Month: June 2005

Wi-Fi Deadbeats

This is sort of funny if it were not a pathetic business model meeting rude nerds:

Even worse, when lingerers were confronted, they were bellicose. “We get yelled at by people who feel it’s their right” to use Victrola’s Wi-Fi without making a purchase, Ms. Strongin said. Tony Konecny, the shop’s head roaster, added, “It’s rarely a pleasant interaction.”…Some of Victrola’s customers were in a slight state of disbelief when the Wi-Fi was disconnected. One regular customer repeated over and over, “That just doesn’t work for me,” Ms. Strongin said…

More wi-fi freeloader backlash from last month and last year.

Not The Cover Of The Rolling Stone

So there I am, in the last paragraph 14th story in The New York Times, Business Section, Media and Advertising page, web edition index at 6:37 am Monday morning with the precious URL, all live and linky:

No seized web site or anything. No referrers yet as I can see. Oh well. Wait for the entire workforce of New York City to get to work and turn on their computers to slack off for the morning by flipping through the web edition, I suppose…

It was an interesting process being interviewed via email by the reporter who has lots of web industry writing experience but not a homebrewer or anything. She noticed this post I made January on the nutty idea of an “open source beer”. Too bad they did not use the full quote – which I thought was really helpful – but, true, would have needed a separate section:

I have not tried the but think from what is provided that I would not like to try to make it or drink it. Making the beer would be difficult for most homebrewers given the volumes provided. Most homebrewers brew in lots of 20 litre or perhaps double that but an 80 litre boil as required in this recipe would find the brewer facing over 200 pounds of boiling sticky sugar syrup needing transferring by the brewer, a near impossible task in the average kitchen. By contrast, even the small end of the microbrewing scene expects an entry point at the 5 or 7 barrel scale of brewery. One barrel of beer is about 170 litres. Here is some information from the brewery manufacturer DME: which may help understand the scale: http://www.dmeinternational.com/brewing/brewbup/naturalbrew.html. So it is unclear for whom this scale of recipe is devised. Recipes can be scaled up or down but you might want to start with a point that is useful – or even safe – for one type of brewer or another.

That being said, there are issues with the ingredients, too. Beer is basically made of four things: water, yeast, hops and malt. In this recipe, there is detail provided about only hops and malt. As a result, it the same ingredients were used and made with the soft water of Dublin or the hard water of Burton-upon-Trent, England, the resulting products would be very different. These effects can be reproduced by adding water treatments which mimic one location or
another. But without any guidance as to water quality, there is a great deal of variation left to the imagination of the brewer. The same is the case of the yeast. The recipe does not tell us whether it is lager yeast or ale yeast, the two general hemispheres of the beer world. Further, it does not state which of sub-type might be used. Consider this web page of a homebrew supplier which offers 33 ale yeasts and 16 for lager, aside from the 18 for the specialized wheat and Belgian styles of beer: http://www.paddockwood.com/index.php. Selection among these yeasts will greatly affect the outcome of the brewing process. But no guidance is given.

Where there is some guidance, we are still uncertain. We are told that “1 kg of caramel malt” is required. That usually defines a class of malts with a sugary aspect but they differ in the taste they impart according, among other factors, to the degree they are roasted. As a result, a pale crystal malt may give a slight nuttiness to a beer where a dark one provides a strong raisiny flavour. Just saying “caramel malt” in not specific enough. Similarly, the recipe includes 4 kg of sugar but we are not told if it is corn or cane, light yellow or dark demarara or even whether Belgian candi sugar is to be used. Sugar is not sugar is not sugar.

