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After tasting 20 beers, the average ranking was:

  1. Almanac- Farm To Barrel (Dark Pumpkin Sour)
  2. Cambridge Brewing Co- The Great Pumpkin Ale
  3. Shipyard- Pumpkinhead
  4. Southern Tier- Pumking
  5. Elysian- Punkuccino

the tasting group seemed to prefer sours, and didn’t like overly sweet beer, thus the discrepancy between average rankings and my rankings…

  1. Elysian- Punkuccino
  2. Southern Tier- Warlock
  3. Avery- Rumpkin
  4. Avery- Pump[ky]n
  5. Almanac- Farm To Barrel (Dark Pumpkin Sour)

you can download the data here:
pumpkinBeer

IMG_6764
Wynkoop – Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 5.5%
Type: Ale
Description: ale brewed with pumpkin, honey and spices
Nose: sweet honey
Tasting Notes: sweet nose, average pumpkin mid, not much of an end
Rating: 1/5
An: 1, Av: 3, Bi: 2, Br: 2, Gl: 3

IMG_6763
Anderson Valley – Fall Hornin’
ABV: 6.0%
Type: Ale
Description: ale brewed with pumpkin and spices
Nose: pumpkin, nutmeg
Tasting Notes: light nose, bland, very subtle pumpkin/bitterness at the end
Rating: 0.9/5
An: 2, Av: 2, Bi: 4, Br: 2.5, Gl: 2

IMG_6762
Southampton – Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 5.5%
Type: Ale
Description: ale brewed with pumpkin, spices and vanilla extract
Nose: more alcoholic, sour
Tasting Notes: non existant nose, kinda chardonnay feel, very light
Rating: 0.9/5
An: 3, Av: 4, Bi: 2, Br: 3, Gl: 1.5

IMG_6761
St-Ambroise – Pumpkin
ABV: N/A
Type: Ale
Nose: strong spices, vanilla
Tasting Notes: light nose, plain mid, beer/bitter pumpkin end
Rating: 1.2/5
An: 3, Av: 1, Bi: 3, Br: 3.5, Gl: 1

IMG_6760
Hoppin’ Frog – Frog’s Hollow Double Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 8.4%
Type: Ale
Nose: strong sweet pumpkin, vanilla, all spice
Tasting Notes: light all over, spice kick, refreshing, slightly sweet end
Rating: 2.3/5
An: 3, Av: 2, Bi: 2, Br: 3, Gl: N/A

IMG_6759
Southern Tier – Warlock
ABV: 8.6%
Type: Malt
Nose: sweet coffee pumpkin, nice creme brûlée dessert like
Tasting Notes: sweet pumpkin front-mid, dark, molasses end
Rating: 3.7/5
An: 1, Av: 3, Bi: 2, Br: 3, Gl: N/A

IMG_6758
Southern Tier – Pumking
ABV: 8.6%
Type: Ale
Notes: sweet pumpkin pie, vanilla
Tasting Notes: light front, with pumpkin pie like taste, slightly burnt sugar, butter end
Rating: 3.5/5
An: 4, Av: 3, Bi: 3, Br: 4, Gl: N/A

IMG_6757
Epic Brewing – Fermentation without Representation (Imperial Pumpkin Porter)
ABV: 8.4%
Type: Porter
Nose: malty, belgian-ish
Tasting Notes: light front, dark sweet and coffee-ish interesting mid, carbonated end
Rating: 2.7/5
An: 4, Av: 2, Bi: 3, Br: 2, Gl: N/A

IMG_6756
Dry Dock – Imperial Pumpkin
ABV: 9%
Type: Ale
Description: autumn in a glass
Nose: sweet pumpkin
Tasting Notes: sweet front, strong nutmeg, spice mid , slightly bitter end
Rating: 1.7/5
An: 1, Av: 3, Bi: 1, Br: 3.5, Gl: N/A

IMG_6755
Elysian – Punkuccino
ABV: 5%
Type: Ale
Description: packs a short shot of stumptown coffee, shake of cinnamon and nutmeg
Nose: very strong coffee, vanilla
Tasting Notes: light nose, coffee caramel mid, slightly bitter end
Rating: 3/5
An: 1.5, Av: 0.5, Bi: 3, Br: 4, Gl: 4

IMG_6754
Elysian – Dark O’ The Moon
ABV:6.5%
Type: Stout
Description: stout brewed with pumpkin and pumpkin seeds with cinnamon
Nose: candied apple cinnamon
Tasting Notes: very coffee-ish mid, bitter/carbonated end (missing pumpkin)
Rating: 1.3/5
An: 1, Av: 2, Bi: 2, Br: 2.5, Gl: N/A

IMG_6753
Cambridge Brewing Co – The Great Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 5.47%
Type: Malt
Nose: sour-ish
Tasting Notes: mid nose, carbonated mid, slight tart end
Rating: 2.3/5
An: 4, Av: 4.5, Bi: 4, Br: 4, Gl: N/A

