Archive for 21 August 2007

Leinenkugels Sunset Wheat

Posted: 21 August 2007 in Uncategorized
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Tonight was the reception “TG” for new students of the Language Technologies Institute.  TG is the general term given to parties thrown in the department of computer science at CMU.  Typically TGs are thrown on Fridays by the student organization Dec/5.  So TG as in TGIF.

So anyhow, I tried a new beer that I hadn’t heard of before called Leinenkugels Sunset Wheat.  I was given a tip prior to coming to the TG that Leinenkugels was the mystery beer.  After a quick search on ratebeer.com, I found that Leinenkugel has one good beer and a whole lot of crap.  Smart money was on the crap being the pick.  Unfortunately, this was correct.  I even guessed the correct specimen of crap:  the Sunset Wheat.

So I decided to taste it so I could add another beer to my rating list.  My reaction was immediate.  Here is the comment I posted on the ratebeer page for this beer:

“I was immediately struck by a similarity to Flintstones vitamins. It was so intense I exclaimed. This beer was really atrocious. On the up side, it didn’t linger very long on the palate. This is a drain pour.”

I stand by this assessment.  After I posted my comment I perused the other comments to see if people agreed with me.  What I found was great.  A few of the tastier specimens I came across are below:

“There are aromas & flavors in this that just don’t belong in a beer. Tastes like the milk left over after eating a bowl of Fruit Loops was poured into my beer. And worse, the fruit taste is very artificial. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad on a hot day, but I think i’m going to avoid this one for now.

“If I got really drunk on beer Friday, woke up on Saturday and ate some Fruity Pebbles then threw up…this is what it would taste like.”

“On tap. Smell is 100% Fruity Pebbles Cereal. It is uncanny – as though it is liquid Fruity Pebbles. Cloudy golden appearance with no lastin head. Reminds me more of a Hefe than an American Wheat. Really distinctive orange flavor. Almost tastes like a candy beer. Very sweet taste.”

“not so good. Had a flavor of jelly beans totally nasty. Might be the worst beer Ive tasted”

Scanning just a few more pages of comments I found 8 more references to Fruity Pebbles.  I think the key here is that distinct artificial fruit flavor they put in jelly beans, flintstones vitamins and that cereal.  So yeah, it sucked.

Roasted coffee and German satellites

Posted: 21 August 2007 in Uncategorized
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Gmail features web clips over the menu bar that you can customize and often spew some sort of advertisement. One such is for the Coffee Fool. They make the claim that fresh coffee should be a sweet drink and that bitterness and flatness are a result of the roasting process. I’ve been very curious to try it out, but the price is anywhere from 50-200% more than Starbucks, which is already expensive enough. I might cave soon, though, as I have been given scientific justification to spend money (and frankly, the thinnest pretexts will do when it comes to spending money). So boffins have concluded that the bitterness is coffee is not due to caffeine as it had been supposed, but due to roasting. It seems the Coffee Fool knows what they’re talking about.

“Battling Bitter Coffee: Chemists Identify Roasting As The Main Culprit“

On an almost completely unrelated note, Germany will be deploying a satellite to go into orbit around the moon. The goal is to create a stereoscopic view of the moon and thereby produce 3-D images. It will also capture 3-D data of the moon’s magnetic field. All this is part of a drive to go back to the moon. With W‘s call for a manned moon mission by 2020, the world must surely be seeing a critical need to not allow the US to spread its hegemony there as well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting the world thinks the US will be taking over the moon, per se, but that early influence will lead to American dominance of the birthright of all mankind (which is itself debatable, I know).

The moon is basically a giant nugget of gold protected in the deepest cave and guarded by a pack of crazy monkeys. It’s damn hard to get at, but whoever does will be rich. The moon is loaded with Helium-3, which — if fusion does become possible — will be the fuel. So there’s a bit of a chance here and potentially worth billions. Now we just need to get fusion working…

“Mining the Moon: Not Just Pie in the Sky“

“Details on Germany’s Lunar Exploration Orbiter“

Water Walls

Posted: 21 August 2007 in Uncategorized
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The Digital Water Pavilion at World Expo 2008 in Spain

Now here’s something that ought to be visually stunning. Walls made of water in an outdoor cafe. When the cafe is not in use, the roof is lowered via its piston supports. When it is in use, a multitude of valves send sheets of water down its side to form the walls. A computer controls all the valves so patterns can be made in the water as it flows. Also, since some of the water will evaporate, this should reduce cooling costs. This last point or so-called advantage is problematic for me. Aren’t the energy costs from pumping all this water far in excess of what it would cost to cool a conventional building of a similar size?

In any case, it should at least be beautiful and offers a new way of looking at architecture. The Digital Water Pavilion will be unveiled next June at World Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain.

dot blerg

Posted: 21 August 2007 in Uncategorized
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I must be in some sort of funk today, because I’m seeing doom everywhere I look. Right now, I see the next dot com bust hiding just beyond the crest of the Web 2.0/social networking wave. VCs are dumping money into startups left and right and piece of crap companies like Club Penguin are being snatched up by major corporations for insane gobs of money. Or maybe what’s depressing me is the fact that once again I am seeing dozens of sites spring up that offer very little new except an interesting idea, but the product just isn’t there.

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