How to Make Better Coffee at Home | WIRED

April 28, 2020April 27, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

MANY OF US are sheltering in place, which probably means forgoing that morning trip to the coffee shop. Fear not though, it’s possible to make coffeehouse-quality coffee in your own kitchen.

Engineering a better cup of coffee isn’t difficult. But first you need to figure out what “better” means to you. There is no single right cup of coffee, there’s just the best version of what you love. Do you love your coffee rich and dark—thick enough to stand a spoon in, as my grandfather used to say? Or do you prefer something brighter, more of a medium roast that doesn’t overwhelm you with bitterness? Or perhaps you prefer a light coffee with some cream and sugar.

6 Strategies You Need to Run Your Company Through Uncertainty | Entrepreneur

April 28, 2020April 27, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Well, I didn’t expect this to happen — and I’m guessing you didn’t either. If you’re a small-business owner, you need a plan more than ever. These are the strategies I’m relying on as a small-business owner to help me lead through this extremely uncertain time.

1. Time

You need to give yourself a little time to process the impact this coronavirus will have and the challenges and opportunities that it has created for you, your business, your family and others. Most of us will be a little dazed for a while. Unfortunately, just because some of us have more time on our hands doesn’t mean we’ll spend it productively. Right now, I’m mostly focusing on taking a deep breath.

Jaunt’s ROSA gyrodyne: The first eVTOL air taxi that actually looks safe | New Atlas

April 27, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This eVTOL air taxi design looks like a weird helicopter/plane hybrid, but it’s the safest of all the eVTOL designs we’ve ever seen, and it has another killer advantage in that it requires no special certification. That’s huge news in the emerging 3D commuting market, because it could make this thing much, much cheaper to get off the ground.

To understand why this thing is such a great idea, let’s recap two of the main hurdles that every other eVTOL designer is facing: safety and certification. The safety issue seems huge to us, although many of the eVTOL manufacturers we speak to don’t seem to see it as insurmountable. In a total failure scenario, all eVTOLs designed around multiple small rotors have a bit of an issue: they’ll simply plummet to the ground.

Polaroid Now | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

April 23, 2020April 22, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In an age where instant photography means whipping out a smartphone and immediately sharing the digital image with friends online, a boxy camera that produces self-developing prints seems like a huge backward step. But that’s exactly what instant film cameras provide, and a revamped Polaroid has announced a new model called the Now.

The Polaroid Corporation was founded by Edwin Land in 1937, a company that originally sold polarized sunglasses. But Land went on to develop a “magic camera” that produced instant prints, which was described in a 1973 issue of Popular Science as “perhaps the most fiendishly clever invention in the history of photography.”

Oil prices may be at all-time lows, but it’s still worth buying an electric car | Mashable

April 23, 2020April 22, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For the first time in 34 years, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped to historic lows — below $0 somehow, confusingly — but that shouldn’t erode efforts to go electric, especially for any future car purchases.

Sure, because of coronavirus social-distancing measures in most cities and states, roads are largely empty, cars are parked, most flights are canceled, and the buses and trains that are still running barely have passengers. Even auto insurance companies are recognizing how little we’re moving and offering discounts.

5 Major Reasons Entrepreneurs Fail by Year 2 | Business News Daily

April 21, 2020April 20, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

New businesses often fail when entrepreneurs don’t have the resources or knowledge to properly execute their ideas.

No one likes to fail, but if you do, use the valuable experience you gained to lead your next endeavor to success.

Entrepreneurs tend to fail right before peaking in the business cycle. The peak usually comes after a pitfall, which is where many entrepreneurs lose momentum.

Don’t Do What You Love, Instead Do This | Life Hack

April 21, 2020April 20, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Everywhere you look, you will find people who are not happy about their work. They wish to get more out of life or are undecided about what to do next in life.

It is during these times where you hear a particular piece of advice. You may have given it to someone else or you may have heard it yourself:

Do what you love.

This phrase comes in many forms:

Follow your passion.

With hard work and determination, you can live the dream.

Find your calling.

The optimism behind these phrases is well-intentioned, however, it is the worst kind of advice to give to anyone. Instead, I present in this article some possible alternatives to this.

This game lets you help NASA map the world’s coral reefs | Fast Company

April 20, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’re looking for something more interesting to do in quarantine than restream a show on Netflix, consider helping scientists map the world’s coral reefs. In a new video game from NASA called NeMO-Net, you can virtually dive in waters around the world, classifying corals in 3D images from satellites to help train a NASA supercomputer to map the rest of the world’s coral at a scale that’s never been done before.

From Hard-Shell To Chef-Driven: A New Book Traces America’s Taco Journey | Forbes

April 20, 2020 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Do you remember your first taco? Perhaps tacos are part of your background, Or, they might have been something your mother whipped up, using a recipe on the box of hard shell tacos.

Maybe it was at Taco Bell, or even something that you discovered on a bar menu.

However you were introduced to tacos, you’ll learn an enormous and entertaining amount about them in the new book, American Tacos: A History And Guide, by Jose R. Ralat.