One of the great things about Cascade First Harvest is that it’ll be different each year. Some years it has been great and others, not so much. This year is pretty good actually. I’d say give this year a go.
Cascade First Harvest
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Monthly Archives: May 2012
St. Bernardus Apt 12
This is one of my favourites. Look at any list on BeerAdvocate.com and it scores rather highly. It’s dark and delicious. Yes, it’s Belgian and it’s 10% and it comes in large bottles if you like. If you’re really lucky you can find somewhere with a tap of this stuff – If anyone knows somewhere in Melbourne with one, I *MUST* know.
Contributor Agreements kill Contributions
A good while ago now, there was a bit of activity from others discussing the impact that contributor agreements have on contributions. Most notably, from Simon Phipps and Michael Meeks:
- “Contributor Agreements Say Your Contribution Is Unwelcome” by Simon Phipps
- Michael Meeks on LibreOffice
I’ve been around this Free and Open Source Software thing for a while now and I’ve noticed a pattern. People who hack on free software seldom have a desire to spend time speaking to the company lawyers instead of doing their jobs.
If you require a contributor agreement signed, it doesn’t involve an individual. It involves a legal department. Being a free software developer is a different mindset than working on proprietary software. No longer are you just working on one bit of software, you can work on any bit of software. Find a bug in your compiler? Well, you can fix that. Find a bug in a library you’re using? You can both work around it and submit a patch that fixes it.
There is a different between an open source project and an open source product. An open source product is easy – you just publish your source/binary packages with an open source license and do all your development and discussion inside the company. Easy and simple for most places to execute.
What is harder is having an open source project. This is where your company participates in the project, and is a trickier thing to get going – especially within large organisations that have historically been proprietary software houses. There are very few companies that have gotten this right, and even fewer that have gotten this right across the board. I would probably have to say that Red Hat is the company that consistently does this the best.
A low barrier to entry is what has made the largest, most successful free software projects what they are today. If you’re wanting your project to be an open source project and not an open source product – then you too must set a low barrier to entry. Contributor Agreements significantly raise the barrier to entry. Suddenly my 10 line patch to fix a bug turns into a discussion with my company lawyers, your company lawyers and goes from taking an extra 5 minutes to send an email with a patch to a mailing list into something that takes hours and hours of my time.
Any time I spend speaking to lawyers is time not spent improving the world. By having a Contributor Agreement you turn a 5 minute task into a several hour one, a task involving lawyers. You know what tasks involving lawyers are? Expensive. You now have developers not contributing to your project not because a lawyer said no, but because they worked out that the time and money that would be spent on contributing to your project not to be worth it for their company.
The only people who enjoy talking business with lawyers is other lawyers and the mentally ill[1]. We’re developers, not lawyers – don’t make us talk to them for orders of magnitude more time than it takes to fix some bit of code.
[1] I have lawyer friends, and that’s social time, not work. I’ve also worked with great lawyers, but I do wish the world was more sane to begin with and I didn’t need to spend as much time doing so.
ZFS: could have been the future of UNIX Filesystems
There was a point a few years ago where Sun could have had the next generation UNIX filesystem. It was in Solaris (and people were excited), there was a port to MacOS X (that was quite exciting for people) and there was a couple of ways to run it on linux (and people were excited). So… instead of the fractured landscape of ext3, HFS+ and (the various variations of) UFS we could have had one file system that was common between all of the commonly used UNIX-like variants. Think of being able to use a file system on a removable drive that isn’t FAT and being able to take it from machine to machine (well… Windows would be a problem, but it always is).
There was some really great work done in OpenSolaris with integration between the file manager and ZFS snapshots (a slider bar to browse the history of a directory, an idea I’ve championed for over a decade now, although the Sun implementation was likely completely independently developed). The integration with the package manager was also completely awesome, crash safe upgrades!
However, all this is pretty much moot. Solaris is used by fewer people than ever, it’s out of OS X and BTRFS is going to take the place that ZFS could have held in the Linux world. So, unfortunately, ZFS is essentially dead. This is a shame…. it could have been something huge.
Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Ale
Ahhh Ginger. I had the Matso Ginger Beer the other day and quite raved about it (my search for a Ginger Beer with ginger in it is strewn with disappointments). This was a different kind of drink, while there was ginger in it, it was certainly a beer with ginger rather than *ginger* beer. Honestly, I prefer the Matso by a long way.
Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout
I had this about a week ago and being a fan of beer brewed with coffee, I thought I’d try this Limited Release  Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout. It was fairly nice, although I have had coffee stouts I’ve liked better – although I do know people who have really liked this one too.
Harviestoun Old Dubh
I wrote about the Harviestoun Old Engine Oil a little while ago, and I really quite liked it. I liked it enough that when next at Acland cellars I decided to get more of their beers. Tonight, being another cold night, I decided to see if the “Old Dubh” (also on the label is the wonderful words “Special 12 Reserve”) lived up to the Old Engine Oil.
It does. Wow.
The little book attached to the bottle says the beer is so named because it’s “gloopy and viscous”. Well, it’s lovely and black, and the aroma is just lovely. I’d use words such as chocolatey, malty and that hint of scotch that warms the soul on a cold evening.
The Old Dubh is matured in Highland Park 12 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky casks, which is what gives it that extra bits of flavour. I honestly don’t know why this great trick isn’t done by more breweries, as this beer is just lovely. I have another Harviestoun in the fridge, and I kind of can’t wait to try it.
