Brewing better coffee with DNA

Grok Headline matches for Brewing better coffee with DNA

Coffee Geeks: brewing gadgetry, DIY
roasters, Cuban contraband

Coffee Geeks: brewing gadgetry, DIY
roasters, Cuban contraband 06/27/2004 07:30 PM
Responding to a previous post about current guestblogger Christopher Coppola's favorite road trip espresso maker, several readers point us to CoffeeGeek. The site lists reviews for such a mindbogglingly vast array of coffee-related gadgets, I get a contact buzz just clicking on it. Link. (Thanks, Josh, and everyone else!)

Reader Bill says, "If you're talking coffee, you should check out this website, from a tiny California company that supports do-it-yourselfers that roast their own beans. While there are some hazards - like smoking the place out, you can use 1970's air popcorn poppers, woks, or actual home roasters. Apparently, coffee goes stale in 4-6 days, so most of us have been drinking stale coffee without even knowing it." Link

And reader Simon Fodden in Canada says, "For those closer to the middle of the landmass, the Merchants of Green Coffee offer similar products, plus (oh, the forbidden fruit!) really good coffee from Cuba."

Coffee With Networking for Macmillan's
World's Biggest Coffee Morning

Coffee With Networking for Macmillan's
World's Biggest Coffee Morning 09/13/2004 03:17 AM
Worlds Biggest Coffee Morning Event to auction off lots from original works of art to lunch with IT/telecoms journalists. Great fun for a great cause. [PRWEB Sep 13, 2004]

Something is brewing in the land of RSS

Something is brewing in the land of RSS 07/21/2004 07:46 PM

Several thing are brewing in RSS land, one centers around Technorati as it looks like they are getting ready to start pulling Political feeds in a separate area. Along with that Dave Winer has a hot project in work that will be needing some hard-core bloggers to help out on. It's nice to see that innovation in the weblog community is alive and well. [Politics Technorati] [Scriptin g News]

Immediate Update: Looks like Technorati will be working with CNN during the DNC. [ZDNet]

A Rebel Storm Is Brewing

A Rebel Storm Is Brewing 06/15/2004 12:30 AM
Star Wars.com updates tonight with a bit about the up coming Star Wars Miniatures game from Wizards of the Coast. Details include a few images and a general description of contents for the premier Starter Kit and Booster Packs, due out this September. The article also promises an interview with game developers tomorrow so check it out, and be sure to stay tuned!

Regulations brewing for Net trade

Regulations brewing for Net trade 03/17/2005 03:46 AM
EastDay Mar 15 2005 8:45PM GMT

Brewing Java, PHP En Masse

Brewing Java, PHP En Masse 11/03/2003 12:18 PM
Zend looks to strengthen its pot of technology courtesy of the latest version of Sun Microsystems' Java System Web Server.

Sun Brewing Java Competitor to VB

Sun Brewing Java Competitor to VB 03/19/2003 10:25 PM
In a move designed to attract more developers to its vision of Web services and application development, Sun Microsystems Inc. is developing enhancements to the Java language that provide a more Visual Basic-like experience.

Coors-Molson Merger Still Brewing

Coors-Molson Merger Still Brewing 07/22/2004 02:42 PM
Reuters via Wired News Jul 22 2004 6:32PM GMT

Perfect Solar Storm Brewing?

Perfect Solar Storm Brewing? 11/14/2003 01:21 AM
What's up with the Sun? Scientists are usually fairly reliable with predicting solar activity. We're supposed to be in the second waning period of an 11-year solar cycle. Instead of decreasing, though, the activity on the gaseous giant around a million times the size of planet Earth is increasing. Solar flares are currently measured with three classes using a logarithmic scale; C-class (little no no effect on Earth), M-class (medium strength) and X-class. The latter and strongest class of solar flare ranges in intensity from X1 to X20. One of the biggest solar flares occured in 1859. An X18 class in March of 1989 was the second largest. That is, until the last couple of months. After building up in October with an X18 magnitude solar flare, on November 4, we witnessed the largest solar flare since we've been studying them closely. The coronal ejection temporarily blinded the machines taking the images. Using the amount of time that the satellites were out of commission, scientists are now estimating a magnitude anywhere from X27 to X40+.

