Shared posts

12 Jul 00:36

Cardiacs - Sing To God (Reissue)

by Sean Kitching
Tertiarymatt

This is such a tremendous record.

"Held in high esteem by the fans themselves, as well as being considered to be the best point of entry for beginners, STG represents the pinnacle of Tim Smith's studio mastery and exhibits elements of the gentler side of his Sea Nymphs project alongside the full-on helter skelter, breakneck velocity more usually associated with the band. It is also, despite the richness of its orchestration and more experimental tendencies, decidedly a pop record - one as quintessentially English sounding as Pink Floyd's seminal Piper At The Gates of Dawn or XTC's classic English Settlement.

As well as being extremely easy on the eye, the vinyl itself sounds wonderful. A sound like a wind chime being struck followed by some seconds silence proceeds from the initial drop of the needle as 'Eden On The Air' swells, imperceptibly at first, to coalesce like early morning mist, beautiful but only briefly there. After such serenity, 'Eat It Up Worms Hero' comes as something of a shock, shaking the listener rudely out of their reverie. Easily the album's most abrasive and chaotic sounding track, I'd put money on the likelihood that the most unfavourable of the initial reviewers didn't make it past this point. Whether this was consciously Smith's design, to play "out" from the beginning to scare off the faint of heart because this wasn't for them anyway, the end result is pretty hard to argue with. This is not a tune that would have existed on an early Cardiacs album, but rather a product of Smith using the studio as instrument, conducting a mass of choral voices against buzzsaw guitars and manic electronic pulses."

05 Jul 22:08

by jamie
Tertiarymatt

I don't remember following this feed.


05 Jul 21:39

Detail from page 338 of Family Man, now online!

Tertiarymatt

Not exactly.



Detail from page 338 of Family Man, now online!

05 Jul 21:39

Mask.

by cardiograms
Tertiarymatt

More Sam.



Mask.

05 Jul 21:36

Sonifying Color by Samantha Klapp 1-channel video/2-channel...

by cardiograms
Tertiarymatt

Some of Sam's work.



Sonifying Color by Samantha Klapp

1-channel video/2-channel sound piece that sonifies the color spectrum using wavelength data from nasa.gov and an original algorithm in Supercollider to turn that data into frequencies that the human ear can detect. The piece was coded frame by frame, using this algorithm to synthesize the color frequencies appearing on screen, along with various filters for its own unique texture. Best experienced with headphones or good 2-channel speaker system.

Original footage shot by Hyun Lee, re-edited and manipulated by Samantha Klapp with permission
Sound by Samantha Klapp

05 Jul 18:59

Cognac Preview #1 — Claude Thorin

by David Driscoll
Tertiarymatt

I wish Seattle had a liquor store as ambitious as K&L.

We are going to sell so much Claude Thorin Cognac at K&L this year that I expect it to be a household name with our customer base by 2015. Brandy drinkers searching for Grand Champagne quality at reasonable prices are going to be thrilled—there's nothing this good for this cheap on the American market and we're bringing in a whole lotta Thorin for that very reason.

All of the new-make from Claude Thorin goes into new Limousin oak for the first twelve months before being transferred into used russet barrels. From what I tasted, there is very little coloring or boise being added to the final blends as the clean, fruit-driven flavor of Grand Champagne is front and center. There's nothing transcendent going on with each sip, just good, honest brandy from a French farmer. It's when you see the price tags that your eyes jump out of your head.

We were very interested in just about everything that Mr. Thorin poured us that afternoon at his chateau, but we narrowed our scope down to four basic expressions: the core range of VS, VSOP, and Napoleon, along with a 2002 Vintage that was so clean it reminded us of the Bruichladdich Bere Barley whisky from a while back. We're expecting the VS (a five year old marriage) to clock in around $29.99, the VSOP (made from eight year old brandies) at $39.99, and the Napoleon (a fifteen year old expression) for around $59.99. The 2002 Vintage should be about $59.99 as well. These will be the work-horse brandies of our collection and we're pretty sure that—after trying out a bottle or two—you'll be back for seconds.