There is a story….
I have a friend who is fond of telling a story from way back in November 2008 at the OpenSQL camp in Charlottesville, Virgina. This was relatively shortly after we had announced to the public that we’d started something called Drizzle (we did that at OSCON) and was even closer to the date I started working on Drizzle full time (which was November 1st). Compared to what it is now, the Drizzle code base was in its infancy. One of the things we hadn’t yet sorted out was the rewrite of the replication code.
So, I had my laptop plugged into a projector, and somebody suggested opening up some random source file… so I did. It was a bit of the replication code that we’d inherited from MySQL. Immediately we spotted a bug. In fact, between myself and Brian I think we worked out that none of the error handling in this code path ever even remotely worked.
Fast forward a bunch of years, and recently I had open part of the replication code in MySQL 5.5 and (again) instantly spotted a bug. Well.. the code is correct in 2 out of 3 situations…
It is rather impressive that the MySQL Replication team has managed to add the features they have in MySQL 5.6.
I’m also really happy with what we managed to do inside Drizzle for replication. Ripping out all the MySQL legacy code was a big step to take, and for a while it seemed like possibly the wrong one  – but ultimately, it was incredibly the right thing to do. I love going and looking at the Drizzle replication code. I simply love it.
Fraoch Heather Ale
I had this a little while ago, but I didn’t really take any notes at the time. It was quite a pleasant drop.
Espresso
Many people may know that I’m a bit of a coffee fan. I do quite like a good espresso. These are, unfortunately, more rare than I would like. I know, I live in Melbourne, the average coffee quality is pretty damn high… but still, perhaps I’m just a bit of a coffee snob (oh wait, that’s where I buy my beans from).
This is a photo of the espresso I got at a place near Leah’s work the other week.
Matso Ginger Beer
Finally, an alcoholic Ginger Beer that actually tastes like it has ginger in it!
Much LOL
At least here in Australia there is this drink called LOL. I saw much LOL on the shelves in the supermarket the other day. I’ve been trying to save this picture up to send to someone… but there hasn’t (yet) been the opportunity.
Innis & Gunn Rum Cask
Smells like rum, tastes a bit like it too. You can certainly tell it’s been in a Rum cask. Nice. I think I prefer the original over this one, although they are both distinctly different.
Brew Dog Punk IPA
This is a delicious beer. The text on the side of the bottle is rather worth reading too. Basically, it has flavour. It’s not a “we’re going to hop your brains out” IPA, rather a “we’re making an IPA with flavour that’s very yummy”.
Orbital
Saturday night, went to see Orbital. Awesome. A two hour set of a whole bunch of fun and a crowd that was really into it. Luckily there was a mirror nearby to capture the stage and the crowd.
Hargraves Hill Extra Special Bitter
I think this has to be one of my favourites. I Â don’t get to have it often, but it has such a wonderful flavour: strong, not overwhelming and a wonderful example of what an Extra Special Bitter should be. I know you can get it on tap at Mrs Parmas in Melbourne, although I swear I’ve found it at other places too – and anyone who doesn’t mind an ESB should certainly give this one a try.
Kiuchi Brewery’s Espresso Stout
My first beer from Japan! This pours nice and thick. This Espresso Stout is black like my heart and is thick like the phrase “Guinness is a meal” would lead you to believe (rather than the sad reality that is Guinness these days).
While I can’t really detect the espresso in the smell of this one (although once it warmed up a bit I could), I can in the taste. Halfway through a mouthful you’re certainly going “mmm… espresso-y”.
This was quite enjoyable. I’m not sure if I could drink more than one (I probably couldn’t), and it doesn’t match the whatever it was I had through a coffee bean filled Randy at Mountain Goat a while ago, but it’s certainly nice.
Yes folks, there can be good beer come out of Japan.
Barons Black Wattle
In which I attempt to make beer photos more interesting by hipster-izing them as much as humanly possible without using Instagram.
This is Barons Black Wattle Original Ale. As far as anyone can work out, there isn’t much of this left. The Barons Brewing website is no more and it seems the company went away after not sticking to their core business – which was brewing beer.
It’s got Wattle in the name as the beer has roasted wattle seeds. The Wattle is an Australian native, that is – to me, this beer is distinctly Australian. It’s not a flavour you’d come up with elsewhere. While it is not my most favourite beer of all time, being something that you simply couldn’t really come up with anywhere else, I hold it in a special place.
Oh, and yes it is true that I’m attempting to bribe people at work (Percona) with offers of me sending them a bottle.
When we heard that the brewery was no more, we stockpiled. If you find any in a store, grab it – you probably won’t get another chance to try this brew.
It’s 5.8%, with a rich amber colour and a good rounding of malt flavours – you can certainly taste the Wattle and that’s what makes it distinctive. I’ve never found this a session beer, but I do enjoy a few of them.
Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Porter
This beer heralds from a craft brewery in Scotland. At 6% and with good strong flavours, it’s strong all around. A good solid porter with (again, as the bottle says) notes of chocolate and coffee (both in smell and taste) and a bittersweet aftertaste that is just perfect on a cold evening like this.
Murray’s Punch and Judy’s Ale
On the back it describes itself as a “New World Bitter” and the word bitter is certainly true – it’s not a floral hoppy flavour but rather a bitter that tastes like a bitter should. I could drink a few of these, although more than that could get overwhelming. Bottle conditioned, only 3.9% and quite pleasant.
