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For the past week, I’ve been working with a pound of Vita’s espresso blend, from Boccato Gelato on Wilson Blvd., across from Whole Foods near Revolution Cycles. My verdict is mixed. It’s the same stuff they serve in their shop, and I’ve never had a bad shot there. And the beans were certainly fresh. On my equipment, though, I find that it’s very tweaky. One shot will be fantastic and the next will be bitter. It seems to be “wet,” for lack of a better descriptor. It’s clumpy, and minor inconsistencies in grind, dose and distribution are punished severely. On the whole, it’s a fantastic blend when it works for me. It’s not in the same league as the Toscano or the Life Saver, though, because I’ve pulled a half dozen sinkers out of this bag. That’s simply not a concern with either of those once I calibrate the grinder. There were even a couple shots that were completely unsuitable for consumption in a latte. Still, the good shots were good enough that I’ll definitely try it again and post if my results improve.

9 Muslim passengers were kicked off an AirTran flight because of a suspicious remark that turned out not to be suspicious at all. While that’s almost understandable, maybe, with no further information, the rest of the story really flabbergasted me. They were kicked off for discussing what portion of the plane was safest in the event of a crash. I don’t know about others, but I’ve certainly had that same conversation on more than one airplane myself over the years. Though google doesn’t turn it up for me now, I remember a movie in the mid-90s where two characters discussed just that; ever since, it’s been a semi-common topic with the flying public. I guess if you’re brown and/or wear a head scarf, you’d best not be nervous about flying.

The purpose of your books is to instruct people on how to wire their homes. The books contain instructions that could lead to electrocution. FAIL. Given the amount of time it takes to publish a book, you’d think this sort of error would be caught, particularly when it’s so fundamental to the book’s purpose.

Things like this make me feel like I need to go get a degree in psychology to make any more headway with information security. It’s semi-well-known that idiotic password complexity/change requirements generally have the opposite of the intended effect. That is, people either write them down or choose predictable ones, and go to greater lengths to make them predictable. PayPal™ has taken this to the next level. (Screenshot after the jump since I can’t get my style sheet right for images here within the 5 minutes I’ve allocated for posting this…) (more…)

I’m currently at the end of my pound of Ritual Life Saver. This is one of the smoothest, sweetest blends I’ve tasted. When it first arrived (3 days off roast) it was too bright for me, almost sour. After degassing a few days more, it really came into its own. Shots have been consistently milk chocolate-y with a whiff of berries. The blend holds up well in lattes also, though in mine the milk overpowered any fruit flavor. These were easily the best milky drinks I’ve produced since bringing the machine into the house.

If it were obtainable locally, Life Saver would likely unseat CC Toscano as the house favorite. It’s definitely every bit as tolerant of my still-uneven technique; I think I’ve only pulled two sinkers on the pound. This one will most definitely be reordered.

Also, a hat-tip goes to Dillon @Ritual for taking a phone order manually when I couldn’t get their online shopping cart for some reason. I called it in Monday and had it on my doorstep Thursday.

I have nothing more to say about this.

And I think it’s spot on.

Most "mad scientists" are actually just mad engineers.

Andy Lee’s AppKiDo is free, source is available, and it’s drastically better than XCode’s doc viewer. And this is the third or fourth time I’ve discovered it only to later forget all about it. Maybe writing this note about it will help me remember. It’s worth the download just for its consolidated method lists (one of my biggest gripes with Apple’s AppKit documentation). Get it here. I wish Apple would adopt this and ship it with XCode.

Just some links so I don’t lose them over the next few months:

• Ritual Lifesaver
• Barismo’s blends
• Weaver’s Coffee Espresso
• Black Cat blends
• Vivace blends
• Metropolis Redline Espresso
• Terroir