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The Infinite Emotions of Coffee (and Chocolate)

Last year I attended a coffee tasting at Google Research. It was hosted by Alon Halvey. He was once CS professor at University of Washington, and now is at Google. He also like coffee. A lot. His website is http://www.macchiatone.com, because he thinks a macchiatone is a the best coffee drink. It is somewhere between a cappuccino and a macchiato (in terms of the amount of milk).

I think Alon likes the macchiatone in the way that I like dark milk chocolate (I made that term up). Milk chocolate can indeed by cloying and too sweet, but dark chocolate can be overwhelming and bitter. Some chocolate companies have started making a new kind of milk chocolate that has a high % of cacao and just a tiny bit of milk to take the edge off. It’s like a cup of tea with one teaspoon of sugar instead of 16 (I think that’s about how many are in a bottle of Snapple).

Alon’s book is an account of his coffee philosophy and travels. The book jacket has a review by Vincent Cerf!

In future, I’ll probably be writing more on tea and chocolate, because I know those things better.

Paperback on Amazon

Kindle on Amazon

Our First Live Event is Tonight! Northern California Seafood Foraging @Stanford Th Feb 21 6PM

Northern California Seafood Foraging @Stanford GSB Th Feb 21

Please join Local Food Lab and Stanford GSB Farm Club for a presentation on seafood foraging on the Northern California coast. The presenters will discuss breath hold freediving for abalone and urchin, digging/trapping crabs, clams and other invertebrates, and collecting seaweed. Other forms of foraging, such as mushrooming, will be discussed briefly.

Presenters will include: Kacie Loparto of shesellsseaweed.com

Robert Lee, Research Fellow at Stanford and instructor with Performance Freediving, www.fl0wstate.com/robert/

The presentation will be Th Feb 21, 6-7:30PM at Stanford Graduate School of Business, C105 (Class of 1968 Building, Room 105). Parking is free after 4PM. The business school has an excellent eatery on site if you want to get food before the event.

www.gsb.stanford.edu/about/directions.html

There will be foodie give aways as well!

Laptop Backpacks – Incase CL55412 Heathered Backpack

Earlier this month, Square (Jack Dorsey’s credit card company) had a tech talk/recruiting event on campus. Not surprisingly, these tech companies are very keen on hiring Stanford CS students, so they’re throwing all sorts of events on campus. Square gave me this excellent backpack for helping to recruit students to the event.

This really is an excellent, excellent laptop case, great for biking around campus or riding the bus. It is large enough for 17″laptops like the MacBook Pro, with two large compartments, and many distinct, easy to access pockets for notebooks, phones, accessories, etc. It is incredibly handy and easy to use, and retails for about $100. I can’t recommend this backpack enough, and many other online reviewers, such as TechHive, agree.

Incase Heathered Backpack on Amazon

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The Perfect Pushup

The fitness industry is rife with fads, whether they be products (e.g., the thigh master) or exercise trends (Zumba, Taibo, etc.). I don’t think trends are entirely bad. There’s nothing wrong with seeking a variety of fitness and exercise modes, as long as you don’t think the latest one is the be all and end all of exercise modes, instead of a way of just introducing some variety. Nonetheless I am wary of the trends in fitness, since they are mostly a way of creating change for the sake of change, much like the fashion system.

One trendy fitness product that I think is very innovative and useful however, so much so that I paid the premium to buy the product early on, is the Perfect Pushup and its variants. There was a major TV infomercial campaign for the Perfect Pushup a few years ago, and while I didn’t order from TV, I went to a sporting goods store a few weeks later and purchased them.

The PP is a set of two pushups handles that allow you to rotate your shoulders in the anterior direction as you do the pushup. Because of the anatomy of the shoulder, full arm extension require anterior shoulder rotation. Even with regular pushups and bench presses, you do a slight anterior shoulder rotation as part of the proper form of doing the exercises. The PP takes this to the next logical step, allowing for much greater rotation. It also allows you to engage your lats and other muscles groups that are hard to recruit when doing conventional pushups. The Perfect Pushup and its imitators generally run about $30.

I can attest that after two months of using the PP about twice a week, I was able to do 20 one-arm pushups with either arm (I had previously been able to do only a few). I think that’s a great testimonial.

Perfect Pushup Version 2 on Amazon

Perfect Pushups Travel Version Amazon

Various Perfect Pushup Versions on Amazon