Azacca !

One of my new favourite (for this week at least!) beers from Siren Craft Brew this year so far, definitely a candidate for my "craft beers of the year list" for 2022! Consumed over the weekend, it's from a series called "Sold my Soul for XXX" where the XXX is replaced by the name of the particular single hop involved in the recipe. We've had Simcoe and Citra hops so far and this one features Azacca. This particular hop has quite a high Alpha Acid content and gives very vivid mango, orange and slight pine vibes, whenever I try it I get a ton of orange or tangerine flavour which is really distinctive. When combined with a decent malt bill and some oats for smoothness and mouthfeel it delivers a really satisfying taste experience, creamy and flavorsome, highly recommended!

 

Free censorship

I see that Spotify is getting some stick because it hosts the Joe Rogan podcast and several musicians (Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and others) object to the "misleading" Covid information that has been discussed by several of his guests. The right leaning folks who support Joe are bleating about "free speech" and the left leaning folks are bleating about "dangerous messages". The challenge with all these kinds of things of course is that both sides are right. Everyone has a right to listen to the opinions of other people, even those that they disagree with, but also, minimum standards of fact checking and balance should apply to mass media outlets who need to take some degree of responsibility for the content and the actions that it may inspire.

I listen to Joe Rogan from time to time, many of the people he has on his show are chancers and BS merchants but that's par for the course and I understand this. If you know how his show works you understand that the whole point is to engage people of all stripes in a long-form conversation in order to dig in a bit deeper than usual. This means sometimes idiots and zealots will expose themselves, but also, new truths may be introduced, and (perish the thought), sometimes people may even change their minds! The whole point is the conversation and the possibility (because of the duration) that you will leave it better informed than when you joined (even if that means understanding the other side of the argument more!). People seem to like this format, I certainly do, it doesn't mean that I agree with everything he says, but from time to time I learn something new, which is seldom the case from the soundbite journalism prevalent on TV and in other media these days. Think of his show as more of a 3 hour Newsnight episode in free-form conversation style, rather than the ten o clock news.

Of course, Neil Young and others are perfectly within their rights to withdraw support from a platform that hosts material they strongly object to, after all, there are plenty of media platforms to choose from out there so it's not like anyone will miss out too badly, it's not just the right that should have free speech!

A fine day out

Spent an enjoyable day in Bristol yesterday, taking the (packed!) train in the morning from Reading we arrived around midday just in time for some lunch! So, we walked over to Finzels Reach and the LHG (Left Handed Giant) taproom for some Mission pizza and locally brewed LHG beer (see above), both completely delicious! After lunch we did some shopping and browsing followed by a walk up the hill towards the University and the Art museum where we had tickets to see the Grayson Perry Art Club exhibition. On the way we passed by the empty "Colston" plinth, I snapped a quick picture for posterity.

The exhibition was great, very thought provoking, reminding us of how we all felt during the height of the lockdown. It's amazing how creative some people are, we were very jealous! After a good look around the museum we necked a quick cup of coffee and had sit down, then we hot footed it over to the Temple Meads station and caught the 5:30 pm train back East, arriving home around seven. All in all, a fine day out.

Detached from reality

Lovin the fact that this spoof post by Joe Lycett has caused "panic" in Conservative ranks, shows what an absolute bunch of tw*ts they currently are, "detached from reality r us" should be their moto!

 

Friday Smirk

Another classic religious tactic, convincing people that there's something "wrong" with them if they don't believe in the same nonsense or participate in the same rituals as the relevant in-group. Interestingly it's something sociopaths and malignant narcissists use to gain influence and power among their victims. Of course, the vast majority of religious people aren't sociopaths, most are actually victims of this tactic rather than practitioners.

 

Thoughtful Thursday

I always find that one of the most compelling arguments for the non-existence of any supernatural realm containing fairies, gods, lay-lines, ghosts or bigfoot is that since the invention of photography the number of miraculous events and sightings has fallen in direct correlation with the availability of cameras. To the point now where there's a high resolution device in practically everyone's pockets during every waking hour (and even some non-waking hours!) 