Starbucks Brewing Up Loyalty Patent

Starbucks Brewing Up Loyalty Patent 04/14/2005 06:22 PM
theodp writes "Looks like Microsoft and Amazon may have some competition in the worst-Seattle-patent-ever contest. Starbucks makes its USPTO debut today with two patent applications for Creating Customer Loyalty, which covers the awarding of free coffee mugs, and the Dual Card, a combination credit and stored value card."

Ultrawideband standards war brewing,
says Intel

Ultrawideband standards war brewing,
says Intel 11/13/2003 07:47 AM
ZDNet UK Nov 13 2003 6:54AM ET

More Potential Trouble Brewing for Micro

More Potential Trouble Brewing for Micro 11/12/2003 08:02 PM
Its next generation of Windows, code-named Longhorn, will have a built-in search engine that could threaten Google, Yahoo! and other companies. ...

Rebellion brewing in Saudi city

Rebellion brewing in Saudi city 01/28/2004 03:38 PM
Rebellion brewing in Saudi city The tiny city of Sakaka in the remote al-Jouf province that borders Iraq may seem an unlikely setting for the beginning of a revolution against the ruling al-Saud family. But one does not have to spend too long here to realise that this is what is happening.

InternetNews.com: Brewing Java, PHP En
Masse

InternetNews.com: Brewing Java, PHP En
Masse 11/04/2003 08:20 PM
The creator of the PHP Web-scripting engine Monday said it has inked a deal to make its technology a major force in one of Sun Microsystems' more popular Java platforms.

Holy War Brewing Over Cross (Reuters)

Holy War Brewing Over Cross (Reuters) 05/26/2004 11:57 AM
Reuters - Holy war has broken out between civil libertarians and Los Angeles County officials over whether a tiny Latin cross on the county's official seal is an unconstitutional religious symbol or a part of California history.

Perfect Storm Brewing For Microsoft?

Perfect Storm Brewing For Microsoft? 04/09/2004 04:09 PM
Why is Microsoft in this position? It's not about bad product, but rather poor marketing and evangelism. By Michael Gartenberg, Computerworld (via MyAppleMenu)
See Also : Microsoft Headed For Tough Times, Gartenberg Says by Robert Scoble
We'll have more to say on [the evangelism and marketing] front soon.

U.N. battle brewing over control of the
Internet

U.N. battle brewing over control of the
Internet 12/06/2003 02:12 PM
Should the Internet be brought under U.N. control? Some member countries thinks so, and the idea will be discussed at a summit next week.

siliconvalley.internet.com: Brewing
Java, PHP En Masse

siliconvalley.internet.com: Brewing
Java, PHP En Masse 11/04/2003 07:09 PM
"The creator of the PHP Web-scripting engine Monday said it has inked a deal to make its technology a major force in one of Sun Microsystems' more popular Java platforms..."

Battle Brewing On The Digital Music
Front

Battle Brewing On The Digital Music
Front 08/30/2004 11:58 AM
Microsoft's online song store may pose the most serious threat yet to Apple's domination in niche. By Robert Weisman, Boston Globe (via MyAppleMenu)

Sun's Gosling: New Java Flavors Brewing

Sun's Gosling: New Java Flavors Brewing 07/19/2004 01:31 PM
Java creator James Gosling sounds off on Java futures, new languages, the trouble with aspect-oriented programming, the open-source debate, Eclipse and more.

More potential trouble brewing for
Microsoft as it faces off with ...

More potential trouble brewing for
Microsoft as it faces off with ... 11/12/2003 08:02 PM
Its next generation of Windows, code-named Longhorn, will have a built-in search engine that could threaten Google, Yahoo! and other companies. ...

Chemical Tests Confirm Ancient Chinese
Brewing

Chemical Tests Confirm Ancient Chinese
Brewing 12/19/2004 02:53 PM

Vicious fight brewing over Kerry Senate
seat

Vicious fight brewing over Kerry Senate
seat 07/19/2004 11:23 AM

More potential trouble brewing for
Microsoft as it faces off with EU
regulators

More potential trouble brewing for
Microsoft as it faces off with EU
regulators 11/12/2003 04:27 PM
San Francisco Chronicle Nov 12 2003 2:41PM ET

Sun's Gosling: New Java Flavors Brewing
(Ziff Davis)

Sun's Gosling: New Java Flavors Brewing
(Ziff Davis) 07/19/2004 01:29 PM
Ziff Davis - Java creator James Gosling sounds off on Java futures, new languages, the trouble with aspect-oriented programming, the open-source debate, Eclipse and more.

