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Happy Beer-mas

Matthew Fedder — Fri, 25 Dec 2020 15:41:33 -0800

Santa sure seems to be enjoying his sleigh!

Bicycle Seat

Matthew Fedder — Sat, 19 Sep 2020 21:24:32 -0700

My bicycle seat broke on Thursday the 17th. I'm not sure quite when I bought it, but looking at my credit card history, the most likely date was 9/15/2018, when my statement shows a purchase at Performance Bike La Mesa, which is where I am certain bought it. I had been looking for bicycling shorts, since by then I had well established a routine of biking to work utilizing the newly completed path from Sorrento Valley to UC San Diego, and the La Mesa location of Performance Bike was one of only two where a particular pair could be found on sale in my size. (The other was in Oceanside, which I visited 2 days later). And that is where I happened to see the Forté-branded seat on sale, something like 50% off. Long ago a sage professor at UC San Diego, who had seen my bike seat - which I already regarded as *somewhat* of a firm seat - suggested that I get something firmer. As with many pieces of good advice, though I remembered it, it took me many years to actually act on it. This seat seemed like an economical way to evaluate that suggestion. And I certainly haven't gone back. During the COVID-19 pandemic, at least when I haven't been concerned about other health events, I've been trying to maintain at least a significant fraction of that effort. I am lucky to have a long, flat road with few stops nearby, which helps me maintain that routine. So at least in mileage, if not always in effort, I have been keeping pretty active on the bike. So, I have put some miles on this seat: 1.5 \* 50 \* (3/5 \* 16 + 2/5 \* 9) + 0.5 \* 50 \* 6 \* 14 = 3000 miles. Not a lot, but not a little. And then it broke. I was riding along Sorrento Valley Road near the intersection with Carmel Mountain Road. I had just let two cars pass - the cars turning right are mostly heading towards the freeway, and have little patience for bikes. With the road clear, I was free to cross the turn lane into the through lane that leads into the roundabout-terminated cul-du-sac of what was once a major arterial road connecting Sorrento Valley to Carmel Valley. When the 5/805 Merge Bypasses were constructed, the road was closed for construction; after that construction completed, it was never re-opened to automobile traffic, and now serves as the only safe way for bicycles and pedestrians to get from Mira Mesa to Carmel Valley. After those cars passed, just as I 'stepped on the gas', I heard a *ping* and felt myself drop a few inches. Thankfully there were no more cars coming, as I had no intention of hurrying to get out of anyone's way at that point. But I stopped and inspected my seat. One of the metal rails, which attaches to the seat post and provides most of the seat's rigidity, had snapped. But, it had held me, and, after giving it a firm shove, I felt trepidatious optimism that it would at least get me home. And since I was only a quarter mile from my intended turn-around point, I figured, *meh* might as well finish the ride. It did hold, though I rode ever so gingerly for the remaining 7.25 miles. (Yes, this is far from the kind of distances that many cyclists are able to brag about....) Pictured here, the broken Forté seat rests by its front end on another seat - the one that came with my folding bike, which I will substitute in for now. The broken seat's side rests on a ridiculously beautiful hex wrench set that my dad bought me, which I used to partially disassemble my bike today to give it a deep cleaning - one more thorough than it has received since I first bought it. The red doohicky on top of it is the clamp that secures the seat to my seat post. And a close-up of the broken seat rail.

Sunflower - Black and white, or Color?

Matthew Fedder — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 19:30:56 -0700

Hover for color

BW - full - color - full

Ant

Matthew Fedder — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 18:15:17 -0700

Sunlight illuminates an argentine ant as it descends among a prickly forest of hairs on a sunflower, its gaster swolen with nectar.

Red Tail in Tijuana River Valley

Matthew Fedder — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 21:12:26 -0700

How many cities can you name?

