Graham Sanders' brewing podcasts and the 'HomeBrewers' team

I'm starting this as a new thread here because the original subject (using 'flour' to brew beer) has changed; I'm also crossposting to oz_craftbrewing to try to improve chances that Graham Sanders will see this. In the original thread -- http://tinyurl.com/6nmyke -- Faux_Pseudo wrote:

> _.-In rec.crafts.brewing, Bill Velek wrote the following -._
>
>>Down under, eh? Well, then surely you have heard of Graham Sanders ...

snip

> They are still on the air. New shows about every two weeks.
> WWW: http://radio.craftbrewer.org/
> RSS: http://radio.craftbrewer.org/feed/

I've been meaning to send this since your post. Thanks, 'Faux', for bringing this to my attention; the last podcast that they have on the Australian Craft Brewers Association was back in September of 2005, which I really missed when they stopped the program. I don't know if Graham had a 'falling out' with them, or what happened. Graham, it's good to see that you're back on the air.

The last link above -- the RSS 'feed' -- merely brings up a page of some sort of code on my browser. Anyway, using the _first_ link, I listened to several of Graham's podcasts. Interestingly, I found a reference to one of my past emails about our 'HomeBrewers' grid-computing team, here -- http://radio.craftbrewer.org/shows/May2-08.mp3 -- so I now want to set the record straight on a few things that he said (I hope he sees this). Let me first say that my original post about this project in rec.crafts.brewing is here -- http://tinyurl.com/5vc5fz -- and I also posted about it in several brewing groups where I am a member.

Now, our 'HomeBrewers' Team, which now has over a hundred members, has already contributed over 152 _YEARS_ worth of spare computer time to a wide variety of humanitarian projects -- most of them being for medical research such as 'cancer', and ALL of our research being for NON-PROFIT projects, and with all resulting research being available to the entire world. All of that was from _spare_ power that would have otherwise been _wasted_, and 152 years is equal to a typical home computer, dedicated _solely_ to our research projects, operating at 100% capacity 24 hours a day, 365 days/year. We have made a SIGNIFICANT contribution to humanity and as a result are ranked in the TOP-100 teams out of over 20,000 teams on the World Community Grid. This is a GREAT project for HomeBrewers to help make a big difference in the world. GO 'HOMEBREWERS'!!!

The idea I had originally posted was merely 'speculative' -- that if we could help increase productivity of grains (rice in this case) that maybe it would free some acreage for growth of barley. Neither the World Communithy Grid, which is co-ordinating the research project, nor University of Washington (U.S.) which is conducting the research, have ever said anything with respect to barley production or brewing beer; it was simply my own deductive reasoning, which I still think is absolutely valid. In any event, Graham did make some mis-statements of fact that I want to correct.

1. Computers do NOT need to be on the Internet while they do their work for us; they only need to be connected to the Internet during the very brief times when they are uploading the results that they have computed, or downloading a new task; the program automatically detects when the connection is open, and then exchanges data. So, if a computer connects to the Internet just occasionally every few days, that will probably be sufficient and still very helpful to us. When not connected to the Internet, the computer uses its "idle" time to compute for the project.

2. Most importantly, Graham mentions that this is a "genome" mapping project which might lead some readers to jump to the conclusion that the project is about the manipulation of DNA, which many would believe is tampering with nature and opening "Pandora's Box". To quote the WCG project description:
"Complex traits (such as high yield, disease resistance, or nutrient content) come from complex biochemical interactions of individual component proteins. Identifying such proteins and understanding their properties and interactions gives farmers the opportunity to affect these traits in a refined manner by choosing more subtle candidates for _CROSS BREEDING_ (my emphasis). Predicting the structure of proteins can provide insight into the roles they play in the biochemistry of these traits." So, the aim of the project is to help _natural_ CROSS-BREEDING and is not about genetic-engineering or gene-splicing.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/6q2uv9

3. Contrary to what Graham says, which is that the aim is to "produce SUPER rice" (again, this implies genetic engineering), I don't think that this is the aim of the project; rather, it is to identify the most appropriate rices for a given growing environment.

4. As far as Graham's statement that the "Green Revolution has gone and past" and that "most crops are at their production limit now", I would have to disagree. We don't know what the "limit" is for any crop, and gains in productivity are continuing to occur. Who knows what we can accomplish working together; it is certainly worth a try.

And, Graham, thanks for the 'plug', although I'm not sure if it helped us or hurt us. ??

Incidentally, I just made an EXCELLENT ham and bean soup, plus I have some home made bread baking right now; I decided to use some yeast from a few bottles of my homebrew, so I'll see if that makes any difference. Yes, I'm a 'jack-of-all-trades'. ;-)

Bill Velek -- portal to my "HOMEBREWING" sites: www.tinyurl.com/29zr8r
My other sites: www.velek.com ~ www.2plus2is4.com ~ www.grow-hops.com
.

Relevant Pages

  • RE: Namespace Design
    ... Graham ... > information about your AD environment that would be valuable information to ... Register it though so no one else will use it on the internet and ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)
  • Re: OT : Cornwall tides
    ... >> This might be one you could help with, Graham? ... >Unfortunately the Hydrographer claims copyright on tidal information for ... >the UK and won't allow more than 7 days worth to be published on the ... People aren't *supposed* to be able to load music off the internet ...
    (uk.sci.weather)
  • RE: Namespace Design
    ... domain if you ever need to access it on the internet ... Phil ... "Graham" wrote: ... >> information about your AD environment that would be valuable information to ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)
  • Re: Question about Outlook 2007
    ... "Graham R Seach" wrote: ... I had deleted temporary files in Internet Explorer. ... >> This is the folder pointed to in the Registry. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook)