By Ben

Faces of Change

A couple months ago I was watching some political ads and found myself thinking  "man these are lame...how much cooler would it be to hear why your friends choose to support a candidate."   At the same time, I was chatting with my friend Sean about trying out Facebook's development platform.  After just a couple minutes we decided to pull the trigger and found a great coworker to help us out with development.

Today, I'm happy to say that we've finally brought the idea to fruition as a Facebook app called: faces of change.  There's a lot more I'd like to add to the application, but I'm pleased with our first effort.  Please check it out and tell me what you think.   If the response is positive, I'll get our code cleaned up and release it as an open source tool for other organizations.

Check it out! http://www.thefacesofchange.com

 

A Cold-Brewed Coffee Experiment

My mom recently sent me a NY Times article espousing the virtues of cold-brewed coffee. Unlike normal ice coffee that is brewed hot and then chilled, cold coffee is brewed over a long period of time without heating the water.  This week I resolved to give it a shot, and repurposed my trusty French Press for cold coffee production:

  • 1/3 Cup Coarse Ground Coffee (Major Dickason's Blend from Pete's)
  • 2 Cups of Filtered Water
  • Mix and let stand overnight at room temperature
  • Filter twice through the french press, or some fancy cheese cloth if that's your thing
  • Blend with an equal volume of ice. Add milk or cream to taste.

The verdict: pretty amazing coffee. No bitterness and much richer flavors. This is coming from a guy whose palate was trained on 7-11 slurpees, beef jerky, and the belief that every dish is enhanced with copious amounts of sriracha hot sauce.  Even I noticed a huge difference in quality

Thanks mom.