Well the time of year that is my birthday is coming up (30th April for all those uninformed…) and well this one is apparently meant to be a big deal and all. 21. Crazy huh? I think it’s pretty old, well only to the extent that I don’t feel 21, but since when did a number dictate how old you felt. Surely that’s a relative thing?

Hmmm, anyhow, I have been asked what I want by some people, and so far have given few answers, other than I want a (good) surprise. But that’s not really going to happen without a few subtle hints. So for anyone reading this who actually knows me (there might be one or two of you out there…), here are a list of some things that I would be very pleased to receive.

More wonderful things will undoubtedly be added here as time progresses, but for now that’s all I can think of.

Peace out y’all…

Update: (I thought of more things…)

Yay!

Moment of obvious realisation: Easyjet has Speedy Boarding (™ (probably)).

Okay, it’s totes been around a while and all, but really is it necessary? You pay dirt cheap amounts for dirt cheap tickets on a pretty dirty airplane where they’re trying to snatch every last bit of money off you for any small service possible. Even using a credit card or taking hold baggage. Crazy.

Anyway, so they (being Easyjet) launched this thing a while back and essentially you pay between £2.50 and £7.50 more (which in some cases is 50% of the flight price…) just so you can get on the plane a little bit earlier than everyone else. Great. You’re still in the same plane, you’re still sitting in the same seats, and you still get exactly the same service. What’s the deal. Even if you’re last in the Speedy Boarding queue then you’re a matter of minutes (if that) in front of the first ‘regular’ people. It’s just not worth it. Imagine if everyone spent that extra £7.50. Then you’re screwed. Although, statistically, not everyone will. But it’s the principle. You’re paying for a little bit more choice in where you sit. And maybe for the feeling of a moral high ground as you go through the gates a little bit earlier.

Well I’m not convinced. I get a perfectly good seat every time I fly. It’s not as if they’ve overbooked the plane. Everyone will get on. Eventually. And they’re not going to leave without you—especially if you do have speedy boarding. It’s just another minimal way of making money for the airline. Don’t fall for it. Unless you’re their target market, that is. If you are, you won’t realise it, it’ll be too late when you turn up at the airport thinking you’re just that much better than the next person. You’ll probably be wearing an Ed Hardy t-shirt, looking like a massive douchebag. Then it’s too late. Or you could be old, or obsessively panicky. Either way, you will get on the plane at some point. You could even get some kids, young ones preferably, and get them to get you on early. You would save the money. Anyway, what I’m saying is don’t be a target market. At least not of Easyjet. It’s a bad(ly paved) road to go down…

I hate to post more and more about coffee, and drinks and Starbucks, but it just seemed like something worth mentioning. Partly because no-one knows it, and even urban dictionary doesn’t have the right definition, so I thought I would clear up some more coffee lingo…

A Kennedy – A filter coffee with 3 shots of espresso in it. Why it’s called this, I hope you know. Try asking for a Kennedy next time. The mixed reactions it receives makes up for the sheer caffeine content.

Black Eye – A filter coffee with 2 shots of espresso in it.

Red Eye – A filter coffee with only 1 shot of espresso in it.

Dirty Chai – A chai latte with a shot (or two, or three…) of espresso. It’s actually rather nice, and I’m quite a fan. However it’s an odd taste at first and maybe takes a bit of getting used to. The spicy-ness, the sweet-ness and the bitter-ness. Pretty good times. And it’s even better iced. Next time you’re at Starbucks, try out an Quad Venti Iced Latte Macchiato with Chai syrup, and 1 pump almond. It’s pretty gnarley.

Well not mentioning something for a while is bad. So I’m back. Now. On the same topic as before. Caffeinated beverages, or more importantly, coffee.

What’s happening in the coffee world with me these days? Well let me enlighten you. My current drink of choice, is the result of a few things; 1 – Price, 2 – Caffeine content and 3 – Refill-ability™. It goes by the name of a “Tall Almond Black Eye with hot milk“.

Essentially this is just a filter coffee with two shots of espresso, a little almond syrup and some hot milk. But there is oh-so-much-more to it than that. To get it tasting good, a few principles have to be observed.

1) Assuming you’re ordering this in Starbucks, don’t get Estima (whatever you do!), get whatever else is going (even if it’s the morally questionable (don’t ask me why) House Blend), I find Sumatra, or something fairly bold is best.

2) Only get one or two pumps of almond syrup. If it’s a tall, then it’s gonna have 3 pumps normally, which is a tad too sweet.

