Paperdove - Partly about beer. All about me.

Okay, I'm testing out Blogger. To do so, I've created the blog Speaking Beerly. I'll be posting my beer reviews there.

Why? Because I can.

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I'm usually not a total fan of fruit beers. I'm sure they're all excellent brews. I'm sure some people absolutely just love fruit beers. Me: not so much.

This, however, is really good. Especially for a wheat beer.

It's refreshing. It's tasty. It's light on the hops, but that allows the subtle (almost non-existent) gooseberry flavor to come through. Any more hops, and this sucker'd have no fruit flavor at all. The malty base is definitely in the foreground, but the gooseberry has a presence. I imagine after the third or fourth of these, it'd be quite noticeable.

It'd be easy to drink three or four, too, as it is only about 5% alcohol.

Along with the grozet (which is, apparently, another name for the gooseberry), this beer is made with malted barley (duh, that's what makes it beer), bree, wheat, gooseberries, bogmyrtle, meadowsweet, and hops.

I don't know what it is I'm drinking, but I like it.

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This comes from a collection of beer that promises to be unique. Really. Truly, stuff I've never had before.

And I've never had anything like this before.

It's a strange brew, made from fresher (8-month old) ale mixed with older (18-month old) ale. It's like a sour kick in the face, starting at the tongue, crashing through the palette, and leaving the nasal passages in confusion, before making a quick getaway down the gullet.

It's refreshing, certainly. It tastes a bit of apple cider vinegar, which sounds kinda gross in a beer, but is really unique (as promised, I guess). It's surprisingly drinkable. I imagine it would go wonderfully with a nice dark chocolate mousse, or even just vanilla ice cream.

Don't get it if you don't like odd drinks.

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What the fuck am I doing drinking a Bud? Seriously? Is it time to ship ol' Tony off to the home?

Nah. I'm drinking this on a bet. It's a bet with myself, really. And it's a test to see if I can be fair to a fuckin' Bud. I think I can, really. I'll try.

This beer is not a pussy, I'll give it that. Unlike its big brother, the King, this beer is made with real malt, and tastes like it. There's some decent bitterness, too. There is a bit of aftertaste that is slightly unpleasant, like a tire that's run over a week-old roadkill badger, but it does not entirely detract from the overtones of spice, fruit, and straw.

Fruit and straw. In fact, this beer distinctly reminds me of fall. It's almost like getting up on a crisp morning when the fields are finally being plowed up, and the apples are on the fruitstand outside. Sure, maybe a neighbor a couple of houses down should pump his septic soon, but really, it's essentially a good day to be alive.

The funny thing is about this scent-oriented analogy, this beer has almost no odor at all, which is passing odd. I think it could benefit somewhat with a dose of nice aroma hops, something mellow, like a good dose of Willamette, which would help bring out the spiciness, and kick the olfactory glands in the nads.

It's not bad for the price, I reckon, which was about half what the Arrogant Bastard cost. It's not half the beer as an Arrogant Bastard of equal size, but it's not a Bud or Miller MGD, at least.

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Arrogant Bastard is the kind of beer that punches you in the face, laughs, and takes your lunch money. It's not that it's the jock of beers. Hell, most jocks don't have the cajones to handle Arrogant Bastard. No. It's more like the guy who just doesn't give a fuck. He's the one who likes to pretend to punch you in the face, and see how close he can get without actually hitting you, but doesn't apologize if he doesn't stop in time.

In case anyone's interested, here's a sneak peak at a little project I'm working on. This is essentially a script that creates an HTML-based music catalog, based on the ID3 tags in a collection of MP3 files.

The link above leads to the output from a very alpha version. Once I'm done, I'll like to a package, and tell you how to run it, and so on.

There's a lot left to do: make it so all the various collections show up as the same album, translate non-ASCII characters properly, create some nice-looking CSS, and so on. But for now, I'm pleased just to get these early results.

Enjoy.

In response to Obama's shout-out to atheists, a gentleperson with the handle "pmular" wrote,

Please verify your facts

Go back to Plymouth Rock. Tell me who they were and why they came. They were Christians fleeing a religiously biased country and looking to start a new life based on their Christian beliefs. Please do not revise history.