Matthew Fedder — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 21:32:04 -0700

I saw this [challenge to name as many US cities as you can](https://iafisher.com/projects/cities) posted on a blog I follow. There's no time limit - your only limit is your own persistence. I [scored 60,859,966 million people ("26.63% of the national urban population in 2010") with 201 cities](https://iafisher.com/projects/cities/share/eJ7rm0mR7fpXsKp65sp4SL2oKNFR9pPF-1sihSQsrzM) before I gave up. Though if you actually want to try it with an uncontaminated slate, don't click that link or read the rest of my post until you've given up! I was trying to think of places I've been, places with sports teams, places I've seen in TV and movies, or heard about on the news. With some cities, the challenge is spelling: It took me too long to recall that Lansing is spelled with an S. That the game assumes a state when none is given helped. Trying to figure out a city in Vermont, I tried White Mountain, hoping there might be a city named after that mountain. There is not, but it gave me White Mountain, Alaska. (I never did recall a Vermont city, though I can't believe I failed to recall Burlington and Montpelier, despite my days rooting for Howard Dean's presidential campaign! And I failed to name either the capital or largest city of South Carolina, for the second of the two states where I failed to tally a single city.) I learned that Montclair, NJ is not a city, but got Montclair, CA out of it. The largest city in the US that I failed to name was Nashville, Tennessee. I've never been a big country music fan. The next largest I missed was in the next state over, Louisville. Those two plus Albuquerque, NM ([Go Isotopes!](https://www.milb.com/albuquerque)) round out the three cities with over 500,000 residents that I couldn't name. The largest city I missed in California was Stockton - which is certainly a memorable sight when driving the 5 north. It somehow slipped my mind, even in the company of smaller nearby cities like Modesto and Lodi. The next largest that I overlooked was Irvine, which I've passed through uncountably many times. The smallest city I entered was White Mountain, but again that was just by luck; the smallest I **intentionally** named was Industry, CA, [a fiefdom with a notorious past](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-industry-audit-20190103-story.html) In Arkansas, the historically significant Little Rock eluded my memory, while the spawning grounds of mega-corp Benton did not.

More backyard wildlife

Matthew Fedder — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 17:36:51 -0700

A couple weeks ago, I heard some squacking noise, and went into the back yard to hear what it was, and saw this hawk fly from a jacoranda in our backyard to into a Eucalyptus tree across the canyon.

Looked down around my feet and saw this allegator lizard trying to blend in.

Spent some more time hanging around the back yard waiting for the hawk to come back. I mostly ended up just taking pictures of hummingbirds...

... though I did get one more flyby, of a different hawk.

And then back to the humming biards, with a house finch and a Gulf Frittilary butterfly thrown in.

Skip ahead to today, when as I was heading out, I saw this hawk, probably another Cooper's hawk, perched on a branch about 10 feet from the house.

Later in the backyard, I again heard hawk-squacks. After looking around the trees, I spotted it on a fence about 100 feet away in the bottom of the canyon. And it looks like it was just finishing up a meal! Being in a canyon near dusk, the light is low, so the image is noisy.

A hooded oriole returns to the palm tree where it nests.

Hummingbird

Matthew Fedder — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 21:14:19 -0800

It is convenient that hummingbirds like to perch on exposed branches - it makes photographing them so much easier!

Bokuh-villia

Matthew Fedder — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 11:33:40 -0700

Took this while visiting my dad back in August. The background bougainvillia and foreground honeysuckle have been there since before we moved in about 30 years ago. [![Diffuse light from a bougainvillea behind three backlight honeysuckle flowers](/img/honeyvillia.thumb.jpg)](/img/honeyvillia.jpg)

Backyard practice shots

Matthew Fedder — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 13:06:46 -0700

A couple practice shots from the backyard taken with the new camera: [![An ant drinks nectar from a tropical milkweed](/img/ant-2018-08-05.small.jpg)](/img/ant-2018-08-05.jpg) I know that's not the best crop but the ant in the top-left corner looked so derpy I had to keep it in. [![Two Jonny Jump-Ups](/img/Jump-up-2018-08-05.small.jpg)](/img/Jump-up-2018-08-05.jpg)

Aphids

Matthew Fedder — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 22:25:32 -0700

In the backyard I have a fairly large stand of milkweeds. Unfortunately, they attract a lot of aphids, far more aphids than the monarchs they are supposed to attract. [![Aphids crowd the seedpod of a tropical milkweed](/img/Aphids.small.jpg)](/img/Aphids.jpg)

Flat Tire

Matthew Fedder — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 21:50:14 -0800

On the way home from work, a slow leak turned into a fast leak - turns out a leak formed around where the stem adheres to the tube, which is not a very repairable leak. I suppose I got my money's worth from this tube, though. There are four patches on this tube, can you spot them all?

