Unfiltered 9: The Return originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/NV0MplSGJgw/
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Unfiltered 9: The Return
Jeff Lefevere and I are back with another edition of the Unfiltered podcast after nearly a year in hiatus. We are joined by Tina Caputo, the Editor-in-Chief of Vineyard & Winery Management magazine, Joel Vincent, Executive Director of the OpenWine Consortium and co-founder of VinTank, and Tom Wark from Wark Communications and FERMENTATION. Show Notes: [...]
Pax Cellars, Syrah, Alder Springs 2005
I have blogged and podcasted several notes for Pax Cellars Syrah over the years so I was looking forward to revisiting this producer for my birthday dinner last night. The producer has been in a state of flux over the past year or so with winemaker Pax Mahle leaving in the summer of 2008 but [...]
Pax Cellars, Syrah, Alder Springs 2005 originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/dR0EhlhbEiI/
2010 Best of Wine Online Awards Pt. IV
In Part IV (and final installment) of my review, I continue an annual, highly subjective look at what I think is the best of what’s around in the wine scene.
Product Launch of the Year
The One™ wine glasses launched by Master Sommelier Andrea Immer Robinson wins my new product of the year.
First, a new product launch of this sort happens infrequently in the wine world. Second, when a new product launch does happen, it’s usually a disappointment on some level, the claims not quite matching up to reality. That’s not the case with The One™ glasses.
Designed to be all-purpose, everyday glasses – one for a red and one for a white wine, I have found them to be nearly perfect.
As an alpha consumer with a streak of skepticism, I’ve never quite reconciled the Riedel, Spiegelau, Waterford crystal wine glass landscape, instead drinking my wine out of inexpensive glass tumblers whilst the crystal languishes in the china cabinet. Plus, polishing crystal glassware after hand washing is a drag and that’s only if a glass has not broken in your sink after you looked at it wrong.
That said, The One™ glasses are nearly a revelation and have moved into daily use for me, in addition to being something I’ve gifted this year. Why? They are crystal, lead-free, bottom rack of the dishwasher safe (i.e. they handle super-hot water), thin, have a nice bowl that nicely captures wine aromas and they’re incredibly durable.
At $12.95 per glass or $49.95 for a set of four, they are an incredible bargain that will last for year and years. Buy one of each of the red and white glass and do this little test before committing to buying enough for a crowd – run the glass under screaming hot water in your sink, immediately turn the water to cold and run the glass under it, then, as Andre 3000 might say, “Shake it like a Polaroid picture.” Most other crystal wine glasses would snap at the stem in an instant or spontaneously combust. Not this glass.
Kudos to Andrea Robinson and her team for creating something truly useful for the wine enthusiast – a wine glass that handles the way people actually live while providing a good experience for what is in the glass.
Wine Book of the Year
2010 was the year of the wine book, an embarrassment of riches for the wine inclined bibliophile. With releases too numerous to mention, not the least of which are Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine, Secrets of the Sommeliers, Matt Kramer on Wine, The Wild Vine, Opus Vino, and The New Connoisseurs’ Guidebook to California Wine and Wineries, any of these titles could have won best non-fiction wine book of the year in any other year.
And, as if to add a cherry on top of this book sundae, the book sequel to Sideways, called Vertical, releases in the third week of November.
Despite this depth of quality, my pick is for book of the year is Reading Between the Wines by Terry Theise.
In choosing a winner, the criteria becomes what transcends the enjoyable and has an opportunity to become a benchmark book referenceable for years to come? Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine comes close, as do several other books and the rest are solid backlist titles, but Reading Between the Wines is an instant classic.
Theise’s book is part treatise and part rumination on the human condition. It is rare for a wine book, hell, any type of book, to move you to feeling. Reading Between the Wines does that and more in becoming indispensable reading and re-reading on the thoughtful wine lover’s bookshelf.
Philanthropist of the Year Award
Doing good is a part of the DNA of the wine world. Hardly a week goes by in which a non-profit isn’t picking the pocket of their volunteer base with an event that includes wine, most of which is donated. 2010 saw this is as ongoing concern, with the addition of a tragedy of grave consequence.
