Peelee's Chicken Fried Random Banter Thread #220

[Dimonite]

Welp, it's 2 days til Christmas and I'm seriously debating putting up the hanmock and reading a book. It's about a nice, balmy 68° (20° for those who dont use freedom units), with a delightful little breeze.

I spent a Christmas in Alabama once (I have family in Montgomery) where it was 73 degrees and we sat around watching my cousin ride horses.

[factotum]

Yeah, in the UK as well scientists and engineers have a massive preference for SI units over Imperial, even if the public seems to be somewhat suspicious of the foreign units.

However, we buy milk and petrol in litres and meat and rice in kilogrammes these days--the only places where we regularly use imperial are distances (I'm 6' 2" and am driving 120 miles to my mother's house later today) and speeds (I'll be doing 70mph for most of that). I suspect a lot of that is down to the sheer expense involved in changing all the road signs, too.

[Florian]

@Knaight:

Basically, no manufacturer sinks time and money into developing something in-house when it is readily available on the open market. So you'll see the same parts and components used in a wide range of industries. That starts with the simple, from armatures, drives, heat exchangers, valves and pumps and goes to more specialized pieces like a reverse osmosis water treatment membrane/particle filters or CIP cleaning. It only gets interesting when looking at specialized equipment, specifically modified equipment or including newer technologies. For example, we use a standard industrial-strength plate cooling heat exchanger, but combine it with a condenser to redirect the excess heat and vapors back into the production process to heat up the water used for the next batch. That enables us to use an bio gas powered small industrial CHP unit, as we effectively eliminated the issue with spikes.
What I'm more wondering about is the use of batch reactors - unless they solely work with malt and hops extract, that is.

@Rockphed:

Science and engineering have long become pretty global matters with shared standards. You basically have to deal with suppliers from all over the globe when it comes to parts and components, so while U.S. english is becoming the norm in global communication (replacing Oxford English), so is the metric system. In the long run, its about which norms and standard the industries can agree to as the most useful, as exemplified by the DIN.

@factotum:

Changing the road signs is not an issue. Broadly speaking, that is exactly the kind of task that generates a lot of jobs in a very short time, most governments would jump at that opportunity.
But: How to get millions upon millions of car speedometers exchanged to KM standard (or finally settle on the global standard on driving on the right lane)? The only way to make that work is by a hard exit from combustion engines with a set timeframe and introduce the change with the replacement technology.

[Knaight]

@Knaight:

Basically, no manufacturer sinks time and money into developing something in-house when it is readily available on the open market. So you'll see the same parts and components used in a wide range of industries. That starts with the simple, from armatures, drives, heat exchangers, valves and pumps and goes to more specialized pieces like a reverse osmosis water treatment membrane/particle filters or CIP cleaning. It only gets interesting when looking at specialized equipment, specifically modified equipment or including newer technologies. For example, we use a standard industrial-strength plate cooling heat exchanger, but combine it with a condenser to redirect the excess heat and vapors back into the production process to heat up the water used for the next batch. That enables us to use an bio gas powered small industrial CHP unit, as we effectively eliminated the issue with spikes.
What I'm more wondering about is the use of batch reactors - unless they solely work with malt and hops extract, that is.

When I say "reuse" I mean it in a very literal sense. It's not just that the industry uses the same kind of reactors (which it absolutely does, there's standard commercial sizes and the new ones are basically all measured in liters, apart from some incredibly slow small scale continuous flow bioreactors that use mL). I mean that it's generally much easier to just clean a single piece of equipment and stick it in a different process somewhere, particularly if a catalyst bed or something can be reused. Even simple PFRs will see this, let alone stuff with moving parts or expensive catalysts.

[Florian]

When I say "reuse" I mean it in a very literal sense. It's not just that the industry uses the same kind of reactors (which it absolutely does, there's standard commercial sizes and the new ones are basically all measured in liters, apart from some incredibly slow small scale continuous flow bioreactors that use mL). I mean that it's generally much easier to just clean a single piece of equipment and stick it in a different process somewhere, particularly if a catalyst bed or something can be reused. Even simple PFRs will see this, let alone stuff with moving parts or expensive catalysts.

Oh boy.

