Tasting Malabar Roast #2

The roast had about a 24 hour rest in a sealed container.

I used 7 g of coffee grinds per cup in a 12 cup bodum french press.

Infusiontime: 4 minutes.

It was delicious. Very rich, with a subtle taste of tobacco and nuts. Calculating from that, i used about 1,2 decilitres of water per cup, and plan to use that from here on.

Roast #2 - 48 hours later. Still good! Had about 6 cups of grinds left.

Todo: Weigh beans that go into grinder. Grind 12 x 7g. Weigh remaining beans to get an indication of excactly how many grams of beans are required for a full 12 cup press.

Coffee Roasting - Batch #2 - Indian Monsooned Malabar

Subject : Indian Monsooned Malabar
Taste: Tobacco, Walnut, Peanuts
Roasting mechanism: Oven

After a moderately failed attempt at batch #1 - where i tried to slow roast initially and blast it with heat towards the end to draw out the oils (as suggested by third parties) , i ended up with a very dark, french roast that tasted mostly like tobacco. It wasn't half bad, but it was very... special. It had, afterall, been roasted to fuck.

I set up another roast today, adhering to more subtle roasting guidelines. Preheated oven @ 225 degrees celcius. I sat in front of the oven, observing the roast from start to finish, as not to miss anything.

1st bean of 1st crack started at 7 minutes, and the whole 1st crack lasted maybe 3 minutes from start to finish. 2nd crack initiated, more violently, around 13 minutes, after which i immediately took the beans out of the oven. At this point, some of the beans had drawn oil, while some hadn't, some were simply dark, and some not so dark. This is the woe of roasting in an oven, where you'll most likely have an uneven roast. It looks good, and it's now sealed to rest for atleast 24 hours before serving.

Mass Effect

Checklist: http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=654088&forum=123

Gold standard class builds: http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=635077&forum=123&sp=120

Inject parameters into ANT script

Python trick - a and b or c

and / or do not return boolean values as in java, etc. Instead they return one of the values under comparison. With this we can do tricks like a? b: c (java, c, etc)

a and b - returns b, the last true element, if both are true, otherwise a.
a or b - returns a, the first true element. if none are true, returns b.

if using a and b or c, a must always be true if we wish to make a choice between b or c.

Python trick - getattr

getattr is teh awesome. Using string concatenation, we can obtain a real method reference (which is an object in python), and call it!

import printhelper #defines various print methods named "print_"

def print(to_print, format=):
to_call = getattr(printhelper, "print_%s" % type, printhelper.print_text)
return to_call(to_print)

ipod on arch linux

1) get rhythmbox or dont

2) Setup HAL/DBUS

sudo gpasswd -a username hal
sudo gpasswd -a username dbus

Make sure 'hal' is in your daemons array down at the bottom of rc.conf.

something fails?

# dmesg | tail

3) mount  the ipod:

sudo mkdir /mnt/ipod
sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/ipod

4) vim /etc/fstab
add line at end:  /dev/sdb2 /mnt/ipod vfat user,noauto,unhide 0 0 //vfat?

- reboot!

NOW:

mount /dev/sdb2
umount /dev/sdb2

Make some symlinks, etc .

5) Use rhythmbox to play music (if open, and hal is setup, it should autodetect the ipod)-

otherwise? browse /mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/music folders. garbled folder names and filenames. maybe someone will make a cmd line too to play stuff there.

Notes on that:   generate m3u playlist that references ipod folders. use mp3info lib

chroot - Linux kernel panic!

# arch
# mount /dev/sda7 /mnt
# mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/boot
# mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
# mount -t sysfs none /mnt/sys
# mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

# chroot /mnt

# dhcpcd ethx -- Get some internets (0 = wire, 1 = wireless)

# pacman -U /var/cache/paman/pkg/kernel26-2.6.23.xx-x.pkg.tar.gz -- if local, else get new one.

Drive stuff:
# fdisk -l
# df -h

Linux drive notes

/dev/sda1 (boot win)
/dev/sda2 (extended)
/dev/sda5 (windows)
/dev/sda6 (/boot - contains kernel.img)
/dev/sda7 ( / )
/dev/sda8 ( /swap)
/dev/sda9 (/home)

mkdir /mnt/windows
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /mnt/windows/data
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows/system

Put in /etc/fstab:

/dev/sda5 /mnt/windows/data ntfs
/dev/sda1 /mnt/windows/data ntfs-3g

Exact Audio Copy settings

EAC
1) fill offset with silence, no use of null samples, sync tracks. extraction normal, error high.
3) on ex, start external compressors queued in bg.


Drive options:
1) secure, accurate stream
2) auto
3) allow speed reduction, use accuraterip
4) method b, secure

Compression:
use external program, custom.

Cmd line:
C:\path\to\flac.exe
--best -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=%e" %s -o %d

Evolution

We have ("Humons") always been infatuated with solutions to problems, rather than sideeffects or repercussions.

But this is what evolution is. A solution to a problem that noone else in the world has thought up...furthering progress in the name of human kind which is exciting to most scientists. We rarely stop and think, "This could revolutionize the way we think and behave, but... i shouldn't". The only problem is that we often don't understand what the solution might do, other than apply to the intended problem. We don't understand the world yet. In that sense, we're all guineapigs, or need to decide whether or not we wish to parttake.

Who knows if that TV of yours is sending out deadly alien rays that are killing you slowly? It probably is.

Causality

No regrets. Everything happens for a reason. Not that i believe in fate or anything, but that other choice you wish you'd taken, forget about it. Right after making it, you'd have died. Instead, you're alive and well.

Seriously tho. So many paramters exist around us that have a direct impact on our lives, it's mindboggling. By picking up that pencil for that hot co-worker, which you only did because your headache is over, which is only over because margaret remembered to buy aspirins, which she only did because bob died and didn't raid the petty cash box for donut money, ... yea, you get the jist of it.

No regrets. Live in the moment, and poetic crap like that.

Life

What is life? Pointless, at the very core. I mean in this in the most un-apathetic way. Once you realize how pointless it is, is when you can start being truely happy. Happy and enlightened. By all means, that pony is really cute, but do you want to spend your life designing pony clothes? Is that a well spent lifetime? Yes and no. No in the let's-all-pitch-in-and-advance-humanity sense of things. Yes, in that life is pointless and it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you're happy about it. Don't fret over playing too many games, and don't worry about what other people think of those habits that are unacceptable by societys standards. You may die tomorrow anyway, and that knitting-fetish of theirs isn't so hot either. You know that, they don't.

I know life is really pointless. It allows me to do certain things and not feel bad about it. I'm happy.

Girltraps

Girls are traps. Distractions in life, sucking you away from your designated path. Vortexes, if you will. The forces of our genetic material and the chemicals that are involved in forming romantic relationships are overwhelming and will trumph any drive and willpower you may possess. Don't wear your heart on your sleeve. Find joy in life other than keeping company in the other sex.

Information!

What's "information"? There's so much information outthere, in all weird forms and shapes. Smells, sounds. Information reaches out to you from all angles of time and space. From the future, by deduction or prediction... from the past through concentrated personal tales. Information gets lost in time. What to grab? When to grab it? Mostly we're unaware of our own potential and the information we might be able to comprehend. A unified equation for the workings of the entire universe? It's there.