-David Driscoll

05 Jul 18:54

Kulsveen (aka Willett) Whiskey Finally Here

by David Driscoll
Tertiarymatt

I have had some extremely good bottle of Willett Single Barrel, back when I lived in Southern Indiana, and our local liquor store would buy an entire barrels worth.

For years we've been waiting for the Willett distillery to start making whiskey again. Today, we finally get our first taste.

Willett Distillery 2 Year Old Rye Whiskey $43.99 - It's been a long time in the making, but the first batch of 100% Willett distilled rye is finally here--and it's glorious. For years, Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, run by the Kulsveen family, has been bottling fantastic whiskey under their numerous labels; Willett being just one of the expressions (along with Noah's Mill, Rowan's Creek, Johnny Drum, etc.). Willett Distillery was actually founded in the 1930s by former Bernheim superintendent Thompson Willett, but subsequent generations of the family would become disinterested in Bourbon until the distillery finally closed. Evan Kulsveen, who married Willett's daughter, purchased the abandoned site in 1984 with plans to reopen his father in law's once-great operation. Almost thirty years later, his son Drew and son-in-law Hunter have the site refurbished and back on track. This batch of two year old rye marks the first time the whiskey in a Willett rye bottle has been the product of the Willett distillery and not a purchased barrel from LDI distillery in Indiana. It's shockingly good considering the young age. Imagine the pure rye flavors of Anchor's Old Potrero with the cinnamon and baking spices of the Templeton. Bottled at 54.7% ABV, the power and intensity of the whiskey is also on display, but it's balanced beautifully by the richness. It's a giant leap forward for the Willett distillery and it's an exciting day for those of us who have been waiting for this moment for some time.

-David Driscoll

05 Jul 18:51

Central Valley Rye Harvest

by David Driscoll
Tertiarymatt

Would definitely like to try this.

Some of you might remember my article about Corbin distillery from the five part series I did about vodka last year. But, then again, it was a blog post about craft vodka so you might have just skipped over it. If you don't feel like going back and perusing the details, I'll give you a quick summary: Corbin is a farm located in Atwater, California (just south of my hometown of Modesto in the Central Valley—we had some heated baseball games against Atwater High School) that grows sweet potatoes. A few years back, David Souza—whose family has farmed in the region for a hundred years—decided to add a still to preserve the unused harvest (just like farmers have been doing for hundreds of years) and Corbin Sweet Potato Vodka was born.

However, what I just learned recently (during a phone call with the distillery) is that sweet potatoes need a lot of nitrogen to grow. Therefore, a nitrogen-heavy fertilizer is used to help the soil provide the necessary nutrients for the crop. The sandy soil of Atwater, however, leaches a lot of the nitrogen deep into the earth and a cover crop is needed to help remove some of the nitrogen before another round of sweet potatoes can be planted. It just so happens that rye is the perfect cover. Erik Teague, the brand manager for Corbin, told me:

While sweet potatoes are our primary crop, a hearty, drought tolerant cereal grain, native to California— called ‘Merced Rye’— is planted after sweet potato harvest. Merced Rye not only flourishes in our extreme climates without a high demand for irrigation, it has a very helpful extensive root system. Reaching soil depths of up to thirteen feet, Merced Rye naturally mines nutrients that have leached into our sandy soil, back to the surface. When the stocks are disked back into the ground, it provides a soil base rich in nutrients for following seasons’ crops.

The fact that Merced Rye is a grain we know very well and is in no short supply to us, creates a desirable substrate for us as distillers.

Rye being ground into grist at Corbin distillery

You can guess where this is going. It turns out that Corbin hasn't only been distilling sweet potato vodka over the past few years; they've also been growing, harvesting, fermenting and distilling their own rye—purchasing custom-charred, 53 gallon white oak barrels from Missouri and filling them with their 100% farm-to-bottle distillate. They began maturing their whiskey four years ago and today we finally get to try the finished product. I know my pal Chuck Cowdery will be happy to hear that when you buy a bottle of Corbin Merced Rye Whiskey, it's actually entirely made in the region designated on the label (unlike a large number of other rye whiskies on the market).

