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July 18,2008 (FirstClassFriday) |
Shobu Aikido of Boston's new Somerville dojo was opened for its first class last night. Members of the dojo have been working on the new space for a few months. Their efforts transformed a former garage to a beautiful and serene space for study.
Aikido is a martial art. It is not a dance. While the practice of Aikido does not involve striking, the threat of a strike is implied in the study. Sensei often gently "reminds" students that ignoring those threats can have consequenses. Aikido study sometimes is more about understanding one's own openings and vulnerabilities, and working to eliminate them. If there are no openings, there are no opportunities for an effective attack.
When one has the ability to recognize these openings, one also gains a better understanding of how to take advantage of them when they present themselves in... [More] - Jade Yoga Mats
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July 17,2008 (GreenFutureTechThursday) |
Ideas for our daily articles are not always well planned but can come at any time. Today's subject was the result of some pretty loose associations. It started with a conversation about our friend Leslie who is coming to visit from Bermuda. Her maiden name is Robinson, which of course led to the mention of the movie The Graduate. That, in turn, triggered the reciting of the famous lines...
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Ben: Yes, sir. Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? Ben: Yes, I am. Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
If that conversation was to happen today, the word would be Bioplastics. It is a tiny market now, but with the cost of making petroleum-based plastics rising every day, the future is clear to companies such as Metabolix.
The approach to making bioplatics is to use either bacteria or plants to "grow" plastics. The "stuff" can then be extracted and used to make the things we use everyday. However, Bioplastics is more than that. Some forms of bioplastis are more biodegradable than its counterparts in use today. Some are even compostable! The renewability and degradability of bioplastics are double wins which will help in reducing our "footprint" on the environment. We'll plan to keep our eye on bioplastics and perhaps go chat with the Metabolix folks to get their take on this emerging field. Until then, we'll continue to recycle and reuse our plastics. Perhaps in the future, we'll be able to add "compost" to the list. [Permalink] - Wan Chi Lau
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July 16,2008 (GreenGearWednesday) |
Back by popular demand, RainyDaySports will once again cover yoga-related gear. Our previous yoga enthusiast decided to take time off from writing and focus on triathalons, getting married, and other time-consuming activities. Fortunately, we have found a replacement. Our "Dr. May" is a real medical doctor, currently working in Texas, and an avid yoga practitioner.
In keeping with this week's "green" theme, we decided to take a look at yoga mats made out of eco-friendly materials. Jade Yoga's mats are 100% natural rubber and contains no PVC. The claim is these mats are more... [More] - Jade Yoga Mats
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July 15,2008 (GreenTechTuesday) |
The cover of this month's Dwell is about "growing up Green." The issue had many articles on "building a sustainable future." With global warming, $150 oil, and a world population looking at soon to reach 7 billion, it is a timely subject.
One of the old-timers here reminded us that the technology may have changed, but those "sustainability" ideas were pretty well covered in the 60's and 70's. To prove his point, he brought in a few books which he claims are actually worth MORE than the paper they are printed on...he is kind of a curmudgeon, but we... [More] - Green Future
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July 14,2008 (GreenMobileMonday) |
A seven mile commute should not take forty minutes. However, the daily trek for one of our editors is, and we have decided to do something about it. We have decided to investigate the various scooter offerings (gas vs electric, Vespa vs newcomers) to see if we can find a better alternative to the car for intra-city jaunts.
We will, of course, be looking at various accessories to keep our scooter from "wandering away" when we are not looking. Our interns have already found some gear from Kryptonite and Xena which look promising. We'll have a more detailed look at both locks next month. If you have others you think we should check out, drop us a line. We'll be happy to... [More] - Scooters and gear
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July 13,2008 (WeekendEdition) |
Salem was, of course, one of the most prosperous towns in New England back when things all started. Over the years, it has remade itself into a huge tourist destination. The town is flooded every Holloween, but it is also a huge draw for all those looking to mix in a bit of American history with their travels during the other times of the year.