Uhm, one small group of religious assholes does not make a country. They neither formed our country, nor founded our country. They were the first wave in a long series of settlers. They arrived on a continent already occupied by non-Christians. Most of them died the very first winter. They were followed by non-Christians. Those who formed our country (our so-called "founding fathers") were not all Christians. The high-profile founders, such as Jefferson and Washington and Franklin, were in fact deists, which is atheism-lite.

My original rant still stands. This is not, nor ever has been, specifically a Christian nation. Part of the Constitution is dedicated to that very idea: that the nation has no business telling people what to believe. Secularism is the idea that religion has no place in government, and it is codified in our Constitution.

I appreciate your concern about historical revisionism, pmular, but really, it is the Christians who claim this is a Christian nation who are performing the worst and most blatant revisions.

A friend came over this weekend for a short time. We sat around the firepit (with no fire) and had a beer. He said, "Hey, I've been over to Paperdove. You haven't updated that shit in a while. What about the trash you wrote about the 360?"

Which is true. I haven't taken the time to update Paperdove. Aliesha and I are trying to organize our lives, to tame them a bit, or at least beat them into submission. Part of that is time management. I suspect I should set aside an hour or two a week to spew more garbage out onto the Intarwebs. I have to do my part to kill the signal in the noise, no?

In any case, for the sake of Zubin, I should say, "The XBox interface still sucks." But take heart, XBox fanboyz-n-girlz: Sony released a PS3 update recently, simply to add some suckage to the XMB. Now you have a link to the Playstation Store on every menu item! Well, not every menu item. But on many of them. Instead of containing the evil to one small menu item, the store now sprawls over all the media menu items, as well, with insidious suckers attached to every little bit of the menu.

Whereas Microsoft reduced by a the ubiquity of advertising on their interface (meaning only that you can still see advertisements from every menu item, but really they're another menu item in the channel), Sony has done everything they can to add adspace. For instance, instead of the easily-disabled "information channel" they introduced a year or so ago, they have added a scrolling adspace to the clock. There's no way to disable this chupacabra, either. Like the goatsucker, this thing gets its teeth into you and won't let go 'til you're drained of blood. Or the will to live, at least.

They also added sparklies t to the animated wave background. Why? It makes it look fuckin' ugly. Fortunately, they still have a "classic" view, which is the old non-sparkly version. Also, they have added hooks for other themes to include animated backgrounds; but, they charge cash money for the animated themes. What kind of stupidity is that?

I find I'm playing games less and less. I played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for a bit on Saturday. And maybe I can time-manage a weekly slot for gaming. But lately, we use the PS3 to watch DVDs and BluRays, and the 360 to access Netflix's on-demand shows. Otherwise, the consoles hardly come on.

Zubin said a couple of years ago that this was his last generation of consoles. I thought he was nuts; but the older I get, the less time and inclination I have for games. So maybe I don't have a lot of base from which to criticize the sucky interfaces on both the game systems. Maybe this is the modern version of, "You kids get off my lawn!"

But really. Get off my lawn.

I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by the conflict of science and religion. As I watch this little epistemic battle going on, I realize that many people don't even know what it is they are fighting over. I thought I'd help clarify a little, if I can.

First, let's explore the epistemology of Christian Young Earth Creationists (CYEC). I basically outlined that in my recent post, Reality is a lying bitch. CYECs believe the Bible is the literal, infallible word of God. Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?

The CYEC must believe several things. First, the Bible was written (directly or indirectly) by god. Second, they must believe a literal interpretation is possible. Third, they must believe that the Bible was meant to be a literal representation of reality. Fourth, they must assume the Bible being interpreted is exactly the same as the Bible originally written by god. Fifth, they must assume their own interpretation is the correct interpretation.

A CYEC must assume all five things. If any of these five assumptions prove incorrect, their epistemic basis falls apart.

Proposition 1 is unprovable.

Proposition 2 is certainly debatable. There are internal inconsistencies in the Bible that reduce a purely-literal interpretation to impossibility, such as the two conflicting creation myths presented in Genesis. Then there is the problem of Jesus as the Messiah. The Messiah as literally predicted in the Old Testament does not match the story of Jesus.

