late winter

February 26 , 2018


I noticed that Kate Miles on FaceBook posted a picture of a server room with a huge rack of computers creating cryptocurrency, BitCoin. I'm hoping that is the subject of her next book because even though I understand binary trees and linked lists and have done some encryption stuff, I can't get my head around the extravagant use of computer power in mining the stuff. I like the idea of a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator in which transactions take place between users directly without an intermediary.


I've just finished Quakeland and am half way through the Dave Eggers book which is a rolicking good way to learn a bit about coffee. I would love to take the course to become a Q Grader. In the book Mohktar does eventually pass the test to become a Q grader.

The aim behind the program is to create an "army" of cuppers all over the world who all speak the same language when it comes to coffee. The system quantifies taste attributes such as acidity, body, flavour, aftertaste, uniformity, balance, sweetness etc. to ensure all participants are identifying flavour characteristics in the same way. By using the Q system, coffee buyers can essentially communicate quality right the way through the coffee supply chain from the farmer to the exporter to the roaster. By applying a score to a coffee, everyone involved in the process understands the quality of that coffee.
Imagine just passing the Olfactory Skills part: "this test utilizes the Le Nez de Café kit which was developed by Jean Lenoir and includes 36 scents which are supposedly found in coffee. To pass the test, you must correctly identify each scent and match it to its pair. Example scents include; maple, cooked beef, tea rose, butter, garden peas, pipe tobacco..."

Creamy Red Bean Soup with quac and sour cream and my daily cup of motivation.