JoeChinni.com

My second all grain brew. Here’s the grain bill:

11.5 lb German Pilsner
.5 lb Cara-Munich
.5 lb Munich
.5 lb Crystal 60º

Mashed grains with 3 gallons of 155º water for 90 minutes.

Sparged with 5 gallons of 170º water for about 45 minutes.

Hops:
1.5 oz Centennial (pellets) bittering (45 minutes)
1 oz Goldings (whole leaf) + .5 oz Cascade (pellets) (12 minutes)
.5 oz Cascade (pellets) (last 3 minutes)

Pitched dry safale yeast at 75º.

Racked to Secondary, added 1 oz Cascade (pellets)
O.G. 1.051
F.G. 1.008
abv 5.6%

It’s pretty obvious why we’re in the state we’re in when you listen to this dumbass.

Bill Gates Retirement Party: Ten Reasons Why Vista Isn’t That Bad

I’m going to refute these one by one. Here we go.

1. It’s more secure than Windows XP.
- This might be the only one I’ll give them. They’ve improved on some core security issues. Unfortunately, part of the reason for their lower number of security patches is the low install base (ie hackers are going to focus on XP where the majority of users lie).

2. It’s the best looking Windows yet.
- Yea. It looks sooo awesome. Especially when you have the 8 gigs of RAM needed to see that cool Aero interface. (Anyone who thinks you need as much RAM to run OS X as you do to run Vista is sorely mistaken. I had Tiger running on a G4 Powerbook with 512 megs of RAM. No problem.)

3. Games work just about as well as under XP.
- Well that’s a compelling argument. I should upgrade to something that’s ALMOST as good as what I have. Good call.

4. Vista Media Center is a fantastic DVR.
- So is my TiVo. This is a good example of something 95% of users will never use.

5. The sleep mode works.
- Really? Amazing.

6. Built-in search is better and more useful.
- This is one thing I think they did right. They just had to wait for Apple to do it for them.

7. User Account Control is useful for some people.
- For some people? Who? People who like to be prompted for a password everytime (sometimes twice!) they copy a file or install a plugin? Yea, right. I don’t know anyone who leaves this turned on.

8. Drivers support isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be.
- Yes it is. Oh yes it really is. One must only point to the fact that manufacturers have to make signed drivers for EVERY device they make. NVIDIA, for example, used to make a set of drivers that would work with many different products. This makes driver development less costly and more timely. Vista killed this with their hollywood placating DRM.

9. It’s not any buggier than Windows XP.
- Again, is that supposed to make a compelling argument??

10. Vista is not slow if you have enough RAM.
- Yea and my skateboard isn’t slow if I strap it to a jet engine. Dumbass.

The TSA has announced a change in their ID policy. Before, someone could cite their constitutional right to fly without ID and be subject to a more extensive pat down (which to me is bullshit and also unconstitutional). Now, not so much.

To clarify: Passengers who refuse to show ID, citing a constitutional right to fly without ID will be refused passage beyond the checkpoints. Passengers who lie and claim to have left their ID at home, will be searched, and then permitted to board their flights.

Your Papers Please: TSA outlaws ID-less flight | Surveillance State - CNET News.com

Ahhh. It is like nothing ever changed…

If you know anything about computers this is hilarious.

It was recently uncovered that Bush scored a 57 on an IQ test while he was in middle and high school. Mild mental retardation numbers. Here’s my favorite quote from this article.

“When he was here last week,” said King Abdullah at his ranch in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “begging us to lower oil prices, our interpreters had to speak very slowly, every so often asking if he had to go doody.”

Article

Spoken like a true genius.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

Full Article

Dave Barry Explains the Tax Rebate

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?

A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?

A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?

A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?

A. Shut up.

This is absolutely the gayest shit I’ve ever seen and it reeks of desperation. Keep on rocking with Vista sales? Really??? And who the hell wrote that song?

Press TV - US lawmaker: Recession result of war

“I think actually the spending in the war might help with jobs…because we’re buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses and the economy’s adjusting,” he said in the NBC’s Today Show on Feb 18th.

Hilarious story about a guy trying to pay for a burrito with a $2 bill.

The $2 Bill

This is awesome. Sony has been busted using pirated software.

After Sony BMG supplied a pirated license code for Ideal Migration, one of PointDev’s products, the software maker was able to mandate a seizure of Sony BMG’s assets. The subsequent raid revealed that software was illegally installed on four of Sony BMG’s servers.

Sony BMG’s hypocrisy: company busted for using warez

Pretty funny m4w post on Craigslist.

I Almost Crossed the Street - Best of Craigslist

St. Bernardus

Originally uploaded by joechinni

Here’s a picture Kevin got while experimenting with the color accent feature on his Elph. I think this is my favorite picture of the trip. I love how the two things you see are the beer and the Red “B” in my hat.

This was at the St. Bernardus tasting in Watou, about an hour from Ghent in Belgium. This trip has been amazing. Check out the rest of the pictures. I’ll get them properly tagged when I get home.

~Joe

http://pixels.joechinni.com

I have to get this out. Spotlight, why do you suck so bad? Why did Apple treat you like their red-headed step child?

If you do a search for something in Spotlight why can’t you add different columns to the results? I have “Name”, “Kind”, and “Last Opened”. I can’t remember the last time I searched for something and wanted to know when I opened it last. At least they added the file path to the bottom of the results, though it’s still a pain in the ass to really see where something is if it’s nested in 20 folders.

For those of you with the same hatred may I suggest a couple alternatives.

Filespot - What Spotlight should be. I don’t like that it’s $20 though.

HoudahSpot - A free alternative, though not as streamlined.

Finally got around to brewing something. Here’s a La Fin du Monde clone I found in a clone brew book.

Steeped grains til boil:

1 lb. Wheat
1 lb. Crystal 20
1/2 lb. Cara Pils
1/2 lb. Vienna

Added 7 lbs extra light DME and 1 lb candi sugar.

Added bittering hops for 30 mins of boil:

1 oz Perle hops

then added 1 oz Styrian hops for last 30 mins.

O.G. 1.080

There is something happening at http://www.everythinghappened.com. And now something happened at joechinni.com too!

My friend and colleague Mike King has a new blog focusing on the music business. Check out his latest post about the future of radio.

Music Business and Trend-Mongering

This is really too bad and just goes to show how out of touch the industry is with reality. They can’t conceive the idea that more exposure is better in long run. Just like sharing music doesn’t mean the death of the music industry, it just means it’s time to embrace the power of technology instead of fighting it (and ostracizing your customer base in the process).

This doesn’t mean not getting paid, but maybe the era of fat cat music executives is at an end. Hopefully more bands will follow Radiohead’s lead and cut them out all together.