October 30, 2003
Quote of the Day
Homer: Listen, Flanders, you still have that store?
Ned: For two more days. [sniff] It becomes Libertarian Party headquarters. I hope they have better luck than I did.
"When Flanders Failed"
October 29, 2003
Quote of the Day
I was working on a flat tax proposal and I accidentally proved there's no god.
Homer Simpson
October 27, 2003
Quote of the Day
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to go to the forest to gather wood, saw it, and nail the planks together. Instead, teach them the desire for the sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
October 26, 2003
Quote of the Day
Right wing socialists hate privacy as much as left wing socialists hate guns.
Stephen Carville
October 24, 2003
British Airways retires its Concorde fleet today
The Concorde SST was finally retired by British Airways today, after years of running at a loss. As much of an Anglo-French boondoggle as it turned out to be, I've always been a bit fond of the plane: the idea of a supersonic transport has always been, um, sound; someone will do it right someday.
Years ago when I lived in London, I had the occasional pleasure of seeing a Concorde crossing over London on its way to or from Heathrow Airport, in climb or descent configuration, far enough away from the airport that its spindly landing gear were retracted and its nosecone was pulled up in its sleek inline (unbent) cruise configuration.
I even got to visit one of the birds, and step inside, ten years ago this autumn. I was part of a small group of people who toured catering operations for British Airways at Heathrow (long story) with a side trip to the Concorde hangar. I have a ton of pics from that trip, and even a couple of cool ones of myself in the Captain's seat in the narrow cockpit of the one plane we were allowed to enter. If I have time soon, I'll dig those out and scan a few to this site.
I really wish that BA would cave in to Richard Branson's attempts to buy a Concorde off its hands: a Virgin Atlantic Concorde might actually make money, as well as keep alive a fabulous piece of aviation history.
Quote of the Day
There are three reasons to own a gun: to protect yourself and your family, to hunt dangerous and delicious animals, and to keep the King of England out of your face.
Krusty the Clown
October 23, 2003
Quote of the Day
Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness.
It comes to bring us evil - only evil - and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.
Roger Q. Mills of Texas, 1887
October 22, 2003
Quote of the Day
That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.
Section 35, Alabama Constitution of 1901
October 21, 2003
Quote of the Day (thanks Rocky)
You can't keep from growing old, but you can be immature as long as you want to.
Will Rogers
October 20, 2003
Quote of the Day
Novelist Victor Koman was dead right, when he said (in his great work, Kings of the High Frontier) that the actual mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — its not-so-hidden agenda, having nothing to do with the development of space travel and exploration — is to keep scum like you and me from ever getting into space.
At the same time (as Victor also points out), NASA mouthpieces have been telling the public since the 1960s that our being able to visit space, perhaps even vacationing on the Moon, or in zero gravity at a space station, was "only about thirty years away". That's what they said in the 60s, that's what they said in the 70s, that's what they said in the 80s, that's what they said in the 90s, and that's what they're still saying today. It's always just about thirty years away.
October 19, 2003
I'm All Right Jack, 1959, a Boulting comedy
Last spring I wrote up a short review of a great Ealing comedy from 1957, "All at Sea", with Alec Guinness. Just last night I finished watching another great British comedy, this one from 1959 by John Boulting, "I'm All Right Jack". It's a great little satire on the dirty politics between postwar British industry and trade unions. Peter Sellers' depiction of a power-mad, USSR-worshipping shop steward alone is worth the viewing. You'll find it on Netflix.
Quote of the Day
Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
George Carlin
October 18, 2003
Course Review: Underwater Aircraft Escape with LTR
Survival Arts welcomes back old friend and contributor from the early days of this blog, Eric Cartman. - Russell
In September 1999 I had the opportunity to attend the 20th Annual SOF Convention. Part of my reason for going was to take advantage of the various training seminars offered which included jump, medical and underwater airframe escape. As it turned out most of the classes were canceled for various reasons, but the underwater airframe escape, given by Learn to Return Training Systems of Anchorage Alaska was not. Being a pilot, I this would be an interesting opportunity to expose myself to something new. Even though I had been flying for some time, I had never considered such training on my own, even though I regularly attend various training courses. The thought of what might happen if I ditched a plane or helicopter into water seemed simple enough. Emergency checklist, radio calls, open the doors or windows to keep water pressure from sealing you in, crash and exit the craft when/if you can. Seemed simple enough. Well, not really, as I was about to find out.
The Class
Training consisted of 4 hours of classroom time followed by hands-on simulator training in the hotel swimming pool. Although large facilities exist with mechanical “dunkers” which include complete sections of various airframes, LTR has also designed man-portable devices that they can bring to any facility that has a reasonably sized swimming pool.
The class consisted of about 8 people from various backgrounds from the military, law enforcement and civilian worlds. Everyone was treated pretty much the same. The class was taught by Brian Horner, the President of LTR, and John Evans. Both have extensive military and rescue experience as well as numerous other credentials. Their rescue experience became immediately evident during the initial slide show, which included a large number of photos from actual rescues. The slide presentation included some great images of helicopter ditches in progress, as well as some “rescue faux pas” such as a rescue boat getting caught up in the rotor of a sinking Sikorsky helicopter!
LTR does a lot of training of oil platform workers and others who routinely travel significant distances over water in rotorcraft. Unlike fixed wing aircraft, which tend to float even if flipped over during a water landing, helicopters have a high center of gravity and are often operated with no doors. This combination tends to lead to almost instant submersion upon completion of autorotation or, if the helicopter is well sealed, a roll-over followed by a slower inverted submersion. Many over-water rotorcraft are therefore fitted with inflatable pontoons that can be deployed in an emergency, thus allowing the craft to float upright... but even those systems can fail, as was evidenced by the picture of the sinking Sikorsky (its right pontoon developed a leak, leading to an eventual roll-over after everyone was evacuated).
The lecture covered basics such as the characteristics of survivors, heat loss and heat loss prevention. Various protective equipment and crash positions were explained, as were pre-crash techniques that one can use to reduce injuries once you get into the “ground phase” of your flight. Several generally useful tips for crash positions were provided, e.g. being certain that one’s lap belt buckle is accessible even if you are in the standard bent-over crash position. This allows you to get free of your seat even if injured or otherwise unable to sit up. There have been actual instances of people being trapped by their seatbelt. Also, the standard inflatable life vests provided on commercial jet aircraft can be worn and partially inflated to act as a cushion for the upper body upon impact.
