Eat This Blog

@indigo It is actually quite hard to know what to do. I called them up yesterday, and explored the website, where I learned that for each year I defer, the amount I get goes up by "almost 5.8%". Is that worth it, I ask myself. Yes, inasmuch as it would be hard to find another investment that can get 5.8% p.a. On the other hand, it means I need to keep earning that much more each month. I

I'm honestly torn. So to defer, I asked them to send me an estimate of how much I can actually expect. That puts the decision off another week to 10 days.

// @matigo

@indigo A bit late for that. More like end-life crisis. I'm feeling that acutely as when I got back from my trip there was a nice letter from the Dept of Works and Whathaveyou telling me how to claim my state pension.

// @matigo

@matigo Before it got so "easy," there were a couple of apps that I used to work with geodata, images and maps. I might have to see whether I can uncover them and bend them to my will. Or just do it the long way.

While you're beating up on Apple hardware, @matigo, can I just add that Apple Maps still lags horribly behind.

I say this because on my recent trip, I used my iphone to take pictures more for the geodata than for the images, so I can figure out afterwards, where I was. If you open an image in Preview, osx very snazzily will read the location data and open it for you in apple maps, but in apple maps there's no way to measure the distance between two points, and there's not nearly as much contextual detail either.

If I peek at the EXIF data and enter the latlong into Google Maps I have all sorts of options for measuring distances, seeing what else is around and so on.

But as far as I can tell, there's no easy way to go from the JPG with geodata to the location on Google Maps without either giving Google your image, which I'm not quite ready to do.

I haven't bothered to check yet whether the Flickr map data has the same options for measurement, or whether it can be used privately, as it were.

Of course, if I didn't have to finish this job in a right hurry I could spend the next three days writing an Alfred Workflow that might be able to do the job for me.

Speaking of which, I better get back to work.

@indigo Hmmmn. Now there's an idea for a taste test.

Seriously, I think there would be differences in taste, just as there are, for example, between feedlot beef and grass-fed beef. There are also differences in taste between different breeds, and it may be that Paraguayan DNA is different enough -- leading to a different enough biochemistry -- to be noticeable.

// @matigo @variablepulserate

@matigo Apparently so, especially among young people, who used to see sake as a "grandparents" drink. But all this was pure assertion. I have no idea whether there are supporting data.

@matigo Why not. Unless you're talking about persistent toxins like heavy metals and so on, pigeons are probably efficient converters of garbage into potential food.

Finally caught up with the BBC Food Programme on sake of a couple of weeks ago. Very interesting, even though Sheila Dillon seemed way out of her depth when they talked about koji and the need to convert rice starches to sugar before the yeasts could get going. People said that the revival of sake in Japan began after the 2011 'quake, as young people found drinking sake from the most affected regions was a good way to support reconstruction of those regions. Sounds fascinating. Has that been documented, I wonder?

@matigo Squab is a young pigeon, possibly one that has not yet fledged. Grown-up pigeon is good too, especially given the long, slow treatment.

@hazardwarning Heh. I am avoiding this because it is so much more fun than what i am having to do.