Seconded. I too was hanging off his every word, and learned from this course that Roget's Thesaurus is arranged in a completely different way to a regular thesaurus (by category/association rather than alphabetically) [1], and so much about how a good song is structured.
I'm surprised there isn't mention of the Spiedels Braumeister [1] - it seems to be a similar product (albeit with less tech, and possibly a bit more manual work).
I've heard lots of good things about them, but the price has always put me off, though it is comparable to the PicoBrew, at least here in the UK.
I think they require a bit more interaction if you want to sparge (from my cursory internet forum research performed just now [2]) but at least you can (batch) sparge, and create recipes that would scale up to your big rig if you desired (and had a big rig and space etc).
I always thought that the key was to mash with an appropriate volume of liquor (or 'water' for those that don't enjoy the brewing jargon): if you chuck all the liquor in (full-volume mashing I think it's called), the thin mash means that there's less contact between the enzymes and the starches which I would expect to result in a different chemical composition.
Batch sparging on the other hand (following a mash with a regular ratio of liquor/grain - but rather than slowly rinsing the grains with sparge-temperature liquor, you fill your mash tun with your full volume of liquor at sparge temperature) may affect efficiency (positively or negatively), but shouldn't change the quality.
I've enjoyed some fine batch-sparged beers!
Oh and as for the OP's point about a beer taking three hours... I wish! For me it's more like 8 with all the cleaning and fiddling around in my tiny brewing space!
There's a famous (in the UK) example of how prevalent it seems to be in politics: a Labour aide, Jo Moore[1] eventually had to resign after issuing a memo on 9/11 basically saying "today would be a good day to bury bad news"
Codswallop! I'm in the UK and I use WhatsApp a lot. Though I do know many (mainly iPhone users with their iMessages) people that haven't heard of it, for us Android people it is an excellent tool for group chat & image sharing.
I'm personally a m4/3 convert - I exchanged my D700 and some great lenses for a full Olympus OM-D kit, and aside from a few quirks, I couldn't be happier. However I am not ashamed to say that the D700 and the glass I had was more camera than I needed; I would wager I'm not the only person who covets (and spends perhaps too much on) new and better gadgets though...
I made the switch after a holiday with a new baby - trying to carry a serious DSLR and nice lenses around with a baby just didn't work. The whole m4/3 camera and lens kit feels to me like it weighs about as much as one of the serious lenses I used to have!
A real fear is that, despite how happy I am (and clearly the author of this article is too), I don't think they're selling enough across the board (if you don't already, I'd suggest any avid photographer read Thom Hogan's stuff, and he talks about this often - e.g. here: [1]).
Another Micro Four Thirds convert here: got an Olympus E-P5 and several great lenses a month or two ago and have been having a blast with them. I got the 17mm f/1.8 that comes in the kit along with the VF-4 viewfinder. (Thank you Olympus for putting a good lens in the kit!) Also picked up the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro, 45mm f/1.8 portrait lens, the Panasonic 45-175mm, and the Samyang/Rokinon/Bower 7.5mm fisheye. They are all very fine lenses, but the macro and the fisheye have to be my favorites for pure fun factor.
(Tip: the same fisheye lens is sold under all three names. Amazon carries all three and the prices bounce up and down wildly in the $250-$350 range. So put them all in your cart and check it once in a while to see when one of them is down close to $250.)
The quality of these lenses combined with their small size and light weight makes the system a real winner for me.
I've never actually owned a DSLR. I used to shoot with a Nikon FE film SLR with some nice lenses, but switched to compact cameras when I went digital. The Canon S95 I used for the last couple of years takes great pictures. But I wanted to be able to get fisheye photos (for panorama stitching) and better macro shots, and the m4/3 has really delivered.
Thom Hogan is right that Olympus and Panasonic are having trouble selling enough of these cameras and lenses, and it probably is because people aren't moving from DSLRs to m4/3 but instead just using their smartphone cameras. For most of the photos people take most of the time, that's more than good enough.
But I also agree with his conclusion: no one should be scared away from m4/3 because of these uncertainties. You can get great cameras and great lenses right now and use them for many years.
These were taken with the Olympus and various lenses (except for the stained glass photo that I took many years ago). Some are just snapshots, but a few I'm really pleased with. All are straight out of the camera except for cropping, and defishing in the photo of the two dogs:
I did exactly the same. I had a nice D700 setup with lots of nice glass. I sold it all, and used the proceeds to by an OM-D EM-5 and a full set of primes. (Free camera!) My D700 was great when my kids were very small, and my photos were mostly taken inside my house. Now they are 6 and 12, and I found I didn't feel like taking my D700 on outings with my kids. I was missing too many shots by not having my camera. You know: "the best camera is the one you have with you."
I'm hoping that the new Olympus EM-1 (a video leaked last week of that) will be a big seller for them, and take some the business pressure off.
Thanks for the pointer to Thom Hogan's mirroless site, I only read his Nikon site. And Ming Thein is a favorite of mine, good to see him on HN.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roget%27s_Thesaurus