Brick Brewing extends PC Beer licensing
deal with Loblaws to Quebec

Brick Brewing extends PC Beer licensing
deal with Loblaws to Quebec 07/08/2004 12:10 PM
Canadian Press via Canada.com Jul 8 2004 3:53PM GMT

The Bird Flu: Is a perfect storm
brewing? Fools rush in where angels fear
to tread

The Bird Flu: Is a perfect storm
brewing? Fools rush in where angels fear
to tread 12/17/2004 06:40 PM
One of the side effects of running SARS Watch Org during the 2003 SARS outbreak, was seeing some wild predictions of epidemics. Every time there is news of a potential infectious disease threat, everybody who is the least bit handy with a spreadsheet starts creating a model showing that doom is upon the earth, or that there is nothing to worry about, and that public health officials are crying wolf. I came upon one of those posts tonight on BoingBoing, which annoyed me enough to take the time to write this up. Epidemiologists have been studying infectious diseases for a little while, and they have some pretty good models. I'm not an epidemiologist, but I've studied the topic a bit. The standard model (PDF) is something like this: r(0)= The average number of secondary infectious cases that are produced by a single index case in a susceptible population = number of contacts per unit of time * transmission probability * duration of infectiousness. If R > 1, you have an epidemic, with how fast the disease is transmitted depending on how much greater R is than one. And public health measures seek to reduce R to < 1. As I have written before, The bird flu is *potentially* very scary if it crosses the species barrier, as it has already done once, because: Transmission probability is much higher than it was with SARS. SARS usually required close personal contact to spread -- you had to be coughed on by a very sick person in a hospital, in most cases. The flu? It doesn't require large droplets to spread, and you can even get it from touching something with the virus on it. Duration of infectiousness and number of contacts per unit of time are both much higher as well. With SARS, you got sick very fast, and were very sick in the hospital within 24-48 hours of being contagious. So you didn't get that much of a chance to spread it to the general populace. With the flu, "adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before getting symptoms and up to 7 days after getting sick. That means that you can give someone the flu before you know you're sick as well as while you are sick." The onset is less sudden, and less clearly something very dangerous. (And now that the amount of vaccine in the...

too much coffee man

too much coffee man 07/09/2004 05:05 PM
Obsessions come in many sizes and flavors - small, tall or veinte. Meet the man who is living the Traveli ng Salesman Problem by attempting to visit every starbucks.

Coffee!

Coffee! 02/15/2003 11:13 AM
Holy crap! I had a cup of Coffee this morning because I got up rather early but was feeling especially sluggish. It's my first cup of the year. It really did the trick. I really understand how some folks quickly...

Cake for Coffee

Cake for Coffee 06/17/2005 04:28 PM

« Sour cream coffee cake with raspberry and cinnamon streusel filling. »

When I think of coffee cake, I think of a dense, slightly sweet cake with cinnamon swirls and nuts in it, but when I say coffee cake in Finland, I get this weird look as if to ask why one would put coffee in a cake. Treats with coffee in Finland, if not some kind of pulla, are some sort of seriously heavy and sweet cream confection. I've also noticed that while berries have an exalted, perhaps even near ubiquitous, place in Finnish desserts, I've not found any local cakes that have the fruit baked inside the cake and instead are always part of the topping or unbaked filling. I don't know if this holds in all parts of Finland, but I couldn't find a single recipe in older, and even some recent, cookbooks that had berries baked in the dough or batter. It's interesting and makes me wonder why not.

So, I decided to torture my familiar test subjects, a.k.a. coworkers, to a sour cream coffee cake with blueberries to see if the concept was too alien or if a real coffee cake might not appeal. A couple commented that it was strange, but few crumbs were left on the serving plate so in spite of the unfamiliar concept, it didn't appear to slow down consumption. :) So, if Finns want to try this cake as a change of pace, I don't think there will be any leftovers.

Coffee cake is another one of those comfort foods that make me think of home. I totted up a list of foods from home that make me feel homesick and, strangely, almost all of them are sugary dessert or breakfast kinds of foods, neither of which I ate very often back home. I'm sure there is a doctoral dissertation on the gastronomic nostalgia of expats in there somewhere.