3) Espresso is espresso, at least at Starbucks it is. Regular or decaf is fine.

4) Only get a little hot milk (a quarter/half inch will do). Even better if it’s dry.

This basically fulfils all my criteria, it’s cheap (£1.12 ish with a discount and Starbucks Card), caffeine rich (240+150 = 390mg Caffeine per cup), and refill-able (free refills on freshly brewed (and the extras are normally included)). Win for me. Stay tuned for more interesting drinks combos…

I haven’t really ever written anything particularly Starbucks related in the past, probably because it might not be especially entertaining to read (however that’s a relative point, so I’ll not get into that at the moment). Though recently I have felt slightly compelled to mention a few interesting points about everyone’s favourite (or least favourite) coffee company.

Being an ex-(and maybe possibly future) employee, I have a different outlook and opinion on the company and its ethics. I’m not like the guy who comes in to play endless games of online poker (http://www.partypoker.com/) using the free wireless the store offers or the mums who meet every day before they pick their kids up from school and drink skinny lattes. So do bear that in mind with anything I say, but then again it’s not like I’m saying anything remotely controversial—so don’t worry!

Primarily, this post concerns dry drinks… Not as in non-alcoholic, but as in more foam or less liquid depending on how you look at it. Basically it’s a simple way of customising your beverage so it’s how you like it. But then again it’s so much more. It can tell you a little bit about a person. For example, people who come in and order a wet latte are generally pretty stingy (or maybe just a little picky, but there’s better ways of doing that) and want the most value for money so to speak (or skin on their milk if there’s absolutely zip foam). People who order a dry latte (or a wet cappuccino in that case) probably think they are being all ‘hip’ with the wet/dry lingo, but don’t really know what the difference between a (Starbucks) latte or cappuccino is. Then again, they could be ultra picky, but the same picky rule from before applies (they could do better, or worse depending on your perspective).

What I used to order fairly often (this was when working by the way) was a quad Venti 1 pump almond extra dry cappuccino (try it, it’s quite nice). Essentially this is like an quad espresso macchiato with a venti cups worth of foam on top (and a little almond). A little too expensive seeing as most of it is air and a venti cappuccino is £2.60 (not including the 2 extra shots (15p each) and the syrup (35p)). Ordering this on the cheap could be done pretty easily as an espresso macchiato in a venti cup with XX foam + 2 shots + syrup. Paying by Starbucks card would also get you free shots and syrup, making the drink a much more manageable £1.35 I think… Anyway, back to my original point on dryness—the main reason I liked my drinks extra dry was that there was less liquid (quicker to drink) and in a busier Starbucks, they tend to make drinks over-wet in my opinion. They’re good skilled baristas, don’t get me wrong, but at high volume times, you might not get the absolute freshest (micro)foam in the world, so free-pouring (the action of not using a spoon to pour cappuccinos and (espresso) macchiatos) would not be possible, and so the foam and milk would not be mixed (creating a light airy silky milk) but in almost 2 distinct layers (using a spoon to achieve this). Not nice. So basically my theory in ordering an extra dry drink was to force the barista to make new (very dry) milk and then free pour it, creating a good (reasonably dry) cappuccino. This would generally work. As a result: Moses 1, Starbucks 0.

But then try ordering this at another store. This is where the confusion comes in… Fair enough they know how to make your drink, that’s their job, but they just do it differently. Going from the 2nd busiest (or busiest) store in the UK, to a smaller one (without even a queue!) has a surprising effect on the dryness of drinks. Whereas before in the busy store where jugs of milk used to be put on in ‘batches of anticipation’ which worked out really well when it got crazy busy, now milk is put on as needed and the barista’s outlook on the extra dry cappuccino has changed. They would happily make fresh and free pour any cappuccino (which would be excellent), but given a dry cappuccino (or even an extra dry cappuccino (shock horror!)) then it would be made exceedingly dry and then not even free poured, but basically the foam spooned on top (NB this was my experience for a dry cappuccino, I don’t want to know what an extra dry one is like…). Fair enough some people may like it like this, but then again you’re getting to the point where you are buying a cup of foam. Not always the best thing. Moses 1, Starbucks 1.

But basically the point of this whole mini discussion is to highlight the differences in a barista’s interpretation of a dry drink. Depending on the store, it will (strangely enough) be made differently. The main point to take home from this is: ‘Don’t buy a cup of foam’.

