Blog & White

“Ruddles County is famed for its dry, bitter flavour, which comes from using the rare Bramling Cross hops. Many liken the flavour to burnt toffee and caramel… Ruddles County has a light aroma of soft fruits and hops, and is a deep brown colour with warm, reddish tones.”

It actually smells a bit like burnt toffee, but I don't recognise fruits in the taste. The aftertaste, however, is very bitter. Made of malted barley.

Ruddles Brewing, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. 4.7% alcohol.

I found a nerd test on Tinou's blog, so of course, I had to take it. Looks like I'm quite a nerd…

Damn, they had a geek test on the same page, so of course, I had to take it too.

Wez Furlong suggests to use RBL to reject blog spam.

I submitted my collection of spam to Spamhaus's Zen service, but only 40% of my spammer's IP addresses were recognized. Checking for the existence of the URLs in these spams takes much more time, since most of them don't exist anymore and you waste time waiting for DNS to timeout. Testing with the last 40 ones didn't return any match, maybe they are too recent to be already in the RBL.

Stéphane, auteur du blog Teamasters, a récemment acquis une théière en argent massif. Au vu de nombreuses personnes dubitatives quant à l'intérêt réel d'une théière de ce type, il a étudié le refroidissement de l'eau que l'on verse dans la théière, comparant argent, terre cuite et porcelaine. J'ai tenté aujourd'hui de reproduire l'expérience. Comme je n'ai pas de théière en argent (je ne suis pas encore fanatique à ce point), j'ai utilisé un gobelet en argent massif, un gaiwan blanc en porcelaine et un récipient gradué en inox. Les mesures sont faites sans couvercle.

Conditions initiales

• température de la pièce (et donc des récipents) : 22 °C
• température de l'eau au sortir de la bouilloire : 98 °C
• volume d'eau : 1 dL

Résultats

Pour chaque récipient, on donne le matériau dans lequel il est fabriqué, la masse du-dit récipient, la chaleur massique du matériau, puis la température de l'eau au bout de 10 secondes, une minute et cinq minutes.

Discussion

Le thermomètre utilisé refroidit assez vite, mais se réchauffe plus lentement. Obtenir une mesure précise à 10 secondes est plutôt hasardeux s'il est plus froid que l'eau que l'on verse. J'ai donc décidé de le réchauffer dans la bouilloire (ce qui permet aussi de prendre la températude de l'eau « bouillante »), de le transférer rapidement dans le récipient, puis de verser l'eau par dessus. Par ailleurs, dix secondes est un laps de temps très proche de celui nécessaire au versement de l'eau, donc l'instant zéro est plutôt mal défini (sans compter que je n'ai que deux mains, donc tenir la bouilloire, le thermomètre et lancer le chronomètre en même temps est difficile).

On voit cependant dans les chiffres que l'acier inoxydable semble être un meilleur matériau que l'argent, mais la diffrérence importante de masse entre les deux récipients rend la comparaison assez difficile, étant donné qu'il faut aussi estimer la vitesse du transfert de chaleur entre l'eau et les différents matériaux, qui dépend des matériaux et de la surface d'échange entre eux. De plus, les récipients ayant des tailles différentes, il y a pour chacun une partie qui n'est pas en contact avec l'eau, mais qui va aussi absorber de la chaleur par conduction thermique, la vitesse d'absorption dépendant alors entre autres de l'épaisseur de la paroi du récipient.

Cela dit, si la chaleur massique du matériau est effectivemnt la clé du problème du refroidissement de l'eau dans la théière, alors une théière en or massif serait encore mieux adaptée, puisque sa chaleur massique est environ moitié de celle de l'argent. Elle serait en revanche extrêmement sensible aux chocs…

Sources

Chaleur massique: http://www.alyon.org/InfosTechniques/chimie/chaleur_massique_diverses_substances.html, pedagogie.ac-toulouse.fr/biotech-sante-envir/STHE_Equipements_partie_1.pdf page 14.

The first sip tastes like fresh bread. It has a sweet taste and the flavour reminds me a little bit of beef broth. Made of malted barley, wheat and maize.

Newcastle Federation Breweries Ltd, Dunston, England.

In the kitchen next to my office, there is a giant flatscreen TV. Below it, there is the TV's cardboard box, throwing to my unconsenting eyes cool new technology acronyms such as 40 LCD, HD Ready, HDMI, Dolby Surround and BBE Digital.

