Thursday, February 15, 2018

Cardboard and Coffee

Again, can't stop looking at the World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, a universal language of coffee’s sensory qualities. Why? Because they have a category for Stale/Papery. And you might ask, why would I want my coffee to taste like an old paper cup? Well, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be an aroma in the coffee, or a thing to avoid, to look for in an effort to make better coffee, or to make for a more discriminating palate.

But that's not it. World Coffee Research also gives a real world example of the aromas listed in their lexicon. Open a can of Bush's Pinto beans and smell it, microwave a frozen banana and mash it up and put it in a glass dish. Or, in this case of conveying the sensation of Stale, i.e, "the aroma characterized by a lack of freshness," they suggest Mama Mary’s Gourmet Original Pizza Crust. That's right, cut a 2-inch square of crust and serve in a medium snifter. Poor Mama Mary.

Just for context, "Papery," as in paper cups, is best represented by Pure Brew coffee filters, where you submerge a stack of coffee filters boiling water overnight. Better yet? Cardboard. Best represented by - cardboard. Put it in some water and sniff it up.

source document:
World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, 2016
World Coffee Research
5728 John Kimbrough Blvd., Suite 201
College Station, TX 77843-2477

Post Script:
Gotta have some Limbic Signal links to the old folks posts (because yes we all smell like old cardboard eventually)

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Hack My Sweat I Doubt It



Security and identity have become hyperfocused issues in the tech world, and for good reason. In a world where all data is available and right now, the data that’s not available becomes very valuable. That missing data is your data, and lots of people want it. Then again, lots of people just want to prove their ability to one-up technology, to prove that humans are still in charge.

Anyway, a week after the iPhone’s new face recognition screen lock feature was released, it was proven to be beneath the powers of human-powered ingenuity. We now have to think twice about face rec security.

On those heels, we have another idea that might be even better – using your sweat. This isn’t your thumbprint, but your sweatprint, your amino acid profile.

Each one of us has a distinct signature of chemicals in our sweat, just like how we have a distinct set of ratios that underlie our facial features.

Nov 2017, phys.org

Some intricacies about this I thought were interesting:
To build a profile, the device would first have a "monitoring period" in which it would continuously measure its owner's sweat levels at various times of the day. For example, those who work overnight shifts would have a vastly different profile at 2 a.m. than those who work day shifts. Other factors, including age, biological sex, race and physiological state of the individual would also play a role.

Image source: link

POST SCRIPT
On a very tangential note, I heard the other day someone trying to distinguish between monkeys and humans, and saying that they have no sense of what's going on in other places. If they don't see it, it doesn't happen. And how some birds will hook up with one mate for domestic-resources, but find another to secretly copulate with (it all depends on availability, she wants better genes for her kids, but those mates are already taken, so they just do it in secret). And the original mate has no idea. Just like monkeys have no idea what's going on behind their backs. But do they? They can't smell that stuff? Maybe that's understood, and I'm just jumping the gun. The point I'm trying to make here is that smell as a biographical marker has a lot of information with it.