Caffeine by the Numbers

Like a lot of you, I have a love affair with coffee.  By monitoring my withdrawal symptoms, I know I was a caffeine addict as early as 19.   But it took about 10 years before I figured this out.

I have done cursory studies on the caffeine amount in coffee/tea/soda over the years, but was frustrated because the presented facts were always incomplete, and often contrary.  Does espresso have more caffeine, or less?  The studies said yes.  

 The coffee/tea comparison was always muddled.  How much coffee, how much tea?  It turns out that the standard cup of coffee is 5 oz, or maybe 7oz.   I don’t know about you, but my smallest coffee mug is 14oz.  Dark roast vs light?  It turns out that dark is actually lower in caffeine.

I heard an article on the subject the other day, on a “WhatYou Should Know” podcast, that did a pretty good job of explaining things, and brought to light a few things I wasn’t aware of, and has made me think on this again.  So here is Caffeine, by the Numbers.

There are a number of factors that will affect the caffeine content of coffee.   

They are:

     Bean type, Arabica or Robusta.

     Grind, from coarse to Turkish

     Extraction, perc, drip, press Turkish or espresso.

     Roast, from dark to light.

With four vectors it is almost impossible to actually make a statement of how much caffeine is in a cup, aside from actually testing that specific cup.  So all you can do is imply, less or more.

Beans Type:  There are two types of beans, Arabica and Robusta.  Arabica beans are smaller, more flavorful, but have half the caffeine as the Robusta bean.  Arabica is more expensive, Robusta beans tends to be in the discount store brands.  Most coffee shops use exclusively Arabica beans.

The Grind:  Coarser grinds yield less caffeine for a process.  All other vectors being even, Turkish will yield double the caffeine over a coarse grind.

The Extraction Process:  French press has the least.  Drip the next, followed by percolated, espresso then Turkish.

The Roast:  Dark roasts are, slightly lighter on caffeine then lighter roasts.  The roasting process changes the caffeine per weight ratio.  The net effect is if you measure your coffee grounds by volume, there is less caffeine, but if you measure by your grounds by weight, there is more caffeine.  Mostly we measure by volume so there as small drop in the caffeine content.

Gaming Event June 2016

A Headless Body Production

Location:Continental Hotel, Lancaster Pa
Event:Social Daisy's 7th or 8th annual "The Weekend" Event.
Theme:  Space Babes
Players: Various
Game System: Various
Special Thanks to Otto Schmidt, who organizes this thing.

These are pictures I took of the games I played at this weekends "The Weekend" event, June 16-17 in sunny Lancaster. 

FYI, these pictures are "Clickable" and will expand to full size if you want.

Good thing we had a few copies of Military History to prop up the table.  What other event would that happen? 

The Second Battle of Manila Bay.  The first was alternate history.  It is 1905.  Theodore Roosevelt, after his attempts at peace making between the Japan and Russia was ignored, went off his meds and declared war on the empire and sends the White fleet, (painted grey) to assist the Russian Navy (painted white).  The main coaling station is in the Philippines and Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō decides to deny the coaling station to the combined American and Russian forces. 

The Japanese destroyers are attacking in 3 columns.

The Japanese heavy cruisers arrive.

The destroyers mix it up.

The Japanese main battle fleet, flag-shipped by the IJN Mikasa, arrives, approaches, and presents it's broadside.  Three ships of the Russian fleet are off in the distance.

I have an affinity to the Mikasa, as she is still around, and I have been on board her.

Alien Space Babes Attack!  Using advanced, but apparently randomized time and teleportation drive systems.  Some Princess, whose name I didn't catch, was collecting geniuses of history.  She apparently has Phineas Fogg on staff, and is trying now to capture Leonardo di Vinci.

Defending Leonardo is quite a formidable force of at least 13 cannon and two tanks of his design.

But against this force is a collection of di Vinci designed turtle tanks and teleporting steam powered golems.

These are great.  The Orange things are rocket propelled roller skates. They have a very high divination rate.  And were prone to misfire.  One went into the river, one hit a wall, one hit it's target.

This is a wonderful scratch built building. 

The decoy Leonardo surveying his defending bodyguards.

The Space Babe is commanding from her floating hover ball.

The last Game was in the Jurassic world.  Where carnivorous dinosaurs are being paid by aliens to herd herbivorous to a meat packing plant.

This is the meat packing plant, attended by a single alien worker.  Off board are two Spinasaurus's armed with Winchesters.

A herd of herbivorous facing off with the gauchos.

Alien tourists are watching the event.  They are armed with very big guns.

Solid State Disk Drives

Why you want one.

Note: this article was written in 2016.  So the size and costs are now different.

A Terabyte drive now can be had at $100, the minimum I would  put any PC is 500GB for $54.

 

I recently went through a bout of upgrades with my families computers.  Mine because it was the oldest, Joanne’s and Alex’s because I kept getting comps from Best Buy because of mistakes made with my purchase.

