No Surprise Here

November 16th, 2009 11:27 pm

Speaking as someone who’s lifelong love of1 reading was to some significant degree ignited by regular trips to pick up comics from the used bins at Allison The Bookman, it’s no surprise to me that research shows that kids reading comics “increased their vocabulary and instilled a love of reading”. I’d say there’s a serious degree of function as a gateway drug to novels as well–at least in my case.

Comic books are good for children’s learning
Parents should not “look down” on comics as they are just as good for children as reading books, a new study claims.

…

Professor Carol Tilley, from the department of library and information science, said that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books.

…

“If reading is to lead to any meaningful knowledge or comprehension, readers must approach a text with an understanding of the relevant social, linguistic and cultural conventions.

“And if you really consider how the pictures and words work together to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature.”

More details at the Telegraph.

And all of that doesn’t even address how comics can make kids consider careers in genetics, molecular biochemistry, and advanced exoskeleton engineering.

  1. Some might say “addiction to”…(back)

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I drink alone

November 14th, 2009 12:39 am

Well, my plan to try out a couple of interesting beers each night for the six nights kind of fell apart. Primarily this was down to too many nights when my all-day meeting schedule ran over into evening activities. (For the record, the official count was 57 hours of scheduled meetings over 5 days, and that doesn’t include the social activities in the evenings.)

So I decided to use my more-or-less empty night to tonight to catch up a bit. I made it through three big bottles of beer, all relatively high percentages–I’d keep going, but I do want to get up early in the morning and prudence dictates wrapping up the exploration and settling in with that new James Enge book instead.

So, on to the beers…

Long Trail Imperial Porter

The first was Longtrail Brewing’s Imperial Porter.

I had high expectations here–I’m not sure why, but the understated classic label design seemed to suggest quality to me. What I found was what might be a perfectly good porter, but one that was not at all to my taste. In fact, if you imagine the possible variations within the “porter” category as a spectrum with “everything I like” at one and and “not to my taste” at the other end, this was pretty much at the other end. Note that this doesn’t mean it was a low quality beer, but rather that it wasn’t the kind of porter that I enjoy most–and it’s still better than most see-through beers.

If I had to qualify what it is that I don’t like in a porter, I think I could say that it was a “metallic” taste on the finish, and a noticeably “high alcohol” feel in the mouth. I’m not sure how other people perceive that first thing, but it seems to be relatively common among the porters that don’t work for me, especially the higher alcohol ones–I suspect it has something to do with carbonation. The second thing is also highly subjective–depending on how the beer is constructed high alcohol beers can be very drinkable, but if I can immediately tell that something has a lot of booze in it, rather than having that be part of a well-woven fabric, it throws me off.

Anyway, not a success.

Smuttynose Baltic Porter

The second was Smuttynose’s Baltic Porter.

The story here was almost a repeat of the first. You can insert almost all the same comments here.

That “metallic” element was particularly strong here. If my palette were more refined I could probably speak more eloquently about this.

I was getting a little depressed at this point, and then all of sudden my salvation came thundering into the room like a mad russian monk who couldn’t be killed…

North Coast Old Rasputin XII

You see, the third beer was North Coast Brewing’s Old Rasputin XII.

I first tried the regular version of Old Rasputin a couple of years back–after looking for it for around a year–and quite liked it. I’ve picked up a box of it now and again in the intervening years when the opportunity presented itself.

So, when Julio presented me with the opportunity to try a special limited edition annual version of it, aged in bourbon barrels, I was all over it. And it’s a good thing too, because that was some damn fine beer. Everything I want in a stout, with a strong layer of vanilla notes over the top, and soft hints of bourbon in the finish. Yum. The alcohol warmth is notable, but not out of place–blending nicely into the creaminess of the stout, and slightly hidden by that vanilla. And it just got better as I worked my way through the bottle.

If I had another bottle of this in the room right now, I would certainly, and imprudently, drink it tonight.

Heartily recommended, and I will certainly be stopping on the way home to secure another bottle–I’d get more if the big move weren’t coming up so imminently, but I don’t want to have to move even more booze.

I probably won’t get another shot at the XII, but I’ll certainly be keeping my eye for the XIII next year.

Posted in Food and Drink | No Comments »

November 13, 2009 11:11 pm

Generally speaking one should not mess around with any kind of major upgrade (operating system, router firmware, web service, etc) while drinking–this was lies madness. Wordpress upgrades are so painless though, that I can run one from a hotel room while sustaining a mild buzz.

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Julio and religion

November 11th, 2009 12:23 am

A very full day of meetings today, ending with a relatively late working dinner, cut short my beer exploration time tonight.