At long last, too, I finally found the dairy product in Finland that most closely resembles American sour cream, Flora Fraîche with a 20% fat content. It's not créme fraîche, not smetana, not kermaviili, just fraîche. I figured that a country with a dizzying array of dairy products, especially sour ones, that I'd eventually try the right one. It performed perfectly where I had previously been somewhat disappointed with kermaviili.

A sturdy, powerful mixer is highly recommended for the mixing of the butter and sour cream with the dry ingredients as it gets quite stiff and difficult to work with. You could probably also do it with a biscuit dough tool/potato masher [the one that cuts the butter into the flour] but that will take more time and effort. Jarkko was playing World of Warcraft on the computer which is plugged into the step-down transformer my mixer requires so I had to do the first cake the hard way which made my hand mixer very, very hot. Adding in the egg mixture should also be done slowly as it will slop over the sides of the bowl if not added slowly.

Adding the streusel and fruit layers is easy, but I was disappointed when I followed the recipe to the letter with the 2 cups of batter between layers as I found that it wasn't enough and that they melded into one band of goo. I had so much batter left over after the adding the layers that the streusel distribution through the cake was suboptimal. So be more generous with the batter between layers and save a wee bit for yourself as the batter is damned tasty.

Lemon-Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Makes: 1 cake that serves 12 to 16 people
Special tools: A fixed-bottom, 10-inch tube pan (with 10-cup capacity), good mixer, preferably standing
Time: 20 mins prep and 1 hour baking
Source: CI

Berry filling

• 1 cup or 2,5dl frozen blueberries or raspberries
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Streusel

• 3/4 cup or 1,75dl unbleached all-purpose flour (3.75oz or 106g)
• 3/4 cup or 1,75dl granulated sugar (5.25oz or 150g)
• 1/2 cup or 1,25dl packed dark brown sugar (3.5oz or 100g)
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons or 30g unsalted butter, cold, cut into 2 pieces
• 1 cup or 2,5dl pecans, chopped

Cake

• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) or 170g unsalted butter, softened but still cool, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 tablespoons or 30g butter, softened for greasing pan
• 4 large eggs
• 1.5 cups or 3,5dl sour cream [Flora Fraîche is the closest to American sour cream in .fi with 20% fat]
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2.25 cups or 5,25dl unbleached all-purpose flour (11.5oz or 325g)
• 1.25 cups or 3dl granulated sugar (8.75oz or 250g)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon table salt

1. Toss 1 cup frozen blueberries with 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest in small bowl and set aside.
2. For the streusel: In food processor, process flour, granulated sugar, 1/4 cup (,75 dl) dark brown sugar, and cinnamon until combined, about 15 seconds. Transfer 1 1/4 cups (3 dl) of flour/sugar mixture to small bowl; stir in remaining 1/4 cup (,75 dl) brown sugar and set aside to use for streusel filling. Add butter and pecans to mixture in food processor; pulse until nuts and butter resemble small pebbly pieces, about ten 1-second pulses. Set aside to use as streusel topping.
3. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350F/175C degrees. Grease 10-inch tube pan with 2 tablespoons softened butter. Whisk eggs, 1 cup (2,5 dl) sour cream, and vanilla in medium bowl until combined.
4. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl of standing mixer; mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend. Add butter and remaining 1/2 cup (1 dl) sour cream; mix on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened and mixture resembles wet sand, with few large butter pieces remaining, about 1 1/2 minutes. Increase to medium speed and beat until batter comes together, about 10 seconds; scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula. Lower speed to medium-low and gradually add egg mixture in 3 additions, beating for 20 seconds after each and scraping down sides of bowl. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until batter is light and fluffy, about 1 minute.
5. Using rubber spatula, spread 2 cups (5 dl) batter in bottom of prepared pan, smoothing surface. Sprinkle evenly with 1/2 cup (1 dl) blueberries. Sprinkle evenly with 3/4 cup (1,75 dl) streusel filling (without butter or nuts). Repeat with another 2 cups batter, remaining 1/2 cup (1 dl) blueberries, and remaining 3/4 cup (1,75 dl) streusel filling (without butter or nuts). Spread remaining batter over, then sprinkle with streusel topping (with butter and nuts).
6. Bake until cake feels firm to touch and long toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean (bits of sugar from streusel may cling to tester), 50 to 60 minutes. Cool cake in pan on wire rack 30 minutes. Invert cake onto rimmed baking sheet (cake will be streusel-side down); remove tube pan, place wire rack on top of cake, and reinvert cake streusel-side up. Cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Cut into wedges and serve. (Cake can be wrapped in foil and stored at room temperature for up to 5 days.)

