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Comment: Re:from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept (Score 1) 129

by zymurgyboy (#45073257) Attached to: 11-Year-Old Coloradan Will Brew Beer In Space, By Proxy
Yeah, but that won't get all the unwanted proteins out of it. If the filter is too tight, you'll take all the good flavors with it. But if this is truly for health and hydration, maybe that doesn't matter. If that's the case, there are already plenty of better ways to make a water supply safe, and they're much quicker/thorough to boot.

Comment: Re:from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept (Score 2) 129

by zymurgyboy (#45071633) Attached to: 11-Year-Old Coloradan Will Brew Beer In Space, By Proxy
It'll probably be pretty gross though. The brewing process (on earth at least) is fairly dependent on gravity. Once the primary fermentation ends, yeast, proteins, and other biproducts naturally drop out (and become the stuff called trub). The beer is sucked off the top and bottled/kegged, leaving that stuff behind. Fining agents, if they are used, forced the process of coagulating some of these things and help them fall to the bottom, but they also rely on gravity to work. Assuming this stuff is brewed in zero G, it would be the most unfiltered beer you ever had. Unfilterd is all the rage these days, at least.

Comment: Re:Seriously? (Score 1) 424

by zymurgyboy (#39754841) Attached to: Power-Saving Web Pages: Real Or Myth?
Part of the appeal at the time blackle came out was that soooo many people had google set as the start/home page in their browser. That has to have gone down with the rise social media.

I fear for the future of my children. And my children's children.

It is a moral IMPERATIVE that someone develops a Blackfacebook.com NOW!

Won't someone think of the children, please?!?

Comment: Re:Moleskine (Score 0) 314

by zymurgyboy (#37435918) Attached to: I tend to keep random notes most often ...
Mmmmmhmmhmmm.... Hot Grits.

Another thing I noticed when I started using the Moleskine: I stopped losing my trashy little notes. This isn't actually confined to the Moleskine, either.

There are three pieces of background information I need to disclose upfront before I go on:

1) I like to smoke
2) I love beer
3) I like fedoras

I used to keep a pen caddy on my desk and had a drawer full of cheap disposable pens. Likewise, I'd have several cheap disposable cigarette lighters all the time. In spite of this, it seemed like I could never keep any of them around, and of the ones that were there when I needed one, I'd find many of them empty or broken when I went to use them. Cheap pens and lighters just grow legs. You lend one to someone and you never see it again. Since they're cheap and ubiquitous, some people think nothing of walking off with them. Even if they do it accidentally, well, it's just a cheap plastic piece of crap, right? Why go to the trouble of returning it? If I'd lose it myself, I wouldn't go to the trouble of hunting it down, either. It's just disposable junk, so I'd get another 12-pack.

I got fed up one day when four consecutive pens I grabbed from my caddy didn't work. I threw them all out and got a couple decent Cross pens, one with a twist barrel containing blue ink, red ink, and a pencil; another I put highlighter refills into. I ditched the Bic lighters and replaced them with a decent Zippo. Nothing extravagant, just nice, and not cheap. I was resolved to use no more disposables. Only decent quality equivalents that are refillable and have enough value that I'd miss them if they vanished.

Guess what? I almost never lose them. I always have a reliable flame and writing instrument. If I lend it, it comes back. If I did lose it, I'd be pissed off, but since each of them cost around $50 (give or take 10), I really try not to and, with the exception of one of the pens, haven't in over three years. My working theory at this point is that honest people will return stuff that has obvious value. I, in turn, take care of stuff I like that costs more than a couple bucks.

When I took notes on odd scraps of paper I could never find them. Since I added a Moleskine to the mix (generally covered by the theory), all my notes are in one place and I keep track of it.

Every year in Brussels, there is a beer festival in the Grand Place. Brewers come from all over Belgium and pour some of the finest beer you can find on the planet. I like beer enough to take notes when I taste something new, so I grabbed a Moleskine I keep just for beer tasting notes, my pen, put on my Fedora, and headed over there. I know a little bit about beer. Enough to talk smack and sound convincing to someone who brews it for a living. I hit this one booth and the guy pouring started talking shop with me and I tasted one of their beers. I started jotting notes and had another. He saw me writing and asked if I was with the press. I answered back that I wasn't and asked him something about the styles of beer they brew, but it was loud and he didn't quite hear me. He gave a couple free beers and asked me to treat his brewery nice in my Style section article. I got mistaken for press at two other tents after that and just played along.

