Have you ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse? On top of an endless supply of meat, they also have a unique "churrasco" cooking and presentation style.
Blake saw that style of cooking - and innovated it - creating the Carson Rodizio kit (which started as a Kickstarter project). It is a multi-rotisserie rack that converts your favorite backyard grill into an open and spinning Brazilian style Steakhouse. It's clever, functional, and cool ... and it's been used to win multiple barbecue championships.
I love to experience an entrepreneur's mind at work.
It's not always about what you add. Sometimes, it is about what you take away. Less is often more.
On Christmas, I saw Rogue One with my family, and was impressed at what Disney had done to bring back the likenesses of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher.
Peter Cushing played Grand Moff Tarkin, a character who they couldn't just cut from a movie featuring the Death Star so heavily (despite Cushing being dead since 1994). In addition, the likeness of Carrie Fisher was brought back to play a young Leia.
My son, Zach, had my favorite Philly cheesesteak sent in from the Jersey Shore. Shipping cost way more than the sandwiches. Worth It!!
As much as I love innovation (or finding something better), sometimes things are perfect as they are.
Wow, how time flies! Birthdays seem to come more quickly as I get older. It makes sense, though. When you were four, a birthday represented a quarter of your life. Now, a year represents a much smaller percentage.
Reminder: while aging may suck. It sure beats the alternative.
I was in Indonesia last week – and had some exotic experiences.
That picture was taken in Bali, where I first met my wife many years ago.
Indonesia is famous for coffee. For example, "Sumatra" is their biggest island – with “Java” coming in close behind (and both are synonymous with coffee).
They also make one of the most expensive coffees in the world … Luwak Coffee.
It is a very particular coffee, created using a very particular process.
In traditional coffee production, the cherries are harvested, and the beans are extracted, before being shipped to a roaster, ground into a pulp, and brewed by a barista at your local Starbucks.
In contrast, with Luwak coffee, something different happens.
The coffee cherries are harvested by wild animals.
Specifically, they’re harvested by the Asian Palm Civet, a small, cat-like animal that absolutely loves the taste of coffee cherries.
But,if the civets eat the cherries, how can they still be used to make coffee?
Here comes the gross part—the civets eat the coffee cherries, but their digestive tract can’t effectively process the beans, only the flesh surrounding them.
When the partially digested, partially fermented beans are eventually excreted, coffee producers harvest them. The beans are then cleaned, roasted, and used to make astonishingly expensive (“with retail prices reaching up to $700 per kilogram”) coffee.
Now is the coffee that mind-blowing to warrant a price north of $300 a pound?
No, not really. In fact, many critics will openly call it bad coffee, or as Tim Carman, food writer for the Washington Post put it, "It tasted just like...Folgers. Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn't finish it."
To be fair, the Luwak coffee industry is an experience. When I toured a plantation near Ubud, Bali, a smiling tour guide greeted and led me on an in-depth exploration of the forested property, where I was allowed to immerse myself in the various spices, roots, beans, and civets used to produce this one-of-a-kind coffee. Here is a video I shot of the process.
This map shows the difference in living costs around the world using figures from the world's largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.
The Consumer Price Index, used to determine the difference in the living costs between countries, takes into account the prices of groceries, transportation, restaurants and utilities.
There are many more charts with specific data by region. The chart below shows the places with the highest and lowest costs of living.
The CPI in the infographic is a relative indicator of a country's living costs compared to New York. So, for instance, if a country has a CPI of 70, on average it enjoys 30% cheaper living costs compared to New York.
Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - April 29th, 2017
Might be easier to solve a Rubik's Cube than to be President Trump. Check out his first 100 days.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
Lighter Links:
Trading Links:
Posted at 08:32 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Food and Drink, Healthy Lifestyle, Ideas, Just for Fun, Market Commentary, Science, Trading, Trading Tools, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
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