When news spread of the earthquake devastation in Haiti in January, a 7.0 on the Richter scale, it didn’t take long for David Honig, Publisher of Palate Press, to mobilize.
As I watched CNN and saw the most horrific scenes of human carnage I’ve ever seen, scarring visages of bodies piled up in the street with heavy equipment creating mass graves, Honig was organizing an online auction, aided by a supporting cast of hundreds who donated wine and purchased bottles with an awareness of the deep consequences the citizens of Haiti were facing.
According to Honig, he expected to gather up a case or two of wine and be able to donate a few hundred dollars. Instead, what he saw was an outpouring of support that far exceeded his expectations. Per Honig, special mention should also go to Lenn Thompson from the New York Cork Report for mobilizing the New York wine industry in a meaningful way.
All told, the Palate Press wine auction for Haiti raised over $17K for Haiti relief, donated to the Red Cross (Palate Press summary post here). A similar and complementary auction led by the Aussies added another $20K.
Kudos to David, Palate Press, Lenn Thompson and a cast of hundreds who contributed to this global cause. As the former founder of a non-profit whose board I sat on said to me, “I appreciate you and volunteers aren’t always appreciated.” My mention in giving David, Palate Press and others an informal award is merely appreciating the good work that has already been done.
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/2010_best_of_wine_online_awards_pt._iv/
Jimmie Kenneth Johnson Jo Gartner Joseph Francis Nemechek III
Healthy Habits Kitchen: Around the World Wine & Food Workshop
Here's an interesting Wellesley/Wine event for your consideration:
Join Healthy Habits Kitchen and Higgins Wine & Spirits for the Around the World Wine & Food Workshop on Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 from 7 ? 8:30 pm.
International wines have taken center stage in recent years. Learn about little-known, affordable wines from different countries and how to pair them with everyday meals. We?ll greet you with a glass of sparkling wine and you?ll enjoy four unique food and wine pairings for both a satisfying dinner and an educational evening.
RSVP is required by October 15 and space is limited. Register by calling at 781-235-6325 or online at http://www.healthyhabitskitchen.com/events.htm
Click here to download an event flyer.
Join Healthy Habits Kitchen and Higgins Wine & Spirits for the Around the World Wine & Food Workshop on Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 from 7 ? 8:30 pm.
International wines have taken center stage in recent years. Learn about little-known, affordable wines from different countries and how to pair them with everyday meals. We?ll greet you with a glass of sparkling wine and you?ll enjoy four unique food and wine pairings for both a satisfying dinner and an educational evening.
DATE: Thursday, October 21, 2010
TIME: 7 ? 8:30 pm
LOCATION: Healthy Habits Kitchen, 36 Washington
Street, Suite 2, Wellesley
COST: $40, $10 of which is redeemable towards meal
kits purchased that night. As an extra bonus, receive
$5 off any bottle of wine purchased that evening.
TIME: 7 ? 8:30 pm
LOCATION: Healthy Habits Kitchen, 36 Washington
Street, Suite 2, Wellesley
COST: $40, $10 of which is redeemable towards meal
kits purchased that night. As an extra bonus, receive
$5 off any bottle of wine purchased that evening.
RSVP is required by October 15 and space is limited. Register by calling at 781-235-6325 or online at http://www.healthyhabitskitchen.com/events.htm
Click here to download an event flyer.
If Megatron Iced Everything He Touched [Optimus Prime]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/P336k5plRuo/if-megatron-iced-everything-he-touched
Where the Battle for Free Trade in Wine Stands After the Election
Washington State Initiative 1100 appears to have been defeated by a small margin. This is the initiative that would have reformed the Washington State alcohol regulatory system, getting the state out of the business of selling spirits, allowing self distribution...
Real-time discovery of Twitter images with Hashalbum
It's a stupidly simple idea that instantly exposes a treasure trove of funny, poignant and timely images. Supposedly the albums update in real-time, but I can't confirm that -- and I also don't know how much of the Twitter fire hose Hashalbum actually parses. Other than letting you search by hashtag, the site does nothing else.
Of course, because the results are unfiltered and the engine is completely 'dumb' (there's no analysis of the images themselves), the quality of the searches isn't very high. Just like Twitter, Hashalbum produces a stream of random, stream-of-consciousness images -- it's still down to you to pick out the interesting bits, but hey, that's Twitter!
