genius bar

First spotted by the keen eye of Messy Nessy Chic, we learn of the Apple venture for reinventing the internet café that sadly never was realised—except in artist’s drawings, and are left to speculate what sort of cultural impact they might have had.
Digital music of course preceded the iPod as did wireless telephony the iPhone, but one has to wonder how differently we might interact with the world wide web interpreted as a global franchise, serving healthy fare and offering video telepresence with other outlets, located in a physical space instead of the whirring end points of private modems. What do you think? As persuasive as most of Apple’s designs have been, possibly the received pronunciation of the internet and its etiquette would be something quite different and maybe the untethering of the internet might have taken a much different course. Conceived circa 1996 (Beverly Hills, 90210 was on television for an astounding eleven years), had this enterprise taken off, we might all still be hanging out at the Peach Pit.

coffee and tv or tea and sympathy

A very clever Dutch entrepreneur, frustrated with the cavalier, disposable attitude of many consumers but also sensitive to the hardships that make it usually easier to replace an item rather than repair it, is running a chain of cafes in Amsterdam (with more planned throughout the Netherlands) that brings together darners, tinkerers and fixers to give broken goods a second, fighting chance. Like knitting groups and crafting clubs, this new café culture attracts like-minded Do-It-Yourselfers and offers a workshop where they can meet, over a coffee, to repair gadgets, mend clothing, refinish furniture and educate themselves about how stuff works. This is a great idea, and I hope the founder’s continued success is contagious.

you'll get no potato juice or coffee perpetuum

Over the weekend, we were treated to another demonstration of my parents' very clever vintage balance siphon coffee maker, which I have decided violates the laws of thermodynamics. It's quite a brilliant and entertaining performance, like an ornate fountain or Glockenspiel to toll the hour: a spirit lamp heats up water in the metal chamber and once it reaches a critical temperature, siphons through and infuses the coffee grounds in the glass carafe (bell jar).

Voided of water, the metal piston rises and extinguishes the fire, and as it's cooled, the pressure imbalance forces the brewed coffee back into the canister. It is a heuristic perpetual motion machine, a challenge to find the right grade of ground, right ratio of water to coffee, and the coffee tastes very pure. The whole process is engrossing, having never seen such a configuration or knew a kitchen contraption to operate on such principles, and very steam-punk--much more heroic than the usual delivery method.