I wonder if other people are as offended as I am by the advertisement of consumer-alienation technologies as above. Then I decided to design my own set of cool acronyms to add to these devices. It could be something like Enhanced EPC (Electrical Power Consumption), AO (Already Obsolete) Ready, UYA (Up Your Ass) Connector, RCR (Restricted Consumer Rights) Technology, PPP (Pay! Pay! Pay!) Enabled. I'm pretty sure I could sell stuff bearing these.

Acronyms are so cool.

© Ultimate Ears

Après moultes péripéties avec le vendeur en ligne, j'ai fini par recevoir mes nouveaux écouteurs. Contrairement aux précédents (Panasonic, livrés avec mon vieux lecteur de CD portable) qui se plaçaient dans le pavillon de l'oreille, ceux-ci se placent dans le conduit auditif, bloquant effectivement les sons extérieurs. En revanche, tous les sons du corps se font remarquer : les cervicales qui grincent quand je tourne la tête, un grattement de l'ongle sur le nez, la respiration, les battemements du c½ur… Le port des écouteurs n'est pas à proprement parler douloureux, mais il est bien plus intrusif que les précédents et quelque peu gênant. Peut-être que cela disparaitra avec l'usage ?

Du point de vue de la qualité sonore, les Super.fi 3 Studio sont sans commune mesure avec les anciens écouteurs. Bien que certains leur reprochent un manque de basse, ils ont un rendu des basses pourtant bien meilleur et semblent reproduire les sons en général de manière plus précise. Je soupçonne cette qualité accrue de provenir tant de la qualité du transducteur que de la position dans l'oreille et l'isolation supplémentaire qu'elle apporte. Un inconvénient cependant : positionner correctement l'écouteur dans l'oreille s'avère difficile, surtout lorsqu'on a comme moi des conduits auditifs tordus, et le positionnement a une influence sur le rendu sonore.

Enfin, le contenu du paquet ne correspond pas tout à fait à ce qui est annoncé sur le site Web de Ultimate Ears et dans la notice : j'ai eu en cadeau bonus un atténuateur (à utiliser dans l'avion, à en croire le petit logo dessiné dessus) et une paire d'adaptateurs en silicone supplémentaire, à double rebord (de toutes façons trop gros pour mes oreilles). Cadeau du marchand ou erreur du fabriquant ? Je ne vais pas me plaindre :)

Thanks to Niko, my Leffakone project is finally complete. He built the timer I designed already two and a half years ago, that enables Leffakone to boot automatically when it is time to record a TV show.

The device is based on a Microchip 16F84A PIC and is connected to the Wake On LAN connector of the computer, as well as to the parallel port. The WOL connector provides +5V to the device even when the computer is powered down. The parallel port is used for sending the 24-bit timeout value to the timer, one bit at a time (one line is data, another line is a “data available” signal). The timer then ignores all input for three minutes, giving enough time to shutdown the computer (when the computer shuts down, some garbage is sent to the parallel port, which would be considered as input if it were not ignoring it). After that delay, it counts down to zero, and then sends a signal to the WOL connector that boots the computer. It's as simple as that.

The device has two LEDs, one indicating that power is on, and one status LED. The status LED is:

• On when the device is in standby, waiting for input.
• Off when the device has received partial input and waiting for more.
• Blinking at 0.25 Hz when ignoring all inputs.
• Blinking at 0.5 Hz when counting down.

When the timer is in the process of receiving input, and the procedure does not complete, the internal watchdog timer makes it reboot after about two seconds, putting the device back to standby mode.

The timer is supposed to accept timeout values in seconds, but the programming contraints in the device are such that the actual time unit is worth about 1.02 seconds.

For years I've been especially following three TV series: Murder, She Wrote, MacGyver, and Lois & Clarke: The New Adventures of Superman. All three of them came to an end within a couple of weeks. The last episode of Murder, She Wrote aired on February 28th, the last Lois & Clarke on March 3rd and MacGyver March 17th. I feel empty, like I'd have lost several friends at once, especially since I had been watching Murder, She Wrote assiduously for over three years.