Real-time discovery of Twitter images with Hashalbum originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/11/29/real-time-discovery-of-twitter-images-with-hashalbum/
COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM Dale Arnold Jarrett David Carl Allison
Got a messy Photoshop PSD? TidyPSD will fix it for $9
For the meager (well, fairly meager) price of $9, TinyPSD will take any unorganized, jumbled-up PSD and turn it into a thing of Zen-like beauty. Sequentially numbered layers will be replaced with names! Unordered chaos will be replaced with layer groups!
TinyPSD aims for a 24-hour turnaround, but there's a testimonial on the site that suggests it can be as fast as one hour. They also accept bulk orders, which might be handy if you're a big design firm with sizable archives that need tidying up. Finally, if you're not happy with your TidyPSD, you can request a full refund.
Got a messy Photoshop PSD? TidyPSD will fix it for $9 originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/11/30/got-a-messy-photoshop-psd-tidypsd-will-fix-it-for-9/
Speed up Firefox page loading time without using a RAM disk
Yesterday we wrote about moving the cache of Firefox or Chrome onto a RAM disk. Instead of loading cached images and data from the hard drive, it loads from memory, which is a lot faster. It turns out, though, that Firefox can do this without using a RAM disk -- you can simply do it with about:config.Just follow these instructions -- and don't worry, if you mess it up, you won't break anything.
- Type about:config into the address bar
- Type browser.cache into the Filter field
- Set browser.cache.disk.enable to false (double click it)
- Set browser.cache.memory.enable to true (double click it)
- Right click > New > Integer; type browser.cache.memory.capacity; press OK
- Type in 100000 (this is equivalent to 100 megabytes); press OK
- Close all Firefox tabs and windows, and then restart the browser
If you want more than 100 megabytes of cache -- if you have lots of spare memory, or you're prone to mammoth browsing sessions -- type in 500000 instead for 500 megabytes of cache. To confirm everything is working, visit about:cache and you should see some 'Memory cache device' information.
I'm currently unable to benchmark this change (Firebug doesn't work with FF4 Beta 7!) but in theory it should be just as fast or faster than the RAM disk approach.. Lee has been using it for a few hours and he says page loads are much faster. If you use Firefox, try it out and let us know whether it feels faster or not!
Thanks to commenter danielkza for the tip!
Filed under: Browsers
Speed up Firefox page loading time without using a RAM disk originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Comcast Is Bullying Netflix Partners Into Paying a Toll to Deliver Streaming Video [Bullies]
Monday, November 29, 2010
Idiots Try to Sell $33 Arctic Ice Cubes to Other Idiots [Wrongmodo]
Article in City Pages
I’m a week late but some Twin Cities readers might have picked up last week’s City Pages. In the Wine & Dine insert is an article about Argentine wine I wrote including 8 wine recommendations. Since most blog readers are not local, the digital version is just a click away with a one-page HTML version [...]
Article in City Pages originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/MdM2jPxaA8I/
Lego Pens Done Write
Derek Seiple, maker of the $1,300 Lego chess set, is back. This time he has turned his considerable brickmanship to the low-tech pen, making these round-barreled biros from cylindrical Legos.
Available in either multicolored stripes or a single color, the chunky pens also come with a little plastic cap to cover the nib, although it looks [...]
Available in either multicolored stripes or a single color, the chunky pens also come with a little plastic cap to cover the nib, although it looks [...]
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/lego-pens-done-write/
Her Majesty?s Yacht Britannia
Her Majesty?s Yacht Britannia (HMY Britannia) is the former Royal Yacht of the British Royal Family. This luxury yacht is 126 meters long and it is one of the largest yachts in the world. Due to its age (57 years by now) the royal vessel was decommissioned in 1997 and is currently moored as an [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vagablond/ysSN/~3/yld8nwo_MjY/
ASUS Eee Note EA-800 priced at $230, launching in Taiwan this week
ASUS Eee Note EA-800 priced at $230, launching in Taiwan this week originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/fcq6JbMkG5I/
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