The next segment of the lecture covered various impediments to exit after the crash, such as fire, smoke, lack of visibility due to water depth or turbidity and running out of air. This was followed by an explanation of the significance of knowing where the nearest exists are when boarding aircraft, understanding how to operate the window/door jettisons, and a technique that uses a pre-defined reference point to allow you to re-orient yourself after the crash even if you’ve had your brains well scrambled.
The final segment covered miscellaneous tidbits like the fact that fixed wing aircraft tend to sink nose first, which often results in panicked passengers and crew swimming up to the aft section where the last air bubble is and then becoming trapped due to lack of an exit point. Rescue procedures were also touched upon, including less known items such as the fact that helicopter rotors can create significant static charge on the flying craft. A rescue basket or line that is being lowered to you can give a strong shock if one reaches out to it before it touches the ground. This can also lead to ignition of spilled fuel floating on the water or ground.
With the classroom portion over, we were instructed to arrive at the hotel pool later that evening, fully clothed and with a towel…
Witch Dunking
I arrived 1900 at the hotel pool to a surreal scene. The SOF convention had a knife fighting contest that evening, so a platform was set up at one end of the pool and various “contestants” were getting ready. There was also a bar set up, and numerous people were milling around getting boozed up. Wannabes in their brand new BDUs, bikers, old Vets with beer guts, cleancut law enforcement types, manufacturer reps from the likes of Colt and H&K, press photographers and probably more than a few locals that just decided to see what was going on. The pool itself had dunking machines in the process of being set up, with an array of glaring halogen lights trained on it. It could have been the set of a James Bond movie, with the bad guys assembling their latest doomsday device. And the paramedics. Seems that the hotel insisted that an ambulance was on standby during the class lest they be held liable for something. Brian and John seemed annoyed at this last part, given that they had never had a serious injury during years of conducting such classes... not to mention that John was a Pararescueman and Brian is an EMT.
Over the next few minutes the rest of the class arrived and the first dunking machine was installed in the shallow end of the pool. The machine consisted of two aluminum crew type seats attached back-to-back on a long pole that was supported at both ends by an A-frame. This allowed the seats to sit at just above water level. The bottom of the A-frames were connected on the pool floor by a square frame which had a small vertically mounted door attached to the perimeter. If you dived under the water right next to the seats, the door looked like a cargo hatch you might find on the side of a small to medium aircraft. Two bright yellow grab handles were mounted on the frame next to each side of the door, one for each dunkee.
The infernal part of the apparatus was this: the pole to which the two seats were mounted on could rotate, thus taking both passengers from a comfortable, belted-in, upright position to being held upside down and under water in under a second. Not all that much different from the contrivances used to encourage “witches” to confess during the Inquisition. The only difference was that you got to go dual vs. solo. The following links shows the apparatus in use:
Preparing for the crash
Glug, glug...
Drowning in 4 feet of water
As it turned out, I was the last person to go through this. Not that I’m chicken or anything, it just worked out that way. Yeah. Before the simulator, we were instructed on the exact sequence of actions we should perform to get from being underwater, belted into the chair, to exiting through the make-believe aircraft hatch. The first step is to sit still until all motion stops: no point in popping your belt to get tossed around and lost in the water as it floods in. Next, you bring one of your hands to a predetermined spot on your body, such as your thigh and then, using touch, walk your fingers over to a known point that you can grab solidly, such as a door handle, arm rest or structural member. Once you have a solid grasp on this point, you pop your restraint system and pull yourself over to the hold point by contracting your arm muscles towards the torso. The purpose of this is to have a guaranteed known orientation before starting any movement towards an exit. It’s surprisingly easy to become disoriented when underwater, even when you have light and decent visibility... much less in pitch-black conditions.
I figured this was going to be easy. I had spent a lot of time in and under the water. I’d been caught and pounded into the sand by strong ocean surfs, stuck in rip tides and rivers that were so fast you couldn’t stay on your feet, and I could swim almost 50 meters under water. Now I was in the shallow end of a hotel pool, what could go wrong?
The dunker was turned over and I immediately got a snoot full of water. No nose plugs were allowed, as you don’t travel with them in the real world. Sure you can hold your nose, but at some point you need your free hand to release the seatbelt. We were told to expect this and just deal with it. Wanting to get my head upright and clear the water out of my nose, I immediately popped my belt, to hell with finding a reference point. As I fell out of the seat onto the pool bottom, I blew some air out of my nose to clear the water. Next step was to find the damn door and get topside. Hmmm, now where is the door? I was starting to notice that my air situation was getting a little uncomfortable. Yet even with my eyes open in a clear, lit pool I couldn’t seem to find that door. I knew it was only an arm's reach away, but still, no matter where I looked, no door. Ouch! My face scraped the concrete pool bottom as I was looking around. “What the hell is the pool bottom doing over there?” I thought to myself. At that point I realized that I was pretty much out of air and didn’t even know which way was up. OK, time to give it up, surface and take the well deserved barbs that will be coming. Now, which way is up? Damn, got to get some air. Since we wore clothing into the pool, the extra weight made me just about perfectly neutral in buoyancy, so there was no “floating to the top”. I then noticed the leg of one of the instructors in my peripheral vision as he approached. Probably wondering what the hell I was doing just lying on the bottom of the pool like an idiot. My orientation instantly returned and I saw the door, a few feet away. I surfaced, gasping for breath.
Once I got some air back into my lungs, the instructor explained to me what I had done wrong (dropping my restraint before having a grasp on my orientation point). I went through the simulation again, making damn sure I did exactly as I was told. No problem the second time around. Wait for the roll to stop, walk my hand out to the grab handle, drop the belt, pull myself to the handle. Once I’m at the handle I know which way is up and exactly where the door is. I’m out in 15 seconds with plenty of air left. This exercise was repeated a few times until everyone had it down.
The tunnel
We were given a break and allowed to get out of the water while another section was added to the dunker. It’s cold hanging around in dripping wet clothing, even in Las Vegas during the autumn, but it was nice to have some time to drain the 2-3 quarts of water from my sinuses. The new section added to the dunker was completely under water. A 20 foot ladder section was added to the frame at the pool bottom. The first 2-3 feet were bare and the next 10 were covered by a small tunnel made of nylon stretched over metal hoops. At the end of the tunnel was a frame that had a set of bungee cords stretched across it, and a few feet beyond that there was another aircraft type hatch, but with a more complicated latch setup. To exit the tunnel one had to worm his way through the net made of bungee cords.