Minimum Votes to Win the Electoral College

Matthew Fedder — Sat, 12 Nov 2016 13:38:29 -0800

With a Republican once again winning the electoral college despite losing the popular vote, I was wondering, what, mathematically, is the fewest number of ballots needed to win the electoral college? My first approach was to rank the states in order of votes per electoral vote, and assign the states with the fewest ballots per EV to one candidate until that candidate has enough electoral votes to win. I found an interesting source of data in the United States Elections Project: They have already tallied in one spreadsheet not just the population of each state or the number of registered voters, but the projected actual number of ballots counted, including outstanding provisional / mail-in ballots. Since the goal is to compare electoral votes to popular vote outcomes, the number of votes cast by state seems the most relevant data to answer the original question. So, I used their [estimated 2016 November General Election Turnout](http://www.electproject.org/2016g) data, retrieved the morning of November 12th. I put those in a spreadsheet which contains the number of electoral votes by state, added a calcualted column Ballots per EV = Ballots / Electoral Votes, sorted by Ballots per EV in ascending order, and marked the first 32 states as belonging to the electoral vote winner. In the winner's states (marked as Republican [red] in the map below), I assigned the winner 50.01% of the vote, and the loser the remainder. In the rest of the states, I assigned the winner 0% of the vote, and the loser 100% of the vote. This of course is an impossible outcome in real life, but this is math, not real life! This resulted in 30 million votes going to the electoral college winner out of 133 million votes cast: The winner won with only 22.5% of the votes. ![Map of states assigned to winner by Knapsack method](/img/vote-min-greedy.png) *Maps generated at [270 To Win](http://www.270towin.com).* Given that the intent is to produce the most electoral votes from the fewest total votes, I found it interesting that this scenario included in the winner's column many larger states that are typically thought of as underrepresented, including 3 of the 5 most populous states: California, Texas, and New York. But that intuition is based on a measure of population per electoral vote. The many factors that prevent residents from becoming voters - citizenship status, age, and voter enthusiasm to bother voting - reduce the total number of ballots cast in these states by more than most, and moved the voters in these states to in fact be slightly over-represented in the critical metric of ballots per electoral vote. I imagine enthusiasm is significantly driven by partisan makeup of the state. Florida, a swing state, gives voters far more reason to believe their vote might tip the national election, and has far more political operatives dragging voters to the polls. But I also noticed that this solution produced a winner wih 284 electoral votes - a non-trivial amount more than the fewest electoral votes required to win. That New York was [the tipping point state](http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/tipping_point.html) demonstrated that it might be necessary to un-select one state before adding the next state. I wanted to know if we could do better. This seemed like a textbook case where the optimal solution needs to be found from among all possible ways to reach the current state, not just the most obvious one. So I whipped up a [knapsack-style dynamic programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem#Dynamic_programming_in-advance_algorithm) solution. For each number of electoral votes, it computers from each fewer number of electoral votes (including zero) which state, if any, can most efficiently reach the curent number of electoral votes. That is: For EV_count in 1 to 538 Mark ev_count as having no solution For subproblem in 0 to EV_count - 1 ev_gap = EV_count - subproblem possible_states = states with ev_gap votes not in solution(subproblem) best_state = state in possible_states with fewest ballots per electoral vote If ballots(solution(subproblem) + best_state) < ballots(solution(ev_count)) let solution(ev_count) = solution(subproblem) + best_state Again assigning 50.01% of the winner's states' votes to the winner, and 100% of the loser's states' vote to the loser, the solution this found required about 2.5 million votes fewer to win: 27.5 million out of 133 million cast, or 20.7% of the total ballots cast. It did this by substituting the 22 electoral votes of Arizona and Indiana with Louisiana's 8 electoral votes, creating a solution with exactly 270 electoral votes. While an impossible scenario in any political reality (let alone the one we exist in), it is impressive just how unrepresentative of public preference the electoral college could get. ![Map of states assigned to winner by Knapsack method](/img/vote-min-knapsack.png) *Map generated at [270 To Win](http://www.270towin.com).* Is it inevitable that the best winning solution would have exactly 270 votes? Perhaps not. I also printed out the minimum ballots to reach every other electoral vote total, and there were in fact three non-trivial such totals that required fewer ballots than the optimal solution for one fewer electoral vote (at 489, 498, and 508 electoral votes). For this exercise, I broke out the states who assign electoral votes based on congressional district into separate "states" for the at-large and congressional-district based electoral votes by dividing the at-large ballots in half and assigning the other half of those ballots to the congressional-district based 'states' proportionally to the number of votes cast in those districts. I did not attempt to prevent any 'silly' cases such as an at-large winner who did not win any congressional districts, but fortunately the optimal solution did not require me to do so. A list of the states assigned to the winner: * Alabama * Alaska * Arkansas * California * Connecticut * Delaware * District of Columbia * Hawaii * Idaho * Kansas * Kentucky * Louisiana * Maine (At-Large and Congressional District-based) * Mississippi * Montana * Nebraska (At-Large and Congressional District-based) * Nevada * New Hampshire * New Mexico * New York * North Dakota * Oklahoma * Rhode Island * South Carolina * South Dakota * Tennessee * Texas * Utah * Vermont * West Virginia * Wyoming Resources: * [evpack.pl](/resources/evpack/evpack.pl), a knapsack implementation of the problem in Perl. No, it's not especially elegant code. * [states.txt](/resources/evpack/states.txt), state data I used, in tab-delimited format * [MinVote.numbers](/resources/evpack/MinVote.numbers), a spreadsheet used for the first pass, with vote assignments modified for the results of the second pass.

