CoryMathews (u/CoryMathews)

CoryMathews commented on Mental speed is high until age sixty nature.com/articles/s4156... · Posted by u/qw

antattack · 3 years ago

Yes, I observed that also. They are are faster physically and mentally (such as operating or discovering how things/software works) and a lot more logical (but not in depth). Simple recent example, doing trail making test (for fun) they were twice as fast while I was average.

http://apps.usd.edu/coglab/schieber/psyc423/pdf/IowaTrailMak...

This is why I wish system would allow for more young politicians and leaders, lower voting age of 16, and maximum voting age of average lifetime expectancy - 16.

CoryMathews · 3 years ago

"and maximum voting age of average lifetime expectancy - 16"

- And maximum age of US public officials (especially presidents) set to a similar limit.

CoryMathews commented on Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015) vinepair.com/wine-blog/ho... · Posted by u/harambae

gsruff · 4 years ago

I would recommend avoiding glass carboys for fermenting. They are heavy, especially when filled, difficult to clean with their narrow mouths, and quite dangerous if they shatter when you accidentally drop them. (They're easy to drop while you're cleaning them and they're wet and slippery.) There are numerous accounts on home brewing forums of trips to the emergency room because a glass carboy broke and injured someone.

PET plastic fermenters (Better Bottle, FermZilla, Fermonster, etc.) are much nicer to work with.

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

Plastic fermenters are MUCH safer (I am one of the many who have gotten minor cuts from shattering glass carboys) but just plain terrible for fermenting in. A little scratch in the wall and your sanitizing process will miss the wild yeast that grows in the scratch making the container essentially useless for fermenting with your chosen yeast only.

Also they make widemouth glass carboys which are very easy to clean. But they shatter all the same.

If your going to avoid glass go 304 stainless (SSBrewtechs BrewBucket etc.) plus it basically lasts forever.

CoryMathews commented on Hertz orders 100k Teslas bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/BayAreaEscapee

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

Gas prices are going back up, How many gas tanks of water did it take to make them switch to electric vehicles?

CoryMathews commented on Microsoft Officially Deprecates UWP – Thurrott.com thurrott.com/dev/258377/m... · Posted by u/redbell

onemoresoop · 4 years ago

.NET Framework in favor of .Net Core

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

With very little way to easily convert a large app.

CoryMathews commented on Wild boars are able to open traps to free their fellows nature.com/articles/s4159... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

gaspard234 · 4 years ago

I'm from Central texas, own 50 acres in the hill country and own several ar-15's. This guy is delusional, no one is shooting 30-50 hogs on their property. I only read the first few paragraphs but so far the conversation is ridiculous.

The sharpest shooters can get a few as they scatter, they are damn smart and very capable.

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

They fly in helicopters and can shoot that many in a day. Its usually very large areas (thousands of acres) with a surrounding game fence. Since the hogs have no natural predators they have to be removed somehow and this is one common route. Vastly different scenario then a small 50 acre place.

CoryMathews commented on Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life? · Posted by u/legrande

ncmncm · 4 years ago

Dextrose. You can't buy it in grocery stores, but it is available online. Don't pay more than $2/lb. It is sold most cheaply labeled "corn sugar", marketed mainly to home beer brewers. There is only one actual supplier in the US, who ships 50 lb bags. Others break it up and sell 10, 5, and 2 lb bags. Some relabel it "dextrose" or "glucose" and jack up the price. I get mine 10 lb at a time from "Homebrew".

Regular sugar (sucrose, fructose) is poison without accompanying fiber, and is the cause of the US's (and India's and Pakistan's) epidemic level of "metabolic syndrome", liver disease that, indirectly, kills way more than COVID. Your liver can neutralize small amounts, as it does alcohol, but Americans take in way more than it can process. When your liver is impaired, you die from things a healthy liver would have prevented. (Really, nowadays people who don't drink are dying from cirrhosis!)

So, you can use dextrose anywhere you would have used table sugar. It has the extra advantage over table sugar (besides not being poison) that it does not make you more hungry after you eat it. Note, it is on you to ensure there is fiber in whatever you take in at the same time; without fiber it (like table sugar) causes insulin excursions you are much better off without. Coffee and cocoa have surprisingly large amounts of fiber.

For more about metabolic disease, the best place to start is youtube vids of presentations by Robert Lustig, a respected endocrinologist specializing in liver disease. He has several books out, most recently "Metabolical", that you probably can get from your local library.

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

Any brewery can get you dextrose much cheaper than $2/lb. I think we are paying around $0.55/pound or something close to that in my area (Texas) for a 50lb bag.

Note this is a shortage currently on dextrose because of all the hard seltzers appearing in the market so quickly and using it all up, so it will probably go up as these keep growing.

CoryMathews commented on Restaurant workers quit at record rate npr.org/2021/07/20/101608... · Posted by u/boulos

kop316 · 4 years ago

That may be the case for some....but that is not the case for all. For one ancedote, my father in-law runs a restaurant with my aunt in-law (his sister). They are the only workers, and split the profits evenly. They are in the midwest (low taxes), and own the restaurant's property/building. They were able to completely shut down during COVID and restart back up, and have survived several economic downturns.