If you think logically, and believe in such things, probability should surely suggest the opposite is true?

 

Midweek Monkey-business

I wore a tee shirt just like this, almost exclusively, from 1978 to 1984. Simpler times..

 

Monday Mirth

Excellent punning from the national treasures that are Stephen Fry and the National Trust..

 

Stressssss

 

So, my 17 year old daughter is driving, on her own, to a party hosted by one of her school friends tonight, it's the first time she's ever driven to an event like this since she passed her driving test at the end of December (4 weeks ago). Having assured me that she knows where she's going and everything is cool I get a phone call from her in a complete panic, she's gone the wrong way down the M4 and is at a "big roundabout", doesn't know where she is or how to get back on the right track! (oy vey)

Talk about scuppering your planned (chilled) Saturday evening! Why oh why are teenagers so unwilling to accept advice or help, it's baffling! (yes, I know why) Anyway, having panicked down the phone at each other and got hung up a few times we eventually tracked her location via her iPhone and got her on her way again. As I write this she's arrived at her destination. Phew! The outing is now officially 30% through, it's minus one degrees centigrade, and I don't think she doesn't have a proper coat with her, just a skimpy fashionable number (obviously).. I have a feeling it's gonna be a long night..

Update: She was fine of course; me on the other hand (no finger nails remaining!)

Cousins

And creationists claim we're not related, amazing..

 

Putty

Very excited to crack this yesterday evening. It's a once a year offering from Cornish brewers Verdant (one of my favourite) called "Putty". It's a very special beer, loaded up with a ton of flavorful goodness from Galaxy, Mosaic and Azacca hops which deliver a double dank hit of tropical fruits, mango and citrus. Putty is often rated as one of the best beers in the world (inside the craft bubble) and sells out literally in minutes from the Verdant web shop, amazing flavors and texture, murky, rich and thick, a real treat, and such a pretty can! Putty certainly doesn't disappoint!

 

Highs and Lows

It's often wise to take a look, now and then, at what other nations and cultures think of you. Being British we're bought up the think (or we were) that we represent some kind of pinnacle of cultural sophistication and wisdom, unfortunately (for us) that's a delusion! Culture is more like a landscape of peaks and troughs and our little islet is just one of many high points, probably not even the highest and certainly not at the moment.

 

Another one bites the dust

Today I'll be mostly playing this..

 

Friday Smirk

J&M on point as usual. Religions seem to be most successful when they are self-inoculating, i.e. they invent ways of handling any objection via unfalsifiable or intangible positions that are immune from attack, "slippery" would be another word for it. Comic books do the same thing, for example, Superman would be boring and pointless if it weren't for Kryptonite. Realizing that most of the narratives underpinning the main religions are simply the result of centuries of evolution of the most resilient stories (plus a lot of banal padding) illustrates the point, holy books are just literature, created by men in order to control and censor others, everything else is imaginings around what people would like there to be rather than what actually is.

 

Data, data everywhere..

One of the things that the software my company does and one of the core pieces of technology that I worked on myself in the early days of the firm (when it was just me!) was a method and pipeline of processing that unpicks news stories. When I say "unpicks" what I mean is that the software tries to identify companies, people, places and useful business topics within the text of each story, in other words it tries to "make sense" of the story for a particular audience. This is a lot harder than it sounds, there are so many different ways that the same things can be talked about in the English language and company/people names are hugely ambiguous and can be abbreviated or implied etc. There is a whole branch of computer science dedicated to this task called "Natural Language Processing" and it's interesting stuff! Anyway, I've always been impressed at the amount of data we process, it's a 24x7 operation with roughly two million new stories coming down the wire from around the world every day and we store roughly 10 years worth of stories so that when a new topic comes along we can go back through all that history and see which stories may be talking about it (essentially re-process the entire corpus) 

The numbers are scary, trillions of words, billions of articles and millions of companies are being looked for every day by a rack full of machines all whirring away in the dark. It's impressive, that is until I look at the volumes of data they have to deal within the "hard sciences", like physics. 

