Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical.
-Jonathan Swift
Coffee has been a love interest of mine for many, many years, but it wasn’t until my first trip to Italy that I truly discovered how rich and divine a beverage these beans can yield.
Upon waking for breakfast my first day in Venice, I was served a steaming pitcher filled with espresso and a second with steamed milk. My own fault, really, because I wanted coffee, asked for caffè and then, fearing that it wouldn’t come with milk, followed it up with an “uh… latte“. Little did I know that what I was getting was actually what they always serve and so not out of the ordinary at all.
What It Does
The WordPress to MySpace Auto Crossposter is a WordPress plugin that publishes all of your WordPress blog entries to your MySpace blog at the time of publication. This allows you to publish as usual on your WordPress blog, but to also capture and retain your MySpace audience without any extra effort.
Each time that a new WordPress post goes live it will automatically be sent to MySpace for publication.
Users of the plugin have the option of publishing a notification or a whole story to MySpace.
The 18th and 19th centuries saw a huge surge in the popularity of safety coffins – coffins designed to allow the interred to alert the living in the event of a premature burial – and so great is the fear of being buried alive that even today, with all of our medical technology, patents are still being filed for such devices.
I suspect that we’re a bit more proficient than we were two hundred years ago at determining a persons living-or-dead status, so Caselli’s invention may be better aimed towards those above ground who simply don’t want to let go – or perhaps those that have a strange fetish for watching the dead.
Each of the three videos has its own unique stand-out features – Casey’s, for those who know him, stands out for how young he looks. Cliff of course was the only one lucky enough to do the AFF program for his first jump, so his stands out for the fact that it really was his jump. Mine? The funny hat! Yes, yes… the Jumptown padded helmets look ridiculously funny on everyone, and I’m no exception.
I’m a very far cry from what you’d call a country music aficionado – I don’t think that Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies count – but for various reasons I can sometimes be found associating with people affiliated with the industry, and as a music-lover in general I can certainly appreciate great musicianship, regardless of genre.
More than that, I appreciate when someone does something nice, and “nice” does not begin to describe the country music band Whiskey Falls and how they gave up a huge portion of their own promotional appearance on the Bill Breakfast Show (Bill Country, 95 FM, a Clear Channel station) to plug me, my work and my website a few weeks back.
Eak is an exceptionally warm and friendly man, and undoubtedly the most unusual individual in his class. At age 45, he’s an imposing 6 foot tall man with dark tattoos of planets, stars and the like entirely covering his face (he tattooed his face with space!). He also stands as testament to the fact that one can achieve anything that they set their mind too, regardless of circumstance. He’ll have hard work ahead of him in breaking down social constructs and stereotypes, but he’s off to a hell of a start and, given his success so far, should have no trouble in the future.
The public outrage regarding high gasoline prices may have died down some since the initial push past $3.00 a gallon that consumers saw two seasons ago, but there is no doubt that drivers still grimace and curse the oil companies as they march to the pump to fill up their cars, trucks and SUVs.
While there is still much debate surrounding whether high gasoline prices are good (and here) for American consumers or not, one thing is certain – we’re all interested in better fuel economy.
Be it a financial concern, desire to lessen your environmental impact and carbon footprint, or simply an attempt to “stick it” to the oil companies, we’d all love to pay less at the pump – but not all pumps are created equal! A recent experiment in my own vehicle led to some interesting surprises.
…[the] power source is about the size of a pencil and contains a special catalyst that causes hydrogen peroxide to burn. When this compound burns, it produces pure steam. The steam is used to open and close a series of valves. The valves are connected to the spring-loaded joints of the prosthesis by belts made of a special monofilament used in appliance handles and aircraft parts.
It’s truly a wondrous development, promising to be the most human-like prosthetic arm ever created, weighing in at about half the weight of a real arm, mimicking 21 of the natural arm’s 26 motions and with the goal of being so thoroughly integrated into the nerve structure of the wearer that it can be controlled by thought alone.
