Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures fame (check out the latter in SuperFreakonomics, very cool stuff) is writing a cookbook on molecular gastronomy, the art of cooking using dry ice and blowtorches to make food that is almost-just-so-close perfect. Doing stuff with machines to make food like welders to make ice cream, which is pure genius.

Around the corner, he pointed to two machines side by side. “Here’s our ice cream machine, and here’s our ultrasonic welder,” he said.

Had he used the welder as a cooking appliance? “Not yet,” he said, earnestly,” but we’re going to try it out.”

[NY Times]

Yes, I do actually read books. Really, I do. And here are two books I’d love to get my hands on.

SuperFreakonomics

If you don’t know, this is a sequel to the amazing and mindblowing book Freakonomics, which I bought and read and I loved. This is why I do economics. Of course, the writer admits he’s no good at econometrics and things people get Harvard degrees for, but who cares? This is a great book anyway. With even more things to compare and make extremely insane statements that actually make a lot of sense but you don’t ever realize, this book is a sure bet for something to read that is actually interesting.

Makers

A book published by Tor (so you know it’s good) and written by the genius Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing fame (so you definitely know it’s good), it’s a great book about people inventing economics models and what happens when things don’t work properly. It’s being serialized in 81 parts, but I really want to read it on paper.

As you can see, I’m a fan of stuff related to economics and economic models, mostly because I like things with statistics and watching things we take for granted fail. I hope I can find these books in my local bookstore, it’s rare to find a Tor-published book locally anyway.

If you have a ton of books (maybe like this guy), but maybe you don’t have the same amount of space like said previous guy. So instead, you’ll have to make do with this.

Cool? You bet. Practical? Hell yes. Awesome? Without a freaking doubt. More images at the link.

After The Da Vinci Code hit the bestseller list for over three hundred weeks, Americans stopped reading books again and now, they’ll have a reason to go back to school: The Lost Symbol, is available for preorder finally. Hooray. Or not. Let’s hope it’s even more controversial and pokes at all the things we were told not to… poke at.

And off-topic, I love this place. Better than the other blog I “maintain”, but I don’t have a lot of features here. Whatever. I guess I’m using this more than I thought, just like I said I would.