Minor Thoughts from me to you

That’s when I realized that I had a problem. In fact, everyone I know in the craft beer industry has a problem: We’re so addicted to hops that we don’t even notice them anymore.

Hops are the flowers of the climbing plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the family Cannabaceae (which also includes, yes, cannabis), and they’re a critical ingredient in beer. Beer is made by steeping grain in hot water to turn its starches into sugar (which is later converted to alcohol by yeast). While the resulting liquid, called wort, is boiling, brewers add hops to tone down the mixture’s sweetness—without hops, beer would taste like Coke.

Every beer I've tasted is bitter and, I think, nasty. Especially the craft beers. Why can't I have a beer that tastes like Coke? I'd buy that in an instant.

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Using the latest in 360-degree scanning and 3-D printing technologies, Twinkind, a new company based in Hamburg, Germany, will turn you, your loved ones, or your pets into a marvelously detailed little statues. It might seem a bit gimmicky if the results weren’t so stunning. The final figurines, which can range in size from roughly 6″ (around $300) to 13″ (around $1,700), are strikingly, maybe even a little unsettlingly realistic, capturing everything from poses and facial expressions down to hair styles and the folds in clothes, all in full, faithful color.

It's probably a bit gauche to make a model of yourself. But why not put models of your family in your office, instead of just a flat portrait?

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I've been fascinated with underground houses ever since I read On the Banks of Plum Creek, many years ago. I think I'd really enjoy living in a modern "dugout" house.

Mickey Muennig has been building green-roof architecture for the past 30 years. One of his latest eco friendly buildings is the one on copper point where the roof is covered in a blanket of thick wild grass. He is a long time practitioner in eco-architecture and still remains an unsung hero of the green movement even at the age of 74. The copper point house is built into the landscape and has concrete walls on two sides with all-glass walls in between. The roof above is a continuation of the landscape which has thick covering of grass making the house more fireproof and also providing insulation at the same time. It is an ultra efficient house sporting solar panels grids.

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You can basically create a gummy replica of yourself to eat. It looks absolutely delicious.

FabCafe in Japan is offering the service for approximately $65 (6,000 Yen), which sounds like a complete steal to me. It's apparently a 2-part process that requires a 3D body scanner and a lot of gummy colors. FabCafe, which made a chocolate replica for faces, is doing this for Japan's White Day (in Asian countries, White Day is like Valentine's Day but the girls give the gifts to the guys. Awesome).

How cool is this? Sure, $65 is a bit expensive, but how often do you get to eat yourself as a gummy bear?

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I was struck by this bit from Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, as soon as I read it. A bit of background. Tesh Vorpatril is visiting the planet of Barrayar and is introduced to its ruler, Emperor Gregor. They are both at Vorkosigan House, the home of Lady Ekaterin Vorkosigan.

[Emperor Gregor said] “How do you do, Lady Vorpatril, Mademoiselle Rish. Welcome to Barrayar.”

He said this in the exact same way that Lady Vorkosigan had said, Welcome to Vorkosigan House. It came to Tej that he was the one man here who was not a subject.

Every Barrayaran is a subject of Emperor Gregor, pledged to obey him. With their lives, if necessary. Emperor Gregor was the only Barrayaran "who was not a subject". When I read that, it spent me down a trail of thought. What does it mean to not be a subject? What does it mean to be a citizen, instead?

An emperor is sovereign over many people. Gregor has the power of life and death over his subjects. He can order summary executions at will. A subject holds his own life only at the sufferance of his liege lord.

Gregor is responsible for his subjects. He must protect them, provide for them, care for them. Subjects are dependent on their rulers.

An emperor can seize whatever he wants: property, possessions, or people. Subjects have no legal recourse against this seizure. Subjects enjoy prosperity only at the whim of their sovereigns.

A citizen is sovereign over himself. He holds his life in his own hands. No one has the authority to order his execution. Citizens are independent. A citizen is responsible for himself. He must provide for himself, care for himself, and look out for his own interests. A citizen is entitled to keep what is his. His property is his own and cannot be taken. His possessions are his own and cannot be taken. His family is his own and cannot be taken.