St. Bridget's Porter

So I only had time to explore one small beer: Saint Bridget’s Porter from the Great Divide Brewing Company.

While the bottle describes this as a “Robust Porter” I didn’t find it particularly overwhelming in terms of robustness. That might possibly be because it was too cold when I drank it–the flavour profile did noticeably expand as I worked through the glass. In any case, regardless of how “robust” it is, it certainly tastes good. Bitter at first, with noticeable coffee notes, and then smooth through to a sweet chocolately finish that lingers for quite a while fading back into a very persistent mid-tongue bitterness. Not too heavy–I could see myself drinking a number of these in a sitting. If it were just slightly less better at the start I think it would have beaten out yesterday’s selection, but as it is it comes a close second.

It does, though have a much better story to go along with it.

Probably the best known Irish saint after Patrick is Saint Brigid (b. 457, d. 525). Known as “the Mary of the Gael,” Brigid founded the monastery of Kildare and was known for spirituality, charity, and compassion. St. Brigid also was a generous, beer-loving woman. She worked in a leper colony which found itself without beer, “For when the lepers she nursed implored her for beer, and there was none to be had, she changed the water, which was used for the bath, into an excellent beer, by the sheer strength of her blessing and dealt it out to the thirsty in plenty.” Brigid is said to have changed her dirty bathwater into beer so that visiting clerics would have something to drink. Obviously this trait would endear her to many a beer lover. She also is reputed to have supplied beer out of one barrel to eighteen churches, which sufficed from Maundy Thursday to the end of paschal time. A poem attributed to Brigid in the Brussel’s library begins with the lines “I should like a great lake of ale, for the King of the Kings. I should like the family of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.”

That’s from the Saints of Suds article at BeerHistory.com–which is contains a lot more things worth reading, besides that little story.

One does wonder, though, what the silhouette on the label has to do with an Irish saint…

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…down by the schoolyard

November 10th, 2009 12:46 am

As is my wont when attending days of endless meetings in the “Boston” office, I’ve made a trip to see Julio and stock up the fridge for an exploration of some interesting looking beers that I haven’t tried before.

Mayflower Porter

After today’s marathon meeting session I retired to the hotel and sampled my first selection: Mayflower Porter, from right here in Boston. I hadn’t seen it before–perhaps no surprise given that it’s only been in bottles since June of last year–but it had the twin appeals of being both a porter I hadn’t tried, and a “local” selection.

I admit that I had a nice setting for drinking the beer–my first minute of relaxation after a long day, accompanied by a nicely chilled honeycrisp apple, and some Maytag Blue raw milk cheese on 34º Sesame Crispbread. (Yes, I am on expenses, and yes, I had a chance to stock the fridge in my suite yesterday.)

So maybe it was a case of the thirst equivalent of “hunger is the best sauce”, and maybe it was highly enhanced by the setting and the accompaniments, but damn, that was a good beer. All the porter flavours I love, in balance, without being too bitter or too heavy. I’ll be getting a six of that to take home with me I think.

Hop Rod RyeAfter that short interlude of calm epicurean relaxation, I took some of my Australian counterparts into town for beers and dinner at the Sunset. I had the fun of exposing someone to the Dogfish Head 120 minute IPA, and got my interest in Black Orchard piqued. My personal drinking was dominated by the Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye–it’s quite a large bottle, and not something that can be quaffed.

The brewery says:

The first American rye to be produced, Hop Rod Rye is a high performance, turbo charged, alcohol burnin’ monster ale with dual overhead hop injection that revs out the hop-o-meter at over 90 IBUs. For all that, a good dose of rye and caramel malts ensures a sturdy chassis to carry all that flavor. The rye malt adds a spicy grain character that takes this beer to the winner’s circle!

but my experience was that the rye notes were totally dominated by the extreme load of hops–I mean it’s no 120 minutes, but still it was hops overriding everything else in there. Not something I would order again.

I have 11 more interesting stouts and porters in the fridge for me to explore over the rest of the week–although I will probably not get through them all and end up taking some back home.

Posted in Food and Drink | 1 Comment »

November 4, 2009 12:12 am

I have a tab open to the site where you can stream the Angora Napkin cartoon. I was keeping it around to point you guys at it, and explain why you should take a look. But my soon-to-be-comics-pusher Christopher Butcher beat me to the punch, so it’s a lot easier to just point you to his post. (As an aside, in an aside, I met Troy Little when he stopped in to do a signing at Strange Adventures–he did a sketch for me in my Chiaroscuro collection, which book I think I prefer to the Angora Napkin one, not least because it has a decidedly less Ren & Stimpy art style–and he seemed like a totally nice, straight up guy.)