This is why I take my coffee black

This is why I take my coffee black 12/30/2003 01:33 AM
Coffee capital eyes tax on 'designer drinks' Don't you just LOVE designer taxes? Rather than spend time and research dollars on discovering ways to make government more efficient, Seattle's leaders have proposed one of the most creative luxury taxes ever...

Adios, Mr. Coffee

Adios, Mr. Coffee 02/19/2004 02:53 AM
On Valentine’s Day, Elise and the boys surprised me with a new coffee maker - the Cuisinart DCC-1200. By the way - have I ever mentioned how much I love my family? :) I suppose I shouldn’t have been completely...

Best. Coffee. Table. Ever.

Best. Coffee. Table. Ever. 01/28/2004 10:17 AM
The Drift Table lets you float gently over the British landscape from the comfort of your living room. Other projects from the Equator research group include a tablecloth that glows and a key table that responds to your mood. Hi-tech knick-knacks, or a glimpse of the subtle way we'll interact with the domestic environment of the future?

No coffee, but here's another Bagle

No coffee, but here's another Bagle 02/17/2004 03:43 PM
A variant of the mass-mailing Bagle virus seems to have taken off a bit faster than the original--and its intent could be spam-related.

Coffee on PowerPoint

Coffee on PowerPoint 12/15/2003 08:12 AM
Peter Coffee in eWeek meditates on what PowerPoint is doing to us. He begins with Edward Tufte's piece on how PowerPoint misled the assessment of the risk to the shuttle Columbia. Peter writes: Bad presentations result from people learning to write with a model of "topic sentence, body, conclusion," instead of a journalistic model of "lead (conclusion), significance, supporting details." Peter says that although media "don't just transmit facts; they alter both selection and emphasis, creating different realities in the process," PowerPoint isn't solely to blame for the bad presentations done with it. In fact, he says, PowerPoint helps you...

Pro Coffee Roasting

Pro Coffee Roasting 08/20/2004 02:29 PM

My buddy Tonx has what he calls "the second-coolest job in the world." As a barista at Seattle's Victrola Coffee, it's his job to hand-roast the daily coffee blends in the huge Diedrich IR-12 roaster they have on site, and he's written a great walk through (with pictures) of everything involved. And really, how can you go wrong with a machine that uses a infrared gas-powered afterburner to roast up to the 30 pounds of beans at once?

Unless it involves a day care and a drunken misunderstanding, you really can't.

Read - I roast coffee. [Tonx]
Read - Product Page [DiedrichRoasters]

Self-heating coffee can

Self-heating coffee can 12/22/2004 01:30 AM
Usatoday.com - Mon Dec 20, 08:15 pm GMT

Coffee Stories

Coffee Stories 03/25/2005 04:09 PM
Nicaragua and El Salvador, Tres Santos, Honduras, Peru , that Geoff Watts guy can write about coffee.

"Coffee with steam"

"Coffee with steam" 03/27/2005 10:28 AM

Grok Description matches for Brewing better coffee with DNA
GrokA matches for Brewing better coffee with DNA

Synesso Cyncra Espresso Machine

Synesso Cyncra Espresso Machine 04/11/2005 08:18 AM

My pal Tony, barista americano or some other coffee joke it's criminal to try to execute before I've actually had any, details the Synesso Cyncra, the "holy grail of espresso machines" recently installed in his home base, Victrola Coffee. Victrola actually ordered a testing prototype last year and has been upgrading its Synesso with field upgrades.

The first thing you’ll notice is its austere stainless steel body. Stainless steel extends throughout, replacing parts that have traditionally been brass or copper such as the boiler and group heads. Brass is better at holding heat, but the Synesso employs powerful heating elements, some nifty design tricks and PID temperature control to achieve a thermal stability other machines fail to match.