Citizens are not, however, forced to stand alone, live alone, and die alone. A citizen can freely surrender a portion of his sovereignty to another. He can allow another to act as his agent, in all matters. He can allow another to provide for him, defend him, guard his interests, and more. But he retains sovereignty in all things. He can, at any time, fire his agent and either resume excercising sovereignty himself or choose a new agent to act on his behalf.

This is what it means to be an American. We are a nation of 300 million sovereigns. We have delegated a portion of authority to our elected representatives. We allow them to negotiate treaties in our names, to make and conclude war, to levy taxes and spend from the public fisc. But the President is not our ruler. Neither is Congress or the courts. They are merely our delegated agents. We are the rulers.

That is the difference between subjects and citizens. Subjects are ruled by someone else. Citizens rule themselves. Are you a subject? Or a citizen?

Very cool.

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Snicker.

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Kyle Baxter, with some great ideas on how to create a newspaper for the web, that can survive and thrive.

The newspaper’s value, then, is by slowing down when everything else has sped up. The web has a nearly unlimited number of sources publishing new news every second, and the result is that there is no understanding. We scan what’s new, move on to what’s then new after that, but we don’t stop and consider what any one event means. The newspaper solves that. It turns the torrential stream into a regular, daily update of what’s new in a realistic portion. There’s a finite amount of articles within each day’s edition, and because we know there’s an end, we can take the time to actually read and digest each article. The newspaper is a sort of daily review where you can take some time, relax and consider events. That’s incredibly powerful. It’s a sort of counterbalance to the web’s always-on, always-new, always-moving nature.

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Forbes published a pretty decent profile of both Epic (the company I work for) and our CEO, Judy Faulkner.

This story, which I hadn't heard before, is pure Judy. Fantastic.

Leonard Mattioli, an Epic board member, recalls chiding Faulkner for driving an old Volvo. “I told her next time you buy a car, take a man with you,” says Mattioli, the founder of American, a midwestern retailer of appliances and electronics. A few years later, Mattioli introduced his fiancée to Faulkner. [Judy] proceeded to pepper her with questions Epic typically asks prospective employees: “How many square yards of astroturf are there in the U.S.? Which person, dead or alive, would you most like to have lunch with?” Turning to a bewildered Mattioli, she said “next time you take a wife, take a woman with you [for advice].”

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The portrait of "Ensign Chuck Hord," a Navy man lost at sea in 1908, may be the greatest—or perhaps only—prank in Pentagon art history.

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Glenn Reynolds links to Megan McArdle's defense of kitchen gadgets and posts reader email praising a rotating pizza oven.

Reader Paul Curtis writes:

Funny, you recommended the Pizzazz Pizza Oven more than four years ago on the blog. I know because I bought one at the time, and I’ve never tired of it! In fact, this year I bought additional turntables, because I’ve put so much wear on the original.

The device is so convenient, I’ve even started carrying it with me in my car, when I visit friends.

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Megan McArdle writes a very nice defense of kitchen gadgets.

If you really think that laborious food prep is that elevating, you should go back to the methods of your grandmother. Buy whole nuts and crack them by hand, picking out the meats and hoping you don't accidentally get a bit of shell. Throw out the powdered gelatin and use calf's foot jelly. Make your own confectioner's sugar with a food grinder or a rolling pin. Pluck your own chickens. Render your own lard.

If you think that doing these things would be ridiculous--which it would--then why is it ridiculous to have a machine chop your onions or make your bechamel? There's no particular reason to assume that we have reached some sort of technological plateau where the things that we happen to do by hand right now represent the best possible methods for accomplishing those tasks.

In other words, the "one knife, one pan", "I don't need kitchen gadgets" snobs aren't a better, purer sort of cook; they're just ignoring most of the contents of their kitchen. How many of them cook over an open fire, rather than using one of those high-faluting fancy stoves with their automatic temperature regulation and their electric lights? Why are they storing all their food in a cold box rather than shopping for each day, the way people do in India? Who needs a special pot for coffee when your great grandparents just boiled it up in a saucepan and settled the grinds by dropping eggshells into the resulting brew? Why own a blender instead of putting the food through a grinder and then a chinois? Wouldn't the dishes get cleaner if you boiled up water and washed them by hand? And hey, what's that toaster doing there?

