firehose

On Saturday afternoon I attended Women & Whiskies, a "consumer class" (read: geared toward non-professional booze slingers) that was part of Portland Cocktail Week (which rages on through Thursday, with some other parties that the general public is welcome to). Tickets were $30, and included whiskey tastings (obvi), a nice canvas tote printed with the W&W logo, a totally decent t-shirt that bears the same message, a gorgeous moleskin notebook, Imaginary Authors scent samples, post-tasting Biwa snacks (squash croquettes and wonton soup), and two small but very well designed tomes. These I eyed with initial suspicion. One was called a "gift guide," so I immediately wondered if they were going to try to sell us bottles. But no, it's actually just a handy, informative guide to selecting and serving whiskey, including a couple cocktail recipes and a "flavor wheel" info-graph. The other is a "tasting journal," but is actually an even more dense book of whiskey learning, with some blank spots for tasting notes in the back.

Clearly somebody had dropped some serious dough on this program, and that entity is Campari, who launched W&W in reaction to the realization that whiskey brands weren't having "a conversation" with a female customer base. A relatively new venture, W&W events are starting to pop up around the country. If you see one, and you like, or are curious about whiskey, it's completely worth the outlay. It's got unabashed marketing motives (no coincidence that all the whiskeys we tasted are Campari labels), but it's done really tastefully and there's no direct sales angle at all.

Plus, the amount of information involved is staggering. The tastings are led by Lucia Gonzales, and I think I absorbed maybe 30% of the vast store of information she dropped on us over an hour and a half. Each seemingly minute question led her down a fascinating new path—it was, needless to say, quite impressive. For this edition they partnered with Imaginary Authors' Josh Meyers, who paired each whiskey with single note fragrances he sent around the tables to huff on for comparison, which was actually really helpful in pulling apart the flavors. It was a nice, local (and indie) touch. So way to go, I guess, corporate booze Goliath! Stay classy.

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UK-based model engine enthusiast Keith5700 designed and built the functional 1/4 scale V8 engine seen revving away in this video. The 45cc engine model includes technologically advanced features like electronic fuel injection and a laptop-controlled engine management system. Keith5700 has documented the build process, which began back in 2011, in this extensive forum thread at Home Model Engine Machinist.

via BangShift.com, DamnGeeky, OhGizmo!

photos and video by Keith5700

cicadinae:

breelandwalker:

snkfan:

myallyistheforce:

Cats do this because its a hunting instinct to snap the neck of their prey.

*the more you know*

It’s a murderer instinct but holy shit it’s so cute.

Fun Fact: The little shaking move they do when they pick up toys in their mouths is the one for snapping necks.

This one’s actually for disemboweling. And it’s adorable.

The cutest murder machines ever.

American utility executives worry that the solar boom will cost them revenue as homeowners generate their own electricity. Some have depicted solar enthusiasts as green elites who will saddle their less wealthy neighbors with higher energy costs as rates are raised to maintain the power grid.

But that’s a myth, according to a study released today that finds the vast majority of homeowners who install solar panels belong to the middle class. The report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think thank, analyzed data in the three states with the most solar systems: Arizona, California, and New Jersey. Researchers then correlated the location of the solar panels with income information from the US Census Bureau.

In Arizona, for instance, nearly 80% of solar systems were installed by homeowners who live in neighborhoods with median annual incomes between $40,000 and $90,000. Those earning more than $90,000 accounted for just 13% of photovoltaic systems. In California, the biggest solar state, the middle class installed 67% of rooftop solar, while the wealthy bought or leased nearly 30%. The story was similar in New Jersey, where middle class homeowners accounted for 63% of solar installations.

“While it is true that the wealthy are generally the first adopters of new technologies, our research suggests that solar technology has moved beyond the early adopter phenomenon and onto more widespread installation by the middle class,” the report states.

Why? The report doesn’t say, but the advent of no-money-down leases for solar systems has meant that homeowners can forgo the five-figure capital costs of buying photovoltaic panels and instead make monthly payments that often are less than the price of buying electricity from their local utility.

Documenting the democratization of solar will provide more ammunition for photovoltaic partisans who have been fighting utility efforts to impose fees on homeowners with solar systems to compensate for a loss of revenues.

But while solar homeowners may not be the Tesla Model S-driving, New York Times-reading coastal elites depicted by well-compensated utility executives, neither are they the working class. The study found that only 4% of California homeowners earning less than $40,000 year have gone solar.

To promote their Snapdragon mobile processor, Qualcomm created Snapdragon Booth, a “bullet time”-style 540-degree photo rig made out of 130 HTC One smartphones. The Snapdragon Booth will be in New York City on October 24, 2013.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

My next smartphone ⊟

This Hocori mock-up doesn’t look like the most comfortable device to use, but who cares; it’s beautiful. There’s also a Super Famicom version!

