HD DVD / Randomness... : Coffee

What I’ve Learnt about Coffee Lids

ptorr — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:04:50 GMT

When I first moved to the US over eight years ago, I thought it was very odd that people put lids on their take-away coffee. I found it quite strange to drink through a hole in a lid rather than to just drink directly from the cup, and routinely discarded the lids in order to enjoy my beverage the old-fashioned way. I thought it odder still that people would walk and drink their coffee at the same time, but it didn't take long for me to realise that this was a supremely useful activity afforded by the afore-mentioned lids.

The annoying thing was that although the lids generally did a good job of keeping coffee in its place, every so often a small amount of coffee would escape from the cup and drip onto my clothes. And with Murphy's Law in full effect, it typically happened when I had on a clean white shirt. Before a meeting.

Initially I thought it was just random manufacturing defects in the lids, or that the lids weren't on well enough. But one day I investigated further into the drippage and uncovered the culprit: the seam in the cup where the cardboard is joined together. If the lid is placed in such a way that the mouthpiece is more-or-less directly over the cup's seam, chances are that the seal will not be completely air-tight, and when you tilt the cup to take a drink the coffee will drip out of the cup and onto your freshly-laundered shirt. The solution? Simply rotating the lid to ensure the mouthpiece is directly opposite the seam appears to solve the problem – at least it has never happened to me since I started being more vigilant about lid placement.

I've never really thought this was much of a revelation – it seems like common sense, really – but having explained it to two friends recently I decided maybe it's not that obvious after all, and hence this completely non-HD-DVD-related blog post :-)

Clear Plastic Cups at SEATAC

ptorr — Fri, 16 Apr 2004 08:20:00 GMT

This is about airport security, not code security ;-)

Raymond has a blog today about airport security, and it reminded me of something that always puzzles me. The Seattle / Tacoma International Airport has, as you can probably imagine, several STARBUCKS® outlets. And as you may already know, STARBUCKS® has two basic kinds of cups for its beverages:

· Hot beverages are served in opaque paper cups

· Cold beverages are served in clear plastic cups

The weird thing is that they have signs up saying that the clear plastic cups cannot be taken through the security checkpoints.

Why?

It seems to me that you can hide just about anything inside one of those paper cups, but they don't get searched. I once walked through the metal detector with a paper cup in hand and was asked to step aside for a further search. I sat down, put my coffee on the floor, took my shoes off, undid my belt buckle, and stood there while they double-checked me with the wand. They never looked in the coffee cup. I just picked it up and went on my merry way...

You could also try to hide things in the clear cups, but the security people are more likely to be able to see something sitting inside of it (especially if the thing can't be submerged in a liquid) than they are a paper cup. Seems to me that both kinds of cups should be treated the same -- ban both or allow both -- but if you are going differentiate, why do it in favour of the opaque cup?

Does anyone have the answer?

IE patch and other stuff

ptorr — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 02:31:00 GMT

It's time to go to Windows Update to get the latest IE updates, including the %01 bug address bar bug.

In other news, Dana has a blog entry about the WSH security settings.

Jeroen has an interesting blog about building a JVM on .NET.

The X5 machine is working well with illy ground from my home grinder. So the deal is a good one -- a $500 machine for only $175.

And for those of you who watched the Super Bowl and are on statistics binge, did you know that the Pet Shop Boys are the 4th most popular pop artists in the USA? And to think that most people think they were one-hit wonders.

Francis Francis! X5 and ESE pods

ptorr — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 14:05:00 GMT

Warning: this entry has nothing to do with code.

As I blogged earlier (I think!) I have a rather nice espresso machine at home. You can pick one up for yourself at Whole Latte Love (that pun makes my dear friend wince :-) ) but it's a bit big (and expensive) to have one at work as well, so I took advantage of this really cool offer from illy to get a Francis Francis! X5 machine for only $175. (The catch: you have to buy a year's worth of coffee to go with it).

Anyway, the machine itself can use both normal ground coffee and ESE (Easy Serving Espresso) pods. I've always used ground coffee in the past (the pods are waaaaaaaaay too expensive), but the machine came with a free tin of illy ESE pods so I figured "what the heck -- I'll try them out."

I must say that the pods are very clean and easy to use -- no grinding, no tamping, no mess to clean up afterwards. But boy are they expensive, and I wasted a bunch of money just getting the things to work. Here are a few tips for newcomers to ESE pods, but first the price factor:

Each shot of espresso is supposed to take 7 grams (0.24 ounces) of coffee. You can buy 10 x 4.4 oz cans of illy for $100, which works out at 100 / 10 / (4.4 / 0.24) = $0.55 per shot. At two shots per cup, that's $1.10 a pop. Still cheaper than ordering a double-tall from Starbucks, but let's look at the ground coffee price: You can get 6 x 8.8 oz cans for $66, which works out at 66 / 11 / (8.8 / 0.24) = $0.16 per shot or $0.32 per double. Sure, the time I spend fiddling with real coffee is probably worth far more than the 78 cent saving, but I actually think making coffee is therapeutic and makes a nice break from doing work.

OK, so I unpack my machine (in the lovely baby blue finish!) and find the ESE holder. It's kinda weird-looking, but whatever. I look in the manual and it says to just put the pods in the holder and go for it, making sure the printed side is facing down; the illy can has diagrams that indicate the same thing. Now usually with ground coffee you have a filter in the holder with tiny holes that stop the water just flowing out, but I figure that the whole "printed side down" must have something to do with the magic inside the pod to make it work. So I slap in a pod, hit the "hit me!" button, and watch in horror as dirty brown water pours into my cup; it looks more like tea than coffee. There goes 55 cents.

So I look at the instructions again; nothing there. I look in the box and see there are 5 filters. Two of them are obviously for ground coffee (single- and double-shot), but there are three that look like they might be for the ESE holder. They all look identical, so I pick one at random (assuming the others are "backups") and try again with another couple of pods (I WANT MY COFFEE!). Hmmm, a bit better, but still too watery and it doesn't taste too good. Another $1.10 down the drain.

Finally I find this other bit of paper stuck in the box that tells me there are three different filters shipped with the ESE system -- fine, medium, and coarse. And of course, just my luck, I happened to randomly pick the coarsest one for my test. Grrrr. Later in the day I tried it with the finest filter (another $1.10), but it still doesn't taste as good as real ground coffee. Maybe my Expobar has been spoiling me and the X5 just can't compete; we'll see. I'm going to grind some coffee at home and take it in to work tomorrow to see how the X5 fares the "old fashioned" (and messy) way.