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I have two more reasons for defending gift cards. They’re mostly reasons why I like to receive gift cards and not necessarily a great reason for me to give gift cards to someone else.

Impatience

I’m often hesitant to give people specific gift ideas because I’m impatient. Since I’ve been working in a steady, well-paying job I’ve gotten used to (mostly) buying whatever I want, as soon as I want it. That’s the main reason, in fact, that I don’t have a long list of gift ideas—almost everything I want, I’ve already purchased.

As soon as I put an item onto a list of gift ideas, I’ve lost the ability to buy that item for myself. There’s now a chance that someone else has purchased that item for me. Until the occasion rolls around (Christmas, my birthday, etc), I don’t know whether or not I received it as a gift. And I can’t buy it until I do know.

Because I’m impatient, that drives me nuts. When I decide that I want something, I want to get it now. I don’t want to wait another 3 months (or even 3 weeks). I want to be free to just go ahead and get it, without worrying about disappointing someone.

Sure, practicing the discipline of patience would probably be good for me. But I’m not particularly inclined to use gift receiving as an opportunity for that.

Laziness

Making a gift list would require that I then keep that gift list up to date. There are multiple book series that I’d like to eventually own. There are also multiple books that I already own as physical books that I’d like to own as eBooks.

In both cases, I could make a list of what I want. But then I’d have to keep that list up to date. Each time I think of a new entry, I’d have to remember to add it to the list. And each time I get something (whether on my own or as a gift), I’d have to remember to remove it from the list.

Honestly, that all sounds like a lot of work. And I’m lazy, so it probably wouldn’t get done. Instead, the list would rot and moulder and I’d run a very real risk of receiving something twice (from different people) or of receiving something that I’d already bought for myself. And that doesn’t sound like any fun at all.

Bottom Line

Getting a gift card, allows me to be both impatient and lazy without making either you (as the giver) or me (as the receiver) feel bad. It really is the perfect gift. And I’d love to receive it, with thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation.

I like gift cards. I know it's considered gauche to give them as a gift but I've never really agreed with that. The common knock against gift cards is that they "show little thought" or demonstrate that you don't know enough about the recipient to know what gift they'd really like. That can be true and in certain settings (like the family or supposedly close business relationships) it can be fatal.

But, in some circumstances, gift cards can also demonstrate both humility and that you do know the recipient well. I'm primarily thinking of circumstances in which the recipient himself doesn't know what he wants and couldn't tell you if you asked. I'm a great example of this. I love to read. And most people think that buying a gift for me is easy: buy a book. This is true.

But, which book? Aye, there's the rub. Oftentimes, I don't know which book I want to read next. I don't even necessarily know which book I want to read in a year. I have ideas of books that I think I might want to read. But a cursory glance at my bookshelf would reveal that there are many books there that I've purchased and never read. I purchased them with good intentions but somehow never quite got around to actually cracking the covers.

Now, there are bad gift card gifts. A gift card to a store I never shop at (and never really want to shop at) does tell me that you don't know me and didn't ask others about me. That gift of a card does validate all of the negative stereotypes about gift cards.

But the fact that bad gift card gifts exist doesn't invalidate the entire category. At least, I don't think so. A gift card, earmarked for books, tells me that you know that I like to read. It also tells me that you're willing to admit that you don't know what I want to read, anymore than I do. And that's appreciated.

I've never had even the slightest hint of resentment about receiving a gift card for books. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's an opportunity for me to browse shelves, slowly and deliberately, looking for something new and unexpected. It's an opportunity for me to splurge on a book that I might not otherwise buy (but will enjoy nonetheless). It's an opportunity for me to complete (or start) a collection that I didn't know I was interested in. It's an opportunity for me to pre-order that book that won't be released for another year.

It's a great gift because, for a time, it's every book everywhere. And that's wonderful.

As I figure out ways to write more and practice my writing, it's important to keep Muphry's Law in mind.