We were instructed to get back in the pool two at a time and go through the same dunking routine, except that we had to exit via the tunnel. Except for some extra time and the initial novelty of the tunnel/ bungee combination, it was pretty much the same thing. After we had all been through, the new configuration we were told to gather around the instructor at the dunker side of the tunnel. We were told that our aircraft was about to ditch and we had 15 seconds to figure out what to do. Once the signal was given, everyone had to go under, and stay underwater until they exited via the hatch at the far end of the tunnel. The instructor started the countdown as we tried to organize ourselves in some reasonable fashion. At 15 seconds we all went under. It was nice to not have water up my nose this time around. I went next-to-last since I knew I could stay under for at least a minute if I were prepared. I patiently waited as people disappeared through the tunnel. As the person in front of me started in, I lined myself up and followed close behind. Knowing that there was one more person behind me, I opted to pull myself along without any leg movement. I had learned from previous experience that having people stacked up close with limbs flailing is a bad combination. Unfortunately the guy in front of me didn’t know this, and I got a nice kick in the face as he tried to get through the bungee barrier.
After this exercise we were paired up again, and got to go through the dunking routine, but with blackout goggles on. This part was surprisingly easy, once you got over the psychological aspect of “Oh shit, I can’t see, and I’m in an small enclosed space with only one way out.” The final phase was the group exit exercise again, but this time with everyone wearing blackout goggles. I made sure I was last that time and waited a few seconds after I felt the person in front of me move down the tunnel.
Each exercise was recorded and graded. People who had trouble were encouraged to repeat the exercise as many times as they were willing to go through it.
The cube
The final simulator involved a large man-sized cube built out of PVC pipe. The cube had a helicopter seat mounted inside as well as real cyclic and collective control sticks. The outside was covered with netting except for the left and right sides. The left side had a removable plexiglass window, and the right side had a pull-ring type jettisonable door. The cube was perched on the edge of the deep end of the pool. After the student climbed in, via the door, he was sealed in and then rolled off the edge by fellow students into the pool.
The instructors were always present in the water during any of the simulations, wearing dive masks, snorkels and separate air tanks and regulators ready, if someone got stuck (no one did). They would lend any required assistance, as well as watch for proper technique and cheating. Yes, people do cheat! Not everyone takes this course voluntarily. Many oil company employees are required to be certified in order to keep their jobs.
The instructors followed the sinking cube, and would add additional tumbling and rolling motion to it on the way down. Once the cube settled, the student would exit via the window or door jettison. As the night went on, this activity devolved into various taunts and prods followed by a hasty roll into the pool before the person in the cube could respond. Needless to say, every round of this led to ever more creative paybacks by the last person to be rolled in.
During the end of the class we were given the opportunity try on several cold-water survival suits (everyone was pretty well chilled from being in the water and in wet clothing for 3+ hours) as well as additional runs through the simulators. As fun as the course was, it was serious business. If you couldn’t perform the required tasks, you did not get a certificate. Several people opted out before the class was over.
I was offered more pool time in the following day’s class, but weaseled out due to still feeling like an amphibian from all the previous night’s water breathing.
About LTR: Costs & Contact Info
The basic course costs around U.S. $185, depending on where it is given. Included are a very useful information booklet and - if you pass the simulations - a certificate of completion that is good for 2 years. This certificate is required by many insurance carriers for people who routinely fly long distances over water in rotorcraft or small planes.
Although LTR is based in Alaska, they give training sessions all over the world, including cold weather survival, underwater aircraft escape using a HEEDs bottle, jungle survival, disaster & earthquake response and numerous other courses. Courses range from 2 to 96 hours of actual training time.
LTR Training Systems
230 East Potter Drive, Unit One
Anchorage, Alaska 99519
survival@alaska.net
Eric Cartman
Quote of the Day
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it, and stop there.
Mark Twain
October 16, 2003
Quote of the Day
Inside every alienated hacker who thinks he stands for the "good things that don't ultimately matter to most businesses" there is a tycoon struggling to get out. It's not the system that he hates. His gripe is with the price the system initially offers him to collaborate.
Michael Lewis
Next, p136
October 15, 2003
Quote of the Day
If the gun-banners are so fond of compromise, may I propose one?
They shut up and go away and never bother me again, and for my part, I will restrain myself from kicking their genitalia up into their throats.
Eric Oppen
October 14, 2003
How not to care for a $100 utility knife
This is just simply embarrassing. In the spirit of Chinese Communist Party Self Criticism, this being the day the Soviets - er, the Chinese - launch their first cosmonaut into space on a 40 year old Soyuz design, I'll criticize this blunder of mine:
About a week ago, I mentioned a scuba diving trip I made to Monterey, California. If you look closely at the picture in that article, you'll see attached to the left side (my left side, as pictured) on the BCD (bouyancy control device [vest]) a Cold Steel Recon Tanto in its Kydex/Concealex sheath. Well, I was so knackered from the surf zone re-entry that I didn't immediately clean off my gear with fresh water and dry it. I did that the next day, forgetting completely that I'd clipped several caribiners (which survived unharmed) and one nice high carbon steel tanto (which suffered) to my technical BCD.
If you look closely at the snapshot above, you'll see rust spots on the exposed cutting edge of the blade. I took that photo as a record, before I cleaned up the edge. It took me an hour of careful work, but I was able to stone out and hone the rust spots. If you ever have anything like this happen to your blades, fix it thoroughly: one oxide spot will catalyze a larger oxide surface. I can say, however, that I'm really pleased at how the rest of the knife held up: flawlessly. The black epoxy powder coat finish protects the body of the blade extremely well.
I'm still going to try to dive this knife again, but next time I will 1.) pre-treat the entire blade surface with oil and 2.) immediately clean and dry the blade as soon as I doff my diving gear. Also, I'll use the same Nonox rust cleaner/preventative I use on my swords as an additional level of prevention in the cleanup.
China launches its first man in space... in secrecy, of course
Almost 10 months ago to the day, I wrote a short blurb on this blog about Shenzhou V, which was supposed to have carried 2 taikonauts. That launch happened today, in the same type of communist secrecy which surrounded Yuri Gagarin's launch so long ago, and featured only one taikonaut, Yang Liwei. CNN reports:
Quoted by Chinese media just before he blasted off into space, Yang said he would "gain honor for the People's Liberation Army and for the Chinese nation."