The only thing better than beer is free Belgian beer! Wouldn't have got that with a Bic pen, a baseball cap, and e-mailing notes to myself from my BlackBerry. Yeah, sometimes it pays to not look like the nerd that you really are.

Comment: Moleskine (Score 1) 314

by zymurgyboy (#37434952) Attached to: I tend to keep random notes most often ...
It doesn't need to be charged or synched. The paper is good quality and comes in ruled, plain and graph form. A few sheets at the back are perforated for convenient and neat removal, if you need to give a jotting to someone else. The covers are durable and look stylish (on the reporter-style flip books I favor). Even has a little pocket for keeping a receipt or two... And sometimes it pays for a nerd to not look like a complete nerd. Hey, it was good enough for Indiana Jones and Ernest Hemmingway.

Comment: Re:Hiho Mousketeers!! (Score 1) 364

by zymurgyboy (#36605124) Attached to: One Week: No Mouse, Just Keyboard

Hmmm...we are to gather from your comments that using a mouse is somehow infantile while learning a bunch of arcane bespeaks of intelligence?

Hmmmmm...no moreso than we should assume from you condescending questions that you are a humorless douchebag, professor. I'm sure you're a barrel of laughs and the life of every party. It's was a joke. Lighten up.

Comment: Re:Rather symbolic isn't it? (Score 1) 794

by zymurgyboy (#34444552) Attached to: PayPal Withdraws WikiLeaks Donation Service
It used to be, most journalist exercised some judgment with respect to what and when something should be printed. Apparently, Classified NOFORN documents no longer fall within the umbrella of things that common sense would dictate should not be published for general consumption.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but this is just not helpful, or a good idea. If our allies suddenly can't trust our foreign service to keep classified information, well, classified, how likely do you think it is they will continue to trust our diplomats? These so-called journalists just made the job of the fine folks in our State Department that much harder. When diplomacy becomes a more difficult or unworkable option, The Man may decide it's time to resort to a more forceful form of dispute resolution.

The guys behind wikileaks are not heroes. They are idiots. I hope they get caught, and if they do, they get the prison sentences they deserve.


+ - A Step Backwards in Online Banking Security

Submitted by Gates82
Gates82 writes "I have recently been frustrated by "added security" questions on banking and credit card websites. It seems that all of these institutions are heading towards a regular login and a second (3rd or 4th) security question to be used as a second authentication or as verification to reset your primary password. These questions seem a step backwards in security; now all that it is required to reset my password on these sites is to know my user ID and then answer a simple question (ie. place of birth, date of birth, pets names, etc) with most of the answers being quite publicly available. Personally, I normally bash on the keyboard and click continue not caring what the answer is; assuming that it will be more difficult to crack then guessing fluffy as a pet name. But to make matters more unbearable I attempted to login to a credit card website and was greeted with a second login and it was requesting an answer to one of these (hit-head-on-keyboard) questions. It took two calls to get logged in and I am now forced to use a password for each security question in place of the real answer.

This process seems like a way for companies to deal with joe blow who forgets his password every month when he goes to make a payment. But how insecure is this for the rest of us who are comfortable with our password making/remembering capabilities?"

+ - State laws target used CD sales

Submitted by NetDanzr
NetDanzr writes "According to this article in PC World, at least four US states have passed or are considering legislation that would curb the resale of used CDs. In Florida, for example, a store that wishes to sell used CDs must post a $10,000 bond, fingerprint CD sellers, hold onto the CDs for 30 days and only offer store credit (no cash) for CDs. While these rules are in line with existing pawnshop laws, they haven't been applied to used records and book stores previously. Used video and video game resellers have gotten a break, though: they'll have to hold onto the merchandise for only 15 days."
United States

+ - GAO Study Contradicts Counterfeiting Claims

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A new study (pdf) from the U.S. General Accounting Office contains data confirming that claims about counterfeiting are massively overstated. Michael Geist notes that the report found that less than one percent of shipments entering the U.S. contained counterfeit goods, a far cry from the 5 to 7 percent of international trade that is often claimed."