BUY Famicom stuff, upcoming games

This is a short video I created from the perspective of my robotic flying camera while attending this year’s XOXO festival in Portland, OR. If you look closely, you might see a few familiar faces poking out the windows during the outside flybys. The video was shot using a GoPro Hero3 hanging from a brushless motorized gimbal attached to the bottom of a DJI Phantom quadcopter.

It's been generally assumed that actress Amanda Abbington will play Mary Morstan in the long-awaited third season of Sherlock. We know Abbington's in the show. We know Mary is, too. There are, to my knowledge anyway, no other actresses who've been added to the cast. And for John Watson's wife to be played by actor Martin Freeman's real-life partner Abbington, with whom he's collaborated multiple times… well, it fits. But it wasn't until yesterday that it was actually, one hundred percent confirmed. Head under the jump to see what Abbington has to say about playing Morstan and the fan reaction she expects.

One of these rumors is not like the other. By which I mean, one of them is being talked about in The Hollywood Reporter, and the other is being talked about on a fansite. But that fansite one is one we'd be totally down for, so we're going to yell it in your face over the internet and hop up and down a bit.

On Friday NBC announced some upcoming schedule changes, and Vulture noticed something weird: It looks like, without an official announcement or anything of the sort, they've put Parks and Recreation on hiatus.

SAN ANTONIO—Conversing with teammates during practice Friday, Spurs center Tim Duncan urged San Antonio’s players to be smarter with their frequent-flyer miles by accumulating the reward points for one big trip rather than squandering them lit...

WASHINGTON—Denying widespread claims that the franchise is being offensive or disrespectful, the Washington Redskins’ kike owner announced Monday that he remains steadfast in his refusal to change the team’s derogatory name.

WASHINGTON—Responding to widespread criticism regarding its health care website, the federal government today unveiled its new, improved Obamacare program, which allows Americans to purchase health insurance after installing a software bundle contai...

Hi Buskers. Busking season is gone now. The summer season passed. Leaves falling? Get your fucking ass inside and off the street corner. Temps below 50 at night? Get your fucking ass inside. Dark at 7:00? GET YOUR FUCKING ASS INSIDE.

There are 3 months out of the year where I will tolerate your Tibetan horn thing, buckets, electric guitar with amp, acoustic guitar with some kind of Bob Dylan cover, flute, fiddle, keyboards, triangle. Now it's war. Now I stand in front of you and crow at people passing by to make sure you don't make money.

Buskers. You suck. Give us a fucking rest.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gQKrgA6Ye2g

Original Source

The Clown Prince of Crime has hit rock bottom - The Joker was booked for drunk driving after losing control of his car and driving off the road in Maine.

IBM's Watson -- the language-fluent computer that beat the best human champions at a game of the US TV show Jeopardy! -- is being turned into a tool for medical diagnosis. Its ability to absorb and analyse vast quantities of data is, IBM claims, better than that of human doctors, and its deployment through the cloud could also reduce healthcare costs.

Original Source

By Peter Rowlett. Posted October 21, 2013 in News

There is a fine tradition of mathematicians with mathematics on their tombstones. What immediately springs to mind is Ludolph Van Ceulen and Jacob Bernoulli. Van Ceulen calculated π to 35 decimal places; his grave carried both his lower bound of 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288 and his upper bound of 3.14159265358979323846264338327950289. Bernoulli asked for a logarithmic spiral on his gravestone, but the stonemasons etched an Archimedean spiral instead. Googling to fill in the details in my hazy memory, I discovered a blog post by Dave Richeson with the details of several more mathematical monuments.

Into this fine tradition steps Angela Robinson, widow of Shell numerical analyst and Sudoku enthusiast Allan Robinson.

After Allan died last year she chose to mark his gravestone with a Sudoku puzzle and the mathematical notation “xn+yihi=1(1)q”, as a tribute. Now, according to the BBC, Farndon Parish Council (near Chester) has said the grave breached the standards for St Chad’s church graveyard and demanded the removal of the offending Sudoku and equation.

I don’t know quite how to feel about this. The graveyard has rules, and they weren’t obeyed. However, the tribute seems subtle and inoffensive¹ , which makes you wonder about the detail of these rules. Anyway, it’s nice to see maths being treated in various tabloids in such a positive light, as a tribute to the achievements of Mr. Robinson — and not a “boffin” in sight!

The Council are due to discuss the matter next month.

Original Source

A pre-order page from Dell for the Xbox One "accidentally" (and, it appears, officially) revealed that Windows 8.1 apps will run on the Xbox. This is a major boost as it means that reverse is also likely true -- most Xbox One (non-game) apps will run on Windows 8.1.

railways-and-spoopy-roses:

Steamboats in the Mississippi river, 1907. 

Sean Harris (pictured, left), the senior pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, is a strong supporter of North Carolina's proposed antigay Amendment One. In Sunday's sermon, Harris screams like a maniac about cracking limp wrists and punching young children who exhibit gender-variant behavior. Girls playing sports are OK, but they must attempt to look pretty, according to Harris.

spiritspecs:

we were watching mystery science theater 3000 and my cat got up on the tv and this happened