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More from the two piece Australian hipster band “Seventh Sage”. Gotta say, I love the main writers brain!

Cupcakes for all

Advancements in Beer Snobbery (Beyond Craft Beer 101)

As perhaps one of the world's oldest beverages, along side its craft being one of the oldest and most established art forms (which, in a larger historical context has only recently been tarnished by economically-minded considerations such as its large domestication and capitalisation), beer; and all the wonderful varieties that it comes in do not have the luxury of consistent nomenclature that modern science and rigorous classification gives to the world. Sure, some varieties are much more established than others - Pilsner has a distinct location of origin, must be bottom fermented like all lager, but even Pilsner, beyond those classifications, is pretty much "make it up as you go along". Which is what all beer seems to be. Which is, for the most part, good for breweries like Mikkeller and Moon Dog who keep making flavoursome, off the wall beers that really make you question most of what you know... But lately I've only been seeing the negative side of this lack of classification in beer:

What the fuck is a scotch ale? Is it the same, or different from, a Scottish ale (i.e. an ale from Scotland)? What uniquely defines it as a type of beer? The Internet has yet to reveal these answers. Wikipedia has some insight, but I fear that the variety of beer I hold precious - that dark orange/caramel coloured strong ale with notes of toffee and sweetness in a perfect balance in beer, has no protection against scrutiny. And then I can't "assume it will be awesome" based on the type of beer - I thought this was perhaps one 'variety' that was sacred. It's always been a fantastic beer variety. I struggle to find a bad one, which, in all fairness, I'm sure several exist.

Given the lack of clear and precise definition of this type of beer, I'm sure this is inevitable:

#Beer #Craft Beer #Beer Snob #Beer Industry Commentary

Puns are crimes against humanity

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the definition of a crime against humanity involves the following clauses:

"[Crimes must]... constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings..."

and

"[must be]... part of... a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority."

I think most Engineering and Science students at some point in their degree will experience the burden of having to do a subject where they learn statistics. I certainly did this semester. But that wasn't the worst part - Here's a question and a possible answer on a multiple choice test (which, given the borderline insanity of the lecturer, would probably be accepted as correct):

Discrete (he spelled it wrong on the test too, engineering lecturers were never with spelling or grammar) numbers are (select all that are correct):

4. very confidential numbers

What the hell?! That isn't funny. Puns like this are excruciating. The "grave humiliation" is experienced by the perpetrator in this case. That being said I have been guilty of the occasional crime. But this kind of negligent harmful behaviour cannot go on unnoticed. The only way to make a statistics subject more intolerable and excruciating is to periodically add terrible jokes (and repeat said jokes ad nauseam). If there was a box that says "the lecturer successfully managed to make the subject drag out as long as possible" on student feedback, I would check the strongly agree box. Well done.

Edit: Yep. It was a choice on the exam.

People and Ideas (and visual aspects of food)

Well, I just got a tumblr, and you'll find out pretty quickly that a lot of what I say and think is really just useless abstract theory/ranting that you might decide to waste your time reading. I waste my time thinking and typing it, so hey, why not? :)

Nonetheless:

It's really come to my attention lately in dealing with people, that they tend to be much more supportive of an idea, regardless of whether it's 'objectively' a good idea or not, if it happens to be their own. In fact, often, less than optimal ideas and solutions for dealing with situations happen to be the ones that get put into action merely because somebody wants their idea to be the one that gets used. I'm not sure whether it comes from the fact that they genuinely believe it's better, not necessarily because it's their own, but because they think that it is objectively the best solution; or whether they merely wish to achieve the satisfaction that comes with seeing one's own ideas and visions put into play.

I'm wondering if the relationship between how good food looks in a picture and how good that food actually tastes is inversely proportional. Here is a picture of food that looks like a masterful piece of culinary art:

But I don't even like lamb shanks. It's probably coated in wood varnish or a LOT of oil (probably some form of toxic oil too, in case you thought it was just part of the recipe and would taste awesome to dunk a lamb shank in enough olive oil to get that shine) to have that shiny gloss over the meat too. That sprig of rosemary probably hasn't even been washed, but it looks green and vibrant. It definitely hasn't been cooked in with the meat, because it wouldn't be that dry and green, so it must, through some process unknown to the scientific world, transfer its flavour to the lamb via a wave through some form of "flavour radiation". The Beer-Lambert law applies to this as it does to EMR, except that in this field it refers to how the more beer you drink, the more everything tastes like beer.

But I digress. My point is that even when people are really, really good cooks, food always looks awful when people take photos at home/at a restaurant on them, without a photo studio and hundreds of dollars worth of lighting equipment and canvases. Even if it tasted amazing. Video is another story. But even then, a lot of photography skills apply i'm sure. You notice in shows like the F word, the meal they film close up when they're showing you how to make it/present looks great, but the same meals they hand out to diners look pretty awful/like generically good food with poor photography.

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