That's so rare around here, no-one ever does this, not even for fully refurbished equipment, if they can avoid it. That's a side effect of how our tax system works: Equipment is expected to have some wear and tear and be replaced at the end of the expected lifetime cycle. Therefore you're allowed to write off that equipment based on some calculations (AFA tables) and save up the money for the replacement, which is exempt from taxation. Basically, when my bottling line hits the 10 year mark, I will sell it off to the secondary market and get a new one instead, else I would suddenly accrue tax dept, no matter how serviceable or functional the line still is.

That is actually a problem for prospective newcomers to the market: You can get the equipment quite cheap on the secondary market, but it´s already written off when it comes to taxes, so no benefits there at all and upgrading will be comparatively costly.

(Ex: I buy 10x 20HL CCTs from TMINOX today, each costing 12K€. The expected life cycle of a CCT is 15 years. That allows me to reduce my tax load by 8K/year, provided that I keep that sum in reserve.
At the 15 year mark, I either get rid of those CCTs and replace them, or I'm fined to the equivalent of taxes due for 120K€)

[factotum]

Changing the road signs is not an issue. Broadly speaking, that is exactly the kind of task that generates a lot of jobs in a very short time, most governments would jump at that opportunity.
But: How to get millions upon millions of car speedometers exchanged to KM standard (or finally settle on the global standard on driving on the right lane)?

I haven't seen a car speedometer over here in decades that didn't have both MPH and KPH on it. As for changing the side we drive on, why shiould we move over to the more dangerous side of the road (scientific studies show that most people have better reaction times to things that are happening on their right-hand side) just because Napoleon Bonaparte got a nark on 200 years ago and decided everyone should drive on the right?

[Florian]

I haven't seen a car speedometer over here in decades that didn't have both MPH and KPH on it. As for changing the side we drive on, why shiould we move over to the more dangerous side of the road (scientific studies show that most people have better reaction times to things that are happening on their right-hand side) just because Napoleon Bonaparte got a nark on 200 years ago and decided everyone should drive on the right?

We´re living in liberal countries with an economy in a big phase of globalization, that´s why.

I made my cut as a freelance SAP developer, working international, when that was still somewhat exotic, the skills were in high demand and the monetary compensation was fitting to that.

What we are experiencing right now is more or less the rise of the "international citizen", young and highly trained experts which partly studied abroad, partook in something like the ERASMUS+ program and had their 2-4 internships in transnational companies and maybe on other continents. Yes, they will change once they reach the age and finances to settle down, but that's a different matter.

Edit: I don´t say this is the majority. The number of, say, plumbers, will beat the number of Developers, Programmers or Investment Bankers any day of the week for a given nation-state. But as usual, the jet-set will pave the way and politics will follow.

[Knaight]

Oh boy.

That's so rare around here, no-one ever does this, not even for fully refurbished equipment, if they can avoid it. That's a side effect of how our tax system works: Equipment is expected to have some wear and tear and be replaced at the end of the expected lifetime cycle. Therefore you're allowed to write off that equipment based on some calculations (AFA tables) and save up the money for the replacement, which is exempt from taxation. Basically, when my bottling line hits the 10 year mark, I will sell it off to the secondary market and get a new one instead, else I would suddenly accrue tax dept, no matter how serviceable or functional the line still is.

Yeah, over here the somewhat large petrochemical industry in particular really skews the used market, and that tax quirk emphatically doesn't exist. Which is why, as we were talking about in a different thread, even breweries and can get in on this. A single distillation column might start its life in a haber plant, get some minor pressure refittings and end up in bulk petrochemical separation twenty five years later, spend another thirty years there, then end up in an alcohol distillery for fortified beers at a brewery (or at a distillery) where it sees another ten years of use. It's also likely to see some customary measurements show up in terms of things like tray spacing, fitting size, etc. which you wouldn't see in a more recently made distillation column. A similar thing can happen to reactors, where batch reactors might start in something like nylon production way back when (before it wasn't basically guaranteed to be a continuous process), move to pharmaceuticals, bounce around through a number of different drug production lines, then end up in a microbrewery somewhere, sixty years after it was first made.

[Florian]

Totally weird.

Ok, I know that we have a very different understanding of basic resource consumption between our sides of the big pond, we don't have any, so we approach that topic more carefully, but your example really is gross.

Edit: This will us take full circle to my initial statement. We have no resources. With an over-aging population, we don't even have manpower to compensate. We are used to extremely harsh regulations. The equipment we produce and use reflects all three aspects. What is necessary to function on this market, is basically the core for radically reducing costs in a market without that extremely limiting set of boundaries.