Since becoming quite addicted to The West Wing television series, I’ve been finding it easier and easier to bring my laptop to bed with me to watch episodes of my favorite television shows as I fall asleep. Unfortunately, this has been slowly displacing my life-long routine of reading before bed and I’m feeling a bit, well, guilty.
For some reason I suspect that the X-Files, Star Trek:TNG and Red Dwarf just do not stack up - in the good-for-personal-betterment sense - against the usual diet of philosophy and science reading to which I’m accustom. Sure, I’ve been able to catch up on all the episodes of QI - and that has to count for something - but even ingesting the wisdom of the comics has left this lingering feeling that I’ve somehow become lazy.
As a young boy who obsessively read the ads in the back of Popular Science and relentlessly sent in those cardboard “for more information” cards, my mailbox (the physical one!) was always filled with product marketing from countless engineering and technology companies. One of the more interesting products to me at the time was NITINOL, the nickel-titanium shape memory alloy developed by the Naval Ordnance Laboratory.
Having read the NITINOL literature and having a huge preoccupation with robotics and artificial intelligence, my young mind often thought that the best way to make a human-like android with human-like movement would be to – obviously – model it on a human! I had childhood dreams of bundling NITINOL wires together into muscle groups, fastening them together onto a bone structure and making a truly human android.
I’m very excited to report that the filming of the new indie short Cupcake has wrapped, editing is complete and the film is off to it’s next destination. Though I am not at liberty to divulge any more at this time, there will be an announcement made here on this site when the time is appropriate.
I was invited to participate in the film by writer and director Cheryl Cambras, and after exploring the script - and being stunned at the uniqueness of the project - thought that this decidedly bizarre film would be a good match.
Cheryl invited me to take part and to play - um - shall we say a pivotal role in my capacity as a sword swallower. We met in Stamford, Connecticut on the 28th of July and work commenced with the fantastic cast and crew.
Okay, okay, so we all know what this *really* means, but I can’t be the only one who finds this humorous. I suppose all doors are technically automatic, if we’re to interpret this sign literally.
The title and design alone are enough to make anyone take notice – what an odd subject – and though I wouldn’t normally consider myself interested in the topic, I nevertheless found myself interested in this book. A later interview with the author by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show further increased my interest in the work.
Little did I know (it only took me a year to get around to reading it!) that the author, Ryan Nerz – a freelance journalist and emcee of competitive eating events – actually cited me in this text! It’s always fun to find references to me and my work by happenstance, but in a book on competitive eating was the last place that I expected to do so!
My good friend Scott spends his days working as a machinist in a large shop (I just recently forced him to watch the Christian Bale flick, too.) - which means that he often has a great deal of idle thinking time and occasionally time to turn those ideas into reality.
This week, he emerged from his day job with a fully completed, loosely Steampunk-styled flower to give to his girlfriend.
Made entirely from industrial refuse that he collected from around the shop - machine inserts, wire bundles and ball bearing doodads - it’s a great little piece of industrial art that measures about a foot in height. Though extremely heavy, due to so many dense metals being used, it’s surprisingly delicate in appearance. I love the added touch of the single thorn, and the portion of the stem from thorn up to flower is designed to sway a bit with vibration or movement, completing the contrast between industrial harshness and organic fragility.
WARNING: Sword swallowing is a life threatening activity. Many deaths and serious medical complications have arisen from attempting this most dangerous and demanding art form. Sword swallowing should only be attempted by a skilled, trained professional. The author of this text will not be liable or accountable for any injuries sustained by readers who are attempting any of the acts described and depicted within. It is the professional opinion of the author that nobody who is reading this should attempt these stunts under any circumstances.
SW: What provides you with the biggest challenges? Why and what are they, regarding both safety and performance?
RR: Regarding safety, it’s all a challenge. Every time that I step on stage and raise a sword above my head – tip in my mouth ready to go down my throat – it’s a challenge. It’s an act of extreme mindfulness, and it’s tempting to let the mind wander. It absolutely can not, and it’s sometimes challenging.