"I will not disappoint the motherland," he was quoted as saying. "I will complete each movement with total concentration."
All hail the "motherland": another ersatz superpower dedicated to making space its military summit. Yet another incident which compels me to recommend Victor Koman's Kings of the High Frontier.
Quote of the Day
As for Christianity's alleged concern with truth, Christian faith is to free inquiry what the Mafia is to free enterprise. Christianity may be represented as a competitor in the realm of ideas to be considered on the basis of its merits, but this is mere disguise. Like the Mafia, if Christianity fails to defeat its competition by legitimate means (which is a forgone conclusion), it resorts to strong-arm tactics. Have faith or be damned -- this biblical doctrine alone is enough to exclude Christianity from the domain of reason.
George H. Smith
Atheism: The Case Against God, p169
October 13, 2003
Quote of the Day
The old courthouse in Riverside, California had statues of women with bare breasts around on the sides up near the top of the building.
I always wondered what that meant. "This is a whore house!" seemed likely. "Come in here and get screwed!" pretty much summed it up.
Ken Holder
October 12, 2003
I saw "Kill Bill: Volume I" today
I saw "Kill Bill: Volume I" today, and it was utterly, fucking astonishing. I was prepared to be impressed - and I was - but I wasn't prepared for all the little surprises along the way, e.g. Sonny Chiba as "Hattori Hanzo", a wonderful name for his character, if you're at all familiar with both actual Warring States samurai history as well as some of the outrageous fictionalizations of Hanzo in Japanese cimema. Lucy Liu warms to her role very well. I won't spoil the scene for you, but she really gets to go over the top in a scene involving a convocation of Yakuza bosses. It's obvious that she worked hard with a dialect coach over the course of shooting, because her Japanese gets dramatically better as the film goes on... which says something about the sequence in which the scenes were shot. By the way, Lucy Liu fanboys, I do know she majored in Asian studies in college. Her pronunciation and conversational fluency was noticably slightly off (to these former expat gaijin's ears) in the beginning, but rapidly improved.
Be warned: while this film is a complete fantasy, and a very good one at that, it is an extremely violent fantasy. There's more gut-wrenching brutality in this flick than I've seen in recent years.
I'm looking forward to Volume II.
Quote of the Day
Resist aging and death with every resource available to you. Nurture skills of self-defense. Learn how to survive under difficult conditions; this may shield you in sudden misfortune. Distinguish between illusion and reality, between emotion and fact. Avoid making important decisions on too little sleep.
Kick your own ass. The universe neither cares about you nor recognizes any obligation to you. It is fixed and blind, a mad robot programmed to kill. You are free and seeing; you must outwit it at every poor turn.
Whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, you must create your own sanity, prosperity, and peace.
The world is so gorgeous it hurts. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
October 11, 2003
Yet more on sulfites: a model of sulfur dioxide
I'm playing with RasMol, a molecular visualization tool. I'm starting with small inorganic molecules right now; since I was talking sulfites today, here's sulfur dioxide (SO2) for you, in the standard space-filling model:
I'll be playing with RalMol some more. Visualization of macromolecules should be interesting in this tool...
Michael Jennings on Hayao Miyazaki
I've been meaning to write up a culture piece on the state of Big Animation, but it's been a low priority nowadays. However, Michael Jennings has written a solid piece which I very highly recommend.
"Chemistry of Winemaking", 1973, on sulfites in wine
Yesterday, I published an article by John Sebastian on the amusing topic of homemade wines done on the cheap. John made some assertions about "sulfates" (actually "sulfites") which generated some informative response from James Rogers in refutation. As a chemistry student with a burgeoning personal library on the science and some of its applications, I happened to have a copy of the proceedings of the 12-13 April 1973 "symposium sponsored by the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry at the 165th Meeting of the American Chemical Society" held in Dallas, Texas: "Chemistry of Winemaking", A. Dinsmoor Webb, editor (published 1974 by the ACS, Advances in Chemistry Series #137).
I've scanned in several pages of this out-of-print book, pp280-285, from the Webb article "Home Winemaking", which mention sulfite production and supplementation. I've included the section entitled "The Course of Fermentation" below simply because my OCR program flawlessly reproduced it... why waste the material by not including it? I have reproduced "Table I" manually with the published values, and placed it inline, after the first reference to it in the original text.
Those with a chemistry background will also note that this was written 30 years ago, before IUPAC nomenclature standarization.
- Russell
Excerpt follows:
Addition of Sulfur Dioxide
Certain fruits and some of the white varieties of vinifera have a tendency to brown during crushing and other early processing operations because of oxidation. This oxidation may be promoted by enzymes in the fruit, or it may be a direct reaction between phenolic material of the fruit and oxygen from air. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a strong enough reducing agent that it is oxidized in preference to the phenolics of the fruit juice. Sulfur dioxide may also function by denaturing the oxidizing enzymes. Therefore, to prevent browning, add 25-200 ppm SO2 to the fruit immediately after crushing. The quantity of SO2 is governed by the ease of browning of the particular Juice being vinified. SO2 in addition to preventing oxidative browning in juices, inhibits growth of bacteria and wild yeasts. Thus it provides a more nearly sterile field for the action of the desirable yeast starter added by the enologist. The quantity of SO2 to be added to the juice is varied according to the condition of the fruit-clear, cool, sound fruit fresh from the vineyard requires very little while fruit that is in poor condition and warm needs more. The amounts of SO2 to be added to a juice can be estimated from Table I.
| Table I. Sulfur Dioxide to be Added
to Juice (Mg per liter.) |
||
| Fruit Condition |
||
| Browning Tendency |
Poor; Warm, Infected, Some Decay |
Good; Cool, Fresh, Sound, Clean |
| High (white juices) |
200-300 |
100-150 |
| Low |
75-125 |
0-25 |
SO2 is a pungent and unpleasant smelling, dense gas at normal temperature and pressure. Under moderate pressure it condenses to a liquid which can be stored in steel cylinders. The large winery usually adds SO2 to the crushed grapes by carefully metering a small stream of the liquid from a cylinder to the inlet line of the pump that transfers the must from the crusher to the fermenting tanks; this ensures that SO2 is uniformly mixed into the mass of crushed fruit. For the small winery and the home winegrower, however, the relatively small amounts of SO2 required are difficult to measure and transfer as liquid, so either water saturated with SO2 or a SO2-liberating salt is used.
