Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

It should be Remy Martin but I don’t like putting accents in post titles. That aside, Remy Martin’s a high-class drink made from double-distilled fine champagne. After distillation, the brandy is aged at least 2.5 years in oak barrels. The grapes used are also strictly regulated–90 percent must be Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, or Colombard grapes.

There are three kinds of Cognac you can buy, sorted by quality:

• VS (Very Special) – stored for at least two years in casks
• VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale) – stored for at least four years in casks
• XO (Extra Old) – stored for at least six years in casks

Interestingly, 60-80% of the American cognac market is African American, because of its recent placement in hip-hop and rap music as Yak or Yack. According to BoingBoing:

“Cognac “is a classy, sophisticated and really smooth thing to drink,” says rap star Jay-Z. His new Manhattan club, 40/40, features a “Remy room” in honor of his own favorite cognac brand, Remy Martin. He says he likes to sip Remy Martin’s Louis XIII — which comes in a gold-encrusted Baccarat crystal bottle for $5,000 — “whenever I wanna have a really relaxing moment, usually with a cigar.”

It’s a bit expensive–at $135 a bottle, $35 a glass–but it’s definitely worth it if you want to relax. Next to try: Hennessy VSOP.

Facebook just added a new feature they’re calling “Link Sharing.” Basically, after installing the following bookmarklet into your taskbar, you can share links on facebook with your friends:

javascript:
var d = document;
var f = 'http://www.facebook.com/share';
var l = d.location;
var e = encodeURIComponent;
var p = '.php?src=bm&v=3&u=' + e(l.href) + '&t=' + e(d.title);
try {
if(!/^(.*\.)?facebook\.[^.]*$/.test(l.host))
throw(0);
share_internal_bookmarklet()
} catch(z){
a = function(){
if(!window.open(f+'r'+p,'sharer', 'toolbar=0, status=0, resizable=0, width=626, height=436'))
l.href=f+p;
};
if(/Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
setTimeout(a,0);
} else {
a();
}
}
void(0);


Clicking on this link will popup a Facebook “sharing” window which looks like this:

Once you actually share the media, they appear on your wall, and the walls and link inboxes of the people you choose to share with:

You can read more at the official facebook blog or from TechCrunch’s Facebook Beta Testing Social Bookmarking.

According to the MTA and my own personal experience, the N/W trains to queens are dead:

To allow for NYC Department of Transportation work on the Queensboro Bridge, the following changes will be in effect: Shuttle buses serve N stations between Ditmars Blvd and 39 Av, then connect to the Queens Plaza E station, where E and N service to Manhattan is available. Transfer between the shuttle bus and the N at Queens Plaza.

This has made me mildly more reliant on taxi transportation over the past few days–hopefully they’ll be running trains again Monday for work.