Thankfully, the wonderful world of television has brought relief to my pain through the remarkable concept of rerun: Jessica Fletcher still shows up regularly in my set from season eight, as do Lois, Clark and MacGyver, since the two shows are broadcast again from the start! This allows me incidentally to see the first six or seven episodes of Lois & Clarke which I missed last time, and to re-record the episodes of MacGyver which are incomplete in my collection.

“The blend of Cascade and Challenger hops combine to produce a fresh hop aroma that preludes a bitter-dry taste. Crafted from nearly three centuries of brewing heritage at one of Scotland's oldest breweries.”

Just another ale, with a fresh taste, maybe slightly acid. Made of malted barley.

Belhaven Brewery Company Ltd, Dunbar, Scotland. 5.5% alcohol.

“Authentic IPA would have been a live beer… made with pale malts … and unprocessed whole leaf hops with moderate bittering power but pungent aromas of spice and resin.

Bottle conditioned beer is bottled with live yeast sediment and undergoes further fermentation in the bottle.”

The taste is quite bitter, but also fruity. Made of malted barley.

Ridgeway Brewing, Oxon, England. 5.5% alcohol.

© MoviePoster.com

Bond recovered a large sum of money belonging to Sir Robert King, a personal friend of “M”. When getting close to his money at MI6 headquarters, King gets killed by an explosion; the bank notes have been covered with an explosive triggered by King's lapel pin, which had been replaced by a fake. While investigating about King, Bond notices that the money he retrieved is exactly the sum that had been paid as a ransom to free King's daughter Elektra some time ago. M had helped King to retrieve his daughter, but had refused to pay the ransom, rather using the daughter as a bait. The kidnapper was Renard the Anarchist, who took a bullet in the brain when MI6 was trying to kill him, after Elektra managed to escape. The bullet is moving towards the center of the brain, making him progressively loose his sense of touch and smell and insensitive to pain. M sends Bond to protect Elektra. He meets her at a pipeline construction site inherited from her father in Azerbaidjan but she refuses his help, not trusting MI6 anymore. Bond later saves her life from an attack; he also tears a piece of cloth bearing a russian marking from one attacker. He then meets Valentin Zukowski, an acquaintance of his in his casino in Baku. Zukowski recognizes the marking as that of an antiterrorist unit of the Russian ministry of energy. He tells Bond that Elektra's pipeline has several competitors who may be willing to get rid of her. Later, while snooping around Elektra Bond notices that her chief of security is somehow related to the former attackers. He follows him and takes his place at some meeting with who were waiting for him. They trust him and take him to a facility in Kazakhstan where nuclear weapon are being disabled and destroyed. He meets there Dr. Christmas Jones, the nuclear scientist in charge of the process and pretends to be a Russian scientist. Bond notices that Renard is also working at the facility and is trying to steal plutonium. Renard manages to escape with a nuclear head, blowing up everything, and Bond and Jones barely escape themselves. Bond then suspects that Eletktra and Renard are actually working together because of something they both said in different occasions, but Elektra convices him otherwise. Elektra then lures M to Baku and kidnapps her, while Bond is sent with Jones to investigate a possible terrorist attack in the pipeline. Instead of defusing the bomb (which appears not to be nuclear), he lets it explode in order to make Elektra believe that he is dead. They then go meet Zukowsky again on the Caspian Sea, because Bond made a connection between him and Elektra. Zukowsky admits providing her with material with the help of a nephew of his who is the captain of a russian submarine. He also tells Bond that they are currently in Istanbul, and takes them there. They then discover that Renard has taken over the submarine and plans to put the plutonium into its nuclear reactor in order to provoke a meltdown that would look as an accident. This would destroy all the pipeline of King's competitors. Bond and Jones get then caught by Renard because of Zukowsky's assistant being an accomplice of him. Jones is taken to the submarine while Bond is left with Elektra who tries to torture him, but he is saved by Zukowsky who died just after. Bond kills Elektra and manages to enter the submarine. There is then an big fight between Bond and Renard; Bond wins and saves the world.

© Amazon.fr

First volume of the Manifold trilogy, Time has been published in 2000 by Stephen Baxter.