Again, I’ve gone through another period of being quiet and not adding too much. But I recently got a job (as a Starbucks barista) and have got lots of other interesting things to add… Including some sweet Nudie jeans, a surround sound amp, and some bits of bikes!

Stay tuned.

Just as a small post to mention a few small things, I finished reading Outliers by Gladwell, and have since then moved on to Freakonomics, which I have now basically finished, so I’m really going to have to get a pile of books ready to go, or maybe just find something else to do. However at the moment (as it happens at occasionally odd times) I’m enjoying the quest for knowledge, however useful or irrelevant it may be. Now I just need to keep this quest going all though the next academic year. Hmmm. Maybe not that easy. We’ll see. As for books, hopefully I’ll find another popular economics or statistics book to read, maybe The Long Tail as I mentioned in a previous post.

I also saw (in Waterstones) Without The Hot Air by Prof. David MacKay – the book about the calculations and statistics concerning the real world viability, usability and economics of renewable energy. I had been planning to read the eBook version for a while as it is free, but as the actual book is so beautifully typeset (by Cambridge University Press maybe? UIT) I might have to get it. This little review also made me seem that little bit more excited about it too – “The Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy.”—Cory Doctorow, boingboing.net. Mmmm…

With all this (almost) new found time here at the start of the holidays, I have actually had some time to read books that I might enjoy in a non-work related sort of way. Instead of just having to read or understand certain texts as part of my course, which can be fun and somewhat enlightening at times, it is also brilliant just to not do that for once.

And so going with this opinion and state of mind, in the middle of exam term I bought the 2600 Archive (The Best of 2600 – A Hacker’s Odyssey) book to leaf through and check out – ideally as a bit of a change to the normal stuff that I was doing (revision!). I bought it thinking that it would most likely be a reference book or a collection of old (and great) articles from 2600 that were good and worth reading, but on actually reading the book, it is clear that it is fundamentally far more than that. It is in itself a history of technology (from the 80s) starting with telephone systems going all the way up to the modern age, but it is written and presented in such a different way than everything else on the topic. The depth given is extraordinary, to such an extent that the systems mentioned and talked about are explained in such a way where you are made aware that the author of the particular article clearly knows much more than the manufacturer of the actual device in terms of it’s minute flaws and peculiar characteristics. It is truly a fascinating account of the hacker’s conquest in discovering technology throughout the last 30 years. Well worth having a look through and/or a read of.

Also in my quest to read more enjoyable things, I came across the concepts and ideas of Saber-metrics while frolicking around on Wikipedia a few weeks ago – following some interesting leads from this great New Yorker article on basketball strategy (How David Beats Goliath, New Yorker, May 11 2009 – well worth a read) And so the Wikipedia article on Saber-metrics led me to the book Moneyball – The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. It is very well written, incredibly informative and also surprisingly addictive. I also think it could still have some serious appeal to the reader if they did not know much about baseball, however, maybe a little understanding is needed… I also feel now that I should read some more about Saber-metrics, it’s pretty phenomenal!

Now having read Moneyball and slightly starting to understand/get interested in the idea of statistical outliers and anomalies in economics, sports and pretty much everything else, I stumbled upon (or rather had suggested to me) Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell which I just started yesterday. Going on the same statistical approach to life and looking closer at data and trends etc., it hopes to in some way understand what might be going on – thus sounding like an excellent light read.

Daring Fireball also suggested Free by Chris Anderson (who is also the author of The Long Tail, another book I intend to read in the near future) which I will be reading soon (provided I can be assed to read an eBook… (no success yet – not even with Eucalyptus! – Maybe because I have no current desire to really read any of Project Gutenberg‘s books… Oops.)) And I also have The Bonfire of the Vanities to finish (which has been going on and off since January (if only I had the paperback edition I would be able to take it down to Cambridge more easily and actually finish it sooner).

Fun times ahead…

Ah well… It HAS been very quiet here for the past while. And I mean like totally really way too quiet. And currently I really think that that’s pretty silly, and something (however temporary) had to be done about it, so I’m now adding something in the hope that I might remember to add a bit more in the future. Possibly more interesting, more useful or academic things. But they’ll come a bit later hopefully. For now, muse upon this…

Well after maybe 2 months of downtime due to me getting muddled with the deletion of my MySQL database (nerdy stuff, don’t worry about what it means! Haha!). I thought it would be a good idea to restore a backup from February and then update the pages from Google’s cache (which thankfully worked! Yay!).

Anyway, just an update, I’ll post more about my exciting times in due course!