It's also not some six-month-old, quarter-cask-aged, rushed-to-market, let's-capitalize-on-the-whole-rye-boom, "craft" whiskey. It's the real deal, and the story is a big part of what makes it so special. I can't think of one other distillery that is handling every step of the rye-making process from literally planting the seed, to bottling the mature spirit. If you care about that kind of thing, you're going to want a bottle of the Corbin Merced Rye Whiskey—especially if you have any California pride! If you don't care about that kind of thing, you're still going to want a bottle simply because the whiskey tastes good.

Corbin Cash Merced Rye Whiskey $46.99Distilled on the same German Holstein still, the almost 4 year old rye (3.75 years to be exact) shows a perfectly-balanced nose of rich oak and rye grain aromas, and a leaner, more classically-styled mouthfeel with hints of baking spice from the barrel aging. It's not a full throttle high proof experience, nor is it a softer, gentler spirit like the Bulleit or Templeton products. It falls somewhere in between Russell's Reserve 6 and Rittenhouse, if you're looking for a comparison, but after multiple tastings it's clear that the Corbin is its own thinga purely Californian whiskey, 100% from farm to bottle.

I have a feeling 2014 will be an important year in the annuls of small-production whiskey (I'm disowning the word "craft" from this point on because I think it adds a negative connotation), simply because it's the first year where smaller distilleries have begun offering viable alternatives to the big-boys at reasonable prices. Both Willett and Corbin have turned in fantastic rye whiskies this month, and there are a few more regional secrets I'm sitting on for later this Fall. More importantly, we're back to working with families rather than global conglomerates, which is much more fun for me. There's something wonderful about two family-run, California businesses bringing booze to the people—K&L and Corbin working as farmer and merchant.

That's as romantic of a story as I can tell in the booze business—and the whiskey tastes good, too!

-David Driscoll

05 Jul 04:19

imop: doodle



imop:

doodle

04 Jul 01:41

Art of the day: Luther Levy, Prince of Nerds



Art of the day: Luther Levy, Prince of Nerds

03 Jul 15:36

In Brief: Finding Innovation in Vinyl Record Technology

by Norman Chan
Tertiarymatt

HIDDEN TRACKS ON VINYL

We've previously written about Third Man Records and the process of creating vibrant vinyl records, but Jack White's record label is doing more than mixing colors into the vinyl press. This Smithsonian story explores different technologies and tricks being used by small labels and makers to mix up the venerable analog record. Some are experiments in materials, like the laser cut maple wood record by Amanda Ghassaei, but others, like adding hidden tracks in grooves beneath label at the center of the disc, are functional easter eggs.

03 Jul 04:00

Art of the day: Are you happy?

Tertiarymatt

Well, maybe.



Art of the day: Are you happy?

02 Jul 18:51

What if you only have £300?

by Tom Mahon
Tertiarymatt

So many rules.

hankie235.bmp
( A hankie, simply tucked in)

After receiving a lot of e-mails from English Cut readers, it’s pretty obvious that there’s plenty of people out there who would love to have a handmade suit from any of the wonderful tailors on Savile Row. But the reality is; they don’t come cheap. Not everybody has £3000 to spend on a suit.

What if you have only £300 to spend? [approx. $500 US] For that money, I’m afraid all you’ll get on Savile Row is a very good meal for you and your friends at Sartoria, a lovely restaurant on the corner of Savile Row & New Burlington Street.

With £300 you will have to settle for standard ready-to-wear, unless you get very lucky and find a good second-hand bespoke in a charity shop (which does happen occasionally), or you happen to know the name of a good tailor in the Far East.

That being said, for £300 you actually can get a ready-to-wear decent enough to convince us in the trade that you spent more around the £600-700 mark (approx. $1100 US). Just as long as you ignore the labels and follow these points:

1. Cloth.

Pick a classic, grey or blue worsted, perhaps even a pin or chalk stripe in classic colours. Make sure it’s wool, not polyester or any other weird-sounding fabric, the latter being usually just a disguise for cheap, synthetic rubbish.

2. Style.

Make sure you pick a classic, single-breasted, two or three button front. Never choose those dreadful four-buttons or Nehru style collar suits- they reek of cheap designer rubbish and look ridiculous once you’re over twenty years old. A double breasted is cool, but try to find a six button (two fastening , and only fasten the top button).

3. Detail.

Little things to look for are important; those in the know will spot them a mile off. Make sure that the lapel has a decent lapel hole. Straight and of a decent length. Ours are 1 & 1/8” long , you are unlikely to find that but still, the longer, the better.

Avoid at all costs a “keyhole lapel” hole. This is an awful clanger that’s dropped by even the most expensive designer labels. Always try to get four buttons on the cuff and make sure they have button holes- I know they won’t be actual, functioning buttonholes at that price point, but they’ll look the part. Never pick the type that just sew the buttons on to the cuff, that’s a serious faux pas.

hankie236.bmp
(Photo from Marks & Spencer website)

Make sure the pockets have flaps, and that there is an out breast pocket. You often don’t spot this until you notice you’ve nowhere for your handkerchief.

4. Trousers.

There aren’t as many things to go wrong here, but if possible try to avoid belt loops. We’re not fans of them in the business and it can look really untidy, especially when you’re wearing your favorite Harley Davidson buckle. Try to find the trousers with side strap adjusters, fastened with a buckle or buttons (in the trade they’re called “Daks tops”).

Plain fronts are fine but if you want pleats, try to make sure they have four, and not two. Sadly, 95% of ready-to-wears have the pleats going the wrong way, i.e. reversed. I know our Italian cousins would argue the opposite, but on The Row our pleats go forward. It makes for a more flattering line on the leg. This is unlike the continental way, which throws a lot of fullness behind the thigh, which can look baggy.

5. Fit.

As it’s not pure bespoke, the fit will of course be a compromise. However, you can still look pretty good, very good if you’re lucky. Again, ignore the labels- just because it’s claiming to be a “posh” product doesn’t mean it’s going to fit you the best. A ready-to-wear is a pattern cutter’s interpretation of which shape fits most people. A 40 Reg. from two different manufacturers can look totally different, so try them all on, and be honest with yourself. As I said in an earlier post, if you’re in between sizes, then get the larger size and have it altered for a small cost at a high street alteration specialist.

6. Accessories.

If you follow the above advice you should be looking pretty good, so don’t shoot yourself in the foot by wearing a paisley shirt with your favorite kipper tie. I know I’m being personal here, but I don’t think you can beat a clean white or pale blue shirt with a double cuff and cufflinks. Again, make sure the fit is generous; you should show cuff. Skimpy shirt sleeves are awful. Well-chosen cuff links or silk knots only cost a couple of pounds and look superb.

The tie should be silk and, like as the suit, don’t even consider polyester (I hate the word, let alone the material). Printed designs are fine, but woven is better. Again, you’re not talking a fortune here if you look around. It’s not mandatory, but I do like a handkerchief, silk or just plain white cotton. You can fold these or, like me, just pinch it in the middle and stuff it in, as simple as that.

Shoes and socks are not rocket science. Again, keep it classic, and above all keep them polished and shining.

So, choose wisely and I think you will look like a regular James Bond. Keep dressing like that, and you’ll soon get a promotion and be able to enjoy more than just dinner on The Row.

[TIP:] For the money, the British high street retailer, Marks & Spencer’s makes as good a suit as anyone. [NB: I do not have any business dealings with them. Just one tailor’s opinion etc.]

Written by Thomas Mahon in 2005

02 Jul 17:49

The Science and Mysteries of Booze

by Joey Fameli
Tertiarymatt

Gonna watch this later. Has anyone picked up "Proof: The Science of Booze" yet?

02 Jul 17:48

CNC Weaver Builds Nifty 3D Structures

by Will Smith
Tertiarymatt

Have you ever wanted to weave a 3d object?

02 Jul 17:25

Happy Birthday to Me

by Christopher Wright
Tertiarymatt

Be sure to send him a pony.

Today is my birthday. I am 43 today.

In honor of turning 43--truly a perilous age, if ever there was one--I decided I wanted to do something reckless and ill-advised. Obviously that meant recording a political endorsement and posting it to YouTube.

Duh.

For those of you who don't play with iframes well: Birthday Wish - Mayday PAC

02 Jul 05:38

Surface Area

Tertiarymatt

Seattle joke in the alt text.

The thing that bothers me about this is that the I don't know if Io is really that big, or if it's a projection thing. I've been doing GIS work recently.

This isn't an informational illustration; this is a thing I think we should do. First, we'll need a gigantic spool of thread. Next, we'll need some kind of ... hmm, time to head to Seattle.
02 Jul 05:36

Art of the day: Waiting.

Tertiarymatt

BUTT FOR WHAT?



Art of the day: Waiting.

02 Jul 04:13

The Art of Hand-Making Scissors

by Norman Chan
Tertiarymatt

The video on clickthru is bloody lovely.

02 Jul 02:34

New55 at 10,000X

by Bob Crowley
Tertiarymatt

Instant photography is fucking complicated.

The world of the really small, too small for us to see unaided, is the province of the microscopist. The microscope, as you surely know, allows us to see details that we could never imagine and has had countless uses in medicine, industry and science.  There are dozens of types of microscopes, optical, acoustic, fluorescent, field emission and scanning electron, to name but a few.  Today we used the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to look at the edge of a receiver sheet - that's the white paper where instant positive photographs form, and it is quite a complex thing.

The receiver sheet as described by Andre Rott and Edith Weyde contained nuclei - mainly of metals and metallic salts - suspended in the top layer of paper, or any substrate.  When contacted by the processing chemical, and an exposed negative, the interchange of ionic silver, solvents, and sulfides occur in a rapid, battery-like process.  Electrical charges, yes. The "electrolyte" is not that different than most alkaline batteries, except that is a developer and a fixer, too.

The silver halide in the exposed negative represents one "terminal" of the circuit. What is the second? In the fast-paced world of Diffusion Transfer Reversal, otherwise known as instant photography, it is the receiver paper, or more exactly, minute metals or metal salts and precursors, that form the second "electrode".  Those who are familiar with battery technology are sure to ask "which is the cathode, and which is the anode?" It depends.

Below are two SEM images obtained just today that show the various receiver sheet layers. Stacked like a cake, but made of paper, then a baryta coat, then acid layers, a timing layer, a nucleation layer, and finally a top, or release layer (to prevent sticking).  New55 FILM needs to make this or something like it. It's a daunting task as there are no recipes and even if there were, perhaps from patents and scientific papers, there'd still be a lot of process information. So we have over the last month started on the development of these layers, beginning with our visit to Colorado, where coaters capable of coating so-called "solvent coats" meaning, not water-based, but instead based on alcohols, acetone, or some other solvent. That was just the start: Now, every day, the coating team formulates at least one or two experiments, tests them, and decides on the next experiment.

The value of an SEM is hard to overestimate, and I would like to have one close, in our lab.

Baryta, then cellulose acetate, acid layer and other layers

The nucleation layer. We barely see the tiny nanoparticles.

















30 Jun 19:06

Opinion analysis: Does the new religious exemption go far enough? (UPDATED)

by Lyle Denniston
Tertiarymatt

"An issue that was not directly before the Court (although the Alito opinion made a couple of passing mentions of it) is directly tied up with how the accommodation the two Justices discussed actually will work.

To take advantage of the exemption, a closely held company owned by religiously devout individuals must file a form, specified by the government, in order to trigger the legal duty of the “middle man” to provide the coverage as a stand-in for the company or its owners.

Federal government lawyers have made it clear in court, over and over again, that the “middle man” will not have any authority to step in unless the company or its owners file that government form claiming an exemption for the mandate.

Some whose religions tell them to have nothing to do with some forms of birth control (often on the premise that they amount to a form of abortion) believe that even the filing of that formal declaration is itself an act of participation in the provision of those very services for people on their payroll. The form sets in motion, this argument goes, the entire process that results in birth control being made available to the workers for free."

In other words, for women to get coverage, the company MUST STILL ENGAGE IN BEHAVIOR TO OBJECTS TO, under the proposed solution.

Which is yet another reason why Alito's opinion is an example of a shoddily written, badly thought through decision.

UPDATE 2:14 p.m.   Acting swiftly in the wake of the Court’s ruling on Monday, and relying directly upon that decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Monday blocked all enforcement of the mandate against an Alabama Catholic TV network, a non-profit entity.   The concurring opinion of the court of appeals, written by Circuit Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., argued that the accommodation, discussed in the following post, is itself likely to be struck down.

——————

Analysis

Female employees of companies whose owners’ religious beliefs forbid them to provide access to birth control may look forward to that coverage by other means — but, again, maybe not.  The answer depends upon how literally the Supreme Court, in future cases, reads the language it used on Monday to assure those workers that they will get that coverage, after all, under the new federal health care law.

Read as actually contained in two opinions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, that language seems to decide an issue that actually was not before the Court — but soon will be.  Here is that question:  does the accommodation of business owners’ religious views need an added accommodation to make it acceptable to them, and to make the birth control mandate legal?

Justice Alito announces opinion in Hobby Lobby (Art Lien)

Justice Alito announces opinion in Hobby Lobby (Art Lien)

Understanding the scope of the Court’s ruling depends upon both the lead opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., which has the full support of four other Justices and that makes it binding, and upon the separate opinion of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who, while one of the five in the majority, wrote separately in an attempt to show how narrow the Court’s decision was.

First, a bit of background.

As the federal government interprets the Affordable Care Act, it includes mandatory coverage in employee health plans of sixteen different forms of medical care related to child-bearing, or its prevention.  In Monday’s decision, profit-making businesses that are owned only by a family or other closely allied individuals (or by a family trust) have a legal right under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act not to be forced to include four specific forms of birth control in their workers’ plan.

But, as both Justice Alito and Justice Kennedy pointed out, the government has fashioned an alternative way to assure such coverage.   Rather than making the owners pay for the coverage to which they object for religious reasons, the employee benefit plan itself — that is, the insurance company or the internal plan administrator — has to take on the obligation, and provide the coverage to the female workers, free of charge.

Either this “middle man” has to absorb the cost itself (the owners can’t be required to put up the money), or it will get a government subsidy to help cover the cost.

Is that enough of an accommodation of the owners’ religious objection?   The two key opinions on Monday seemed, literally speaking, to say it was.

Justice Alito wrote:  ”An approach of this type . . . does not impinge on the [companies' or owners'] belief that providing insurance coverage for the contraceptives at issue here violates their religion, and it serves [the government's] stated interests equally well.”  (The government’s interest here is to assure that women have access to the birth-control services.)

Alito’s opinion for the Court went on, saying that the dissenters’ on Monday had identified “no reason why this accommodation would fail to protect the asserted needs of women as effectively as the contraceptive mandate, and there is none.”

Justice Kennedy, in his separate concurring opinion, made the same point.  And, in fact, he was more emphatic.  Taking note of the “existing accommodation the government has designed, identified, and used for circumstances closely parallel to those presented here,” Kennedy said flatly that “RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] requires the government to use this less restrictive means.”

It is rather difficult to read those comments by those two Justices as anything other than a declaration that religiously oriented owners of closely held companies must be satisfied with letting the “middle man” take on, in their place, the obligation to provide the birth-control coverage.   That, the comments seem to say, is good enough.

But that may not be the end of the matter.   An issue that was not directly before the Court (although the Alito opinion made a couple of passing mentions of it) is directly tied up with how the accommodation the two Justices discussed actually will work.

To take advantage of the exemption, a closely held company owned by religiously devout individuals must file a form, specified by the government, in order to trigger the legal duty of the “middle man” to provide the coverage as a stand-in for the company or its owners.

Federal government lawyers have made it clear in court, over and over again, that the “middle man” will not have any authority to step in unless the company or its owners file that government form claiming an exemption for the mandate.

Some whose religions tell them to have nothing to do with some forms of birth control (often on the premise that they amount to a form of abortion) believe that even the filing of that formal declaration is itself an act of participation in the provision of those very services for people on their payroll.  The form sets in motion, this argument goes, the entire process that results in birth control being made available to the workers for free.

The Court has seen that argument before, even though it was not directly at issue on Monday.  It was made to the Court late last year by a Colorado Catholic charity, the Little Sisters of the Poor.  To spare that organization from filing a form to which it had specific religious objections, the Court in January said that the Little Sisters could simply file a letter with the government, saying that it was a religious group and that it had religious objections to the coverage.

That issue is now in the process of returning to the Court in pleas by non-profit religious entities, rather than for-profit businesses, seeking what might be called the accommodation to the accommodation.  But adopting the Little Sisters of the Poor approach raises its own potential difficulty:  how is the coverage triggered if the organization does not have to file the required form?

To reiterate:  under existing government regulations, it appears, there is no legal basis for the “middle man” to begin providing coverage without the required form having been filed with it.  At a minimum, the government may have to write new regulations — or ask for help from Congress — to assure that female workers employed by such organizations will get the coverage.

It seems highly unlikely that the organizations seeking this accommodation to the accommodation will be satisfied to accept what the Court said literally on Monday, and giving up further legal challenges because of that.   Since that was not directly at issue, they would have a quite strong argument that, whatever the Court did say on the point, it actually remains unresolved.

In association with Bloomberg Law

30 Jun 17:49

Night Terrors

by Ian
Tertiarymatt

Heavy.

Night Terrors

30 Jun 14:50

This is a video of an F-22 doing insane things very low to the...

Tertiarymatt

My heart goes into my stomach repeatedly while watching this.



This is a video of an F-22 doing insane things very low to the ground.

29 Jun 22:30

Mossburn And Mathieson: a different distillery startup story

by Lew Bryson
Tertiarymatt

All the whisky.

Author - Gavin SmithAnother day, and another Scotch distillery project appears. No doubt funding will come from an issue of founders’ bonds or future cask sales, and a diverse group of private investors, while early income will be predicated on sales of gin and new-make spirit. You get the picture.

So we look at the case of Mossburn Distillers Ltd. with a slightly seen-it-all-before eye. We chat with chief executive Neil Mathieson, who outlines two distillery projects, one on the Isle of Skye and another near Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders. Talk turns to likely expenditure; and Mathieson mentions that the Borders plans involve spending between £35 and £40 million ($60 to $68 million), and that no external funding will be required.

Did he say £35 to £40 million? More or less what it cost Diageo to build its largest and most state-of-the-art distillery to date at Roseisle? Yes, he did.

Clearly we need to know more about the man and his plans. Mathieson was born in Scotland into a family with over 100 years of involvement with Scotch whisky. Moving to London, he trained as a chef, also getting involved in law, accountancy, and hotel management. He then opened a restaurant with his chef wife.

For the past 30 years he has been running Eaux de Vie, which he set up in 1984, growing it into the UK’s leading independent importer of spirits. Eaux de Vie now in the hands of Marussia Beverages BV, which ultimately belongs to the privately owned Swedish investment company Haydn Holding AB. Marussia operates vineyards in Europe and a brandy distillery in Eastern Europe, while additionally working with Caribbean rum producers.

Neil Mathieson points out that, “We started looking at having our own involvement in whisky distilling in Scotland five years ago, so we’re not jumping on a bandwagon.” In order to further these distilling ambitions, Mossburn Distillers Ltd. has been set up to create and operate the two new distilleries.

Proposed designs

Proposed designs

“At Torabhaig on the southeast coast of Skye, more than £5 million ($8 million) will be spent building a new malt distillery in a listed farm steading,” notes Mathieson. “The aim is to produce half a million liters of spirit, using traditional pot stills made for us by Forsyths. The restoration of the buildings has commenced and the first distillates will be produced in 2016. We expect that the flavor profile will be confirmed over the next year as we work on the still shape and height, malt sourcing, and wood program.”