Essentially, any CYEC, when presented with internal contradictions in the Bible, often resorts to non-literal interpretation. This brings into question whether or not a literal interpretation is even possible.

Proposition 3 is really the sticking point, and the one with which most CYECs have problems. Take the assertion reported in Reality is a lying bitch. One who assumes the Bible trumps observed reality denies the non-congruence of the Bible and reality by denying our own observations. We have a name for this. We call it delusion.

This is the biggest flaw with any literal Biblical epistemology, and the easiest one to verify.

Proposition 4 is also easy to disprove. There are many different versions of the Bible. Take the King James Version and the New International Version, two that are similar. Reading of the same passages can be subtly different, to the point that literal interpretations are different.

Also take the habit of CYECs and other Christian apologists of going back to the older Greek editions of the Bible to conciliate discrepancies. This rather proves that the versions of the Bible used today are at least subtly different than the original.

Proposition 5 is easily demonstrated to be false, as well. Simply observe the number of schisms with CYEC beliefs, and you will see there are many different personal interpretations.

Scientific epistemology

The assumptions of the epistemology of science are perhaps a little easier to examine, and a bit harder to disprove. These assumptions are based on collective observation of reality. These are:

1. The universe is observable.

This means both that the universe objectively exists, and that we can make objective observations about the universe. We can create units of length, and measure the size of a thing. We can create units of energy, and measure how much force a thing may apply. And so on.

2. The universe is consistent.

This assumption means that a measurement made by one person will be the same as measurements by another. This also assumes that if we see a process occur at one point, we may expect the same process to apply under identical circumstances.

3. The universe is coherent.

This is the most subtle of the assumptions, and the hardest to grasp. This assumption simply means that the universe works together as a whole. It means everything is inter-related in such a way that relationships make sense. Logic and math both arise from this assumption.

All three of those assumptions provide the epistemic foundation for science. If any one of those three turned out to be false, science would not work. Fortunately for us, all three appear to be solid assumptions.

I used to be close to reality. Really, I did. I'd tickle her a little, and she tell me something true -- insane, amazing things. A feather will drop just as quickly as a bowling ball, in a vacuum. We are all made up of tissue and bone, which is made up of molecules, which are comprised of atoms.

Deep down, we are all atoms.

Sure, reality is stingy with her secrets. We know that atoms are made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and those are further comprised of quarks. Below that, things get a little hazy. We have a bestiary of fermions and bosons, all living in the realm of the quantum. And here, reality has said little.

Then there's information theory, which deals with relationships of matter and energy. Here, reality has said much about evolution, but she has revealed only tantalizing bits about the origins of the first self-replicating chemicals.

And the deep cosmos! Reality waxes poetic about the vastness of her bounds, containing 14 billion years of matter and energy and galaxies and suns and black holes and planets and the echoing whispers of her birth. It's all there, and she's told us many of its basic truths. But she's said nothing of life on other planets, and she's only given us the broad outlines of her birth. It's as if she's a little shy on the subject. As if she hasn't brazenly laid herself out across the universe, naked as the day she was born.

But now, it turns out that reality is a lying bitch.

I've read the wrong books. You know, the ones that describe the scientific process, the ones that demonstrate the way to learn about reality is to actually observe her, think about her, make predictions, and see if those predictions turn out to be true or not? The ones that claim that all modern progress, from germ theory to computers to the wonders of modern medicine, are based solely on application of the scientific method?

They're wrong.

I put way too much faith in the scientific method. Sure, it's good at getting reality to tell us a little bit about herself. But that doesn't work at all, because she's a lying bitch.

How do I know?

Allow me to quote from a proper textbook, "Biology for Christian Schools," published by Bob Jones University, and intended for homeschoolers:

revealed truth - that which is revealed in scripture, whether or not man has scientifically proved it. If it is in the bible, it is already true.

fallacy - that which contradicts god's revealed truth, no matter how scientific, how commonly believed, or how apparently workable or logical it may seem.


Fucking reality. She used to be a friend of mine.