Author: cdwan

First off, I am so ahead of the game: Extruded a new essay on AI on the train yesterday. The growing list of these things is here. _earthshine_, this one’s for you.

On to the plan for the weekend. I can already tell that today will be driven by the rhythm (ever notice how that word has no vowels? weird) of the dishwasher. I need to clean about 100 bottles in order to finish the beer we started two weeks ago. I’m also planning to use up about 18 pounds of red malt extract in a highly experimental batch, testing the limits of malt character available to the homebrewer. We’ll see what happens. I’m aiming for original gravities in the 1.02 range.

Did some reading on solar panels for the house. I’m totally bummed by what I found. It occurred to me that since I spend about $1000 per year on electricity, it might be possible to buy a solar system that produces enough power to take me off the grid, or perhaps even sell power back to the utility. Turns out that the system I would need to cover my average 900kW/h per month consumption costs about $40,000. Plus installation. Now, there’s a tax credit of 15% of the first $15,000 of that … but still. Damn. It’ll pay for itself sometime *after* the mortgage runs out.

For new construction, though, I’m aiming for “off the grid.” I want a well, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. The only solution is to build my fortress atop an active volcano.

Thomas Friedman of the NY Times has a brilliant, brilliant column this week. It’s a free registration to read it, and I highly recommend that you do.

–UPDATE–

risky risky

On the train, headed into Boston. There is a gaggle of women in my carriage. I don’t usually use the word “gaggle” to describe people, but in this case it’s just too appropriate to avoid. Through the moderate volume of the headphones (no more hearing loss for me!) I can hear the steady babble of their high pitched conversation. Individually, it’s comprised of vapid inanities. “Blah blah like blah blah totally blah blah shoes? blah blah boys!” and so on. In mass, I’m reminded of nothing so much as the distant noise of a flock of geese, keeping themselves in a flock with continual honking. Honk honk. Soon my migratory path will diverge from theirs … but for now we hurtle north in tight formation.

Taking the offline time to organize business expenses from last year. It’s tax time, and we’ve been encouraged (since I work at home, use my cell phone for business, etc) to deduct them. It’s a surprising amount of money, just adding up the entirely honest and reasonable expenses that I wouldn’t have incurred except in service of this job. Now that we’ve got a tax guy we trust, I’m totally looking forward to dumping a large pile of paper on him and receiving completed forms for review in a couple of weeks. Infinitely superior to either the “evenings of stress” approach or the “sit and struggle with the H&R Block Person for three hours” approach.

Todays professional meditations are on software project management. We desperately need some sort of organization, but it’s not clear to me what it is or how to get there from here.

Single-board Nuclear reactor supplies Standby power for 12 years

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Looks like I’m going on a corporate junket:

• 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Registration/Lunch (Proceed to Executive Offices on Main Floor to be escorted to Banners Restaurant
• 1:00 PM – 1:15 PM Introductions
• 1:15 PM – 2:00 PM Intel Keynote: Jason Waxman: Director, Enterprise Segment Software and Technologies
• 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM Microsoft Keynote: Eddie Amos: Sr. Director, Developer and Platform Evangelism
• 2:45 PM – 3:15 PM Q&A Intel & Microsoft
• 3:15 PM – 3:30 PM Break
• 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Roundtable
• 5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Wrapup/Laptop Drawing
• 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM Dinner & Open Bar
• 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM Face Off

The laptop is a centrino thing-a-ma-doo to be raffled amongst the 25 attendees, and the face-off is a hockey game (Bruins vs.?). This came to my inbox, and so far I haven’t been charged a dime. Gots to love the deep pockets on those international corporations!

fanw has pointed out that the State of the Union address is scheduled for Jan 31. I wouldn’t mind watching it with a bunch of people, the better to throw popcorn, jeer, and fight the crippling depression brought on by the fact that we’ve got another three years of this junk to endure. Yes: I’ve abandoned all pretense of fairness with this administration. There’s nothing he can do to redeem himself in my eyes except to leave, preferably in disgrace, assuming we can’t manage leg irons.

Problem.

Solutions?

I’m reading my BYO magazine (thanks Todd!) and looking at kegging systems. Along the way I stumbled across what is possibly the most ghetto homebrew idea I’ve ever seen: Bottling in empty 2 liter bottles. Like, people respect the homebrew. Clearly there is some care, some class involved in crafting your own ale or lager. However, all that goes out the window if you’re seen pouring out of a re-used 7-UP bottle.

Jen points out that a 2 liter is much larger than a 40 … making this the ghetto beer delivery vehicle of choice. I’m thinking that this might have to be done … perhaps in support of a party this summer. Who’s in?

Oh yeah, technolope: This is the wort chiller you were probably imagining: The Therminator is a stainless steel plate-type wort chiller, a miniature version of the plate chillers that the pros use. It is, unquestionably, the fastest way to chill your wort to yeast pitching temperature. The Therminator will chill 10 gallons of boiling wort to pitching temperature within 5 minutes when using 58°F cooling water at 5 gpm. This super-efficient chiller uses less water than any other chiller on the market, and is especially great for brewers in souther climates! The plates and fittings are all 316 stainless steel; they have been brazed together with pure copper in an oxygen-free furnace. There is no potential for leaking, as in a gasketed unit The fittings for the water are garden hose threads, and the wort side uses 1/2″ male NPT fittings. This chiller has tremendously low restriction, making it ideal for gravity feed (no pumps required).

Bitch gripe moan complain whine snivel. They can’t all be awesome, custom, kick-butt days. However, I could use a little rock star in my life right now.

details

New essay is up: Responsible Consumption. Taking it easy on these first few, just trying to get into the habit of writing down my thoughts once a week in an organized fashion.

Today saw a lot of stuff get done. I doubled the size of my garden. It’s a raised bed that used to be made of two layers of 6×6 timbers in a square. I turned it into a one-deep (6″ deep instead of a foot) with twice the area. This will be a marked improvement. I’m desperately trying to hold off on planting. It’s 60 degrees out, but I’ve seen this particular lie before.

Made a pretty sweet dinner out of the Moosewood cookbook this evening. Potato and parsnip au gratin. The core idea is “root veggies, baked, which herbs and cheese, for about an hour.” The herbs in question are garlic, onion, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper. Is there anything better than that combination on cheesy potatoes? I thought not.