coffee reviews, pt. 2
(All reviewed coffees are made in an Aeropress, and tasted at least twice with varying temperatures and steep times.)

Cafe Britt, costa rican shade grown organic. medium roast.
http://www.cafebritt.com/costa-rica-shade-grown-organic/

Cup 1: Already much better than the Peruvian. Still on the acidic side for my taste but I may be able to cut that by adjusting temp and steep time. Can't put my finger on flavors, but it's richer and more complex than the Pachamama, though there's a slight stale taste on the finish.

Tentative 3.5 of 5 beans (pending 2nd cup).
- posted by vcmc @  6/19/2009 11:04:00 AM  |  0 comments

 
coffee reviews, pt. 1:
(All reviewed coffees are made in an Aeropress, and tasted at least twice with varying temperatures and steep times.)

cafe britt, organic shade grown peruvian Pachamama. Roast not specified, looks medium-dark.

8oz bag for $9, much less bean/$ than most of their other coffees. It's far too acidic for my tastes, and there's nothing interesting that really sticks out about the flavor profile. "Earthy" is about the only way I could describe it, really.

2 beans out of 5. Will not buy again.
- posted by vcmc @  6/19/2009 10:12:00 AM  |  0 comments

 
shocking, shocking

...it has been shown repeatedly that suicide increases in the month after a front page suicide story. There is also evidence that the effect is bigger for famous people and gruesome attempts.

from bad science
- posted by vcmc @  4/07/2009 10:13:00 PM  |  0 comments

 
holy shit

"I’ve seen pages of equations and computer code by quants dedicated to trying to figure out how to optimize a crack addict’s NINJA loan in a 360 dimensional hilbert space. Not to optimize it so that it gets paid off, ... but how to squeeze as much juice out of it before the expected default probability spins out of control, leaving the bank with the home it had started with (that was worth a fortune, because home prices keep rising!)."

from Rortybomb
- posted by vcmc @  4/02/2009 06:24:00 PM  |  1 comments

 
bike snob nyc gets analyzed; or, a critique of the notion of anti-capitalist "authenticity"
From Hipster Nascar. There's some back story which isn't really important to the point being made here, but is linked to from the Hipster Nascar post if you want to go read it... (very minor editing for readability)

...But, does commodification really mean the necessary reification of an identity, or is it more complex than that? Do identities formed in a capitalist moment change when they are "co-opted?" If so, how?

I think that, in essence, Bike Snob’s post reproduces a conservative and inherently Romantic notion of identity that depends very much upon a notion of purity, and upon the notion of the degenerative force of capitalism. It’s understandable, to a degree. The Romantic notion of the corrupting influence of bourgeois capitalism is as old as, well, bourgeois capitalism, as is the Romantic notion of a pure and unadulterated cultural existence that pertained before the advent of bourgeois capitalism.

All this is not to defend capitalism or capitalist exploitation. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. My point is to suggest that people like Bike Snob can’t conceive of capitalism as a totality, and thus they miss the extent to which it is a force on all forms of practice, including identity formation. They still think there are realms of cultural “purity” that exist outside the structures of capitalism, and so it’s only when Nike, say, decides to jump on the fixed-gear bandwagon that the fixed-gear scene becomes compromised.

Yes, companies seek to exploit pre-existing groups and identities. It’s so easy for Nike to sell windbreakers to an exiting “market.” Just learn the cultural codes and shared signs of the “group” and build a marketing approach out of that material. Yes, it’s problematic. But does it mean that a group or an identity or a scene are hopelessly corrupted? Rubbish. The fixed-gear “scene,” to the extent that there even is one coherent scene, is born of capitalism. It’s inherently bound up in the relations of production that has cheap frames made from from Indian steel by migrant workers in Taiwanese factories shipped across the Pacific on Nigerian registered freighters crewed by Indonesian sailors, unloaded by Polish dockers in the United States and bought by kids in SoCal from the "local” bike shop that is financed by a small business loan from a Swiss bank. It’s a totality. We exist within it, and to some degree it shapes (though it doesn’t define) our habitus, our opportunities for action.