The rest of Salem MA was just as fascinating as the House of Seven Gables. Right across the street is the OLDEST candy store in America! It was probably not a good idea that we went in before we had lunch, but it WAS just right across the street.
The store had a huge variety of candies. Many of them are still made the traditional way, using traditional molds and machines. Most of us managed to... [More] - Salem MA
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July 12,2008 (WeekendEdition) |
The crew took Carolyn up to Salem for her "Birthday Weekend." Carolyn's friend Patty had once mentioned that a birthday should be a month-long event.
Carolyn couldn't convince the higher ups at the magazine that her birthday should be celebrated for the entire month of July, but did managed to get in writing that it should span the entire weekend. We don't know who negotiated her contract but... [More] - House of Seven Gables
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July 11,2008 (PassifloraFriday) |
Last August we went to a Mass Horticulture Society flower show at the Elm Bank Horticulture Center. At the show we purchased a few new day lillies to add to our RainyDayGarden collection. Today, we noticed that some of them have started blooming. It was a nice surprise as we had totally forgotten about them!
One flower which we don't forget we have is the Passiflora. This is because we have to bring this vine inside in the Fall and replant it outside every year in the Spring. In some part of the country, the passiflora vine may actually be considered a weed as it can be invasive and crowd out other species. This is not a problem in the New England climate as it is not yet warm enough for the vine to make it through the winter outside.
The Passiflora's complex flower is one of the big reason why we love growing this plant. While the bloom itself only lasts for about a day or two, it is spectacular when... [More] - Passiflora
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July 10,2008 (TechProjectThursday) |
Our Pismo G3 laptop is a great little Powerbook. We have upgraded its RAM, optical drive, CPU, and added more disk space. However, it appears to have finally reached a technological dead end. The main problem with the G3 is Leopard could not be install on it, even with the upgraded G4 processor. Folks here acquired an old 12" aluminum Powerbook in May to replace the Pismo. The first things we did to the new laptop were to upgrade the OS to Leopard and max out the internal RAM. The next task on the list was to take care of some annoying problems with the keyboard.
The seller of this laptop had indicated both the right "Enter" and "Shift" keys did not work. We had taken the keyboard off and cleaned it with compressed air, but was not able to get it to work. Our next plan was to buy a new one off EBay and replace the entire unit. Since we had worked out the steps of removing the keyboard, we thought we would share some tips to make this step easier for those who need to do the same.
Before you start, know that there are three screws holding the keyboard in place. One is in the back of the laptop (see RAM upgrade directions) and... [More] - Keyboard replacement
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July 9,2008 (WowUsWednesday) |
All of us Apple fanboys know the 3G iPhone is scheduled to be released this Friday. Every gadget site is buzzing with news of "unboxing" and other iPhone related tips and tidbits. We wanted to take RainyDayMagazine readers in a cell phone related, but slightly different direction.
It is pretty obvious that cell phones are now more powerful than many computers from a few years ago. It is likely they will continue to be more so with each iteration. While we can do more with the phones, some are now incorporating them as part of a system to potentially improve health care in the poorer and more isolated regions of the world.
Professor Rubinsky and his team at UC Berkeley has developed an imaging application using the cell phone as the primary visualization platform. You can check out the published paper here and his interview here.
The basic idea is to construct a system which can enable the cell phone to perform ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images, and other medical imaging diagnotisc. The possible applications range from detecting tumors to confirming tuberculosis infections to monitoring developing fetuses.
We hope they start doing some work using the iPhone SDK. It would be cool to see the Tricorder as one of the bundled apps in a future iPhone release :-) [Permalink] - Wan Chi Lau
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July 8,2008 (TechTuesday) |
Since we got so many emails asking for more examples, we decided to post few more from our RainyDayGarden series. These were all shot this past weekend using the Casio EX-F1 on a tripod.