2010. Reid Malenfant, who had been rejected by NASA as an astronaut still dreams to go into space. Since he cannot do it in the traditional way, he decides to build his own space rockets using available technology in order to go mining the asteroids. His ex-wife, Emma Stoney is still working for him as a project manager. One day, Cornelius Taine approaches Malenfant and convices him using a statistical theory that within two years a major catastrophe is going to occur within the next two-hundred years, provoking the end of the world. He is however convinced that if mankind has survived, it will try to send a message back in time. Using a neutrino-based radiotransmission model that allows waves to travel back in time, they manage to pick up a message that directs them to one particular asteroid called Cruithne. Malenfant decides to change his mission goal from an easy to reach, rich in metals asteroid to Cruithne. The first mission sent there is manned by a genetically enhanced squid and discovers the presence of a blue circle that transports the probe traversing it to the future. They discover eventually that humanity has survived, but that in the very far future, matter in the universe is decaying and that mankind barely survives rather than lives. Meanwhile, prodigiously intelligent and slightly autistic children have been born for several years all over the world and seem to affectionate blue rings. Taine is convinced that they are somehow linked to the ring found on Cruithne. While a manned mission counting Malenfant, Stoney, Taine and one “blue child” called Michael is sent to Cruithne just before being arrested by the authorities, the blue children are being feared by the populations of Earth which view them as a new race going to take over humanity in the future. A group of these children, doing advanced research on fundamental physics manages however to escape to the moon. Meanwhile, the party on Cruithne is stranded there after being attacked by the descendant of the squid, which have taken over the asteroid and prepare to migrate to the Trojans (a remote asteroid cluster). Michael steps into the ring and disappears. Later, Military forces from Earth (mainly trying to show that they still control something) attack Cruithne, but all except one soldier are destroyed by the squids. Our heroes escape the wrath of surviving soldier by stepping into the circle. They are transported through parallel universes where the rules of physics are so different that matter cannot necessarily exist, witnessing their Big-Bangs. Each time they step again into the ring, they come a little bit closer to their original universe. Taine then sends back in time the message that would lead them to the exploration of Cruithne. Just after that, the soldier who has followed them finds them and Taine gets killed trying to protect the other two, providing them with the soldier's equipment and allowing them to survive a bit longer. Malenfant and Stoney manage to finally come back to Cruithne, five years after leaving, just in time for Emma to die. Malenfant, feeling responsible for Emma's death because he forced her to come with him to Cruithne, commits suicide while jumping into the circle. During those five years, NASA has built a base on the Moon next to the one built by the blue children, in an attempt to control what they are doing. Malenfant wakes up in what appears to be a hotel room, and meets there Michael, explaining that his conciousness has been transferred into the giant computer that allows humanity to survive in the very far future. Michael tells him that he can change the past, which he gladly accepts. In the new future, Emma is sent to the Moon to negociate with the children who are building a doomsday machine that would destroy the whole universe and recreate a new one. Their goal is to give a new start to this universe, trying to prevent humanity to surviving in horrible conditions in the far future. Floating in space far above the solar system, Michael and him watch the expolsion on the Moon extend to Earth, to the solar system, before being themselves anihilated by it.

This book is similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey in the sense that it starts like a hard science novel but ends up in a psychedelic way. The end is quite depressing (but the alternative predicted there is not really better).

© Tara Expeditions

« Le voilier scientifique polaire Tara a commencé en septembre 2006, une dérive arctique qui durera deux ans. La coque arrondie et plate de Tara lui permet en effet de résister aux pressions extrêmes exercées par la banquise et de se laisser porter par elle.

L'expédition, dirigée par Etienne Bourgois, s'inscrit dans le cadre de l'Année Polaire Internationale (API) 2007-2008. Elle est un partenaire majeur du programme européen scientifique DAMOCLES. Programme d'envergure qui réunit plus de 45 laboratoires développant un système d'observations et de prévisions à long terme de l'Océan Glacial Arctique. Ceci afin dévaluer et prédire les risques et les impacts des changements climatiques sur notre environnement.

Au carrefour de la science, de la technologie, de la pédagogie et de la communication, Tara Arctic est une grande aventure humaine qui a la volonté de sensibiliser les citoyens de la planète sur l'importance des équilibres écologiques. »

(source: Tara Expeditions)

Sur France Inter, ils n'arrêtent pas de parler de l'API, alors forcément j'ai fini par en entendre parler aussi. Et puis, au détour d'une interview dans l'émission du 3 mars de CO2, mon amour, j'ai appris que je suis encore plus près du pôle que je le croyais (86°14'41" aujourd'hui).