First Violet

Matthew Fedder — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 08:54:41 -0700

Alongside the California Poppies planted by a roommate last year, this year I planted the seeds from some Viola tricolors (a member of the Violet family) and some Shirley Poppies. The first flower appeared today, and although it is tiny, about the size of a quarter, it is pretty.

Another three men on a boat quote

Matthew Fedder — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 14:03:00 -0800

There is something very strange and unaccountable about a tow-line. You roll it up with as much patience and care as you would take to fold up a new pair of trousers, and five minutes afterwards, when you pick it up, it is one ghastly, soul-revolting tangle.

Just another installment of "some things never change": How many jokes in sitcoms have emerged from this phenomenon observed with earbud cords, now that everyone carries them around to use with their cellphones?

Antiques

Matthew Fedder — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:45:58 -0800

From Three Men in a Boat, a novel written in 1888 and taking place in London:

... [T]hey must have had very fair notions of the artistic and the beautiful, our great-great-grandfathers. Why, all our art treasures of to-day are only the dug-up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago. I wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes. The "old blue" that we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every-day household utensils of a few centuries ago; and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over, and pretend they understand, were the unvalued mantel-ornaments that the mother of the eighteenth century would have given the baby to suck when he cried.
Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house?

That certainly sounds like a timeless-enough musing. Here we are, "in the years 2000 and odd", and most anything Victorian-era that has survived to today is now an antique. But the narrator delves into his reasoning, and quickly finds himself (as he so often does) at odds with reality:

That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of my furnished lodgings. It is a white dog. Its eyes blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with spots. Its head is painfully erect, its expression is amiability carried to verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art, I may say it irritates me. Thoughtless friends jeer at it, and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it, and excuses its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her. But in 200 years' time it is more than probable that that dog will be dug up from somewhere or other, minus its legs, and with its tail broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet. And people will pass it round, and admire it. They will be struck by the wonderful depth of the colour on the nose, and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was. We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar with it. It is like the sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that china dog. In 2288 people will gush over it. The making of such dogs will have become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder how we did it, and say how clever we were. We shall be referred to lovingly as "those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century, and produced those china dogs." The "sampler" that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as "tapestry of the Victorian era," and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the "Presents from Ramsgate," and "Souvenirs of Margate," that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.

Some things he gets right: "We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar with it" recognizes that something cannot be valuable unless it is rare, which is pretty much necessary for anything old to be considered value.

But it is not sufficient. The many relics of recently bygone eras that are in less than perfect condition are worthless, unless they are an example of something extremely rare or amazing. Here the narrator fancies that, rather than being at the forefront of an era of ever-improving manufacturing and artistic technique, he is at such a pinnacle that his despised trinkets will be future marvels, regardless of condition or skill.

Given the tongue-in-cheek buffonery of his character's actions, I would guess that rather than believing the latter, the author actually disbelieved that his era's manufactured goods would ever be of value. And in that I can sympathize: What of today's mass-produced plastic goods will survive the test of time to be treasured in the future? Perhaps it's the very destructible, disposable nature of today's goods that guarantees that what does survive 100 or 200 years will be rare and treasured.