Water saturated with SO2 gas at room temperature contains 5-6 wt % SO2 depending on the temperature. While the SO2-saturated water solution is still very pungent and unpleasant smelling, it does not present the handling and measurement problems of pure liquid SO2.
The sodium and potassium salts of SO2 are simpler and more pleasant to use as they do not have the odor of the pure liquid or the 5% water solution. They are rapidly soluble in must [Editor's Note: this is the original wording] where they react with a small portion of the natural acid present to liberate SO2. There are two sodium salts of SO2 available, Na2SO3 (neutral sodium sulfite) and NaHSO3 (sodium acid sulfite). The latter compound introduces less sodium into the wine and removes less acid from the wine for an equivalent amount of SO2 liberated. Potassium acid sulfite and potassium pyrosulfite (potassium metabisulfite) are the two salts of potassium with SO2 that are readily available, soluble in grape juice, and capable of yielding SO2 upon reaction with the acid of the juice. Potassium salt is recommended when it is desired to keep the wine low in sodium ion content for diet reasons. The salts should be edible or food product grade, that is, free of heavy metals and other toxic impurities. They must be stored in tightly closed containers or they will react with the water vapor and carbon dioxide of the air to yield sodium or potassium carbonate and SO2-thus losing their effectiveness as sources of SO2 when added to the grape juice.
The required dose of SO2 should be estimated conservatively and measured precisely because excessive amounts of SO2 destroy the aroma and taste of the wine and can delay the onset of fermentation. Also SO2 in excess interferes with the natural development of bouquet in red table wines and diminishes the intensity of the red color. One should always use only the minimum amount of SO2 required to inhibit bacterial growth and counter oxidation-more definitely is not better.
Yeasts and Bacteria
One of the purposes of adding SO2 is to inactivate bacteria and wild yeast so that the fermentation may be conducted with a chosen desirable strain of yeasts. Fortunately the wild yeast and the bacteria on grape berries (frequently confused in the older literature with the wax-like bloom which is naturally present on some berries) are susceptible to inactivation by relatively low doses of SO2. A clear field is thus available to the large inoculum of SO2-tolerant pure culture yeast added by the enologist.
It is true that wines were made for thousands of years before it was known that yeast was responsible for the fermentation. It is also true that in certain regions of the world wines are still made without SO2 and pure yeast starters. These latter regions are generally those in which the yeast-containing sediments and press residues from the winery are returned to the vineyards and worked into the soil. Over many years it is likely that this procedure has resulted in the natural selection and stabilization of a mixed culture of yeasts which is carried from the vineyard to the winery and back and that the particular mixture contains enough of the desirable types to produce good wines in most years. It is also true that in years of cold summers and rainy harvest seasons many of the wineries normally relying on spontaneous fermentations use SO2 and pure-culture starters. Today nearly all standard quality wine (vin ordinaire) and probably the majority of fine wines of the world are vinified using SO2 and pure-culture yeast starters.
The bacteria which are found on sound grapes as they come from the vineyards are few in types and normally no problem in wine production as the acid, tannin, and alcohol of the wine stop their growth. The wild yeasts cannot be trusted to produce a good fermentation, however. In comparison with selected strains of SO2-adapted yeasts, defects of wild yeasts are the inability to multiply rapidly in the relatively concentrated sugar solution of grape juice, a sensitivity to alcohol which prevents completion of the fermentation, a tendency to form excessive amounts of odoriferous esters or other non-alcohols, and the characteristic of remaining dispersed throughout the wine rather than aggregating and falling to the bottom of the container. The advantages to the home winegrower to be derived from the use of a selected yeast are obvious.
About 3 vol % of actively fermenting pure-culture yeast starter is required. A clean juice which has had a low dose of SO2 will start and ferment satisfactorily with a lower inoculum, but the 3% level usually results in a quicker starting fermentation. For the home winegrower the simplest way to get the gallon or so of starter required is from a nearby winery. One has no choice of yeast strain and no guarantee of purity by this method, however. Winery supply agencies can usually furnish some strains of desirable wine yeasts such as Montrachet and Champagne in lyophyllized or freeze-dried form. These can be added directly to the SO2-treated juice and probably represent the optimum solution to the starter problem for the home winemaker. If it is desired to use a yeast strain that is not readily available in either of the above-mentioned forms, a small pure culture of the desired strain will have to be obtained from a biological laboratory supply house or research laboratory maintaining a yeast collection. The small culture next must be multiplied until enough cells are present to inoculate the grape juice in the large fermenting tank. Sterile medium is required for the multiplication. Juice from a white grape variety of low flavor, such as Thompson Seedless, heated 30 min at 15 Ibs per square inch pressure (2 atmospheres) in a pressure canner, serves very well. The small culture is transferred from the original tube to about one pint of the cooled, aerated, sterilized juice contained in a sterilized quart jar or bottle. Avoid contamination from the hands or the surroundings. The sterile jar should be covered or plugged so that air can penetrate but dust and cells of undesirable organisms cannot-a plug of sterile absorbent cotton works well. The jar should be placed in a room or cupboard at 70°-80°F, and it should be shaken gently at intervals. Within a day or two, growth and fermentation should be evident. The juice will foam and bubble, particularly when the jar is shaken. When the culture is actively fermenting, it is transferred into 1-2 gallons of sterile juice containing 100 ppm SO2 which after a day or two will be actively fermenting and constitutes enough starter for 25-50 gallons of Treated-treated juice. Successive fermentations can be inoculated from large batches that have fermented without difficulty although there is always the possibility of some contamination of the pure culture.
Yeasts, along with the algae, lichens, and other fungi, are known as thallophytes, a term which means they are undifferentiated plants or ones which do not have separate roots, stems, and leaves. Wine yeasts, along with most brewer's, distiller's, and baker's yeasts, are classed in the genus Saccharomyces or sugar fungus. The classification of yeasts is based on microscopic observation of their shape and forms, the way they divide during growth, and the way they respond when subjected to different test solutions of sugars or other chemicals. As scientists develop newer tools, such as the electron microscope, and as they study and classify more and more types of yeasts, it is desirable to develop further and to modify the older classification systems. Most of the wine yeasts are today put into the species cerevisiae with several strains being recognized by enologists. Many of these were formerly known as strains of S. cerevisiae var. ellipsoideus. It is quite likely that further study of the many species, varieties, and strains of wine yeasts will result in further refinements of the classifications.