IMG_6749
Almanac – Farm To Barrel (Dark Pumpkin Sour)
ABV: 7.0%
Type: Sour
Description: ale brewed with pumpkin and spices, aged in wine barrels
Nose: sweet malty, strong sour
Tasting Notes: can’t tell the pumpkin, strawberry sour, hints of bitterness
Rating: 3/5
An: 5, Av: 4.5, Bi: 4, Br: 5, Gl: N/A

IMG_6748
Shipyard – Smashed Pumpkin
ABV: 9.0%
Type: Ale
Nose: medium pumpkin/spices
Tasting Notes: sweet front, mid/end hoppy-ness
Rating: 1.5/5
An: 2, Av: 1, Bi: 1.5, Br: 3, Gl: 0.5

IMG_6747
Shipyard – Pumpkinhead
ABV: 4.5%
Type: Ale
Nose: light pumpkin spice, ginger
Tasting Notes: sweet front, light mid and end
Rating: 2.5/5
An: 4, Av: 3, Bi: 2.5, Br: 4, Gl: 2

IMG_6746
Avery – Rumpkin
ABV: 16.73%
Type: Ale
Description: Ale brewed with pumpkin and spices, aged in rum barrels
Nose: toasted pumpkin seeds, banana bread
Tasting Notes: fortified with raisin, very sweet end (complex)
Rating: 3.3/5
An: 0.5, Av: 0.5, Bi: 1, Br: 2, Gl: N/A

IMG_6744
Avery – Pump[ky]n
ABV: 17.22%
Type: Porter
Description: Porter brewed with pumpkin and spices, aged in bourbon barrles
Nose: sweet, sugary, coconut
Tasting Notes: super strong sweet, coconut end
Rating: 3.2/5
An: 1, Av: 0.5, Bi: 1, Br: 2, Gl: N/A

IMG_6743
Magic hat – Wilhelm “Scream”
ABV: 5.4%
Type: Ale
Nose: medium pumpkin
Tasting Notes:light nose, strong mid flavor, dark , approachable end
Rating: 1.2/5
An: 3.5, Av: 3, Bi: 4, Br: 3, Gl: 1

IMG_6741
HornyCopia – Pumpkin Ale
ABV:6.3%
Type: Ale
Notes: strong pumpkin
Tasting Notes: light nose, hoppy-ness, very bitter end
Rating: 1/5
An: 2.5, Av: 3, Bi: 3.5, Br: 3.5, Gl: 1

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The other day, my mother informed me that someone had impersonated my aunt and was sending some interesting emails – here’s a running transcript of our email conversations…

July 26
Troll > Me

Hello,

I need your help, Can you do me a Favor?

Thanks & Regards.

Lily

July 28
Me > Troll

yes. what is it

July 31
Troll > Me

Hello,

I hope you get this on time, I just arrived in Istanbul,Turkey for a Business Trip,i got robbed; Cash, phones and other valuables things were stolen,it’s such a crazy experience.It has really been embarrassing for me. the authorities are not being 100% supportive but the good thing is i still have my passport and flight leaves later today. I need your help, I’m in a fix. i need a loan of $720 USD from you. You’ll have it as soon as I get back home. I lost my bank card, I’ll appreciate what you can give if not all. It’s really urgent, please get back to me asap, I’ll advise on how to send it.

Looking forward to read back from you soon,

Thank You.

July 31 10:01 AM
Me > Troll

I can definitely give you a loan for $1000, to make sure everything is ok. Please advise on how to send the money.

August 1 4:47 AM
Troll > Me

Thanks for doing me this favor, You can have the money wired to my name my name and location,Via Western Union Money transfer around you, which is the best and also the safest here, all you need is the info below

Receiver’s Name: Lily Chen
Address: Address: Güzelbahçe Sokak, Nisantasi, 34365, Istanbul, Turkey.
State: Istanbul
Country:Turkey

Kindly email me the confirmation number as soon as you are done, you will need to get back to me with the western union MTCN number and the complete sender’s name as written on the western union receipt to enable me pick up the money. I will be glad to see this work out and i promise to pay back as soon as am back home.Hope to read from you soon.

I owe you a Lot..

Thank you
Lily

August 1 5:39 AM
Troll > Me

Hello, what is going on? am hanging on here to read from you with the Western Union details for the pick up of the money once you have it done and I promise I’ll refund it as soon as we get back home please i really help count on you please don’t let me down because i have limited time in getting out of here…Hope to read from you soon

Thank You
Lily

August 1 7:30AM
Troll > Me

Hello, what is going on? please let me know if you really still want to help me out of here because i have limited time in getting out of here and also i really count on you please don’t let me down, I promise to make it up to you as soon as am back home so keep me posted with the transfer details as soon as you are done….Hope to read from you soon.

