human eyelashes. A rusty nail.
Back in high school, you know, around 1998 or so, I played the guitar in a rock band with a bunch of close friends. We named ourselves Premiere, after a long gone vhs rental shop in Framingham Center (long story). We practiced every week, and played a good mix of rock/blues covers and original music we had written. We played all the high school music events, and eventually got to the point where we had weekly gigs at local bars around town. It was a lot of fun. Right before we all went off to college, the band saved up some money and recorded an album at a studio in Rhode Island. We sold a few hundred copies, and the
It’s out. That was quick. And Thom Yorke’s got some moves: I’m on my third listen through the album. Like all Radiohead records, at least for me, it sounds weird and monotonous the first time through, I’m intrigued by the second listen, and it’s brilliant each time thereafter.
Well, kind of. But not the green beer you drink on St. Patrick’s day. An MIT mechanical engineering grad has developed a new technology to turn spent grain from the brewing process into natural gas to be used in…well the brewing process. Sounds very sensible. His invention is called the “biphase orbicular bioreactor” and is a type of anaerobic methane digester. Those words alone are impressive. He’s working with Magic Hat’s Vermont Brewery, which installed his system last year. Here’s an excerpt from the Globe: Before he started “saving the earth, one beer at a time,” all inventor Eric Fitch knew about home brewing was that it could make quite a mess. Once, he accidentally backed up the plumbing in
I’m not sure how many of my readers will find this interesting, but I did. Even though the stock market has practically doubled in value since the low in March 2009, when evaluating cumulative returns over the prior 10-year period, we’re only up 1.4%. Which is in the lowest decile of quarterly cumulative 10 year returns over the period 1926-2010. One could interpret this to imply that the market still has a ways to go.
I’ve personally been very skeptical of Twitter’s value, other than for mindless entertainment and time killing, but I’m beginning to change my mind. Here are a few of my reasons: 1. I’ve recently started auto-feeding my blog posts to Twitter, and I’m finding that random people are beginning to follow me. At first this seemed a bit creepy. But most of my random followers appear to have found me by searching for terms in my post titles, and I’ve actually begun to find some interesting and useful links by following them. Is this some modern form of community building based on common interests? Am I late to the game here? Probably. 2. Last week I blogged about a Virgin America
Sam has previously stated that “this blog is supposed to be loosely about beer.” So for twenty minutes, I stared idly at my computer screen, sipping my Yuengling and wondering how I was going to relate this post to the topic of beer. So here goes nothing. I like beer. I also like television. In fact, I like to drink beer while watching television. Although I have not taken a math course since 2001, I was able to arrive at a simple yet accurate equation: B + TV(x) = Happy James. (A problem arises when B is greater than or equal to six beers [read: the six beers I’ll admit to my doctor]. At that point, Happy James is on
I’m excited to welcome my good friend, James Spector, as a guest contributor to somethingsbrewing. James will be writing occasional posts over the next few weeks. What’s he going to write about? I have no clue, but he’s got lots of interesting ideas, and promised he might even tie them to beer on occasion. For those don’t know James, he’s a current law student, and former child actor, voice actor, magician’s apprentice, writer, producer, and DJ. Quite the impressive background. Until you realize that he doesn’t know how to ride a bike. But we’ll give him a pass on that one. Especially because he can do magic tricks. So keep an eye out for James’ first post later today. It’s going to
Soul seems to be making a huge comeback. The sound has been redubbed, quite originally, indie retro soul. Over the weekend I was listening to a local radio station, WFNX, and heard a song that sounded all too familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Which in retrospect makes sense because I hadn’t heard it before. It turns out it was by Fitz & The Tanrums and just came out last month. Here it is: And then last night I was listening to music with some classmates, and a friend put on some new soul music. I was positive that, he too had just discovered Fitz & The Tantrums. Nope. It was Eli “The Paperboy” Reed, who happens to be from
Roscoe and Surya. “An inter-species: hound-orangutan love story”: I like how Surya rides elephants and wears a life vest when swimming with Rosco in the river. National Geographic has really stepped it up lately. But don’t forget life can be tough too. Mussel vs. Fish: