I haven't tried Super brand coffee since many years ago and my supply of coffee powder, which had always been various versions of Nescafe, was recently replenished with the Super 3-in-1 Regular coffee. Since my tastes have been shaped by years of Nescafe coffee, I was curious what Super coffee was like compared to it.
As I suspected, it was significantly blander. When I poured a packet Nescafe powder into my mug of hot water, I'd see a dark brown within white as the powder on the surface dissolved. Super Regular coffee, when added to hot water, was mostly white with slivers of light brown. The aroma was barely detectable before drinking and the flavour was light. With Nescafe I'd usually prefer to add one packet of sugar, but with Super I did not see the need to. It may be just me I admit, but it tasted more like coffee-flavoured creamer than coffee with creamer. I've tried drinking water with nothing but creamer powder so I know the taste pretty well.
While I sipped on this hot coffee, I felt like Winston Smith with his Victory Gin from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The government-produced Victory Gin (it was a socialist society) was described to be fairly disgusting in terms of taste and smell, but was the only alcohol the middle class could legally obtain. Honestly speaking, even First Choice brand (a brand commonly associated with low price products) Mint Tea is much more enjoyable than this coffee. Not that the tea is bad but it's cheaper despite the better experience it provides.
Another brand of coffee I've tried is Owl, which is from the same company, Super. It's different but just as bad, to be honest. Can't remember other brands.
It's sometimes hard to understand why people try to deny some things so hard. It's like those people who deny that the Holocaust in WWII or the moon landing ever happened. We're getting new records in all sorts of weather-related levels like snow and temperature and there are people who still don't believe there's anything different?
In a party conference in April, Republican firebrand Sarah Palin, a potential 2012 presidential nominee, mocked what she called the "snake-oil-based, global warming, Gore-gate" crowd.
It is obvious to anyone who isn't blind that something is happening that wasn't there 40 years ago. This month's National Geographic has two photos of Mount Everest's East Rongbuk Glacier, one from 1921 and the other from 2008. In 1921 the glacier covered almost the entire landscape with ice while in 2008 I couldn't even tell that it was a glacier because it looked more like just some snow covering the hills.
I'm not saying I'm completely in support of these scientists, it's just that it's wrong to deny numbers. I don't agree with doing everything we can to reduce our carbon emissions because its rise is inevitable as long as human population increases. This is just a delaying action and by how much, we cannot say.
Instead I'd suggest hoarding money and investing in flood protection, water conservation and storage, new desalination techniques, more land-efficient farming technologies and Soylent Green.
Flood protection and water conservation are necessary for obvious reasons.
New desalination techniques are necessary because today it's still pretty expensive in terms of money and energy compared to having fresh water sources.
More land-efficient farming technologies are good not just because arable land is being destroyed by floods or droughts, but because if you can have a multi-storey farm building it may be possible to have them built closer or within cities to reduce transport costs.
Soylent Green was a joke; we're not that desperate yet.
Simply put, I'm more interested in the cure than prevention since the latter doesn't make much sense to me anymore. But like the scientist in the article said, I didn't do any research. I have no data to back my opinions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be one of the few females in the male-dominated political arena, but damn she's got more balls than everyone else. All the other leaders have been so quick to express their desire to send financial aid to Greece that it really did feel like they were trying to gain popularity regardless of the long-term effects on their own economies. Haste is understandably necessary because each day they delay the value of the Euro drops a little more, yet too much haste would not allow them enough time to think things through.
She's the only one who dares to speak out in order to do what has to be done for the good of their currency. Unfortunately, people are people and some Greeks don't seem to understand what she's doing other than making them suffer. Of course, that's to be expected since they're the ones who are going to be punished. Worse is that she's also making enemies among her peers. I think this is going to be a major test of unity among the EU members. Of course it won't break since too much are at stake, but cracks can lead to bigger things when they are allowed to accumulate.
Wow the Pakistani government must be very desperate in dealing with this recent energy crisis. Though 500MW of power may not mean anything to many, the measures they now employ speaks of the seriousness of what that number means. First of all before anything else, let's translate that to something more similar to what we see in our utility bills:
500MW for a day = 43,200,000MWh = 43,200,000,000kWh of energy
Second, they increased the weekend by a day. Well we've done that here in Singapore too by getting rid of the half-day on Saturday, but they're doing this for different reasons despite the economic impacts of forcing citizens to stop working for one day every week.
Third, power to government offices was cut by half. HALF! What are they suggesting? Reduce air-conditioning in their server rooms? Because that is one major energy black hole there. Are they going to revert to candles and buffalo chips to replace electric lights? Or just get lots of hamsters on steroids?
That's a squirrel but you get the idea.Fourth, commercial centres to be closed at 8pm. EIGHT?!?!? That's barely dusk! No more late-night movies or shopping for Pakistanis until this is over. Night life sucks at the moment over there.
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