Modern Geekery

The folks at Worldchanging point out the critical flaws in Walkscore. I had a similar take on the site about a year ago, though one that was a lot less in depth. Check out the Worldchanging article for a very insightful take on why WalkScore’s approach is outdated (terrible business model), as well as some commentary on the Second Life tool called Carbon Goggles.

My take on Carbon Goggles is something between “obvious” and “pointless.” Second Life has utterly failed to impress me in the suspension-of-disbelief department, thus I’m much more likely to be moved by data on carbon impact than on something that gimmicky. I suspect that while such gimmicks do tend to be effective in getting points across to folks who are not intimately familiar with the subject at hand, the Second Life audience is one that is not ill-educated on climate change.

Between the garden and our CSA share this year, we have been just overflowing with fresh vegetables. One thing that we have been getting in our CSA basket that has been just phenomenal are the mustard greens. Crisp, light, and sinus-clearingly spicy, they have wound up on my sandwiches and in my salads. Today, I built a salad around the mustard. I added sugar snap peas, also from the CSA basket, and some of the foliage from the fresh fennel I bought at the farmers market this morning. (My own fennel isn’t big enough yet.) Add to that some nasturtium leaves and a nasturtium flower from my garden and some shaved daikon radish, from the farmer’s market. The overall effect was deliciously sweet and spicy and with a touch of acid from some apple cider vinegar in an oil/vinegar emulsion, a great salad for dinner tonight. The rest of dinner was also largely local. A pasta dish with Russian kale from the CSA and locally raised pork sausage, with white beans and a carrot-kohlrabi bake, with carrots from the CSA and kohlrabi from our garden.

I’m leaving Monday for Chicago again. We’ve decided to lease an apartment up there for the summer, since sublets are fairly cheap now. One of my teammates will be relocating for 2 months, which will mean a lot more work will get done in the lab in Chicago. It will present a logistical hurdle, one that we’ll certainly overcome. For the amount we’re saving, both in total dollars and in dollars per man-hour, it’s a win-win situation.