And now, luxury ice

When you come home from a hard day’s work, do you simply take some ice from the freezer for your drink? You poor sap, that immediately marks you as a real loser, a nobody. If you were anybody at all, you would buy Gläce Luxury Ice from Dean & Deluca and have it shipped to you, because mere ordinary ice would not be good enough to put into your vintage Scotch.

Here is a description of what you get for just $75:

Gläce Luxury Ice is a meticulously designed and differentiated ice brand specifically designed for use in premium drinks and cocktails. The Gläce Mariko Sphere is a perfectly spherical 2.5″ piece with a melting rate of 20-30 minutes. The Gläce G-Cubed, a symmetrical 2.5″ cube has a dilution rate of 20-40 minutes. Gläce Ice pieces are individually carved from a 300lb block to ensure flawless quality and a zero-taste profile, never contaminating the essence of premium liquors and drinks.

You get two packages of five cubes each, which means that each cube costs a mere $7.50 (excluding shipping and handling).

The company warns that this product requires Next Day Shipping to ensure freshness. This is very important because putting stale ice in your premium drink absolutely destroys the flavor.

One might quibble with the ad wording since a melting ‘rate’ would require different units than minutes, but those who would point such things out are clearly not in the league of people who use such ice, and can be ignored.

(Via Rebecca Schoenkopf.)

What Snowden has wrought

New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen writes about what he calls the ‘Snowden effect’ and lists all the things that has resulted from the revelations that Edward Snowden has made about the NSA.

It is highly telling that the highly secretive president Obama has been put on the defensive and forced to discuss these things as a result of the revelations and amusing to see him act as if he always wanted to discuss these issues, when in reality he has moved heaven and Earth to increase secrecy and prosecute whistleblowers. [Read more…]

There is only one Messiah?

According to this news report, a judge disagreed with a parent’s choice of name for their child and went ahead and changed it.

A judge in Tennessee changed a 7-month-old boy’s name to Martin from Messiah, saying the religious name was earned by one person and “that one person is Jesus Christ.”

Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew ordered the name change last week, according to WBIR-TV (http://on.wbir.com/1cDOeTY). The boy’s parents were in court because they could not agree on the child’s last name, but when the judge heard the boy’s first name, she ordered it changed, too. [Read more…]

The problem with email confidentiality

One consequence of the recent NSA revelations is that it has piqued my interest in the whole issue of encryption and internet confidentiality and security, topics about which I had at best a very hazy idea. For example, I had never even heard of Lavabit, the encrypted email service provider that apparently has attracted over 400,000 users in its ten years in operation. After word got out that Edward Snowden used it, the number of new monthly subscribers surged to three times its normal value. [Read more…]

NSA revelations may cost US companies between $22 and $35 billion

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation has released a report where they say that the recent NSA revelations are going to cost American companies that provide cloud computing and encryption services quite a lot of money, since many international businesses may be reluctant to give their business to US companies that can be compelled to provide the government with backdoor access to all their information. [Read more…]

Thieves with a conscience

Here’s a heartwarming story.

Some burglars broke into an office in San Bernadino that provides services for victims of sexual assault and took away all the computers. The non-profit office has no sign on the door in order to protect the people who seek its help. But the thieves later apparently discovered the nature of the work that the office did, and on the following morning they broke into the same offices again and returned all the stuff along with a handwritten note of apology.

Here’s the video. [Read more…]

Guilty bankers don’t even have to admit guilt

I have been railing about the fact that despite the massive damage that the major banks did to ordinary people and the economy leading up to and during the recent financial crisis, not a single major bank executive was even threatened with jail time. Instead the banks were merely fined amounts that seem impressive to ordinary people but are a pittance to the banks who can write it off as the cost of doing business. [Read more…]