Matilija Poppy

Matthew Fedder — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 19:13:27 -0700

Thought I'd at least put something on the front page to push that bike crash cut below the fold. So here's a picture of a Matilija Poppy, from the Tijuana Slough

Spontaneous Adjustment

Matthew Fedder — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:59:57 -0700

In the grand tradition of my dad's blogs, I will heretofore document my bicycling injuries. I've been pretty lucky, all in all. I can't recall so much as a scrape that I've received since some idiot in La Mesa driving a Green Mustang ran me over. (OK, he only actually ran over my wheel. It still wasn't fun.) In fact, I think that means that my previous bike - the Raleign SC-30 - has so far lived its entire life without an accident. The new bike - which I have so far had less than a month - can no longer claim the same. Because of my particular measurements and riding preferences, I purchased an adjustable stem. Before leaving work, I made some adjustments to it (raising it higher). Unfortunately, I did not torque it adequately. As I was comming to a stop at the stop sign in front of the information booth at the north entrance to UC San Diego, it decided that my adjustment was incorrect and in fact should be ALL THE WAY DOWN. The result was a fairly minor fall, all in all. Two scrapes, a couple of bruises, and a chomp from my pedal. - Left Knee - Right Knee - Pedal in left Achilles Blood connects most immediately with other humans, but the worst of has been the bloodless bruises. My steering column had an intimate date with my chest, resulting in invisible bruises that leave me groaning every time I attempt to adjust my torso. And a huge bruise around my left knee is silent until I try to do any of the everyday tasks - tying my shoes, picking up my cat, or just resting it against the car door - that I take for granted. All in all I count myself lucky. Beyond the inconveniences, so many I know have suffered so much worse. It makes me wonder if I'm just a wimp w.r.t. injury. And to put it in perspective: Not far past the fateful stopsign are a pair of long, steep descents. If the stem had collapsed on one of those, at 30-40MPH instead of nearly zero, I can only imagine that I could have wound up #6. Instead, I instantly got up and pulled the bike off the road, hopped around for a few moments dumbstruck, and sat down for a few minutes. Knowing how much it hurt on the inside, it felt incongruous to watch everything continuing on as normal around me. Cars stopping and continuing on, kids playing on the grass across the street with their parents, bicyclists completely unquestioning of the akimbo angle of my handlebars and oozing blood. After that, fueled by adrenaline, I just tightened my handlebars and continued on home. In light of how my ribs have hurt for the next few days, and the massive bruise on my left knee, I'm rather astounded at how normal the ride was after that. At least I got a nice sunset out of the ride:

Union Tribune pricing

Matthew Fedder — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 14:28:33 -0700

The San Diego Union Tribune recently implemented a paywall: One can only view a limited number of articles before being redirected to a Subscription Offers page. OK, fine, I get that the UT is bleeding, and that Doug Manchester didn't purchase the paper solely to advocate his political views. But you never win fans by charging for something you used to give away freely. What I find interesting, though, is the pricing structure. An "unlimited digital-only" subscription costs $3.50 per week. A Sunday-only paper delivery, which includes the same "unlimited digital-only" subscription, also costs $3.50 per week. There are a number of ways of viewing this. The one I choose to take is that the UT recognizes that their content is the only thing they have of value. The Sunday paper only just pays for itself with revenue from advertising/coupons, hence it can be given away for free once you have chosen to pay for the content - it makes no difference to them either way. And the paper delivery of the rest of the week is the albatross on their neck, just costing them extra money, so you're going to have to pay up if you want that delivered. It is at the same time mind-boggling to admit that their primary purpose for being, their namesake (the "news paper") is worthless. But in an era where so many papers have gone under for refusing to admit that fact, perhaps it is an admirable admission.

Warm days, cool nights

Matthew Fedder — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:25:42 -0700

We're finally reaching the time of the year that cool evenings are a treat, rather than a punishment. Note that sometime around November, I'll be noting that the feel of direct sun in the warm afternoons are a treat, rather than a punishment.