It seems to me that Bike Snob is a hopeless Romantic, longing for the days of Rousseauian purity, all the while seeing capitalism as something “out there,” something alien. That’s why he uses the word “appropriation” so much, as if things, practices, identities, groups exist beyond capital first, and are only later appropriated by it and thus rendered invalid. Well, I’ve news for you, capitalism is corrupting, but it touches everything, and identities must be formed from within its totality. Maybe those identities are not as explicitly revolutionary as we might like them to be, maybe they’re inherently reactionary, but the point is, they don’t start outside the realm of capital and then get co-opted. They are formed inside the realm of capital. But, even though they are formed inside that realm doesn't mean that they won't or can't seek to move beyond it. An identity or a group or a practice is never one or the other, it’s never outside capital and pure, or inside capital and corrupted. It’s always, to some extent, both.

For a theorist like deCerteau, even just walking around the city could be an expression of liberty against the tyranny of the scopic gaze, so why not fixed-gear bikes? Maybe even if the riders are wearing Nike?

- posted by vcmc @  3/11/2009 07:10:00 PM  |  2 comments

 
ho ho ha ha good one.
i have a new favorite webcomic. it's kind of hit or miss but there are some exceptional ones: (warning, the following are a selection which represent my dry, occasionally dark, obscure sense of humor. The public at large may or may not consider these to be "funny".)

oh no pigeons

continuity errors

You Might As Well Punch A Poor Person In The Junk.

let us be perfectly clear

let's see how long it takes for grandma to be racist

where did it go how could this happen

art school

my favorite music is:

internet

who rubbed meat on my window?

let's do some terrorisms!
- posted by vcmc @  1/31/2009 07:33:00 PM  |  0 comments

 
Center for Drinking in the Public Interest


I know I'm in the minority here because nobody else is really obsessive about these things, but it seems like the sort of thing the FDA would have been all over years ago.

The problem:
Alcoholic beverages have next to no standardization of ingredients labeling. (the CSPI also wants serving size, nutrition info, alcohol content, etc. labeling, which I agree with, but I'm not nearly as passionate about)

Duh. Let's take the example of someone who's allergic, to, say, honey, or perhaps anise (present in various liquors and some gin), or various grains, etc... How many liqeurs, beers, etc. use these ingredients at some point during the brewing/fermenting/distilling process without mentioning it on the bottle? This sort of thing has the potential to be fatal, or send someone to the hospital - because distillers/alcoholic beverage producers DO NOT ADEQUATELY DISCLOSE this information.

Food manufacturers have been required to add "Contains phenylalanine" or "Processed in a facility which also produces nuts", etc. to packaging for decades. Why does the liquor industry get a free pass?

Secondary to concerns about allergens, but potentially affecting more people - is the issue of additives. The only way we know if an alcoholic beverage does not contain potentially harmful additives is if the manufacturer chooses to disclose ingredients, which very few do. I mean, who knows what kind of flavor enhancers, artificial flavor, preservatives, masking agents, etc. go into, say, Bud Light? Smirnoff? Cheap boxed wine? Malt liquor? Ultra-premium vodka? Scotch?

CONSUMERS NEED TO BE ABLE TO FIND THIS SHIT OUT. What's to prevent distillers from adding trace amounts of, oh, say, mercury-bearing compounds or melamine to their beverages? Sure, that's an exaggeration, but without the requirement they disclose potentially harmful ingredients, WE ARE NOT ADEQUATELY ABLE TO DETERMINE POTENTIAL HEALTH RISKS FROM MODERATE CONSUMPTION. What are we, China? Who's getting the bribes?


These guys have been writing lawyer-drafted letters to the appropriate authorities for some time, but it's a bit disheartening that they've been doing it for years and it's still not in place.
http://www.cspinet.org/booze/iss_ingred_label.htm

fuuuuuuck. PLZ PASS LABLING LAWS 10 YRS AGO K? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IM DRINKING.
- posted by vcmc @  1/15/2009 05:23:00 PM  |  0 comments

 
yet another subprime crisis in the making
and so soon! GM is apparently this desperate:

"...dealers now can offer loans through GMAC to consumers with credit scores in the 620 range.

"Six hundred twenty is not a subprime score," said LaNeve. "That’s a very creditworthy buyer. Hopefully, we’ll have access to more of the market that is out there."

