Don't know what to tell you, but I've toured I-don't-know-how-many US/Canadian brewpubs and they were all single-step infusion set ups. I can't speak to your buddy's homebrew machine, but in many ways a home brewery can be much more flexible than a small commercial brewery. Generally speaking, to do proper step-mashing you need a separate vessel for heating the mash in addition to the lautering vessel, which is obviously more costly and takes up more space. You can do limited step mashing in a single mash vessel set up by adding more hot water, but there are limitations to what you can do there.

From my understanding, the most successful breweries are not as concerned about their recipes being stolen because they have a proprietary yeast strain that they own and no one else can get.

Not to mention...not all breweries are the same. For instance, many German brewers use a traditional method called decoction mashing where portions of the mash are drawn off and boiled and then returned to the main mash to raise the temperatures for various enzymatic reactions, which will yield malty flavors that are difficult to achieve otherwise. Very few breweries outside Europe have this capability, in fact many smaller US craft breweries only allow for one step infusion mashing (hot water added to grain where the mash can only have one temperature stage) which limits the kinds of malts that can be used as the lightest and least modified malts require multiple stages of temperature rests. This is why it is exceeding rare for N. American breweries to be able to fully reproduce the flavors of e.g., a German Pils.

So much of brewing relies on process that just knowing the "recipe" (i.e., just the specific ingredients) is not a guarantee of being able to reproduce the beer.

It's perfectly fine to use the English plural of English words, whatever language they're borrowed from ...

As with much of the English language, it depends on the specific case. If you were to use "datums", "agendums", "bacteriums", or "criterions" instead of "data", "agenda", "bacteria", or "criteria", those would be nearly universally considered incorrect. There is not much rhyme or reason other than how the usage evolved in practice.

Not trying to be pedantic, just pointing out that English has few hard and fast rules in that regard. And on that note, I'm off to meet up with some of my fellow alumnuses from college for a night at the opuses. :)

Seconded. I had no idea about his background. He was just downgraded from 'windbag' to 'shitbag' in my book.

Actually, I would posit that "crazy-out-of-control-in-a-hurry-drivers" and the self-appointed vigilante traffic cops that feel obligated to thwart them are merely two different species of asshole drivers. If you think that you have a right to endanger public safety because you can't manage to allot enough travel time because you always assume perfect traffic conditions, you're an asshole. And if the person who thinks you are driving like an asshole thinks they have the right to endanger public safety by being an obstacle to you, that person is an asshole too.

I do agree that the latter behavior is not criticized enough, and it should be explicitly stated in driving instruction that retaliatory obstructionism is as dangerous as the drivers they are trying to thwart. But make no mistake, if you believe that you "have to take dangerous maneuvers to pass these fools", you shouldn't be driving, period.

Well, as for the bulk of the your post, all I'll say is that the 5 beers are showing.

As for calculating your total calories, it all depends on the pizza. The beer is pretty much 750 kcal (a little less if light beer, but potentially much more if say a nice malty craft brew), but depending on the size of pizza and toppings, it could be 700-800 kcal, it could be 2000 or even much much more.

So there's a well-regarded scientific study (and there have been many others) showing the opposite of what you claim, yet you stick to it without offering any evidence to the contrary.

Plenty of people may *claim* to eat diets that low in calories, but we also know that people both fat and thin tend to greatly underestimate their intake. Clinical studies like these make clear such a diet will generally make most people miserable, and likely the main reason such diets virtually always fail in the long term.

My point was with the statement "A normal person can live on 1300 - 1700 kcal just fine."

So note: "During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject's dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 calories per day."

...and...

"Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression. There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally). Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation."

That doesn't sound like most people will "live on 1300 - 1700 kcal just fine".

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment disagrees with you.

It is also well observed that lean people are just as prone to underestimate the amount of calories they consume as do the overweight/obese, so it's quite possible that all the people who claim to only eat circa 1500 kcal/day are eating significantly more. Remember that if you are not fat, no one will ever call you out on it.

We could look at the first law of thermodynamics.

And you could also realize that the first law of thermodynamics says nothing about causation. After all, thermodynamics are exactly as applicable to normal human growth as they are to obesity, but no one attributes the *cause* of growth in a child or abnormalities of growth like gigantism or dwarfism to caloric balance. Biology matters.

The average user isn't going to have (or be able to write) a secure random word selector. He's going to look at the "new password" field and think up 4 words, and they're almost certain to be related somehow.

The Diceware method can be done with a downloaded word list file and some dice. If, as the article suggests, one is only using memorizable passwords where absolutely necessary, this method is neither burdensome nor difficult for even the most 'average' of users.