Thank You
Lily

August 1 7:34 AM
Troll > Me

Hello, what is going on? please let me know if you really still want to help me out of here because i have limited time in getting out of here and also i really count on you please don’t let me down, I promise to make it up to you as soon as am back home so keep me posted with the transfer details as soon as you arte done….Hope to read from you soon.

Thank You
Lily

August 1 9:45 AM
Troll > Me

What is going on?

August 1 9:47 AM
Me > Troll

I went to Western Union and attempted to wire the funds, but they said that there has been a high level of suspicious activity to the address and location that you provided and did not allow me to wire the funds. Do you have an alternative address?

August 1 10:46 AM
Troll > Me

Okay, am very happy you are helping me out of here, Here is another address below you can have the money sent to me in turkey:

Receiver’s Name:Lily Chen
Address: 23 Sirkeci, Eminonu Fatih, Istanbul 34210, Turkey
State: Istanbul
Country:Turkey

Kindly email me the confirmation number as soon as you are done, you will need to get back to me with the western union MTCN number and the complete sender’s name as written on the western union receipt to enable me pick up the money.Hope to read from you soon because i have limted time in getting out of here.

Thank You
Lily

August 1 12:27 PM
Troll > Me

What is going on?

Lily

August 1 1:02 PM
Me > Troll

Lily,

I had some meetings to attend and was unable to get to Western Union to do the wire transfer. Please be patient.

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Lately I’ve been trying to run some load scripts that basically take data from mySQL and convert them to a Redis Luke Protocol. Part of the reason why I wrote it in Java was because the cached object needed to be Java serialized.

I ran into some issues while running some tests. It seems that my Eclipse memory heap was not big enough. Here are steps to increasing it.

1. Open Eclipse
2. Eclipse > Preferences > Java > Installed JREs

installedJre

3. Select the current JRE
4. Select “Edit”
5. Modify the default JVM properties to something like:
-Xms512M -Xmx1024M

editJre

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creating a USB install disk is super easy now.

1. Download the Mavericks installer
2. it should be located /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app
3. Open up terminal and navigate into the Resources section of the app
/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources
4. Run the following command:
sudo ./createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/ToFormat --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app

* notice that we named our volume “ToFormat”, you must insert the name of the volume you want to reformat.
** there are some other instructions on the internet, which require you to search for the base system.dmg, but the issue with that method is that it does not automatically create a recovery hd partition, so that features like file vault are not available.

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When attempting to use php micro frameworks on 1and1, the key is having the correct .htaccess file

if should look like this:
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews

AddType x-mapp-php6 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php6 .php

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [QSA,L]

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Stevens Anderson JS Comparisons

was written in august 2012, it is now 2014 – it would be nice to see how the javascript frameworks compare. if we go with the premise that github is a good indicator of community, here are the new numbers:

[table]
Name,Follows,Forks
AngularJs,”18,982″,”5,493″
Marionette,”4,319″,”739″
EmberJs,”9,112″,”1,910″
Knockout,”4,514″,”743″
Meteor,”11,073″,”1,498″
[/table]

google trends does a good job
Google Trends

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If you are having concurrency issues as a result of high loads, something to check if the JVM is complaining about:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError : unable to create new native Thread

$ ps -eLF| grep -c java
$ ulimit -u

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When you hear the words IE 8 or any derivative, you shudder at the thought of having to hack away at nice standards compliant code to get it to work. Unfortunately in an enterprise setting, you can’t just ignore the IE users. Microsoft has in-grained themselves in the big enterprises and IE is one of those staple products that you must support.

Today we (some other colleagues) learned that IE 8 running on Citrix, Windows Server 2003, does not like minified javascript. We had instances of it crashing/disconnecting the browser/session when attempting to invoke it inside an ExtJs application. Basically the ExtJs application has a hidden tab, that hits a standalone site, the standalone site contains uglify compressed code, whether its a processing limitation or a strictly IE behavior, we are unsure. we just know that if we don’t minify the code, it no longer crashes.

So beware of minify/compress on javascript if you wish to support IE 8. Also, if you are using grunt or uglify, make sure to turn on es3:true.

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This lil hack really helps when using Git cli. Basically the script will auto-detect if you are in a git repository, display the current branch as well as different colors depending on the status.

You will need to put this in your .bash_profile (these are Mac OS X specific instructions, not sure how to do it on a Windows box, on a *nix box- you should be able to use .bashrc)


source ~/.git-completion.sh
source ~/.git-prompt.sh

GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1
GIT_PS1_SHOWCOLORHINTS=1
PROMPT_COMMAND='__git_ps1 "\u@\h:\w" "\\\$ "'

You will need to copy git-completion.bash to .git-completion.sh and git-prompt.sh to .git-prompt.sh in your home directory.

You can get it here