Thursday, December 3, 2009
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Most recent disgusting food experience
Ever forget a bag of those frozen chicken parts in the back of the freezer? What about if the bag wasn't closed. Ever seen that? Frost beards everywhere, man.
Well, did you ever think about cooking up some of that chicken, on the off chance that it will satisfy the needs of a kid who doesn't want rice and beans?
Here's the recipe. Put two pieces of chicken in the microwave for 1 minute. Try one piece directly in the skillet. Add the original two pieces into the skillet after waving.
The result? There was maybe a centimeter of chicken that looked like chicken during the whole process. And that was a raw piece surrounded, like the rest of the chicken, in a very white, stringy mass. I tasted it, and well, I've had cardboard that tasted better.
Well, did you ever think about cooking up some of that chicken, on the off chance that it will satisfy the needs of a kid who doesn't want rice and beans?
Here's the recipe. Put two pieces of chicken in the microwave for 1 minute. Try one piece directly in the skillet. Add the original two pieces into the skillet after waving.
The result? There was maybe a centimeter of chicken that looked like chicken during the whole process. And that was a raw piece surrounded, like the rest of the chicken, in a very white, stringy mass. I tasted it, and well, I've had cardboard that tasted better.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Coming Soon -- Suzanne Sherman Propp: "Play"
Considering its only been 11 months since I last posted, there are probably 50+ things I could write about as I try to re-start this blog. But hands down, the most exciting project for me this year has been the CD that my wife Suzanne and I produced with our good friend Josh Margolis. We'll have hard copies by late December and an official release event in late January/early Feb.
There are a lot of considerations involved in producing a CD, from songs selection, to instruments, tempo, style, additional musicians, etc. Josh was a great adviser on all of the above. Now its time to create the physical copies, which will be expensive and also create a number of "moral hazard" type issues. For example:
Should we print the CD at all? Shouldn't we just go for downloads?
-- problem with that is we think kids and parents will want to hear it in their cars.
Should we find a way to re-use plastic?
-- Truth is, using plastic at all adds more plastic to the environment.
Ultimately the production company led us to a sleeve design that will use very little paper. So we think we made the right choice. Hope people buy them...
p
There are a lot of considerations involved in producing a CD, from songs selection, to instruments, tempo, style, additional musicians, etc. Josh was a great adviser on all of the above. Now its time to create the physical copies, which will be expensive and also create a number of "moral hazard" type issues. For example:
Should we print the CD at all? Shouldn't we just go for downloads?
-- problem with that is we think kids and parents will want to hear it in their cars.
Should we find a way to re-use plastic?
-- Truth is, using plastic at all adds more plastic to the environment.
Ultimately the production company led us to a sleeve design that will use very little paper. So we think we made the right choice. Hope people buy them...
p
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Hydrogen, Natural Gas and Pie
I'm not exactly sure where to go with this blog going forward, but I find myself drawn to business ideas as much as personal consumption ideas. For example here's a link to a schematic on how Hydrogen could be produced by wind power from UK concern Wind-Hydrogen, Ltd.
From what I've read, the idea is to view hydrogen in a tank as stored energy. hydrogen is easy to produce if you have excess electricity, such as a nuclear reactor or a wind farm at night.
The next question on hydrogen is, how can you leverage it most easily?
In a car?
For cooking? (apparently you can use it instead of propane or natural gas)
For heating your house? -- If you heat your house with natural gas you could maybe use hydrogen in the future...
Quick alternate fuel anecdote: My best summer job ever was working for a plumbing supply company near Albany, NY. To reduce their gasoline costs, they had modified several of their trucks to run on natural gas (really cheap in 1982) along with gasoline. But the conversion job was pretty weak, resulting in burned out carburetors -- apparently natural gas burns hotter than gasoline and this was not considered in the conversion process.
My worst moment was when I had stopped for lunch at Grandma's Pies on Central Ave where my friend Christine was a waitress. Had a great lunch, a tasty slice of blueberry pie and then headed back to the truck, which by the way was a big box truck with a huge logo on its side. Well the truck wouldn't start and I ended up getting picked up by one of the other drivers, leaving the big green box truck with the company logo out for all to see for a couple of days.
Moral of the story: make sure your dual fuel plans are really well thought out. And consider apple pie next time...
From what I've read, the idea is to view hydrogen in a tank as stored energy. hydrogen is easy to produce if you have excess electricity, such as a nuclear reactor or a wind farm at night.
