My Wushu Blog

So, it looks like FreeBSD 8.0 has been pre-released; the official date is going to be 11/25, as noted in src/UPDATING:

Updating Information for FreeBSD current users

This file is maintained and copyrighted by M. Warner Losh
.  See end of file for further details.  For commonly
done items, please see the COMMON ITEMS: section later in the file.

Items affecting the ports and packages system can be found in
/usr/ports/UPDATING.  Please read that file before running
portupgrade.

NOTE TO PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT FreeBSD 8.x IS SLOW ON IA64 OR SUN4V:
        For ia64 the INVARIANTS and INVARIANT_SUPPORT kernel options
        were left in the GENERIC kernel because the kernel does not
        work properly without them.  For sun4v all of the normal kernel
        debugging tools present in HEAD were left in place because
        sun4v support still needs work to become production ready.

20091125:
        8.0-RELEASE.
...

Thanks for the warning, and I don’t feel that 8.0 is slow in any way

You can now update to FreeBSD 8.0 with either syncing your source with csup:

*default host=cvsup.FreeBSD.org
*default base=/usr
*default prefix=/usr
*default delete use-rel-suffix
*default compress
src-all release=cvs tag=RELENG_8_0

Or with freebsd-update(8):

# freebsd-update -r 8.0-RELEASE upgrade

then

# freebsd-update install

and after the reboot, possibly another round of ‘freebsd-update install” to finish things up. You can actually upgrade from 7.2 to 8.0, which is pretty impressive since they are considered major releases (and minor release upgrades work just fine as well).

Why would you upgrade to 8.0 over 7.2? Well, Ivan Voras already has a very nice page on the notable features in 8:
http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/freebsd8.html
In case you want my short list version of that, here are the big highlights for me:

• Kernel Stuff
  • Kernel limit on amd64 increased (this greatly benefits ZFS)
  • Superpages
  • Network stack virtualization, equal cost multipath routing and other really cool network improvements
  • NGROUPS has been increased from 16 to 1024
  • Other kernel improvements like light weight threads, the new ULE 3.0 Scheduler
  • NFS Locking
  • Qlogic 8GB HBA support
  • New AHCI driver
• Userland Stuff
  • Parallel port builds
  • Jails v2
  • Dtrace
  • CLANG/LLVM Compiler

One of the cool things about FreeBSD is its focus on improving what is there. There have been some really big additions to FreeBSD from time to time, but overall, the goal has been to constantly refine and improve the performance. That is what I’m mostly excited about, the continual refinement of an already robust OS.

There are other features, like CLANG and LLVM or Dtrace, where I’m excited about them, but only because I can’t wait to see how others use them. I myself cannot obtain a lot of useful information from Dtrace, however, a kernel developer who knows what they are doing probably can, and that helps them out (which sometimes helps me out).

I’ve used the BETA and RC versions of 8.0, so not only was I pleased with the experience, I’m also excited to see its adoption with the new improvements. I’ve seen some PostgreSQL and MySQL benchmarks and there was a clear performance gain between 7 and 8.

Now is also a good time to mention that the FreeBSD Foundation is rounding up this years donations.

It’s pretty amazing that FreeBSD is a non-profit group; they do not have a CEO, a marketing department, or a horde of full-time developers… and yet they put out a extremely well engineered OS ( that is the boon of not having a marketing department all decisions are driven by the community demand and the developers, and not buzz-words like “the cloud”) with a killer network stack, and over 22,000 available ports.

mike Geekyness FreeBSD

Rudy does not approve of our aquatic activities

My parents had my nephews this weekend, so my Step Dad called me around 10 this morning to ask if Caralyne and I wanted to go fishing with him and the boys. Caralyne seemed really excited about the idea of going on a boat and fishing, so we got ready and met them at their house.

Getting suited up, safety first...

We launched out of Big Break, which is familiar territory. My Dad owned a bait shop here, Hook Line & Sinker, and he also lived in the house right behind the shop for a while. My Sister and I spent a lot of time down here at the marina.

It is hard to see behind the dock, but that used to be my Dad's bait shop

It is also the same marina that Big Mike used to drag me out to in the wee hours of a Saturday morning to fish with him in a tournament. He told the kids today that I was once a “Tournament Fisherman”, with some pride. It is safer to say that I was the official catcher for his grand catches, and I was also the one who would eat their share of the food within the first 20 minutes of the tournament

Caralyne and Jaden

So, just like me, with in 10 minutes of being on the water, all the kids said that they were hungry, bored and thirsty. Mike and I kind of laughed at each other since we seemed to be enjoying the outing, also laughing at the fact that we were the only ones fishing.