By coincidence, distilling guru and former Diageo production director Alan Rutherford already had an existing interest in both the Jedburgh and Skye distillery projects. He was involved with the Torabhaig distillery venture before Mossburn came along, when all permissions were in place ready for work to commence. At an earlier stage Rutherford had identified the Jedburgh site as an ideal location for whisky-making in the Borders. Joining forces with the Mossburn team as technical director, it was decided that both ventures should go ahead.

“At Mossburn, our aim is to produce up to 2.5 million liters of malt and grain spirit per year,” says Neil Mathieson. “The design of the distillery buildings is currently subject to gaining planning permission, although work has begun on the other buildings at the site we own, based around the former Jedforest Hotel. We hope to start on the production buildings next year with distillation commencing in 2017. As with Torabhaig, we have yet to confirm the flavor profiles for production.

“It’s going to be a unique, statement building, which will incorporate a malt plant, a grain plant and a ‘hybrid’ plant; three distilleries under one roof, in effect. Ultimately, there will also be maturation facilities, a bottling hall and 1,000 square meters of hospitality space. We aim to have the largest whisky shop in Scotland and conference space for a spirits academy. If all goes to plan, we are talking about a 2015 build, while in 2016 the equipment will be put in place, and during 2017 the distillery and visitor center will open.”

Given that both distillery ventures are being “internally” funded by a clearly cash-rich enterprise, there are fewer pressures to obtain short-term returns for Mossburn Distillers Ltd than in the case of other fledgling whisky distillers. “We are working on a 25-year fully-funded business plan, just as we would for our other vineyard and distillery enterprises,” explains Mathieson.

Torabhaig plans

Torabhaig plans

“There will be no founders’ casks or sales of new-make spirit. We will market single malt, single grain, and blends, and the aim will be to build brands and create international sales prospects. The first limited release bottlings will probably be of five year old whisky before a standard ten or twelve is chosen. This will depend on the flavor profile the team decides on, and the development over the first five years.”

Some observers of the Scotch whisky scene foresee problems when all of the emergent ‘craft’ distilling operations begin fighting for their slice of the market. After all, each is likely to be offering consumers pretty much the same product, namely three of four year old, ‘limited edition’ bottlings from a predictable variety of casks, all with price tags of $120 and upward.

It appears that Mossburn is in the position to avoid such a situation, but what does Mathieson suggest for others embarking on their whisky-making dream? “I would advise them to concentrate on the costs of grain, wood, and cask storage over their aging plan, rather than the initial outlay on distilling equipment, and not to consider unrealistic retail prices or expect them to continue increasing,” he says. “Also, forget the U.S., as our distribution and retail models are different. Perhaps if we all took the initial expected financial requirement, doubled it, and then doubled it again, we would all be securely funded for the future!”

 

The post Mossburn And Mathieson: a different distillery startup story appeared first on Whisky Advocate.

29 Jun 18:38

jinxamataz: commissarcuddles: hexane-nightmares: Holy fuck. I...



jinxamataz:

commissarcuddles:

hexane-nightmares:

Holy fuck. I never really understood how they caught birds before, I assumed they had to sneak up on them. 

How was this even caught on camera?

did that cat fucking put the thing in its mouth in midair so it could land on its feet

Incidentally, in the landing you can see a reason why cats don’t have collarbones. Also, this is not even nearly so high as this cat can jump. 

28 Jun 22:03

willigula: Under Allied Flags, a series of covers for Hearst’s...













willigula:

Under Allied Flags, a series of covers for Hearst’s Magazine showing women wearing uniforms of the allied nations, 1917

(via carlylehold via beautifulcentury)

time to go shopppinnnngggg

28 Jun 04:40

Sometimes. 



Sometimes. 

28 Jun 04:40

sketchlab: Headless Horseman for today’s Sketch Dailies derp...



sketchlab:

Headless Horseman for today’s Sketch Dailies

derp all the hurps

28 Jun 04:40

Never underestimate Dolly. 













Never underestimate Dolly. 

28 Jun 04:39

Hideous tunes from that hideous strength

Tertiarymatt

If you like your piano creepy and ambient.



Hideous tunes from that hideous strength