“A unique blend of two classic ales BPA and Old 5X. Old 5X is aged in oak for 2 years. Brewed in llimited quantities. This Vintage Ale is dark and intense, almost ruby in colour with an appetising spicy, fruitcake aroma. This full-bodied ale combines flavours of oak, caramel and burnt toffee… can also be the ideal accompaniement to mature English cheese.”

Quite sweet and very slightly bitter. It tastes of candied fruits, maybe raisins. The after taste of the first sip reminded me of well-done butter biscuit, the next ones of caramel. The smell of the glass is however not very pleasant, very metallic. I tried it with bits of Pilgrim's Choice Matured Cheddar and the result is quite nice (although not extraordinary).

Greene King Westgate Brewery, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. 6.0% alcohol.

2006-07-25 11:24:57 -> 2007-03-11 14:03:25

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“Brewed with choice Styrian Golding hops…”

Quite sweet, it surprisingly tastes of flowers, maybe like violet. Made of malted barley. The 660 mL bottle is quite big, its content doesn't fit into a pint…

Wychwood Brewery Co., Whitney, Oxfordshire, England. 4.2% alcohol.

L'aspirateur nasal est un appareil qui permet de moucher un enfant qui n'a pas encore appris à souffler par le nez. Les appareils les plus simples sont constitués de deux tuyaux connectés à un réservoir. On place un tuyau dans le nez de l'enfant et on aspire avec la bouche par l'autre. Pour éviter les remontées de microbes vers la bouche sous forme d'aérosol, le tuyau « bouche » est muni d'un filtre. Ce filtre absorble les liquides et finit par se boucher, en particulier si un nettoyage malheureux sous le robinet le noie… Ne reculant devant aucun sacrifice, et plutôt que d'acheter un nouvel aspirateur, j'ai supprimé le filtre, ce qui augmentait le pouvoir aspirant de l'appareil, mais laissait tous les microbes venir dans ma bouche. Voila ce qui arrive quand on veut recycler du matériel prévu pour un usage unique (enfin je suppose que c'est à usage unique).

Ceci m'a conduit à concevoir un aspirateur nasal à filtre amovible, nettoyable et remplaçable, pour un coût minime. Le montage schématisé ci-contre utilise un second aspirateur qui jouera le rôle de filtre sous forme de flacon de lavage. Le liquide peut être de l'eau, qui diluant l'aérosol diminuera la probabilité qu'un microbe remonte vers la bouche. On peut imaginer utiliser un antiseptique à la place de l'eau, tel du vinaigre, de l'alcool médical ou la gnôle infecte qui traine depuis des années au fond du placard.

Donc un jour où j'aurai pas la flemme, j'irai à la pharmacie acheter un deuxième aspirateur nasal et bricoler le biniou ci-dessus.

Just another ale, but with a slightly flowery smell, a smooth texture, as if the gas bubbles were smaller, and a hint of sweetness. Made of malted barley.

Inbev UK Ltd, Luton, England. 4.4% alcohol.

“sweet, golden and refreshing. Brewed using only organically produced ingredients: English malts, and the finest honey gives a mellow, rounded character which is deliciously balanced with zesty hops.”

Smells slighly of honey and the taste is very slightly bitter. Otherwise, it's just another pale ale. Contains malted barley.

Fuller Smith & Turner, London, England. 5.0% alcohol.

La recette d'hummus trouvée sur le web. Je l'ai faite plusieurs fois, sans tahini (parce j'aime pas trop ça).

“A rich deep flavour that derives from the greater proportion of malted barley to hops which characterised Scottish ales of the 19th century.”

The smell reminded me of grape juice and beef broth, the taste is quite sweet and the aftertaste has again notes of beef broth. Made of malted barley.

Belhaven Brewery Company Ltd., Dunbar, Scotland. 6.5% alcohol.

“Black malt enriches the colour and teases the palate with an unmiskable ‘toast’

flavour. Brown malt gives it the dryness. An excellent accompaniment to red meat.”

Smells of a fruit I cannot put a name onto. The taste is bitter, a bit like coffee, with a sweet finish that reminds me of chocolate. I didn't find the ‘toast’ flavour, though. Made of malted barley.

Hook Norton Brewery, Hook Norton, Oxon, England. 4.8% alcohol.