Colten and Big Mike

After a few hours to re-baiting worms

Nightcrawlers

Un-snagging tangled lines, and explaining to 3 kids why this was fun; Big Mike decided to head in, and stop by Jack in the Box. If we had to live off of the land, we would have either had to eat worms, or starve

Big Mike wasn’t done though, he had another idea which involved on of his ranch hand duties. He has to regularly smooth out the large riding arena, and he does this with a tractor pulling a large wooden fence post. He decided to nail a piece of plywood to that post, and let the kids sit on it while he re-paved the arena:

The Implement

And they're off

Jaden fell off, and now had to catch up

He ate it a few times getting back on

Now its Caralynes turn to fall off and catch up...

...and its her turn to bite the dust as well

I’m pretty exhausted now from corralling kids all day, and I inhaled a lot of dusty sand taking pictures on The Implement. More photos are on my main site’s photo gallery.

mike Family

Step 1: The Question

Background:
I was watching a new episode of Good Eats (Season 13, Episode 7) and Alton Brown was going over a good coffee recipe he called “Man Coffee”. It had a decent ratio of grounds to water, a coarse grind, and he employed the use of a French Press. Then, to my surprise, he added a bit of Kosher Salt.

So, being the unapologetic AB fan that I am, I decided to see how the addition of salt would taste. I had it on my coffee over the last two weeks, off and on, and I decided that I liked the additional flavor. Michele was skeptical, and didn’t think I could actually tell the difference and it was all in my fan-boy head. I admitted this was a likely scenario, and as a good scientist I have to be honest with the data; and that is the Placebo Effect does have a measurable outcome. So, I told her that I would do a blind taste test and see if there was any noticeable flavor in salted coffee.

So, the question is: Can I taste the difference between regular coffee, and coffee brewed with kosher salt.

Step 2: Research

I did a little google-ing about why people put salt in their coffee. The consensus seemed to be that it can help take away the bitterness, however, if you use enough coffee grounds you should not taste any of the acidic bitterness. Coffee becomes bitter for two reasons:

• the essential oils are washed away during the extraction process, leaving the acidic compounds (those coffee compounds are volatile, so you also have to grind the beans and brew them quickly!)
• the coffee is left on a burner longer than it should

Okay, there are more than two, but I’m not a barista or a chemist so that is all I can cover

I normally grind and brew immediately, and I use about 6 tablespoons for 4 cups of coffee which is “a lot”. I think I avoid the common bitterness pitfalls, and adding salt (to me) just seemed to add more body to the coffee.

The test is only to answer the question about detection, and not if it enhances the coffee’s flavor. That would have to be another trial, and I would need more voulenteers and cups…

Step 3: Propose a Hypothesis

I hypothesize that a pinch of salt to the coffee grounds does add a noticeable effect.

That is pretty straight-forward

Step 4: Test with an Experiment

I decided on a regular blind taste test. I wanted to do a double blind test, however, since I was the subject and Caralyne can’t make coffee, Michele had to brew and pour the samples. I also had to settle for 4 cups (those were the only clean and similar cups we had), I wanted a dozen at least so I would have a large enough sample size.

The problem with this test is that both Michele and I are biased; she knew which cup had what, and I knew what the test was about and what I was looking for in the coffee.

The test is simple, I ground up about 12 tablespoon’s worth of Kirkland Coffee.

Materials usd.

I put 6 in a cup with a pinch of salt, and 6 all alone. Each one was brewed with the same coffee maker, with 4 “cups” of water and poured into identical plastic pitchers.

Containers and Sampling cups

Michele labeled the tasting cups, and I sat down to have a taste of each one, marking which ones I liked more than the others.

Start your day off with a good cup of SCIENCE!

Step 5: Analyze Results, Draw a Conclusion

After my 4 samples, Michele and I both decided that there was a difference in taste, and I did prefer the one with salt. She didn’t like either, but that is normal since she doesn’t like the strong coffee I make anyway (she calls it “Cat Pee coffee”, which makes me think of Tiger Brand Coffee:

Tiger Brand Coffee is a real treat, even tigers prefer a cup of it to real meat

).

Conclusion

The salt does add flavor, so this is almost like me drinking a Holiday Spice or Hazelnut coffee. It’s not real untampered coffee, but it is a nice treat. I also tend to drink more water in the morning when I have it, so thats not a bad thing since coffee is a diuretic.

I’d like to acknowledge

• Alton Brown and his excellent show Good Eats
• Science Buddies dot org for their excellent page on The Scientific Method
• Wikipedia for their articles on Blind and Double Blind Testing
• My good friend and co-worker, Jenny, for giving me some great ideas on how to help narrow the test down to get useful results.
• Mr Swarm, my 7th grade science teacher at Park Jr. High, who introduced an entire class to the Scientific Method and let us perform real experiments with fire and food.
• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, a great science podcast that teaches me the difference between “theory” and “hypothesis”

Have a Scien-tastic day!

mike Geekyness blind taste test, coffee, Good Eats, the scientific method