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Exceptional In Many Ways

November 3rd, 2009 12:24 am

2009 Global Peace Index

What you’re looking at there are the results of the 2009 Global Peace Index. (The full ranking is available online, as are details of the methodology used.)

Canada is #8, and for the third year running is “the most peaceful country in the North and Central America and Caribbean region”. That’s a kind of exceptional result, especially considering our neighbour, and one I see as positive.

The two most peaceful nations (according to the ranking) from each of nine regions are invited to the Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations. At the symposium an award was presented to the Canadian representative…

Canada has been named one of the most peaceful nations in the world for its support of UN peacekeeping missions, low levels of violent crime and political stability.

The Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations named Canada as the most peaceful country in the North and Central America and Caribbean region and put it eighth place worldwide on its global peace index.

Ambassador Gary Doer accepted the award at the symposium in Washington on Sunday.

That’s from the wire service storylet.

Gary Doer, in case you don’t recognize the name, is Canada’s ambassador to the United States. He’s been in that job for not quite two weeks now–something like that symposium must be a nice welcome to the job.

Doer’s been involved in other things recently that show off Canada’s exceptional nature–like one of the last acts of his ten-year stint as the Premier of Manitoba (leading an NDP government) before taking the ambassadorship: setting aside over 10 million acres of boreal forest for conservation.

That’s a part of an overall effort–some grudgingly done federally, much more done provincially–to conserve Canada’s boreal forests.

In a series of initiatives, Canadian provincial governments and aboriginal leaders have set aside vast tracts of coniferous woods, wetlands, and peat. The conservation drive bans logging, mining, and oil drilling on some 250m acres – an area more than twice the size of California.

That’s from a CommonDreams piece. In addition to Manitoba’s 10 million acres it details the rest:

…the Harper government did relent on forest protection, working with the Sahtu and Deh Cho First Nations to set aside 40m acres in the Northwest Territories.

Canadian provincial leaders have moved even more aggressively in recent years, with Ontario committed to protecting 55m acres, or about half of its forest, and Quebec committed to protecting 150m acres.

Another kind of positive exceptional action, I would say.

Unfortunately, it’s exceptional in another way–in that Canada, and particularly Harper’s Canada, tends to suck on environmental issues more generally. (We’re very peaceful about sucking, of course.)

From that same article, a couple of other quotes:

The sheer scale of the forest conservation drive is somewhat of an anomaly for Canada, whose government has been accused of sabotaging the global climate change talks by its development of the Alberta tar sands and its refusal to make deep cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, a former adviser to Barack Obama urged Canada to do more to keep up with America’s moves towards a cleaner energy economy.

It’s embarrassing to have Americans lecturing us on environmental issues–especially after eight years of Bush. But it’s way more embarrassing to have them giving us a well-deserved lecture. Sigh.

That threat appears to have concentrated the official mindset in Canada, which otherwise has a poor record on action on
climate change. On a per capita basis, the country is one of the worst polluters on the planet, producing about 2% of the world’s emissions even though it has just 33m people. It holds one of the worst track records among industrialised states for living up to its commitment under the Kyoto accords. By 2007, greenhouse gas emissions were 34% above the target Canada agreed at Kyoto.

Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, is resisting doing much more, committing to just a 6% cut over 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. “I see Harper’s policy as a continuation of the Bush agenda,” said David Martin, climate director for Greenpeace Canada.

And that’s the worst part of it–we’re exception here in that after even the Yanks stopped being utterly blind about environmental issues and emissions, etc, we’re still doing it. We are continuing Bush’s agenda–even after America has started to recover. That’s hardly a kind of exceptionalism to be proud of.

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I expected more from Pride

November 2nd, 2009 12:03 am


Greed: High
 
Gluttony: Medium
 
Wrath: Medium
 
Sloth: Very High
 
Envy: Medium
 
Lust: High
 
Pride: Medium
 

Discover Your Sins – Click Here

Posted in Blog cliches | 4 Comments »

October 31, 2009 12:05 am

One month from now I will be moving into the new house in Cambridge. The Halifax 31 day countdown is on.

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A Little Too On Point

October 29th, 2009 11:27 pm

I’m sure that there has been a time in my life, and will again be a time in my life, when the skewering of tech industry management jargon done at Rands In Repose was/will be hilarious.

But I’ve got to tell you, right at the moment, some of those things are just a little too on target for me to laugh, you know.