Compare with Wikipedia's article on subprime lending:

Although there is no standardized definition, in the US subprime loans are usually classified as those where the borrower has a credit score below a particular level, e.g. a FICO score below 660.

- posted by vcmc @  12/31/2008 01:51:00 PM  |  0 comments

 
how to migitage the negative health effects of drinking, pt. 3 or so


So beyond the don't-take-tylenol bit I covered before, before we can understand how to minimize physiological damage to the body through drinking, we need to know exactly how alcohol affects the body. That's a big list, and the research is nowhere near complete - in fact there's a medical journal of peer-reviewed research regarding alcohol published quarterly.

In any case I'll try to distill (ha!) it down to the most important components - the ones which can most effectively keep you from fucking up your liver and/or feeling like shit the next day.


1. Dehydration (duh)
Alcohol's a potent diuretic, with its effects lasting well after the last drink is consumed - in some cases until the next day. This one's easily remedied - unless what you're drinking is less than about 3% alcohol, have water between drinks, and more before bed (if you'd consider yourself drunk when you go to bed, it'd be a good idea to have at least two large glasses).

2. Congeners.
During the fermentation process, yeast is primarily working to produce ethanol, but depending on yeast strain, fermentation temperatures, and substance being fermented (e.g., grape juice, malt, etc.), various other alcohols and compounds may be produced, though usually in much smaller amounts than ethanol. These may include:
- isopropanol (primary component of rubbing alcohol)
- propanol
- butanol
- amyl alcohol
- furfural
- methyl alcohol (wood alcohol)

While I wasn't able to find research on the metabolization process for each of these (as they're rarely present in more than trace amounts in most diets), methyl alcohol is particularly notable, as it is commonly known to cause blindness on its own (though ethanol counteracts that effect at concentrations commonly found in most commercial alcoholic beverages).

Long story short, we know enough about the way the body handles various alcohols to say that if they're not damaging on their own, the metabolization byproducts are particularly harmful. (Another prime example - ethylene glycol, or antifreeze, is not particularly toxic itself, but its primary metabolization product causes severe kidney damage). And while I haven't found sufficient research to support the following, I would speculate that these compounds can and do significantly contribute to what we call a hangover - in many cases more than the ethanol itself.

Solution:
Drink "clean" alcohol. Whiskey (all kinds), brandy/cognac, dark rum, aged tequila, most liqeurs, red wine, most ales, dark beer, etc. should be consumed as little as possible - no more than 1-2 drinks in a night. Clear, "clean" tasting lagers, blanco tequila, white wines, sake, or light rum are not so bad, but should not be consumed in excess.

The best vodka and gin is distilled to a high degree of purity, stripping out these unwanted compounts (which in most cases also contribute to off flavors and "burn" or spiciness).

A few recommendations:
vodka:
russian white gold (the bottle looks cheap, but it's exceptionally good)
russian standard platinum (hard to find - don't confuse with the non-platinum version)
dripping springs (amazing, though hard to find outside of texas & neighboring states)
tito's
chopin
shakers
belvedere
vikingfjord

gin:
tanqueray 10 (in the octagonal bottle - the regular stuff is mediocre)
miller's
hendrick's
plymouth
quintessential/Q
bombay sapphire (not the cleanest, but usually easiest to find)


2. Acetaldehyde.
(to be continued)
- posted by vcmc @  12/26/2008 01:34:00 PM  |  0 comments

 
WTF FDA
you regulate the use of the word "plus"? seriously?

I mean, I'm all for regulating banks, cause those fuckers need it. but who the hell seriously thinks that the word "plus" has nutritional connotations in the mind of the average consumer?

This reeks of unnecessary bureaucracy. Go find something better to do with your resources, like, oh, maybe requiring cigarette makers to list additives, or requiring alcohol producers to provide nutritional and ingredient information.

for fuck's sake. I mean I'm not a fan of soda, and adding small amounts of B vitamins to soda to make consumers think it's healthier(it's not) is a little shady, but come the fuck on. nanny state, indeed.
- posted by vcmc @  12/23/2008 04:45:00 PM  |  0 comments