Just imaging a black hole, for example, takes 5 petabytes of data, that's mind boggling, our entire corpus (10 years worth of news) is only 3 terabytes or three trillion characters but the black hole data is over a thousand times bigger than this. Now that's what I call BIG data..

Cultural drift..

The term "racist" seems to mean something different these days, it seems to have drifted from what it used to mean say 5 or 10 years ago. It used to be reasonably clear that discriminating against someone purely because of their race (i.e. the immutable fact of their origin and therefore certain aspects of their phenotype) was bad (and illegal). Nowadays though it seems that using the wrong adjective on twitter or (legitimately) disagreeing with activists who claim to be anti-racists can be worthy of the label. This "lightweight" application of the term is frustrating to many liberal minded people. 

Surely something as serious as this shouldn't be thrown around willy-nilly and logically, the more it's used as a trivial put-down the less weight the accusation carries. At some point "real" racists are  going to be protected because no one takes the claim seriously any longer. Unfortunately, for those looking to take a shortcut to censorship or virtue signal their opposition to something on social media, the real world is much more complex and nuanced than this! It seems to me that clarity of thought and evidence having sufficient weight to carry an argument or accusation needs greater intellectual investment than many are willing to apply.

First Fifty

 

I always take a breather from regular exercise over the Christmas break, I'm also pretty relaxed about eating crappy food and imbibing outside the normal weekend constraints, my logic being that the holiday is more enjoyable because it's distinct and different from the day to day and in some ways one is released from the hum-drum and can be free from thinking about routine for a week or so. Consequently my regular exercise and weight/fitness stats take a dive at the end of December! 

Fortunately (for me!) I'm a fairly disciplined type of person and get back into the swing of things reasonably quickly. Last year I was hitting a rate of around 50 km per week in terms of walking, in the first full week of January I only managed 44 km but last week I notched up the first 50 of 2022 which felt good, and this week is on track for the same, let's hope the weather holds!

Twilight Zone

So, we seem to be well and truly in the Covid twilight zone, that stage in an infection wave when all the A-type people who score highly for extroversion are strutting around pretending it's all over and acting like everything is normal (de-masking in Waitrose etc.) and the neurotic science types are putting their hands up and saying "hold on a minute 440 people died of this disease just yesterday and hospital admissions haven't levelled out yet", such is the plastic nature of the delusion-reality gap, no wonder it's taking so long..

 

Monday Mirth

Ha ha, coughing has replaced farting and become socially unacceptable in public places..

 

Sunday Walk

Wife and I went for a brisk 5 mile walk this afternoon in the Winter sunshine, only stopped once, there was a fork in the road.. boom, boom.. (good pun value but not ideal if you drive over it!)

 

Strata Friday

As I've said many times on this blog before, I do enjoy exploring things that have unique and/or unusual flavours, beer, wine, cheese etc. all of those classic food and drink stuffs that have huge variety and pair so well together to make even more possibilities. Had one of these while making dinner yesterday evening, it's a beer I've had many times before from top brewers DEYA down in Cheltenham called "Steady Rolling Man", in fact, it's such a legendary beer in craft circles that people just say "SRM" and people typically know what you're talking about. Anyway, this version was different, same malt and water recipe but a different hop, rather than the usual American "C" hops (Citra, Centennial, Cascade etc.) this version used a new variety called "Strata" which was released in 2018 and has since become the darling of craft brewers around the world. People say it's flavour is the union of passion fruit and cannabis, I concur, tropical fruits with a pithy dank and funky undercurrent, smooth, hazy and velvety! Very good indeed.

 

Perfect for parties..

