Andrew Combs

Posted on by in Boston/Cambridge, Music

Last weekend I went to see Shovels & Rope at the Sinclair in Cambridge. A few things to quickly note. 1. I can’t really describe Shovels & Rope well, but if you haven’t heard of them, check them out. A recent NYT article actually gets it pretty close: “They like to say they are “making as much noise as they can” with two old guitars, a kick drum, snare, harmonica, tambourine and occasional keyboard. I dare to match them with the couple that set the standard for country duets, Johnny Cash and June Carter. Both couples share Southern roots and that music-from-the-back porch country sound.” They were great live too, although they didn’t quite meet my (very high) expectations. 2.

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Glenn Yoder & The Western States

Posted on by in General, Music

I had a great time last night at the CD release party for Glenn Yoder & The Western States at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge. They put on a great all-around performance, and Jeff Katz, the guitar player and a friend of mine from BU, tore it up on his tele. Here’s a clip I shot: Check out their CD, Javelina, here:

Avan Jogia and Inigo Montoya

Posted on by in Current Events, General

My site traffic has surged 500% over the past few days after 20-year old Canadian sensation Avan Jogia tweeted about my post on Mandy Patinkin, Inigo Montoya, and Saul Berenson: Admittedly, I’d never heard of Avan, but I appreciate the tweet and traffic that came with it. He’s known for playing Beck Oliver the Nickelodeon TV series Victorious. He actually looks a bit like Mandy: While I’m on the topic, for any Inigo Montoya fans out there, I found this amazing shirt on Amazon, which I immediately purchased for my girlfriend:  

Lightroom 5 Preset: Speakeasy

Posted on by in Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

Here’s my sixth free Lightroom 5 preset, Speakeasy. This one adds some slight enhancement, mostly sharpening, contrast, and vibrance, without changing the overall look and feel of the photo. It’s quite versatile, and I use it on a wide range of photos, usually when I’m not looking to get too creative, but want to remove haze and liven up a shot a bit. One thing I often tweak after using the preset is the exposure, especially if I want to get more contrast in a shot with some sky. Here’s the first example of the preset, a boulder on Mt. Cardigan: A dog on a street: A parrot up close: And a beach landscape taken in Puerto Viejo: Here’s the download:

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Sustainable Approaches to Reducing Food Waste in India

Posted on by in General, India Food Waste, Research

About a year ago I spent a month in India working on an MIT research project focused on food waste with a classmate and close friend, Paul Artiuch. Throughout that month, we blogged extensively about what we learned both on the MIT Public Service Center website and on this site. Here’s a summary of what we wrote: 1. Battling Food Waste in India 2. More on Azadpur Mandi 3. India’s Cold Storage Capacity 4. A Look at India’s Agricultural Supply Chains 5. The Punjab Potato Party 6. India’s Grain Storage Problem 7. India’s Lack of Food Processing 8. Smaller Markets in Rajasthan 9. Four Problems with India’s Food Supply Systems 10. Pune: A (Nearly) Waste-Free City Since we returned, we’ve

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Top Songs From 2012

Posted on by in Music

Inspired by a friend’s post of his favorite 2012 songs, I thought I’d put my own list together. My favorites from this past year definitely span a wide range of genres – I can’t quite pin down whether my tastes moved in any particular direction. I wouldn’t say it was even close to the best year for music in recent memory, but there were definitely plenty of releases worth a listen. Here’s a link to listen to a playlist with my top songs in Spotify. And here’s my list with Spotify links, in no particular order: 1. Zeus – Are You Gonna Waste My Time 2. Andrew Bird – Orpheo Looks Back 3. Alabama Shakes – Be Mine 4. Hot

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Rules of Investing

Posted on by in Markets

Barry Ritholtz has a great list of investing rules, originally posted in two parts with descriptions in the Washington Post here and here. He recently reposted the consolidated list on his blog, The Big Picture, and it’s too good not to share. Every investor has their own process and decision-making rule set (or at least should), and while there’s no one approach that’s right, there are plenty that are wrong. Barry’s rules, at least in my opinion, are effective guides to help avid common mistakes and pitfalls. They’re broad enough that I think they’re applicable to investment activities ranging from managing a personal 401k or IRA all the way up to running a hedge fund or advisory firm. At the risk of

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Comment on the “Milk Cliff”

Posted on by in General

Adam Sigel, in response to an earlier post: Turns out that Tommy from Snatch was somewhat right when he told us to drink less milk. “Big Dairy” has conditioned us to equate milk with calcium, but it’s not the only source, nor is it necessarily the best one. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/calcium-full-story/index.html As a lactard that switched to soy milk earlier this year, I wouldn’t be directly impacted by the milk cliff, but it’s generally never a good thing when we revert to laws that pre-date integration in schools.

Shtetl-Optimized and Thoughts on Lincoln

Posted on by in Current Events

I’ve been following the blog of Scott Aaronson, Shtetl-Optimized, for a while now — he’s a professor at MIT with research focusing on quantum computers and complexity theory. When he writes about his work, his descriptions are usually far too complex and technical for me to even begin to comprehend. For example, a week or so ago, one of his posts started off like this: “If the world ends today, at least it won’t do so without three identical photons having been used to sample from a probability distribution defined in terms of the permanents of 3×3 matrices, thereby demonstrating the Aaronson-Arkhipov BosonSampling protocol.” I think that was an apocalypse joke, but I can’t be positive. Anyway, I found Scott’s blog long

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