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Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

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Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#111

Post by robbomacrae »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #79
cgio wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the villain quote along the lines of “if we are all superheroes then no one is a superhero”.

It's an accessible entrance into things like entropy, or to think about subjects like eugenics (if we're remove genetic diversity there will be no racism) or wrongthink (if nobody has these bad ideas we would all live in harmony). DISCLAIMER: this is not an invitation to start debating these subjects, these are just crudely picked examples.

Well.. if you post on an internet forum it kind of IS an invitation to debate. I have a crazy relative who likes to make controversial speeches and then yell "you don't have to reply!" as if it insulates him from feedback.

I'm sure most are aware but your description about eugenics is a bit off. It seems like you are putting a positive slant on it or suggesting thats the goal, whether intentional or not. Eugenics is about denying a class of humans (however you classify that class) from the ability to reproduce. This is highly unethical and given our tendency to classify on race, usually associated with racist agendas (such as the Nazis). I had to look up Wrongthink but it seems to be a term the Alt-Right is introducing... possible a play on thoughtcrime and newspeak (both Orwell) to defend their controversial opinions [0].

0: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alt-right-has-a-word-for-...

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#112

Post by celticninja »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #81
at_compile_time wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mushroom spores are sold online for "microscopy purposes only".

"bath salts" comes to mind, wasn't that a nickname for some wack shit? Over here, huffing nitrous oxide is a thing, but it's sold as pressure gas for whipped cream dispensers and the like.

The difference being that they are/were legitimately sold for whipped cream dispensers prior to them being used to get hight.

Wine bricks were designed to get around a ban.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#113

Post by celticninja »

55555 wrote: post #71
mmmpop wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't contain the active ingredient that is specifically illegal, which is what I always heard made the "loophole" possible. Would be interested to know if that's true (but too lazy to alt-tab and search myself.)

Not sure why you are being downvoted. Perhaps for laziness. Spores indeed do not contain psilocybin.

Same reason that cannabis seeds tend to be legal but germination of them is illegal.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#114

Post by echion »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #103
cgio wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the villain quote along the lines of “if we are all superheroes then no one is a superhero”.

Syndrome being the villain always kind of struck me as the film trying to defend social hierarchies in a sense. You have a hereditary caste of pretty volatile magical beings upon whom the defence of humanity depends and the person trying to remove that dependency in a way that's accessible to anyone regardless of what they're born as is the bad guy? We can debate capitalism until the cows come home but anyone being a…

> Syndrome being the villain [is a bit of] trying to defend social hierarchies

He's a villain because he's trying to replace the hereditary caste by violence, and by consuming them. The tension is there outside of him -- and Mr. Incredible is a bit of an arse to Billy at first -- but it's his means, not his ends, that are the problem.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#115

Post by hprotagonist »

boogies wrote: post #8
Syonyk wrote: post #3

I'm always reminded of the bit from The Incredibles: BOB PARR: All right, listen closely. I'd like to help you, but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox on... Norma Wilcox. W-I-L-C-O-X. On the third floor. But I can't. I also do not advise you to fill out and file a WS2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I wouldn't expect someone to get back to you quickly to…

Offtopic, but The Incredibles has one of my favorite movie quotes: You always say “Be true to yourself”, but you never say which part of yourself to be true to! … which stuck in my head because so many Disney (and other?) movies seem to be all about being “true to yourself,” and in my experience they conspicuously fail to address the fact (in my belief system) that all humans have both good and evil, selfish and self…

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." chesterton

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#116

Post by YawningAngel »

masklinn wrote: post #99
gwd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is, making home alcohol is super easy. Yeast is omnipresent, and are happy to eat basically any sugar. Wild yeast won't get you alcohol concentrations in the 15-20% like commercial yeasts will, but can easily go up to 8-12%. Apples, grape juice, honey + raisins will all easily make you hard cider, wine, and mead, respectively. If you have a freezer, you can even use freeze distillation to increase the ABV. B…

Til you can get 20% out of fermentation, I always thought the limit was about 16 since that’s the top end for beer and wine. Is it because starch yeasts can keep on keeping further than glucose ones?

https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-single?id=146&type=YEAST&sty...

I dunno how it works but apparently you can get to 25%

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#117

Post by flatiron »

kumarvvr wrote: post #65
bruce511 wrote: post #13

One cool thing about the pandemic is that many countries took the opportunity to run large-scale social experiments under the guise of Covid Restrictions. I expect social scientists will be digging into this data for years to come. One experiment in South Africa was banning the sale, or transportation, of alcohol. (Production and consumption was still allowed, just not sale or transportation.) This resulted in a mark…

The thing about human psychology is that if you tell someone not to do something, especially something that is not outright harmful to themselves or others, they will yearn to do it. The answer to alcoholism is to de-glamorize it. Young impressionable minds are susceptible to such glamorization. If governments around the world are seriously committed to reduce alcohol consumption, better shun it, rather than putting…

I wonder if they simply banned alcohol advertising what the effect would be. That was a big thing for tobacco in the 90s. I still remember “joe cool” the camel on the back of my parents magazines.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#118

Post by sebcat »

ginko wrote: post #107
masklinn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Til you can get 20% out of fermentation, I always thought the limit was about 16 since that’s the top end for beer and wine. Is it because starch yeasts can keep on keeping further than glucose ones?

It's the yeast strains. Some can survive higher alcohol concentrations than others. For instance this[1] one can achieve up to 25% under right conditions. [1] https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-single?id=146&type=YEAST&sty... No yeast can digest starches afaik. It's why you need a mashing phase to turn starches into simpler sugars when brewing beer.

Though there are cultures of yeast and bacteria where the bacteria breaks down the starches to sugars which in turn gets eaten by the yeast.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%C5%AB

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#119

Post by easton »

echion wrote: post #114
BoxOfRain wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syndrome being the villain always kind of struck me as the film trying to defend social hierarchies in a sense. You have a hereditary caste of pretty volatile magical beings upon whom the defence of humanity depends and the person trying to remove that dependency in a way that's accessible to anyone regardless of what they're born as is the bad guy? We can debate capitalism until the cows come home but anyone being a…

> Syndrome being the villain [is a bit of] trying to defend social hierarchies He's a villain because he's trying to replace the hereditary caste by violence, and by consuming them. The tension is there outside of him -- and Mr. Incredible is a bit of an arse to Billy at first -- but it's his means, not his ends, that are the problem.

The movie brings this up by Dash making the same point when he’s in the car with his mom in the first part of the movie.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#120

Post by jerrysievert »

chrismaeda wrote: post #97

Ontario has a bunch of make-your-own wine companies that work like wine bricks. 1. you buy 5 gallons of grape juice for ~$20 per gallon. 2. yeast is dropped into your grape juice 3. you come to the store to decant your grape juice into wine bottles and cork them up. Since no alcohol is bought or sold, you avoid the (very high) taxes on liquor. You end up with ~28 bottles of wine for ~$4 per bottle. It's not the great…

thankfully, here, we have Trader Joe's and their "3 buck chuck". the local Kroger store (Fred Meyer) also has $3 wine, but I think of that as "emergency wine" - the 3 buck chuck is much, much better.

I have some questions though:

1. do they teach you about sanitization and airlocks, or is it simply "toss some yeast in this bottle"

2. I'm guessing no aging? it would be awesome if they allowed you to pop some in a barrel for aging

3. (not really a question) but wow, $20/gallon is still kind of spendy!

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