Mr. Beer #2

Matthew Fedder — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:53:41 -0700

Mr. Beer #2 is in the fermenter. This time it is the Witty Monk Witbier recipe. Of course, I could not resist adding some additional sugar: A cup of white and a cup of brown. Now I have this to help with my brewing: I'll use that to measure the gravity over time. This contributes a) a better understanding of the pace and completeness of fermentation, and b) an ability to calculate the actual alcohol content of the final product. As an example, here is the first measurement:

Specific Gravity of Mr. Beer #2, in Plato units
Date	Brix (°Bx)	Temp (°F)	Plato Units (°P)	Specific Gravity	ABV (%)
5/4/2012 11:00 PM	13.0	76	12.5	1.050	0
5/6/2012 11:42 AM	11.4	73	10.05	1.040	1.41
5/7/2012 11:27 PM	7.8	71	4.37	1.017	4.48
5/8/2012 7:01 PM	7.1	71	3.27	1.013	5.05
5/9/2012 8:30 PM	7.0	73	3.11	1.011	5.13

Expected post-fermentation ABV (via recipe): 6.6% Expected post-carbination ABV: 7% Since the last listed measurement, the refraction index has stayed at 7°Bx (as of 5/13, but unlikely to change). So I supposed it'll just get to sit there a bit while the yeast clean up any outlying acetaldehyde and what not.

Mr. Beer mentioned on Fark

Matthew Fedder — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:53:04 -0700

In a comment on Fark, a user mentioned:

"Homebrew can be Awesome - if you did Mr. Beer or one of those cheapo no boil kits with sugar - then you might have a hard time making decent brew."

WE'LL SEE! From the pre-bottling tasting, it's a bit cidery (as the Mr. Beer manual warned), and the hop/malt flavor is a bit thin. But I'm sure it'll still be OK!

Mr. Beer #1

Matthew Fedder — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 01:41:47 -0800

Mr. Beer #1 is in the fermenter! For anyone who hasn't heard of it (I wasn't THAT familiar with it beforehand), Mr. Beer is a basic home-brewing kit. It comes with a barrel-shaped 'fermenter' with a spigot attacked, and their revenue model seems to be focused on selling a wide variety of reasonably priced (but not cheap) "malt extracts" that save you the trouble (and, from what I hear, 64000-btu-necessary) process of making wort from your malt and hops. And I received just such a kit for a birthday present! You know who you are, thanks! :-D The kit starts with a mysterious "sanitizing" powder, which you are instructed to use to sanitize the inside of the fermenter, a bottle opener, a measuring cup, and a spoon. Although the package has some safety warnings (and it contains 'carbonates'), they call it a no-rinse sanitizer, meaning you are to leave it inside the very fermenter that will hold the brewing beer. It occurs to me that a) the measuring cup will only come in contact with ingredients that will later be boiled, and b) they do NOT suggest sanitizing the top of the Malt Extract cans, which contact the malt extract, and will be added after boiling (albeit only shortly). So, onto beer #1: Ingredients: 8.5 quarts Target 'purified water' 1 can Hopped Malt Extract, West Coast Pale Ale style 1 package 'Booster' And my variation from the recipe: 1 cup brown sugar I mention boiling but not what I boil: They instruct you to boil 1 quart of water with the 'Booster' pack - a pack labeled only 'Corn Solids', and which is accompanied by warnings that you should pour very slowly to avoid 'clumping'. Boy are they not kidding! It must be corn starch - which clumps worse at higher temperatures. I ignored instructions and stirred it into pretty warm water, and had to add more water to bring down the temperature and reduce clumping. Their handy little chart suggests how much each sugar source will increase the alcohol-by-volume of the results of a batch of beer: Each can of Hopped (or unhopped) Malt Extract will contribute 2.3%; the Booster pack, 1.4%; and the cup of sugar, 1%. So, by their predictions, the result will be 4.7% ABV. I was going to add 2 cups of sugar to give it a healthy 5.7%ABV, but they also warn that "2/3rds of the ABV should come from malts, to avoid a cidery flavor." OK, well I'm over that limit, so hopefully it won't be too bad! They suggest 7-14 days for fermenting, and 7-14 days for bottling. So, that means I should be putting it in bottles around St. Patrick's Day, and emptying the bottles starting in April. Let's hope it goes well!

Vista Sleep

Matthew Fedder — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:31:24 -0800

The delay between when I hit a key to wake up my PC at work, and when hitting another key to bring up the screen, is long enough that I get distracted by something else. I realize my error when the computer goes back to sleep, the screen having never turned on.

Google must be reading my blog

Matthew Fedder — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:26:23 -0800

They now have the best maps of Argentina -- street level maps! W00t