[Knaight]

Ok, I know that we have a very different understanding of basic resource consumption between our sides of the big pond, we don't have any, so we approach that topic more carefully, but your example really is gross.

That actually seems a bit odd to me, mostly because I'd expect trying to get as many decades out of each piece of equipment as possible to be how you'd respond to minimal basic resource consumption. Catalyst beds can burn through a lot of some comparatively rare minerals, and while that resource usage is dwarfed by that of anything that flows through them* there's also not really that big a change in efficiency a lot of the time for the simpler components.

*With a handful of exceptions. Desalination plants don't use up the ocean in any significant sense, and they never will.

[Florian]

That actually seems a bit odd to me, mostly because I'd expect trying to get as many decades out of each piece of equipment as possible to be how you'd respond to minimal basic resource consumption. Catalyst beds can burn through a lot of some comparatively rare minerals, and while that resource usage is dwarfed by that of anything that flows through them* there's also not really that big a change in efficiency a lot of the time for the simpler components.

Compare the initial "cost" (energetic as well as monetary) with the lifecycle cost of keeping said equipment running. I think it´s fair to say that we are more used (by now) to think in terms of renewable energy, so the main question is when is it more feasible to melt down and recycle the whole thing, using the former to power the whole process, then keep on going?

[Algeh]

@factotum:

Changing the road signs is not an issue. Broadly speaking, that is exactly the kind of task that generates a lot of jobs in a very short time, most governments would jump at that opportunity.
But: How to get millions upon millions of car speedometers exchanged to KM standard (or finally settle on the global standard on driving on the right lane)? The only way to make that work is by a hard exit from combustion engines with a set timeframe and introduce the change with the replacement technology.

I haven't seen a car speedometer over here in decades that didn't have both MPH and KPH on it. As for changing the side we drive on, why shiould we move over to the more dangerous side of the road (scientific studies show that most people have better reaction times to things that are happening on their right-hand side) just because Napoleon Bonaparte got a nark on 200 years ago and decided everyone should drive on the right?

Can confirm that even here in the USA, I've never driven a car that didn't have both miles and kilometers on the speedometer. Canada uses kilometers, so it would be a hassle to go on some road trips without them. (My 1984 Toyota minivan and Toyota Camry had both sets of gradations printed on the analog speedometer. My 2017 Toyota RAV 4 has a digital display that you can change preferences for units on in one of the menus, which is actually more annoying since it doesn't display both at once so you have to actually remember to change it.) I assume that very old cars may not have both, but at some point if you're trying to figure out how to solve a problem that only exists for people driving cars over 40-50 years old you can just decide that those people are already good at solving car-related problems if they've kept them running so far and not worry about them too much.

Canada did the metric changeover during a time when lots of people had cars (the 1970s, says Wikipedia), but I really don't know much about it in detail. I could ask my older relatives who were living there then next time I see them, I suppose. (I remember things like road signs being metric when I visited in the 80s as a kid.)

As for the brewing equipment thread, I'm always fascinated by how different these things are in different places. There is certainly the idea in America that if something still works, somebody will want it if you're done using it. There's kind of an idea that scrappy start-up businesses will have a bunch of mis-matched equipment they got from various places, since they're small-scale and the owners can better spare their own labor of keeping the inefficient equipment running than they could spare the money to buy things that were less worn out and more interchangeable. As you scale up and the owner's time becomes more valuable (and/or you're hiring workers to deal with the inefficient equipment, which changes the cost of inefficiency to be a more direct financial one), you start buying things that save you time but cost more money up front.

This "someone else will want to use this since it still works" concept isn't always actually true, but it's a strong cultural idea that extends to personal items as well. My father, for instance, has a large 20 year old CRT TV built-in to a wooden console that he feels is too nice to send to the recyclers "because it still works" and it is sitting in a corner of the den "until he can figure out where to donate it". I suspect that no one wants a CRT TV the size of an armoire, but, you know, it still works so it would be wasteful to just throw it away...I assume it will be in his den as a decorative object for at least another decade unless he moves. There's also a tendency to either sell your old stuff at garage sales, donate your old stuff to charity, and/or put your old stuff out at the edge of your yard with a "free" sign on it to see if anyone else wants it. (We've gotten some pretty good stuff that way just out on walks, too. My stepdad uses a nice commercial rack someone set out for free to store a lot of his tech demos for work. After he retires, I'll see if the convention I volunteer with wants it and if not it'll go back out with a free sign.) Used/surplus office furniture is a thing, too. I know a lot of the chairs and teacher desks we have at my school were donated from local businesses when they upgraded or bought from surplus places (that presumably got them similarly).