They are still worried about the long term health of the business because of enternal cost increases (food, supplies, etc.), and are honestly thinking of just shutting down their restaurant and retiring rather than raising prices. They honestly think that if they raise their prices to get the same profit (NOT increase, just to keep it the same!) they have been getting, no one will come anymore because the cost is too much.

They by comparision to a lot of other business are lucky! They don't have to worry about rent at all, and they only have themselves to pay. Both also have other external sources of income (their spouses works), and have absolutely zero debt.

I can't imagine how it is for business that have rent (and possibly rent backpay) and employees they need to pay. I went to Northern VA (Reston) before and after COVID....so see almost all of the local restaurants and a great local grocery store wiped out because the property management were so unforgiving for rent.

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

I added a small cafe in Aug last year to my existing brewery's taproom because food was required by the state to reopen. I had no prior experience in running a small cafe (we do mostly paninis and similar). My thoughts roughly a year later is that food is one terrible business. We are close to braking even over that time, minus buildout. We have a wonderful staff and have been blessed with no issues in that department. But other problems are always popping up. Such as pork prices have doubled in the last 3 months. Bread went up about 15% and lots of other things change a lot order to order. We can't change our menu every week, so some weeks a sandwich is perfectly priced, while the next its food cost is 40%. Basically there are just so many moving parts, that change so frequently, so much inventory that expires in just a few days (vegs). So little max potential profit. It's usually a goal of 25-30% food cost, 30% labor cost, 40% to overhead and hopefully of that 10-15% profit (Assuming you didn't piss away 20-30% to a delivery service). I have found that being such a small operation we have yet to really hit the 30/30(60%) its more like a 65-80% in ingredients and labor. Which vary wildly from week to week as customer traffic varies. If sales were to triple overnight we could more easily get it lower and into range of the 30/30 or possibly even 25/25. Just because there would be less wasted food, less wasted staff potential, and more room for improvements. Which brings me to the point of this long paragraph. It seems (from my limited experience) like a restaurant that can't get enough sales for its appropriate overhead size, struggles. I am fortunate enough that we make enough coin to live on the rest of the business and don't need the income from the cafe, but it sure is a lot of work for very little reward that I would never want to mindfully walk into.

CoryMathews commented on Back to the Future with RSS ncase.me/rss/... · Posted by u/Zhyl

aj3 · 4 years ago

Mozilla doesn't have an incentive to add RSS since they would prefer larger Pocket adoption.

CoryMathews · 4 years ago

I quick skim a lot of my rss feed articles and routinely save the longer ones to pocket.

CoryMathews commented on How long does a bottle of wine last after it is opened? vinography.com/2020/12/ho... · Posted by u/devilcius

rwmj · 5 years ago

Air and surfaces are filled with random mould spores and bacteria. If they touch your beverage (which is by definition full of stuff that mould loves, because yeast is a mould) then they will grow, causing off-flavours or even poisons. You prevent this by sanitising everything, and making sure that any headspace is filled with either carbon dioxide or sulphur dioxide. CO2 is produced naturally by fermentation and because it's heavier than air it settles in the headspace displacing oxygen (moulds need oxygen to reproduce). Sulphur dioxide can be added using sterilising tablets (Campden tablets). Other techniques are to reduce the headspace by adding more liquid, or marbles, apparently, and using an airlock to stop air entering.

CoryMathews · 5 years ago

"causing off-flavours or even poisons. "

There is nothing that can grow during fermentation in beer or wine that will hurt you. It will just taste terrible, or unplanned.

In lower abv fermentation such as kombucha or fermented vegetables. Molds can be a risk if the starting medium is not low enough ph, or high enough salinity.

CoryMathews commented on How long does a bottle of wine last after it is opened? vinography.com/2020/12/ho... · Posted by u/devilcius

rsync · 5 years ago

Yes, this is very common in beer brewing and wine making - filling up headspace in primary fermenters with glass marbles.

I don't like the idea as I don't need a 14th thing to carefully sanitize. Instead, I just displace the headspace with CO2 and have had good success with that.

CoryMathews · 5 years ago

This is not at all common in beer brewing. I cannot speak for the wine world but most of them have variable height lids.

No brewery would ever put glass marbles into a primary fermenter. As a professional brewer we routinely try to have the beer touch as few items as possible, post chill, due to sanitation risks. Not only would marbles be a nightmare to sanitize (tiny chips or cracks would not be properly sanitized), its a logistical nightmare to later get them out to clean the tank. Tanks are cleaned in place with a pump and spray ball method without ever opening the tank. Getting excessive hops out is enough work much less marbles.

Breweries purge any air out of a tank with Co2 before filling, for multiple reasons, but since Co2 is heavier than air it will settle on top of the unfermented wort as it is gently transferred into the fermentation tank thus removing the need for any kind of marbles or headspace reduction.

A second major reason this would not be done is that when beer ferments it needs extra headspace as the yeast in an ale ferments on top of the beer. A hefeweizen will routinely create a yeast layer about 10-15% of the height on top of the liquid. So if this space was blocked it would be forced out the top, which for most modern breweries would create a large mess into the floor drains and lead to the yeast count being too low reuse.

On the flip side I would be very interested to know of a brewery doing this and why.