Muphry’s Law is the editorial application of the better-known Murphy’s Law. Muphry’s Law dictates that:

1. if you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault in what you have written;
2. if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;
3. the stronger the sentiment in (a) and (b), the greater the fault; and
4. any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.

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I just realized that I really have a 6 star rating system, not a 5 star system like I’d always assumed. I realized that after seeing, and thinking about, Adam Volle’s review scale. This is his scale:

• 5 Stars: Breaks new ground in some fashion.
• 4 Stars: The people involved know what they're doing and have done it. A success.
• 3 Stars: Flawed, but still enjoyable.
• 2 Stars: A misfire. Major flaws preclude enjoying the work as a whole.
• 1 Star: Egregiously misguided, even evil. Fire someone.

I initially told Adam that his “4 stars” is roughly equivalent to my idea of what “3 stars” should be. When he told me that I was a tough audience, it caused me to think more about where I was going with my rating system.

I consider 3 stars to be my default rating. That is, I expect every book / movie to earn at least a 3 star rating. I reserve 4 stars for things that are unusually good and 5 stars for entertainment that is truly defining.

The more I thought about, there really isn’t anything I want to remove from Adam’s rating system. I just think my system needs 6 stars instead of just 5. Or, put another way, I’d like to give things 0 stars instead of always giving them at least 1 star.

Here’s how I’d put my own rating system:

• 5 Stars: Defines an entire class of entertainment.
• 4 Stars: Breaks new ground in some fashion.
• 3 Stars: The people involved know what they're doing and have done it. A success.
• 2 Stars: Flawed, but still enjoyable.
• 1 Stars: A misfire. Major flaws preclude enjoying the work as a whole.
• 0 Stars: Egregiously misguided, even evil. Fire someone.

Essentially then, my rating systems splits the 5 star category into two sections: something new in an established genre versus creating an entirely new genre. For instance, Lord of the Rings would definitely be a 5 star work. Almost by definition though, few things are going to earn 5 stars.

I’m not sure that this is the last word in my rating system though. For instance, what do I do with books or movies that I personally don’t enjoy all that much but that I recognize as having true excellence? In all fairness, they should probably earn 3 or 4 stars but I don’t like giving a high rating to something that I didn’t personally enjoy and might not always recommend. I’m considering adding an enthusiasm ranking to each review: Enthusiastic, Meh (Neutral), and Don’t Bother (negative).

What do you think? Am I over thinking things here?

This is a pretty cool video, from MUTEMATH.

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Another common formulation of the “libertarianism is selfishness” argument is the claim that libertarians are narrow “individualists” who deny the importance of social cooperation. In reality, however, libertarian thinkers from John Locke to F.A. Hayek and beyond have repeatedly stressed the importance of voluntary social cooperation, which they argue is superior to state-mandated coercion. As Hayek (probably the most influential libertarian thinker of the last 100 years) put it:

[T]rue individualism affirms the value of the family and all the common efforts of the small community and group . . . [and] believes in local autonomy and voluntary associations . . [I]ndeed, its case rest largely on the contention that much for which the coercive action of the state is usually invoked can be done better by voluntary collaboration.

... In reality, however, the available evidence does not support the view that libertarians are, on average, more selfish than advocates of other ideologies. For example, Arthur Brooks’ research shows that supporters of free markets donate a higher percentage of their income to charity, even after controlling for both income levels and a wide range of demographic background variables. ...

Some leftists claim that opposition to taxation or other forms of government intervention necessarily implies selfishness and indifference to the welfare of others. But that assumption simply ignores the possibility that anyone might sincerely believe that imposing tight limits on government power actually benefits the poor.

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Wisconsin public unions have been saying for weeks now that they had agreed to Governor Walker's benefit cuts and that the Governor should leave their collective bargaining "rights" alone.

Well, they've been busy signing new 2-year contracts that either don't include the cuts or (in some cases) actually have pay and benefit increases. Guess they haven't been quite honest with people of Wisconsin after all.

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A comparison of the new Amazon Prime Instant video service with Netflix, Hulu Plus, and iTunes.

Takeaway: Amazon is starting with a much smaller library and doesn't work on iOS devices. Hopefully both change but, as an existing Amazon Prime customer, it's still nice to get some videos for free.

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