One of the things I insisted on with my new computer is a SSD, or Solid State Drive.  This is not a traditional disk drive with whirling media, but just a block of transistorized flash memory.  These are not new. I first read about them a few years ago, but at the time the price point was about $500 for 32 gigabytes.  Just barely enough for the operating system.  So they were beneficial for boot up, but you were fighting the hard drive for most applications.  So both the price point and their capacity made them hard to justify.

This is no longer true.  You can pick up a 500 gigabyte SSD for $159 at Best Buy.  While a 3,000 gigabyte hard drive is just $100, for my boot drive I’ll take the SSD.  The thing is blindingly fast.  About 2 orders of magnitude faster.   From power up to operation is about 20 seconds.  There is no exaggeration here.  Shut down to reboot is 40 seconds. 

Also, there is no whirling disk that limits your data transfer.  You don’t have to worry about disk fragmentation that would limit your throughput.  Launching new programs have next to no delay.  If you really need a terabyte or three of space, get a second data drive.  

They are quiet, as they have no moving parts.  They are all sized for laptops if you wish.  Which consume less energy then a hard drive, about 2/3rds less.   Which means you laptop battery will last longer.  If you do customer facing work, this means your start-up time is minimal when you need it.  With such a short boot up time you can shut the computer down rather than sleep mode, further saving your battery.

Like a lot of things electronic, the price keeps coming down.  A terabyte sized SSD drive is now only $330, while a 480 gigabyte is only $120 and a 240 gig is only $60.  Plenty of room for the operating system and many programs.  

Thinking about upgrade rather than buy new?  As I was going through a number of computer upgrades, I bought the Geek Squad tech support package for $100 for the year.  So this year I had them clone both my wife’s and my son's hard drive to an SSD.  There computers weren’t slow before, but now they are amazingly fast.

The Best Cars of the 20th Century.

The Best Cars of the 20^th Century.

#10, the Ford Model ‘T’

                While this car would not even be street legal any more, it was heralded as the answer to the horse manure problem facing cities of the day.  At 600 dollars a copy it was easily available to most middle class people.  Given a straight road, an extra gas can and two spare tires it could travel 100 miles in 8 hours. 

#9, the Wiley Jeep

                Designed in just 120 days as a ¼ ton truck for the Army, this was the car that won World War 2.  It had unprecedented power for a vehicle its size and was extremely adaptable to everything but swimming.(they tried, it didn’t)  650,000 were built in 3 years, enough motorization to place every man in the army on the road at the same time. 

#8, the Volkswagen Beetle.

                Cheap, reliable, cramped.  The beetle was and is the worlds most popular car.  Designed in the 30’s, it is still produced, to this day with the original blueprints in Brazil.  All attempts to upgrade this car have failed in the market.  There is only one Beetle.        (Note, this was written in 2001, before the invention of the new Beetle.)

#7, the 57 Thunderbird.

                What a boat.  Beautiful, powerful, and sleeps 6 in a pinch. 

#6, the Delorien

                This car only had 4 problems, parts, narcs, parking too close to other cars, and its inability to exceed 88 mph without hitting yesterday.

#5, the Jenson Healy

                After the split from Austin, Healy took the complaints to heart on his previous creation and teamed up with car maker Jenson, to create the Jenson Healy.  As looks went, women who were just out shopping, suddenly had the urge to hitchhike when it rolled by.  Its aerodynamics were 20 years ahead of its time.  Its three liter engine treated the 140mph speedometer as a “suggestion” 

#4, the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

                The name in pomposity.  The company that had no car repairmen on the staff because they were never required.  (True English chauffeurs being what they are).  It is the only car that gains value after it leaves the dealership.    

#3, 67 Ford Mustang

                There may have been better built cars, but none are better loved.  It had every thing, affordability, looks, upgradablility and cameo shots on most TV shows for the next 10 years.  Parts were available every where, from WWII surplus fighters to nuclear subs, if you removed a nut or bolt, it would fit somewhere on the Mustang.

#2, the 57 Corvette.

                Route 66, sky blue, there was no better convertible to tool around in.

#1, the Lamborghini Countach (loosely translated “Oh My God”)

                The acceleration limits on this car is limited only by the drivers ability to move the shift lever.  It is rumored that the Star Trek warp speed visual effects were a retouched video of a Countach hitting 2^nd gear while being used to accelerate particles at Fermi lab.  With the hot tub option, this car can be a single seater.  At 4mpg, it makes the ideal commuter car for oil company executives.  Due to the handcrafted nature of the vehicle, no Countach has ever been stolen, as its parts are not even compatible with other Lamborghini’s.  It’s unique styling also makes it subject to frequent police stops for speeding, even while garaged.

Honorable Mention.

The Trabant.

                The Trabant borrowed ideas from all the greats.   It had longer waiting lists than the Lamborghini. It faded to sky blue after a few months.  It had parts salvaged from burned out tanks.  The company had no car repairmen on the payroll.  Women would try to hitchhike rather than ride in one.  It had a problem reaching 88 kph. Otherwise, it emitted more smoke than a T bird on fire, it was cramped like a beetle, sank like a jeep, and could not get 100 miles on a tank of gas. But the “Trabbie” made East Germany what it is today, an impoverished suburb of West Germany.  It is the Car that won the Cold War.