[Florian]

I basically grew up on american soil (McGraw U.S. Military Base) and later had to spent some time in Arizona as part of my military cross-training. That's both a good two decades in the past and the only times I actually drove american cars. The Dodge and GM I remember didn't have the dual feature. One of the first cars I owned in Germany, a Toyota Corolla, did, tho.

As for the other point, I don't actually think that this is a cultural thing. My grandparents were war generation and they were extreme on saving and reusing, my parents only a bit less so.

In contrast, as one of the most over-crowded places in the world, we are quite ruthless in our politics of economy, out of necessity. It´s a bit of a farce that one of the premier capitalist countries can enforce something like this because of the strong socialist background and leaning, in a way, similar to Japan.

It was a conscious choice to promote the constant renewal, as well as the full-scale recycling of the old. Both feed our industry and make up our otherwise non-existing inland market (once you understand that point, the difference to the U.S.(and other countries in the EU), you understand a lot).

[Teddy]

Changing the road signs is not an issue. Broadly speaking, that is exactly the kind of task that generates a lot of jobs in a very short time, most governments would jump at that opportunity.

Yes, yes it is an issue. Just ordering the signs to be changed isn't going to automatically create the funds to do so. Sure, most of that money you spend is eventually going to make it back to you in the form of taxes, but before it has, that is money you can't spend on something else. Plus, lots of (very, very) temporary jobs aren't always the thing you need.

ION:
Merry Christmas, everybody!

It gets dark quick up here at Ancestral Farm, and when it gets dark, it gets real dark. I didn't realise how exotic that kind of darkness has become to me until I came up here. Looking out the window just to be greeted by the total blackness of the unpolluted night, it's something special.

Last night was also really special. Tonight the sky is cloudy, but last night the full moon was out and the wide winter landscape was bathed in a glistening silver light. It was sheer awe-inspiring beauty...

[Florian]

Ugh, not so loud. I have to work during the holidays (actually on shift right now), so I can´t see my family this year, as a result I'm slightly tipsy with a side of hung-over.

But yeah, marry Christmas all around, especially for those of you who hold Christmas eve as important.

Funny, but maybe because of this, I finally went for an East tradition I used to reject and fight with claws and teeth: Wiener with potato salad on X-mas eve, keep it low and simple, the fancy stuff will come tomorrow.

[factotum]

This "someone else will want to use this since it still works" concept isn't always actually true, but it's a strong cultural idea that extends to personal items as well. My father, for instance, has a large 20 year old CRT TV built-in to a wooden console that he feels is too nice to send to the recyclers "because it still works" and it is sitting in a corner of the den "until he can figure out where to donate it".

The item in question doesn't even have to work. At my Mother's house over Christmas and I found two Sky controllers in a drawer. When asked why they were there, she said neither of them worked, and didn't really have a good explanation when I asked why she hadn't just chucked them out!

[Peelee]

I basically grew up on american soil (McGraw U.S. Military Base)

German soil, assuming I have the correct base. To the best of my knowlwdge, military bases are on land leased from the host nation, and are not the lessee nation's soil. Also, ship captains can't marry you. The Navy in particular is very vocal about this.

[Florian]

German soil, assuming I have the correct base. To the best of my knowlwdge, military bases are on land leased from the host nation, and are not the lessee nation's soil. Also, ship captains can't marry you. The Navy in particular is very vocal about this.

Peelee, as much as I like you, but you lack the experience of growing up in a country occupied by four different foreign powers at the same time. Else you would know what signs like "You're now entering the Allied occupation zone..." or "You're now entering U.S.A. territory..." mean, or how it looks like when an entire district of a major metropolis is walled off and basically part of a different culture and nation.

(I don't complain. Ok, it was awkward to have to pay in dollars, but the Cincinnati movie theatre showed Hollywood blockbusters way before they came into our cinemas, th base had a Burger Kind and Taco Bell, I could order D&D stuff over at the PX.)

[Peelee]

Peelee.... I like you

Hooray!

you lack the experience of growing up in a country occupied by four different foreign powers at the same time.

Absolutely correct. I'll totally cop to being wrong on that in certain places prior to '91, for example. Mea culpa.

[Mith]

Merry Christmas from the Thawing North (we are pretty much 15 C warmer than this time last year.)