We also got a lot of email suggesting additional video ideas. Many of them we have thought of already, some were too odd to attempt even for our intrepid interns, still others were down right illegal in most states. However, we thought seeing more ideas would not be such a bad thing. So if you have an idea for a video, drop us a note with the subject line "Shoot me, baby!" We will select three of the best ideas. One for each frame rate (300, 600, 1200). The winners will get something fun from our pile of stuff. The contest ends at the end of the month. [Permalink] - Wan Chi Lau
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July 7,2008 (1200fpsMoviesMonday) |
The RainyDayPhotography folks had access to the Casio EX-F1 digital camera this weekend. We had heard about this camera's unique high speed shutter and wanted to see if it is as cool as it sounds. We spent a few days with the camera. It was not enough time to sample all of the cameras functions, but we did get a feel for the high speed movie modes.
The image of the bumblebee hovering next to the purple cone flower is a frame pulled out of the 300 fps capture. Click on the images below to see the actual movies of insect (bumblebee, dragonflies) movements at this capture speed. The wing beats are still a little blurry, but definitely WAY better than... [More] - Casio EX-F1 FirstUse
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July 5-6,2008 (WeekendEdition) |
There are many new digital cameras on the market and more coming every day. Most have good image sensors. Many have the ability to capture movies. SLR models enable users to change and use different lenses. However, until now, NONE of them allows photographers to do what the Casio Exilim EX-F1 will allow them to do. Intrigued? Well, then read on.
The Casio EX-F1's package is similar to mosty digital cameras: camera, lens hood, battery charger, USB cord, remote trigger, and software.
The body is slightly smaller than our Nikon D-40. It has a 6MP sensor, a 12x zoom lens (36mm-432mm), and lots of... [More] - Casio EX-F1
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July 4,2008 (Independence Day) |
Normally, RainyDayKitchen's "FirstGrill" events start way earlier in the season. With the trips out to L.A. and the crazy review load, we just couldn't get our act together this year. So our first official firing-up of the grills didn't occur until July 4th.
As it has been almost two years since we first reviewed the Coleman RoadTrip and Thermos' Grill2Go, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look at how they have held up. Now for those who may have thought that we "baby" these units, let me assure you, we have not :-) We use them, we clean them occassionally, but we basically treat them as if... [More] - Grills InTheWild
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July 3,2008 (TurnaroundThursday) |
One of our RainyDayGarage readers sent us this link yesterday to a heated thread on the BimmerFest discussion board. We have been known to poke fun at Porsche dealers in the past. However, this story got some of the RainyDayGarage folks into a tizzy after reading it. They said we MUST do a post about the outrageous behavior of this BMW dealership.
In the thread, many different opinions were expressed by the members of that forum. Much of it vilifying Flow BMW for the "stazi-like" behavior of the... [More] - FlowBMW
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July 2,2008 (WetWednesday) |
Boston got a lot of rain during the last week of June. This meant the RainyDayGarden really got a nice wet base heading into the typically drier month of July.
The orange day lillies started to bloom this past week. We love photographing the lillies and took their blooming as an opportunity to play around some more with the Nikon D40. In this outing, we wanted to experiment with the apeture-priority settings and get some experience manipulating the depth-of-field (DOF). Using the "Auto" mode, the camera will usually pick a combination which will give the best focus for the area of interest. This typically mean favoring speed over a greater depth-of-field.
We waited for an bright cloudy day to minimize the contrast. There were also minimal breeze to disturb the flowers. By using a smaller aperture setting and thus... [More] - Aperture Priority
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July 1,2008 (TechTipTuesday) |
The broken iPod we purchased had its normal share of dings and scratches. We were looking at various methods of cleaning it up and perhaps buffing out some of the scuff marks. One of the interns happened upon this rather odd set of directions on how to use a banana (not porn related in anyway) to clean up an iPod. We were intrigued enough to give it a try.
The steps were simple enough: cut a piece, expose some, apply generously, let sit a minute or so, wipe clean with... [More] - iPod Cleaning
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