Examples:

  • Alignment — “I’ve yet to convince people that I am correct.”
  • Executive Summary — A brief assessment given to executives. If this summary were shown to those who actually do the work, they would giggle.
  • Future Proofing — Architecting a product so that it accounts for things that don’t yet exist and can’t be predicted.
  • Heads-up — “You’re screwed.”
  • Milestones — Magically created dates that mean nothing, but give executives the impression that progress is being made.
  • Socialization — The process by which an idea that no one wants to do is forced on others.
  • Solution — “I don’t know what your product does.”

Read the rest at the original article.

I felt a little better about the Management Glossary at the same site when I started browsing it, seeing definitions that I quite liked such as;

Architect: An engineer who knows what he/she is doing. If an architect says something which appears insane, it’s worth firing off a couple follow-up questions as they are often smarter than you.

and:

NIH (“Not Invented Here”): Term to describe behavior where an engineering team will not consider working with anyone’s code except their own. It’s not that the external code is good or bad, it’s just foreign which means it must be reviewed, reformatted… oh, what the hell. LET’S REWRITE THE WHOLE DAMNED THING. Billions of dollars have been lost to NIH. I mean it. Billions.

But then my eye settled on the punch-line to the whole affair…

Computer Associates: A sixteen billion dollar company based in New York that you don’t know. Seriously, name a single product by these guys. I dare you.

Ouch.

Posted in Storytime | 2 Comments »

October 28, 2009 11:22 pm

Dear Internet: please explain this. And I would like an explanation that makes more sense than “only in accordance with the instruction of children dancing, singing, arms breathe fire on the dreams of children“.

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It just occurred to me that risk and entropy are the same thing

October 28th, 2009 11:03 pm

I have an amateur interest in economics that I indulge from time to time, primarily by reading economics-focused blogs. While I was doing that this week I was interested to see Brad DeLong (whose blog is definitely worth following) point to a discussion from the Economist about compensation for bankers and the relation between that and their ability to accurately judge risk.

Some of the arguments seem to run along the lines that bankers may not be competent to recognize risk, and that therefore they may not charge an adequate risk premium for risk they are taking on, which can result in some of the kinds of problems we’ve seen lately with high risk mortgage debt causing an avalanche of financial woe.

This is certainly credible, especially if you’re a cynic who tends to think that most people are pretty incompetent.

Of course, it turns out you don’t necessarily need to be particularly cynical, since current research seems to suggest that in areas like debt securitization, it’s effectively impossible to determine the level of risk you’re taking on, or to determine later if something like a CDO was structured with a higher real degree of risk than it was represented as having. The research says this kind of analysis is an NP-complete problem, which is not the same thing as “impossible”, but is close enough for sloppy discussion. Given those findings you can hardly blame a banker for not assigning the correct risk to a CDO.

(You can perhaps blame them for not knowing that they were dealing with something they didn’t–and possibly couldn’t–understand. There’s no shame in not being able to solve an NP-complete problem, but there’s not a lot of excuse for pretending you know the solution, and making decisions based on your faulty solution, when you don’t.)

What strikes me the most out of the whole discussion though is this quote:

The person most willing to take on risk is the one unaware he is doing so. He charges no risk premium… The resulting market equilibrium is that the guy who is unaware of the risk ends up loaded with it. Then the music stops.

This was offered in the context of explaining how some bankers ended up carrying much more risk than they thought they were, but I think it’s much more poignant if you consider not the banker but the investor, who has even less chance of assigning risk correctly than a financial professional, and who stands to lose their savings and not just a bonus.

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Utterly Thought-Stoppingly Awesome.

October 28th, 2009 12:31 am

Watch this. Just watch it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Science and Technology | 4 Comments »

October 27, 2009 11:43 pm

I’m doing a little better with Jeff Ford’s current recommended reading list than I did with the last one–this time I’ve actually read some of the books (four of them, to be precise). Given that the theme this time seems to be “detective fiction at the boundaries of, or crossing into, other modes” it’s perhaps no surprise–I enjoy a little genre stretching and deconstruction. Of course the net result is five more books to put on the wishlist.

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October 27, 2009 8:57 am

I have two immediate reactions to a story about someone constructing a box that will only open at specific coordinates as a wedding gift. First, I am forced to wonder why I have never been given such a thing–my friends are creative, fabulous, and on average pretty tech savvy. After I get over my jealousy though, it does make me think about those fantasy stories where the Maguffin had to be taken to a particular place, or the “lost technology of the Ancients” stories where it’s lost tech instead of magic that serves the same role, and how those are realizable now. Any sufficiently advanced technology, etc. Maybe we’re “the Ancients”, now.

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