So in the end it is very difficult to determine what a brewer might do with the recipe as it is really only part of a recipe. If you take the information provided and run it through a popular beer recipe calculator used by homebrewers for planning you get a beer which is somewhat pale and normal strength at 5.2% but a bit cloying due to the moderate hops and likely richness of some residual sugars. It would also have no to very rich yeastiness with anything from a slight nuttiness to a strong raisin flavour. Here are the results from when I ran the test:
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator?6074722#tag. Except for the odd ingredient “300 g Guarana beans” this could be half the beers I have ever encountered depending on how the unstated variables are addressed by the particular brewer. It is interesting to note that guarana bean is included in the new Budweiser product, B-to-the-E: this author does not find that product very pleasant:
http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/beerman/beer_20024917.shtml

I do go on, don’t I.

None

Friday Soccer

A bit thick at soccer last night. Blork says it has something to do with northern fires and it is not smoggy smog, the brown air of August. This* tells the whole story, if you can handle the truth.

A thrilling 0-0 tie against the break away schismistic Red Rovers. You see my team, the Golden Nuggets, of last year has morphed into two teams, the Nuggests and the Rovers according to what jersey you grabbed. Fancy, too. Numbered shorts. Except one or two have the number on the butt. Glory stories? They would all feature the word “almost” I fear. I did ding the point where the cross-bar meets the upright with a curling corner kick. That would have been great. I was almost…OK…I see your point.

*

weather2

 

When The Rich Go Bad

It is always sad – yet funny – seeing someone with inordinate access to resources doing something incredibly stupid:

A South African man who paid a relative to serve a jail sentence in his place has finally been put behind bars. Engineer Rupert Reddi was sentenced in 2001 for kidnapping and assault. After an appeal process, a man believed to be Mr Reddi was imprisoned in 2003. Three months later, prison officials discovered that the prisoner in question was in fact Roland Archery, a relative of Mr Reddi. Both men have now been sentenced to three years’ jail for the fraud. Mr Reddi was originally sentenced to four months’ jail in connection with an assault on his employees following a robbery at a factory he owned.

Totally Dad

Isn’t it funny when the Boingsters go totally Dad and denounce average students for disagreeing with what they say or not worshipping because Boingsters are, like, Wired-hired bloggers [despite not having much to add] and, ummm, they are older people so…you know…you better respect us ’cause…we know better than you?

Lesson: everyone goes Oldie Olson. Some know when it is time to admit it.

Tantrama City Health Summit


First Plenary Session, June 10, 2007

Given the surprise devolution of powers two weeks ago to Atlantic Canada through its new Free Zone and Autonomous Regional Capital, Tantrama City this weekend will be the scene of a swiftly arranged summit to determine what now could be done with the health care fiasco two years after the end of universal medical coverage triggered by the June 2005 Supreme Court of Canada case, Chaoulli v. Quebec given Tantrama City’s new and surprising access to the Federal treasury. Representatives of the four Atlantic Provinces as well as representatives of the breakaway regions of Cape Breton, New Brunswick’s Acadian Penninsula and the Souris Downtown Region (Alleged) met in the shadows of rapidly forming capital plaza of Tantrama City in temporary facilities to work out the implications for health care of new financial decision-making powers extended irrevocably to Tantrama City’s Provisional Government.

Calgary: August 2006

In the two years since the ruling, much has changed in Canada, requiring delegates at the summit to consider many models and exercise prudence. In Quebec, the ruling was been extended by subsequent cases under the Quebec Charter of Rights to all government operations leading to reverse nationalization and the eventual buy out and lease-back of the entire provincial government by Quebecor and the impending renaming of the province as Quebecor. In Calgary, former Premier former Prime Minister now Prime Deacon Harper of the renamed Congregation of Alberta faces only 23% popularity after that province’s ravaging by bird flu in the summer of 2006, the following social collapse, mass evacuations and subsequent default on equalization payments all due to Harper’s decision to cease all public health activities by the province on his theory, announced after the Chaoulli decision, that “the private sector…will fill in…any gaps…left by these changes…seamlessly…in a swift…and moral…fashion…”