Attended a little gathering (w/pre Lat flow checks) on new year's eve around a mates house, he had his two grown up Son's home from Uni as well and so I figured we needed a bit more than a few cans to keep us going until midnight. So, I purchased a "mini-keg" (5 litres/8 pints) from my local craft brewer Siren of a hazy pale ale called "Medjuica". It went down a treat, really good levels of carbonation and flavour, probably better than in can, the lads certainly appreciated the concept and we polished it off in fairly short order (I'd forgotten how much 20 year old students can put away!) Anyway, a big success and something I'd definitely recommend if you have a craft brewery local to you then see if they do mini-kegs to take away, they're a perfect size for a small party (saves you having to nip out to the coop with a suitcase mid way through...) especially when there are a few beer loving blokes coming round to play on your swing.

 

Friday Smirk

Me, I love a contradiction..

 

Public Sentiment

I love it when companies (in this case a craft beer brewery) exploit current affairs to sell their stuff, it's a better indicator of public sentiment than any poll I reckon..

 

Moral maze?

This has got to be a troll or parody hasn't it? 

I have to ask, what on Earth has Christianity got to do with morality? 

It seems to me that some of the most immoral acts and movements in history have been done either under the auspices of Christianity or Christian nations or with the tacit support and/or encouragement of local cult members. It's tempting to think this criticism only applies to Christianity of the Middle Ages but when one thinks of recent national or global societal issues like child abuse, homophobia, misogyny, racism, wars and civil strife etc. Christianity would seem like the last place you'd seek moral guidance. Of course this doesn't mean that there aren't moral Christians, there are, and it also doesn't mean that Christians don't seek moral guidance within their tradition, they do, but we can say the same about any human belief system, there's nothing special about Christianity. When we get real we realise that morality is something that human beings create, and it changes over time as we learn more about how our universe works and how best to organise our societies (often by doing the wrong thing!), this should be obvious?

In our modern (pluralistic) times it would seem unlikely that "Christianity", as an ideology or set of "teachings", can say anything useful or practical about a virus pandemic other than perhaps.. "you've all been very naughty and our God has sent a plague on all your houses.."? Then again perhaps I'm thinking too "old testament" here? Maybe Jesus would have healed the millions of people who have died from the Covid-19 virus, shame he's not been seen in these parts for a while, mysterious ways no doubt..

Midweek Mirth

Had a gorgeous bacon sandwich recently, not had one for ages, this meme caught my eye..

 

Party poopers

 

So, the stories of Covid denial, vax hesitancy and rule avoidance are creeping out of the woodwork this last week. In the UK we have the story about garden parties at number 10 back in May 2020 (when we were all supposed to be locked down) and in Australia we have the ongoing saga about visa's for anti-vax tennis players, never mind the countless idiots taking part in anti-lockdown demonstrations and protests up and down the country, including journalists and celebrities spreading scientific nonsense in the supposed name of "freedom". 

I remember reading something amusing (and true) at the beginning of all this, it was a piece by a doctor who was asked how we might catch Covid, his reply was masterful, he said something like. 

You can get it by inhaling micro particles of water vapor exhaled by infected people via the air into your nasal passages or you might inhale the same things into your throat via your mouth. Alternatively you may pick up virus particles on your fingers and then touch your mouth or nose, or you may even be unlucky enough to catch it through particles entering your eyes. However, the most likely pathway for most people is that they'll get it from an arsehole.

History seems to be proving him right.

What are yours?

One of the best pandemic threads on Twitter surely?

 

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out an argument often heard from apologists of various stripes, even to this day. The claim is that because many of our ancestors who started to practice the scientific method, albeit in simplistic ways, were theists that somehow reflects on the veracity of theism. The implication in the West is that the Enlightenment and the subsequent scientific revolution couldn't of happened without Islamic or Christian monks doing astronomy, this is kind of correct but not for the reasons claimed (i.e. that theism is vindicated) the real reason this statement is true is that scientists (being Humans) need to have ancestors and those ancestors were probably Christian, Jews or Islamic (because everyone was!), simple as that. 