The next question on hydrogen is, how can you leverage it most easily?
Quick alternate fuel anecdote: My best summer job ever was working for a plumbing supply company near Albany, NY. To reduce their gasoline costs, they had modified several of their trucks to run on natural gas (really cheap in 1982) along with gasoline. But the conversion job was pretty weak, resulting in burned out carburetors -- apparently natural gas burns hotter than gasoline and this was not considered in the conversion process.
My worst moment was when I had stopped for lunch at Grandma's Pies on Central Ave where my friend Christine was a waitress. Had a great lunch, a tasty slice of blueberry pie and then headed back to the truck, which by the way was a big box truck with a huge logo on its side. Well the truck wouldn't start and I ended up getting picked up by one of the other drivers, leaving the big green box truck with the company logo out for all to see for a couple of days.
Moral of the story: make sure your dual fuel plans are really well thought out. And consider apple pie next time...
Friday, December 28, 2007
Multi-tasking? Use the NPR player...
Working at home, I find myself looking for ways to keep track of the outside world without turning on the TV. Finding a good source for audio information and music has been a challenge. But after my.Yahoo's recent redesign, I added the NPR "Most e-mailed" module to my my.Yahoo screen. Then I started to listen to the stories occasionally. Then I became fascinated by the client that NPR built to deliver audio files.
The NPR Media Player a great example of what the IT world calls Web 2.o. I'm not sure exactly how its programmed, but I'm guessing it uses a programming style called AJAX (Asynchronous Java And XML). It's similar to the way Google Maps is programmed. To start, go to http://www.npr.org and click "Listen" when you find a story you find interesting.
What's special about the way NPR's player works is that once you are listening to one story, you can surf the NPR site and continue to add content to the client by clicking the "plus" icon. You can add as many stories as you want and then go back to your e-mail or spreadsheets while the NPR player plays the radio show you just programmed.
There's so much content on the NPR site, you'll never run out of things to listen to, but here are a few things to look for:
A 1 hour profile on Frank Sinatra.
A Terri Gross interview with Sharon Jones and Dap Kings founder Bosco ‘Bass’ Mann.
A profile on Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was literally wiped off the map by tornadoes earlier this year. They are staging a comeback by embracing all things green.
Wow, it didn't take me long to get back to a green story, did it?
The NPR Media Player a great example of what the IT world calls Web 2.o. I'm not sure exactly how its programmed, but I'm guessing it uses a programming style called AJAX (Asynchronous Java And XML). It's similar to the way Google Maps is programmed. To start, go to http://www.npr.org and click "Listen" when you find a story you find interesting.
What's special about the way NPR's player works is that once you are listening to one story, you can surf the NPR site and continue to add content to the client by clicking the "plus" icon. You can add as many stories as you want and then go back to your e-mail or spreadsheets while the NPR player plays the radio show you just programmed.
There's so much content on the NPR site, you'll never run out of things to listen to, but here are a few things to look for:
A 1 hour profile on Frank Sinatra.
A Terri Gross interview with Sharon Jones and Dap Kings founder Bosco ‘Bass’ Mann.
A profile on Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was literally wiped off the map by tornadoes earlier this year. They are staging a comeback by embracing all things green.
Wow, it didn't take me long to get back to a green story, did it?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Multi-Fuel Cars
Fast Company last month had a great article about Jonathan Goodwin, the dual fuel genius auto mechanic. Goodwin thinks the answer to reducing our dependence on OPEC's oil lies not in a single alternate fuel, but in the ability to combine multiple alternate fuels in smart ways to run a single car. Read the article here.
And here's links to two of his companies.
H-Line Conversion
SAE Energy
Neil Young is even having Goodwin re-work his favorite car, a classic Lincoln, into a dual fuel machine. Here's a link to a CNN story -- a verrry long video clip of Neil driving his massive land yacht and talking about how green technology can save the planet and our economy, and bring back the pride.
And here's links to two of his companies.
H-Line Conversion
SAE Energy
Neil Young is even having Goodwin re-work his favorite car, a classic Lincoln, into a dual fuel machine. Here's a link to a CNN story -- a verrry long video clip of Neil driving his massive land yacht and talking about how green technology can save the planet and our economy, and bring back the pride.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Which Reusable Water Bottle?
Laura Moser from Slate did a fantastic job of comparing the current set of options when it comes to reusable Water Bottles.
Read it here.
Read it here.
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