Apparently, there's a major coffee convention in Seattle this week, too, so I bet if we ask Tony very nicely he'll keep us up to date on the latest in brewing tech.

Our espresso machine - the Synesso Cyncra [VictrolaCoffee]

Treatment: Tricked Into Seeing,
Virtually

Treatment: Tricked Into Seeing,
Virtually 06/07/2004 09:57 PM
It is one of the odder effects of a stroke: Some patients become unable to see anything in one part of their visual fields, even though their visual circuitry seems intact.

Law Professor With Three Doctorates
Tricked By Nigerian Scammers

Law Professor With Three Doctorates
Tricked By Nigerian Scammers 01/06/2005 07:34 PM
If anything is clear, it's that the details of this case are not made clear by the AP article about it. However, it appears that a Miami law professor with three doctorates (they don't say what those doctorates are in) was clearly duped in part of a Nigerian scam. The professor continues to disclaim all responsibility saying he was tricked by "the Nigerian government," when it's pretty clear that the tricking was done by scammers who were probably not associated with the government. It also doesn't explain why the professor didn't question why the Nigerian government apparently needed him to deposit a $1.68 million check into his personal account and wire the money on to them. The guy was obviously suckered by the promise of an easy $200,000 (like all other Nigerian scam victims) and tossed any skepticism right out the window. What's not clear from the article, however, is how this scam really worked. It involves Penske, the trucking company, who apparently sent out a $1.68 million check to buy trucks. It's not clear where that check went. That's not explained. Instead, somehow, somewhere, a new, counterfeit check, in the same amount, went from Penske to this professor, starting the process. Penske is now suing Fleet bank and a credit union for letting this happen -- but there are plenty of other questions about how this all happened in the first place. It sounds like someone took the original check for the trucks and altered it, or copied it, replacing the truck company with the professor. If so, then Penske shouldn't be going after the banks, but whoever altered the check and those who ran the scam.

Take Steps to Avoid Getting Tricked by
Spoof Websites

Take Steps to Avoid Getting Tricked by
Spoof Websites 12/15/2003 10:33 PM

Indie Coffee

Indie Coffee 04/05/2005 11:27 AM
The mission of delocator.net is to assist the public in finding and supporting independently owned cafés. There's a thinly-veiled stance against a certain coffee company, but the site's a great community-driven toolkit for finding yourself a good cup of joe anywhere in the US.

" Coffee Achiever"

" Coffee Achiever" 05/29/2004 08:52 PM

Monday morning, before coffee

Monday morning, before coffee 02/10/2004 02:43 AM
Arrrrrrrgh, my eyes! Janet Jackson's breast exposed to nation Arrrrrrrgh, his eyes! Wesley Clark doesn't blink. Arrrrrrrgh, his thighs! The Superbowl streaker's site. Damn bloggers. Arrrrrrrgh, they fly! Nice-Tits.org. Ok, that's inspired. (via memepool)...

BOFH and the coffee machine

BOFH and the coffee machine 02/11/2004 12:18 PM
Episode 4 La Bella Machina

The Chocolate-Coffee Conundrum

The Chocolate-Coffee Conundrum 12/19/2004 03:27 PM
If coffee chains used better chocolate, Lawrence Meyers argues, they'd sell more coffee.

Publishing, Coffee, Contracts

Publishing, Coffee, Contracts 03/08/2004 11:18 PM
Newspapers, health benefits in your morning mug, tricky contracts, new books, and explaining what one does to family members.

It All Started With a Good Cup of Coffee

It All Started With a Good Cup of Coffee 09/05/2004 11:46 PM
New York Times Sep 6 2004 3:39AM GMT

Net more important than morning coffee?

Net more important than morning coffee? 04/28/2004 04:03 PM
Given the choice at work between personal use of the Net or a morning cup o' joe, employees say the joe can go, a survey says. The study also looks at security issues.

" What Kind Of Coffee Are You? Take This
Quiz :-)"

" What Kind Of Coffee Are You? Take This
Quiz :-)" 05/12/2004 01:25 AM

I say, matron, this coffee is just
splendid

I say, matron, this coffee is just
splendid 06/16/2004 05:05 AM
Caffeine and weblogs, the breakfast of champions. Now, let's see: New Movable Type pricing, with the "Unlimited Personal Edition ($99.95): Allows for an unlimited number of authors and weblogs for personal use". This is a marvellous hint for mail.app users...