The real truth of history is that pretty much every advance in knowledge and science has been made in the teeth of opposition from the incumbent faith based constituents, wherever they may have been and whatever they may have believed. At the end of the day, this debate is not about truth or what is in fact real, it's about power and parochialism and the very apish trait that the people with it will do almost anything to keep it, including the invention of hypothetical regimes of eternal torment for those of us that don't believe a word of it and won't play ball with the shamen or the ingroup.

Exceptional?

I see that tennis player Novak Djokovic has had his Australian visa revoked, meaning he may not be able to play in the Australian open tournament this month (pending an appeal). It's strange that someone like Djokovic would be happy to appear to be so anti-vax; although apparently there are "medical" reasons behind his refusal to get a vaccination, as everyone else wanting to travel to Australia must do. The specifics of the reason behind his no-vax stance is conspicuous by it's absence in the public domain. I can't help thinking that  if this were me and I stood to gain so much (as he does) by competing in this event and bearing in mind the circumstances as they relate to other players and support staff, then I'd not quibble too much about providing the reasoning behind my decision, if it were a true and solid reason like some medical condition etc. I suppose that when you get to his level in such a lucrative sport then the special treatment factor must become second nature; perhaps he feels that he should be the exception to the rule? 

If there are no real medical (or other) valid reasons for not conforming to the local regulations then I applaud the Australian government for calling this out and sending him home! It's the fair thing to do, and sends a strong message to all those other people in the world that feel they don't need to act with empathy for others in these exceptional circumstances we find ourselves in. Shame our own UK Government is so free and easy when it comes to exceptionalism and putting financial and populist interests above public health risks.

Someone came up with a humorous take on this rather odd situation, see below..

Gut feeling..

Saw this little Dilbert cartoon recently. It made me think about my experiences of the many CEO's I've dealt with over the years and their involvement in the recruitment process. I always think that having the CEO exclusively interview candidates for jobs is a bad idea. There seems to be a law of physics that the personality attributes required for CEO's are incompatible with a) shutting up and listening and b) resisting the urge to talk about yourself/company/products ad nauseum while not testing/probing the required attributes of the candidate.

Of course there are exceptions, but, on balance I've never met a CEO yet that's had any skill in assessing competence, with most of them it's 100% about seeing themselves (i.e. personality) in someone and acting on "gut feeling", which as we know, is possibly the worst kind of feeling to act on as it's, almost always, wrong or incomplete. I've seen some stupendously bad hires in my time, mostly all made by CEO's against the advice and instincts of colleagues, the best CEO's have invariably recognized this limitation and delegated hiring to others, limiting their involvement to sanity checking and supplying pep-talks into the process.

 

Blocked?

Pretty accurate representation of how Twitter should be, but unfortunately (mostly) isn't..

They said it would never happen..

I recall a few weeks ago seeing a ton of content from commentators opposed to lock-downs et al that the then projections for Omicron of one hundred thousand new cases per day were "ludicrous" and they ridiculed "gloomy scientists". Of course these people, like Kirstie Allsopp, Neil Oliver, Denise Welch, most presenters on GB News and Piers Corbyn to name but a few, simply demonstrate their ignorance and scientific illiteracy with every tweet, placard and comment but sadly many people believe them. However, here we are! 220,000 (at least) new infections today, despite the Government doing it's best to limit lateral flow tests (can't have 200k infections if you don't supply the tests!)

It's time to start asking the really important questions folks, like, what time does the pub open and what Greek letter comes after Omicron?

The Terror

Back to work tomorrow..

 

Monday Mirth

Technically true!

 

Zoom Tuesday

I suspect, like most people, I'm not much looking forward to another extended bash of "WFH" or working from home. Over the last couple of months I had gotten used to going into the office for a couple of days a week and that pattern suited me well, and was quite productive. With the latest news, I suspect we'll be confined to barracks for a while now, at least a month or so, as this latest wave washes through! Better get the zoom camera warmed up ready for the onslaught of video calls on Tuesday (sigh)..

 

NYD puns

The puntastic Jesus and Mo..