Conversion of Sugar to Alcohol
Winemaking is basically concerned with the fermentation of the sugar in fruit Juice solutions by yeasts. Some understanding of the chemistry involved in the conversion of sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide is significant not only because it engenders an appreciation of the beauty of natural processes but because it also lets us understand and control certain factors affecting the quality of the wine.
The suspension of yeast cells will be added to the must a few hours after adding sulfur dioxide-a time long enough to permit most of the SO2 to react with juice constituents or to volatilize. The low level of SO2 and the aeration during the mixing in of the yeast starter permit the cells to start their action in an oxygenated environment, a condition which favors their conversion of some of the sugar to carbon dioxide and water with a high yield of energy for building many new yeast cells. The yeast population increases rapidly from the inoculation level of about one million cells per milliliter to about one hundred to two hundred million cells per milliliter, one to two days after inoculation. Then, nearly all of the oxygen will have been taken from the juice by the yeast cells, cell multiplication will slow dramatically, and conversion of sugar to carbon dioxide and ethanol becomes the main chemical reaction.
Fruit juices, depending on the type of fruit, contain one or more of the three sugars, sucrose, glucose, and fructose, in relatively high concentrations. Other sugars are present in trace to small amounts. Most yeasts have an invertase enzyme on the outer layer of their cell walls which rapidly converts the sucrose to glucose and fructose. These simpler sugars are carried rapidly through the cell wall by active transport. This is not understood fully, but it is known that glucose and fructose get into the cell interior faster than they should by simple diffusion.
Inside the yeast cell the hexoses are converted principally to ethanol, carbon dioxide, and adenosinetriphosphate (ATP) with the liberation of waste heat. The ATP is an energy source in cell metabolism; the ethanol and carbon dioxide diffuse across the cell wall to the exterior where the ethanol dissolves in the juice and the carbon dioxide bubbles to the surface. Excess heat must be removed to prevent the self-pasteurization of the wine, as most yeasts cease fermentation at 40°-45°C. Minor amounts of numerous other compounds are formed as by-products.
In addition to the carbon and nitrogen which are necessary to yeast for building enzymes, a few elements such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, manganese, and possibly traces of others, and a few vitamins are required for growth and fermentation. Normally, grape or other fruit juice will contain all substances necessary for yeast growth and fermentation. In preparing certain special flavored wines where the main component of the mixture for fermentation may be pure sucrose, it is necessary to add a yeast food-usually a mixture of ammonium acid phosphate with some autolyzed yeast-as a source of materials required for growth and fermentation.
The Course of Fermentation
The fermentation can be followed, in a rough way, by the bubbling in the fermentation tank since carbon dioxide is a product of the reaction. However, this doesn't indicate the extent or degree of completion of fermentation. Under some conditions, fermentation will stop before all the sugar is transformed, leaving the new wine subject to bacterial spoilage; therefore it is desirable to have a simple way to follow the loss of sugar. Water solutions of sugars are more dense than pure water while water solutions of alcohol are less dense than pure water. Density determinations performed daily thus provide one measure of fermentation.
Normally a stem or hydrometer is used to determine density. Hydrometers may be scaled in many different units. In the United States, grape juice and wine densities are usually measured in Brix or Balling degrees which are density units reflecting the weight per cent of sucrose in sucrose-water solutions.
As densities vary with temperature, and as hydrometers are calibrated to be accurate at different temperatures, the fermenting solution should be warmed or cooled to near the calibration temperature for the particular hydrometer used; for precise determinations, the actual temperature should be measured and the measured density should be corrected.
In theory the fermentation could be followed equally satisfactorily by measuring the alcohol content of the solution. In fact, however, alcohol determinations are much slower and more complicated than density determinations, so they are seldom, if ever, used. It is possible for the fermentation to stop-successive density determinations showing the same value-while there is some sugar left in the solution, although this is not normal behavior for fermentations. It is good practice to analyze for low levels of sugars in all wines when they have apparently completed their fermentations.
Quote of the Day
You cannot truly appreciate Atlas Shrugged until you have read it in the original Klingon.
October 10, 2003
Sober Up and Die, or Mom's Prison Wine, by John Sebastian
The following long article was submitted to me a few days ago by John Sebastian, a member of the Smith2004 discussion list. He had originally written it up as a response to someone joking about homebrew, a discussion which was itself spun off a thread about the benefits of resveratrol, a constituent of some red wines.
Here follows the version John mailed me for publication here, which I have editted only for grammar and spelling, not content. Enjoy at your own risk! By the way, it seems that there's not much in the way of actual cost savings in this technique, given the reported cost of the grape juice concentrate alone. "Two-Buck Chuck" is a perfectly adequate "10 dollar wine with a 2 dollar price tag", for those who have access to a Trader Joe's, but John's technique should still appeal to the Basement Chemist in some of us.
- Russell, editor
Sober Up and Die
or
Mom's Prison Wine
or
How to Make a Simple Cheap Wine that is Untaxed (Well, Mostly)
By John Sebastian
Yeah, yeah, I know: "loving spoonfuls" and all that. What makes it worse is that I'm often told that I'm a dead ringer for Jerry Garcia. No, I'm not that "the John Sebastian", I am this "the John Sebastian".
Well, it was the damn driver's license, it was also the cost, and - oh yeah - it was also the sulfates and other crap. Come to think of it, it was also just plain stubborn independence. It was also my wedding.
Huh?
Okay I'll make myself clear, or I'll try.
You see, I live in Tennessee, so every time I purchased beer or wine I had to show my ID. For a while I got away with showing my PADI Divers Card, but eventually all they would take was the old ball-and-chain driver's license. Call me sensitive, but at age forty-seven, I sort of figured it's my business whether I purchase beer and wine.
Eventually after tiring of trying to give civics lessons to the clerks at the grocery stores, I started brewing beer - Sebastian's All Malt - but that is another story. This story is about how to make a dirt cheap wine that is as tasty as anything you could want, indeed, a wine that you don't have to humble yourself by producing the state's slave ID to purchase, and a wine that is largely untaxed... thus even tastier.
