New Gadgets

Last Friday I turned 24 years old (nearly a quarter century!), and I ventured away from Ann Arbor for some fun with family and friends. I was given several nice gifts, but I want to highlight two that satisfy some of my greatest interests: technology and coffee.

First, the Flip Mino, a miniature camcorder.

It's about the size of a pack of cigarettes and holds up to an hour of video. The best part is the flip-out USB adapter; all I have to do is plug it into my MacBook and upload, or connect the TV Out cable and display images on a bigger screen. I've recorded a couple short ones, but nothing yet worth posting. There may be an opportunity to record and post video of some of the more visually interesting things I do in lab. YouTube, here I come!

Second, a Bialetti mukka, a stovetop device that allows you to make cappuccinos and lattes without an expensive milk steamer and espresso machine. It works great, like magic actually, as you can see in the demonstration video at that Williams Sonoma link.



This mukka is going to save me so much money. Every morning I get coffee at the Espresso Royale outside my building. Every morning. And not just coffee, sometimes I get fancy drinks, like a soy chai latte. This amounts to $2-4 a day. Just this summer, I've spent over $200 on coffee.