In this context the representatives of all Atlantic Canadian communities will meet over the next four days to determine how the newly and mistakenly granted access to the Federal Treasury can arrest and reverse the collapse of healthcare within Canada’s poorest region. At the first plenary session this morning, First Minister Designate of the Tantrama City Provisional Government, John McDonald MacKay Archibald, left, introduced by a bagpipe rendition of “We’re In The Money” praised the leaders of Atlantic Canada for gathering so soon after the announced devolution of fiscal powers and regional autonomy, especially given the “quite valid but, frankly, pointless dissatisfaction voiced over the lack of constitutional precedent or electoral support for the recent realignment and the decisions to be made at this glorious summit,” comments which were met with stoney silence from the room except for the delegates from the Souris Downtown Region (Alleged) who cheered wildly.

Discrimination Against Wealth?

It is not really the argument the two plaintiffs have brought to the Supreme Court of Canada today but it is close:

The Supreme Court of Canada will rule Thursday on whether it’s unconstitutional to prevent someone from paying for private medical care – a case that could change the face of Canadian health care. The plaintiffs – a Montreal patient and a doctor – want the court to strike down sections of the Quebec Hospital Insurance Act that prevent people from buying health insurance for medical procedures covered by the public health plan.

Whatever the outcome, the logic of today’s ruling will be interesting to review. I’ll see if I can have a look at it at noon. These rulings usually come out around 11 am I think.

LUNCHY UPDATE: I thought italicization, bold and upper case was warranted.

Here is the ruling and uni-level health care is gone-dee. The majority of the Court only relate it to Quebec’s Charter of Rights and finds it breached. The minority agrees and says it also breaches Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Hang on – there are three rulings from the seven judges with a 4-3 majority. Two majority but different and one minority dissent, maybe in part. Hmmm. I don’t have time to figure this out. Geewilikers. Shouldn’t all law be digestible in under three minutes?

For me, the interesting bit is the minority’s discussion of section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is the three of four judge majority decision, or at least the version from the headnote of every lawyer’s cheat best pal:

Where lack of timely health care can result in death, the s. 7 protection of life is engaged; where it can result in serious psychological and physical suffering, the s. 7 protection of security of the person is triggered. In this case, the government has prohibited private health insurance that would permit ordinary Quebeckers to access private health care while failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death. In so doing, it has interfered with the interests protected by s. 7 of the Canadian Charter.

Section 11 HOIA and s. 15 HEIA [Ed.: the operative provisions of the Quebec statute in question] are arbitrary, and the consequent deprivation of the interests protected by s. 7 is therefore not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. In order not to be arbitrary, a limit on life, liberty or security of the person requires not only a theoretical connection between the limit and the legislative goal, but a real connection on the facts. The task of the courts, on s. 7 issues as on others, is to evaluate the issue in the light, not just of common sense or theory, but of the evidence. Here, the evidence on the experience of other western democracies with public health care systems that permit access to private health care refutes the government’s theory that a prohibition on private health insurance is connected to maintaining quality public health care. It does not appear that private participation leads to the eventual demise of public health care.

So the government cannot have a regime where it statistically kills us? Is that it? Unnecessary pain is unacceptable? I hope the libertarians out there kiss the ground the Supreme Court of Canada sits upon as this is a great example of the highest court of the land recognizing the autonomy of the individual under the Charter.

Interesting Events

I have had two interesting events blogwise, or rather beerblogwise, this week. First, I was offered my first free sample for review. It is from a distributor in New England so we have to figure out how to get a free sample across the border. Free beer is an interesting concept. Until now, I have always bought my own for reviewing.

Second, I was contacted by a reporter from The New York Times about an item I ran last January and could she quote me for her article. Well, apparently, copy editor willing, there A Good Beer Blog shall be come Monday, Business Section on the Media page. I have alerted the good folks who lend me use of their servers in case there is some wave of A Good Beer Blogmania across the USA. We shall see if the coal-fires stay lit and the dykes hold.