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No problem. Hope you have a great time with your parents.

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Sorry I didn't make the last one, I ended up having to drive out and get my parents at the airport today. I only found out I'd have to yesterday, I thought it would be my brother up until then.

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New suggested topic: life long learning, online learning, the school of freedom concept, peer to peer university (P2PU), free online university level courses, etc.

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September's exchanges: language learning sites, some talk about programming, and a recipe for cold-brew coffee.

Some tips for language learning sites: italki.com, busuu.com, duolingo.com, scrabbin.com, listenlive.eu, lernu.net, and slovake.eu.

Conclusion from chat about programming: C++ sucks, learn for instance Python if you want something that is easily and effectively applicable. (I'm currently doing this course and it's a lot of fun: https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython)

And finally, Amoeba Man's cold-brew coffee recipe and tips:

AmoebaMan: Oh, speaking of coffee, did you still want my process for cold-brew coffee?
relet: sure!
AmoebaMan: I hesitate to call it a recipe. An algorithm, maybe.
AmoebaMan: (Hooray I can finally share something!) Okay, so, you need a few things:
AmoebaMan: Obviously, coffee of your choice, water, a bean grinder, and a sturdy container with a good seal (Mason jars work really well so far).
relet: ok. I got a decent mixer and coffee cans.
AmoebaMan: We find dark roasts work really well, they come out with a nice flavour and the caffeine content is reasonable enough that you don't quite risk apoplexy, but it's mostly down to preference and experimentation.
relet: .wik apoplexy
shmulik (relet's bot): "Apoplexy is a medical term, which can be used to describe 'bleeding' in a stroke (formerly described as a cerebrovascular accident)." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoplexy
AmoebaMan: Man, shmulik is a bro.
relet: he's really the helpful kind.
AmoebaMan: Also, we like to boil our water first, then chill it before we use it. It just helps keep it clean.
AmoebaMan: I guess you knew that last bit.
relet: Ok. I might be able to skip that part, since Norway.
AmoebaMan: Oh yeah, true.
AmoebaMan: Actually, now I check my notes, we also use it to keep the containers clean. We boil the water, put it in the jars, and then put that in the fridge. Then the containers are nice and clean too. But yes, continuing:
relet: ok]
AmoebaMan: The only things you really want to watch are the ratio of water to coffee, the coarseness of the grind, and the seal on the container.
AmoebaMan: The grind should be reasonably coarse, basically what you'd use in a French Press. For a ratio, we have between 35-42 grams of coffee to every liter of water. That gives us a decent steep over the times we're working with.
relet: coarse I can do.
AmoebaMan: I've heard of people using insane ratios of coffee to water to get overnight steeps (like in the neighbourhood of 4 and 5 to 1), but obviously you'll burn through your bag a lot faster that way.
relet: 42 I can remember easily.
AmoebaMan: Right on
AmoebaMan: So once you've got that done, make sure your water is lukewarm/cold (as long as it's not hot), and mix the two in the container of your choice.
AmoebaMan: In our experience, it's best to fill it so that there's no air- generally the better ones we wind up with are those where the vacuum seal held. That's why we like Mason jars, they seal very tightly.
AmoebaMan: We've stumbled on some weird flavours that we think were a result of contamination from a bad seal (a couple of batches were tomato-ish).
relet: as in, filling it up completely?
AmoebaMan: Yeah, to the brim.
relet: ok!
relet: need to find a different container than I thought of, then.
AmoebaMan: Once that's taken care of, though, you can toss it in the fridge and leave it for a few days!
relet: hmm, I could fill the last bit of the container under water, I guess.
AmoebaMan: So far our best experiences have been with 24 and 48 hours- you get a really nice, smooth brew. I prefer to heat it once it's done brewing, but a few of my cohorts will take it straight and chilled.
relet: and then consume it gradually, as in your experiment.
relet: sounds like a perfect experiment for the office over a weekend...
AmoebaMan: Yeah- with the 24 hour stuff we're mostly okay with as much as we'd have in a normal-sized cup. The caffeine isn't so insane at that point to make it dangerous
Kattapa: :p
AmoebaMan: 48 hours is my favourite length, I find it gives you a solid boost in caffeine and a robust flavour.
AmoebaMan: After 48 hours, you're not going to be getting a heck of a lot more in terms of flavour. It'll mostly be caffeine drawing out at that point. 72 was the one I tried in my task and we basically got nothing done for the rest of the afternoon.
relet: heh. that's past the productive point then.
AmoebaMan: We've heard of 96, but we don't dare try it.
AmoebaMan: Heck, I needed to quaff a good, strong beer after the 72 just to take the edge off!
relet: oO
relet: I'm very curious now.
AmoebaMan: It can take some trial and error to get right (we still joke about the Ratatouille Coffee) but when you get it down, it's really worth it.
relet: heh
relet: that seems to give some interesting side-effects.
AmoebaMan: The only problem we're still really having is storing it; we left some 72 in the fridge over the weekend and came back to find it in bad shape. Now, our fridge isn't especially clean, at the office, so it could well have just been ambient crap, but yeah, seal that stuff up tight.
AmoebaMan: We at the Dal Oceanography department would be interested to hear your results!

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Wednesday is fine by me, see you then.