Morning coffee notes

Morning coffee notes 06/16/2004 08:42 AM

I'm getting an unprecedented amount of email, most of it from people who want to host the sites, but don't know anything about Manila. They seem to think these are static sites that live in the file system. They are not. Some of the press reports have also made this mistake.

All the time I spend addressing the needs of random people outside the community, is time I'm not spending helping people in the community. So I'm choosing not to spend time on these offers, when I get offers from people who understand what a Manila site is, I'll pursue that. I'm still waiting for Rogers and Erin to get a very simple transition server up and running. Hurry up guys.

Sometime in the future we may have some kind of ethical code that says that when there's an outage, professional publications wait until the outage is cleared before calling out the flamers at Slashdot.

I remind people I'm just a person, and I have a complicated life already. Regardless what the press says, it's still true. I had two doctor's appts yesterday and one today. I may need surgery. This isn't a life-threatening illness, but it's not a fun thing either. Moving on June 30. So there are other things on my mind, believe it or not.

There are a couple of memes that are travelling around the net. First that somehow you have to be careful of what you say or I won't export your site. It's not true. I've been doing this for over 25 years. Much of that has been spent on the connection between the First Amendment and technology. I'm the last guy you have to worry about in this way. The second wrong meme is that I should have or could have given more notice. Putting a note on Scripting News wouldn't have been notice. I've tried to communicate with free-hosting users through this site many times. It doesn't work. Most of them don't read it. Email wouldn't have worked either because most of the email addresses are dead, and had I sent them, the outrage would have been about spam (read the Register a rticle for an idea). Spam filters of course would have stopped most of the messages that had email addresses that hadn't gone out of date. The only other choice would have been to somehow modify the content displayed on their websites. I wasn't going to do that. Also it wasn't technically an option, since the server couldn't handle the load. (Again these are all dynamic sites, not static ones.)

One of the things I learned is that just because a site is dormant doesn't mean it's not getting hits. The referer spam problem on these sites was something to behold. Search engines still index their pages, and return hits. They were mostly dead, in the sense that most hadn't been updated for several years. I had to find out quickly who was there and what were they using the sites for. I had to get other people mobilized to host their sites. I'm getting sick. And I'm moving on June 30.

One of these days in this weblog world kindness may be part of how we deal with each other. I think some people should condemn the flamers, but don't. They shouldn't get any support. Calling this outage murder, or saying I'm psychotic, well, this is so over the top, but instead of condemning this, a couple of people have councelled me on how to deal with it. Well I don't accept that. I won't deal with hysterical people. I'm not running for president, I am not a corporate executive, and I don't tell bedtime stories to adults unless its for fun and they're friends. I can tell you what it feels like to be me, but I don't know how it feels to be you. I'm willing to listen, up to a point, but unless your site is hosted on weblogs.com, I don't understand why you're hogging the microphone right now. I believe so strongly in the weblog world, that we should be grounded in truth. I think a lot of people participating in this dicussion are not grounded in truth, deliberately so, openly so. Shame on you, I say.

One thing is gratifying, the weblogs.com users have uniformly been patient, supportive, gracious, and just plain nice. The people who are behaving badly are people on the sidelines. This is a great community, I've been serving them for four years for free, and surprise, most of them get that and appreciate it. We'll get through this, it's just a corner-turn, we've done lots of them in the past. And when it's all over we'll be friends, I hope.

Morning pre-coffee notes

Morning pre-coffee notes 07/26/2004 07:27 AM

Setting the scene over at the Fleet, we're way up high, in section 319 on the seventh floor. There's a section of seats that have been cleared out for the bloggers. We're told there will be tables and chairs so we can update from there. There is ample power, I brought a power strip. Last night Matt Stoller called to say that they had gotten the WiFi working. That's good.

This is the view of the stage from our space.

Right behind us, within touching distance is CNN's blogger booth. Not sure what they have planned there, I wish they weren't quite so close. I mean are they going to let bloggers hang out in their studio? I guess this is what you get when you aren't paying for the space.

This morning at 10AM is the official bloggers breakfast. From there we'll shuttle over to Fleet, wait in a huge line, go through security again, and then go upstairs to get set up, hopefully fully powered, with wifi.

Brewing better coffee with DNA

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