Then there is all the added crap in commercial wines: mostly sulfates, and who knows whatever other crap some idiot somewhere decided has to go into commercial wines; I think it's to make it travel better or somesuch. In short, storebought wine gives me a headache, leaves a bad aftertaste, and upsets my stomach... well I said I'm sensitive. So I'd just about stopped buying wine from the store.
And the cost! Jeeze and bullwilliker! Tax upon tax upon tax. It's worse in the Deep South. Why, I knew a fellow once who drank so much beer that he was able to retire on the price difference by moving from Alabama to Indiana. It's basically the same here in Tennessee, where every bluenosed preacher with the ear of a legislator is also just as likely to be your neighborhood bootlegger. Not only does the state drive you to drink, but the rat-assed bastards thrive off your glorious inebriation. Disgusting.
Then there was my wedding. Well, just what does my wedding have to do with anything? It has to do with my mom. You'll remember I'd been brewing beer for quite some time. On the event of my wedding to the gracious, lovely, young, vibrant, and intelligent Aubrey, it was my determination to provide Sebastian All Malt for the hundred and fifty or so guests... no mean feat.
So, I'm on the phone with my mom doing some of the necessities for the blessed nuptials. I mention making the beer, and mom - not to be outdone - decides to provide her homemade wine.
Well, both the wine and the beer were really big hits, so I asked mom how she made her wine. That which follows below is basically her recipe without the sugar. It's not all that different from how prisoners in jail make wine, hence "Mom's Prison Wine".
But why "Sober up and Die"? Because red wine is good for you. Really good. It's magic: it has resveratrol [Editor's note: this is only true for certain red wines made from particular grapes grown under specific conditions.]. But that is really another story.
OK John! Enough. How do you make Mom's Prison Wine?
I was hoping someone would ask...
Obtain four cans of frozen concentrate for each gallon of finished wine. Make sure it's marked "100% grape concentrate"; don't buy the fructose syrup with fake grape-like stuff in it. I use generic concentrate. My cost for the concentrate to make about five gallons of finished wine is around U.S. $25.
This can be made in a one gallon glass or in food grade plastic jugs. I make mine in a five gallon glass carboy, but any food grade container that can be sealed will work fine. One 5 gallon unused plastic paint bucket and a lid that can be sealed - available at home despot or lowes - will also work.
My mom - from whom I got this recipe (thus Mom's Prison Wine) - uses empty communion wine bottles (gallon sized) - from the local Catholic Church. Quite comic, as she serves from the same bottles.
First, thoroughly clean the vessel. A little bleach in water will do, but it must then be completely rinsed in tap water to remove the bleach. [Editor's Note: if you're going to follow this suggestion of John's, be sure your bleach is unscented, i.e. contains only a dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite with no additives.] You can buy a gentle oxidizer at a wine making shop, as it's quite a bit easier to use than bleach: one simply rinses the empty vessel with it. To sum this all up: just clean and sanitize everything that will touch the wine and do so in a manner that is not toxic or otherwise affects taste.
Clean and disinfect anything that the wine will come in contact with: lids, tubing, water locks, etc. Wash your hands. Did I mention to clean and disinfect?
Add the frozen concentrate to your vessel (if you use a narrow-mouth container it helps to let the concentrate melt a bit). Fill with water to the appropriate gallonage, leaving a little room for froth, since the yeast will also need a little O2 (atmospheric oxygen) to get started.
Add a package of yeast. A good wine yeast costs $2 or so at a local wine maker's shop. I only use the best yeast, which stays alive up to a very high alcohol content. I know I am being extravagant here. The yeast is one of my costlier items. My mom uses braking yeast, but hey, it works.
Now you need some way for CO2 to exit your vessel, while excluding air, so we will use a water lock.
If you use the paint bucket for a vessel, simply drill a hole in the lid and stick some aquarium hose in the hole. Seal the gap with goo (e.g. epoxy, wax, Shoe Goo: anything non-toxic that will seal and hold the hose in the hole). The other end of the hose will go into a jar filled with water, fixed so gas will bubble out but air will not enter. A little tape may be needed to hold the hose in place. This simple water lock must be set above the vessel containing the future wine.
Of course, you can also buy a water lock called a "bubbler" that sits directly in the lid hole. A bubbler lets the CO2 out or your wine... but since the object of this exercise is to make a fine and inexpensive wine, the aquarium hose in the glass of water works just fine.
If you are instead using a jug or a carboy, use a cork with a hole drilled through it and vent off the gas through the tube in the cork.
As with the other technique, the object is to let the CO2 out of the bottle and to keep O2 in the air from getting back in and causing your yeast to make vinegar instead of alcohol.
Now, a lot of folks at this point would add gobs of sugar, but I have found this totally unnecessary... unless you like syrup. Diabetes runs in my family and I don't need to risk it. Believe me, my very, um, scientific testing - mostly done on weekends - shows without a doubt that there is quite enough sugar in the grapes to provide the yeast with everything they need.
Now seal up the entire mess.
At this point, when everything is sealed up and the water lock is in place, set the carboy down in the basement so that if any froth runs out the water lock, it's easy to clean up (WARNING: this stuff stains like crazy). The yeast has to work at moderate temperatures (too hot and you bias the yeast toward vinegar, too cold and the yeast works too slowly) for at least two weeks. You can let it go until it almost stops bubbling, down to the rate of about one bubble a minute. How long this takes depends on temperature, sugar content, pH, nutrients, and whether and how well you sing to your yeast and so on.
If your lock does froth up during this two weeks, simply remove it, clean it, and recharge with water, then set it back on the brew.
Now you siphon the wine off into sterilized containers - I use empty 2-liter pop bottles - trying to leave as much of the sediment behind as possible. You can use any food grade container that will seal against air. Remember, oxygen is the enemy; a little air in the bottle is necessary, but not much.
At this point your wine is quite alive and will be drinkable in another two weeks. The longer you wait the dryer a wine this will produce. Why, I've had some wines as old as three months!
Another warning: this process produces a gaseous wine. Use some sort of screw cap (back to the two liter cola bottles) so that you can slowly release the pent-up pressure. I open mine over a stainless steal bowl and take the first glass from the overflow.
You will have sediment in the bottom of your wine bottles, so when you serve, do so gently and try not to pour the dregs into a glass of wine. The dregs taste awful: that`s why they are called the dregs. In fact, if your wine lasts longer than mine, you'll need to pour it off into new containers or the dregs will eventually give a bitter taste to your wine in, say, three months.