[Anonymouswizard]

Merry Christmas to all around the world! Unfortunately the carrollers wouldn't leave until we have them all our figgy pudding.

[Florian]

You actually _do_ want to end this festive days and possibly the end of this years with jokes about UK cuisine, it seems? If we're not talking about Heston Blumenthal-Level steak and kidney pies, you prolly have committed a major sin to your fellow (wo)men by handing out pudding. (That said, I feel sorta-kinda guilty writing those jokes while I'm actually in the middle of preparing a Shepards Pie - good comfort food. Mary Christmas, island monkey)

[Peelee]

Happy Christmas! It's present time!

[factotum]

You actually _do_ want to end this festive days and possibly the end of this years with jokes about UK cuisine, it seems?

Anonymouswizard's joke refers to the second and third verses of the Christmas carol "We wish you a merry Christmas", not UK cuisine generally.

[Florian]

My shift is beginning soon and I'm determined to fool around a bit with the pilot plan and left overs to keep myself from going crazy with boredom.
IPAs are normally not my thing, but I think I´ll try my hand at a batch to keep myself busy. I want something with a high drinkability value and quick to produce, so possibly drinkable at around new years eve.
Haven't looked yet, so going from the top of my head, but I think we still have a sack of Red X floating around a a generous amount of samples from USAHops that I sacked at the last trade fair.

So, basic plan: 90/10 mix of Red X and CaraRed malt (Red X is a speciality malt that is more or less basic Pilsener, but gives a striking red color). Target gravity in the lower 1012 region, but add enough muscovado sugar to raise ABV from 4,2% to around 6% (roughly refined cane sugar, pretty interesting side aromas). I think I'm going for a "triple triple", meaning Azacca, Citra and Magnum in early and late boiling, as well as in whirlpool. With that very short time-table, dry-hopping simply is not an option. I also think that I'm going for a pretty dry taste, so I think US-05 is the way to go. Why red? It´s a funny Italian custom that it brings luck when wearing something red on new years eve. Why not drink something red instead?

@Peelee:

Ah, you guys don't celebrate Christmas on the eve of the 24th but in the morning of the 25th, right?

Anonymouswizard's joke refers to the second and third verses of the Christmas carol "We wish you a merry Christmas", not UK cuisine generally.

*Points to the General Food thread*

[Peelee]

@Peelee:

Ah, you guys don't celebrate Christmas on the eve of the 24th but in the morning of the 25th, right?

Yep. Some people do a single gift on Christmas Eve with the rest on the 25th, or open the stockings on Christmas Eve. I, specifically, also do St. Nick's Day on December 6, where we leave our shoes out the night before, but I don't think many around here are half Austrian.

[Dimonite]

Yep. Some people do a single gift on Christmas Eve with the rest on the 25th, or open the stockings on Christmas Eve. I, specifically, also do St. Nick's Day on December 6, where we leave our shoes out the night before, but I don't think many around here are half Austrian.

We do an immediate family Christmas on the 23rd, an extended family celebration on the 24th, and stocking gifts on the 25th. Three Christmases! (With a potential for a fourth if I ever get married)

[Tvtyrant]

Yep. Some people do a single gift on Christmas Eve with the rest on the 25th, or open the stockings on Christmas Eve. I, specifically, also do St. Nick's Day on December 6, where we leave our shoes out the night before, but I don't think many around here are half Austrian.

My family has the different branches meet on Christmas Eve and Christmas respectively, due to size. Irish Catholic familes and we all live in the same region.

[Peelee]

Irish Catholic familes

Ah. Big. Big families. Gotcha.

[LaZodiac]

Christmas time! Here are the gifts I got.

Spoiler

Show

Gurumin: A Monster Adventure,
A nice poem, from Blue

Pharaonic,
Frozen Corext,
Enter the Gungeon, from Rebecca

Flinthook, from Trobby and Hazy

Battle Chef Brigade, from Deme

Forgotten Anne, from Teddy

Pankapu, from Knight

Final Fantasy 13, from HT

Fantasy General,
Everspace, from Good Ole Games for some reason???

2x Kindersurprise Egg
After Eight mints
6x Lifesavers
Orange Tic-Tacts
Toothbrush and Toothpase, from my stocking.

Pokemon Let's Go
Diablo 3 Switch
Spyro Reignited
Another good ass router since Mom stole mine, from Dad and sister