An exploration of ultracoffee, radiation safety, and more often than not a beer or two.
For those of you that pay exquisite attention to the length of the BBotE production windows, you may have noticed they tend to be two weeks long and end on Saturdays. The slots that have just gone up are for a slightly shorter window than normal as I’ll be heading up to Alaska for a …
Continue reading “BBotE Line Up Changes & Vacation Alert, Summer 2017”
Short version: production is ticking along nicely, a new experimental variety going into play, a reminder on special requests, and Ambassadors. So, first off the the pre-order slots for the production window ending June 10th are now up. To be honest, everything is gonna ship by the 9th as I have a wedding to be …
Continue reading “State of the Black Blood of the Earth, 2017 Update”
Well, I’ve now stood on my second nuclear weapon ground zero. (the first I did on this trip) April 1st was the Trinity Test Site open house, one of the two times a year that the White Sands Missile Range opens up to allow the public to visit. They used to open it up on …
[NOTE: This tale is originally occurred before Easter 2009] At work on Thursday, my co-worker asked me what my holiday plans were for Easter. I told him that I’d be going down to see my folks and eat some delicious ham. A puzzled look crossed his face and he asked, “Phil, why is it considered …
Continue reading “Some Holiday Related Bullshitting I Am Proud Of”
Some unfortunate news to share which impacts you, the beverage consuming public. The Steins of Science which I have on hand right now are, likely, the last of their line. I’ve lost my good supplier connection that allows me to keep the steins reasonably priced. Yes, I know that may seem silly to say for …
Let me get this out of the way upfront. I didn’t even spend long enough in Kiev and I want to go back before it’s too late. My time in the city was all too brief and all too enjoyable, among people who are putting on a brave face over deep insecurity and fear. Get …
Continue reading “Herr Direktor Funranium Goes to Chernobyl & Kiev, Part 3 – Kiev, Hero City”
Got a few changes to report to you this Inauguration Day. Don’t panic, this is all good news. First of all, I’m happy to report the return of Ipsento Panama BBotE, the lovely tart blueberry light roast coffee which has been missed by yours truly, is back for little while. The nice folks at Ipsento were …
Continue reading “An Old Friend Returns and the Harpy Cometh”
In the previous money rant, I finally addressed Lesson Nine from this list of potential rants. It’s time to move on to a more positive one. Let’s talk about a time when America had its shit together, The Great Depression. No, really. I’m not kidding. Much as we may deride President Woodrow Wilson for other …
Okay, yet another rant. This is an old saw of mine which I’ve decided I want to write up so I could point at it later. When I hear someone doing a half-assed job that they’re just going to walk away from, usually incomplete, say with a shrug “Good enough for government work”, I get …
When you have the incredibly photogenic and not bulldozed ghost city of Pripyat to take pictures of, it’s easy to forget the other towns and villages that were once there, or still are in the case of the city of Chernobyl. Generally the name “Chernobyl” is associated in everyone’s head with the the reactor that …
Most of the order slots for production have zeroed out at this point and many have already flipped over to the next window that ends New Year’s Eve. I will still be cranking BBotE & steins out all next week, but all bets are off as to things showing up in time for those of …
Many years ago on livejournal, my friend Ben Stone and his now fiancee Nadja, AKA The Benchilada & fairyarmadillo, AKA Stone Robot Enterprises, inaugurated a holiday tradition of collecting all the friends who made things to share their wares with the everyone else which he called THE BIG SHILL. The Steins of Science were part …
Continue reading “THE BIG SHILL: Things You Can Buy Which I Don’t Sell”
Ooooookay, the milestone where I have a deep sigh and decide to comment on someone else’s product is 50 messages. When I’ve gotten that many emails, texts, IMs, DMs, tweets, phone calls, etc., I have to breakdown and actually make words in reply. TL;DR version: No, they aren’t ripping me off. No one making cold …
Let’s begin with the improvement you can’t see or, rather, won’t see anymore. At some point a “helpful upgrade” was done by BigCommerce who provide the architecture and servers for the store side of Funranium Labs. In the course of this upgrade, they managed to break the 3rd party SSL chain and depending on the browser …
Continue reading “Recent Improvements, New BBotEs, and Vacations”
So, once again, brave souls have stepped up willing to play caffeine mules to the demented infosec hordes about to descend on Las Vegas for DEFCON 2016. Just like last year, you have two volunteers. Please treat them well: Bill is an old hand at DEFCON and also the former BBotE Ambassdor of Chicago. He is …