I believe you will fine the finished product to be just about as good as any wine you can reasonably buy on the market. I quite prefer my wine: it has no sulfates or any other added agents. There is a difference you can both taste and feel the next morning.
You may have noticed how utterly simple this process is, and yes, it's quite true that wine making can be as complicated as you want it to be. One can adjust pH and nutrients, measure specific gravity, and on and on and on.
But you know, I've made at least a hundred gallons without all that expense and bother. It's really quite hard to keep grape juice around and not have it turn into wine. So, clean and sterilize your equipment, keep air out of the mix, and enjoy your untaxed wine [Editor's note: this is, to my understanding, all perfectly legal, as long as you don't publicly attempt to sell the product].
Let me know if anyone gives this a shot. I don't think I forgot anything, but please just ask here if you have a question.
And remember: sober up and die! This stuff is good for you, as long as you keep your blood sugar under control.
John Sebastian
Quote of the Day
Taxes, hidden and otherwise will rise, government programs will multiply and expand. Stripped of pretensions, that's the whole reason government exists. Every government that ever existed, that exists now, or that will ever exist, is a kleptocracy. California -- Californians -- will mysteriously be no better off. Now is the moment when you'd have advised Jews to get out of Germany.
October 09, 2003
Someone to watch: Michael Badnarik
I'd not heard of this guy before today, but a number of friends whom I deeply respect are throwing their support for Michael Badnarik, who is working to become the Libertarian Party's 2004 candidate for the U.S. presidency. See his blog too, in order to make up your own mind.
Libertarian Alliance UK mailing list
Not receiving enough email? Looking for yet another mailing list to consume? If you're a libertarian, and aren't familiar with the incredibly prolific pamphleteering of the UK Libertarian Alliance, I recommend joining the Yahoo mailing list libertarian-alliance-forum, if for no other reason than to witness the astounding post rate of my longtime good friend Dr. Chris R. Tame.
Quote of the Day
The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.
William Henry Harrison
Inaugural Address, 1841
October 08, 2003
Quote of the Day
...as if to make my point for me, when I arrived at that part of the speech, three or four angry individuals -- out of approximately three hundred, undoubtedly Nerf libertarians themselves -- got up and walked out. I was gratified, of course. Any speech that fails to offend at least one percent of your audience is a poor, pale thing, hardly worth making.
October 07, 2003
Quote of the Day
People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
October 06, 2003
Niggling point about historical Mongolian archery
I'm doing homework for my only online college class (the rest are on campus), and I have the TV on in the background for noise. It's the Sci-Fi Channel, and one of the first Stargate SG-1 episodes, "Emancipation", is playing. I had to look up when the Daniel character says the people they're meeting are descendants of Mongols. As soon as I did, I saw one bowman nock and draw an arrow in the Western tradition, with the first two fingers (3 is also sometimes used in the West)! You see, Mongol bowmen never used that string draw technique: they used a very distinctive thumb draw instead.
Back to work now.
Monterey Bay dive & spearfishing trip pre-report
I spent the weekend with friends in Monterey Bay, California scuba spearfishing. More on this later, but I figured I'd put up this picture right away. This was taken on Saturday when suiting up before a surf entry into the Bay from Del Monte Beach:
My good friend Franklin (AKA "The Big C.I.G.A.R.") is the one without his hood on. I'm the sweaty one on the right with all gear ready for entry (diving 34.9 percent enriched air/Nitrox, by the way). I could not wait to hit the 57 Fahrenheit degree water... I was boiling! More on this trip later.
Quote of the Day
They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?
Paul Harvey
October 05, 2003
Quote of the Day
There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore looking like an idiot.
Steven Wright
October 03, 2003
Quote of the Day
Hunting is not simple. It is the only absolute rediscovery mechanism available to human beings; the mind-body fusion of all meditative, spiritual experiences is derived form its pasturage... the hunt is a universe of emotion that overwhelms, scatters all notions of other preoccupations and delivers the persona complete. Hunting is a love affair; turbulent, glaring, and all possessing... hunting is an immersion; a drowning in connectedness... hunting knows why the senses were made! Hunting is a cataclysm of inward progress. We hunt for spiritual reserve...to understand the world (and for)... the knowledge of self.
Shane Mahoney
October 02, 2003
The Gyrojet carbine: fires "Single-Stage-To-Obit rockets"?
Someone on the smith2004-discuss list said he'd like me to post a picture I had taken last year of an MBA Gyrojet 13mm rocket carbine. Here it is. The owner had it on display at a gun show in San Jose, and was kind enough to allow me to have a couple of photos taken.
"warren_et" on the same list calls the projectile a - get ready for this - "Single-Stage-To-Obit rocket".
Here's one brave man: Bob Schulz
Bob Schulz just went on Fox's Your World with Neil Cavuto show and said that he has stopped filing his yearly income tax. He comes across on camera as a rational man who seems to know exactly what he's doing.
Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson
I've not yet read this book, but when I have some time off from my studies, I plan to. My friend Perry Metzger has given me permission to reprint this recommendation he sent a few minutes ago to a mailing list I own:
So I finally finished the book. My verdict is still not in - the book is very obviously just 1/3 of the overall story. However, I'll say that I rather enjoyed the first 1000 pages of the story that Quicksilver represents. It isn't quite at the level of my favorite Neal Stephenson books ("The Diamond Age" is at the top of my list), but it is a very interesting read.
It also has the interesting feature, which a history book would not, of giving you a much wider view of what was going on in the 17th century than you could otherwise get. Usually history is taught or read in narrow vertical slices - you learn about Louis XIV, but not that Robert Hooke was off in London discovering that all living things are made up of cells at the same time, and that all that while the Turks were attacking Vienna. The irony is, in spite of being a work of fiction, it gives you a wider and better lens on the birth of the modern age than a non-fiction book would have...
Looks like I'll be ordering my copy soon.
Quote of the Day
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
George Carlin
October 01, 2003
Free State Project picks New Hampshire Today
The Free State Project picked New Hampshire today, using an innovative voting technique called Condorcet's Method. It's interesting to see that the FSP people have done a good job getting the word out: on the same day of the announcment, the UK Guardian, a major daily paper (and leftist at that), writes its own coverage of the announcement: "'Free staters' pick New Hampshire to liberate for sex, guns and drugs."
Sounds like a fine recommendation to me.
