Ice Balls
the-tusk.com
the-tusk.com
Thanks for posting it.
(And also, I am darkly pleased to find out that club is even more awful than I expected. The "stylized power ritual" paragraph is perfect.)
I don't think the club sounded any more/less douchey than a place like HN (the owner notwithstanding). It sounds like a place where a certain group of people complain about the issues that affect them. Like all specialized groups, their complaints sound ridiculous to non-members. For comparison, consider this complaint: "We just can't afford a house in Palo Alto, all we can spend is $800k and anything halfway decent is at least $2MM" -- that conversation probably happens 100x daily in the Bay, but it sounds ridiculous and hopelessly disconnected from reality to anyone not living here. Perspective.
Because of a number of reasons I've always spent a lot of time around people who struggled with their gender/sexuality in society, and there were more than a few individuals, mostly gay men, where I strongly suspected that they were gay, at least in part, by choice.
Now just to be clear: I think it can be dangerous, damaging, offensive and ultimately pointless to make such a judgment, but as a (private) observation it fascinated to me.
(On the other hand, I've also met a number straight men of whom I suspected that they could be comfortable gay or bisexual, but 'chose' the more orthodox, straight identity.)
I think it sounded a lot worse, but maybe I'm blinded by my contempt for people who think spending $2000 on a jacket is somehow a good idea.
But using HN as a benchmark is not so great. I participate because high-tech entrepreneurs are my people, but there are plenty of good folks who hold HN in contempt for the stuff that gets said here. It has improved some in the last year or so with better moderation, but I just expect 50% or so of my interactions here will be awful. In contrast to say, Quora, where it's 5% awful, or well-moderated mailing lists, which are under 1%.
I've really been impressed by Amazon's "Transparent" drama.
If the ice melts more slowly, it absorbs less heat, so it cools the drink less. You can get the ice to melt more slowly by reducing its surface area, but your drink will also be warmer.
Yes.
The ice melts at a rate governed by how fast it absorbs the heat.
No.
The ice press sells for $700 to $1,100, depending on the size. http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/cirrus-ice-ball-pres...
Williams Sonoma is likely adding a huge markup.
> My experience using these has resulted in more than a few cracked ice balls, whose deep fissures essentially increase the surface area of the ice ball, negating any benefits in that department.
I had pretty much the same experience with my molds (I was using the Tovolo brand, rather than the one you linked to, though).
Or you could go for a pricier option such as http://www.wintersmiths.com/ (which uses directional freezing).
So water will transition from liquid to solid and back through a phase change which consumes or produces energy. So any melting will cool the drink assuming it's warmer than 0 degrees C.
So let's take as our starting point a mass of ice uniformly 0 degrees C. Regardless of geometry, any cooling of whisky will inevitably produce a phase change to liquid water in the exact amount required by the energy absorbed by the ice. So you get 0 degree ice, 0 degree water, and cooler whiskey. Assuming a 0 degree ice ball geometry is irrelevant.
Of course water can be cooler than 0! So let's assume some really cool ice and do some thought experiment geometries. Take super thin sheets of ice for example. The total amount of energy available to cool the drink without melting is the specific heat of the ice times the temperature difference from zero (there might be some non-linearity here but I doubt it's relevant) times the volume of the ice. So if you have enough volume and cold enough ice you should be able to achieve a 0 degree drink at which point you have no more cooling and therefore no melting and no water.
Unless the heat is transferred out of the water unevenly, say a large mass of it with a central core inaccessible from the outside liquid. Then it would matter how fast heat travels from the interface to the core relative to how fast heat travels from the drink to the interface. This probably has something to do with the outside liquid being turbulent and the inside solid being a lattice but I'm not sure.
So, pure speculation here, I'd guess a large ball would have smaller surface to volume and so would cool more slowly for equivalent volume, but you get a large volume so you might be okay assuming the cold core of the large ice ball does the job of cooling the surface faster than the drink can heat it up.
It seems to be it would be more effective to get very small ice chunks, a ton of them, make them really cold, then you have lots of surface area and if you do the math you could approximately guarantee no melting and you'd cool fast. Then strain out the chunks and put whatever you want in there since it's already 0 (maybe something cool looking you can condescend about?)
But whatever you do don't put it in a glass you grab with your whole hand, the air is a really good insulator, glass much less so and palms work like a circulating hot-fluid heat exchanger.
Starting off with the opposite, I'll compare two situations. One with whiskey and snow, the other with whiskey and an ice ball. (mass of snow = mass of ice ball)
Immediately when you drop the snow in, the temperature of the solid water in the snow raises from some negative temperature to 0 C, the temperature of the whiskey lowers to 0 C, and the surface of the snow particles melts. The slurry stays in equilibrium at 0 C until external heat inputs melt all of the solid water.
Also because it is at 0 C, heat transfers from the environment quickly (heat transfer rate depends on the difference in temperature, the bigger the difference the more energy is transferred in the same amount of time)
Downsides:
* Cold whiskey
* Immediately diluted whiskey
* Faster heat transfer.
Now for a solid ball of ice. As opposed to the snow, there isn't an instant change to a constant temperature. The ice (which in my freezer is at -19 C) initially only warms towards 0, there isn't a significant amount of melt until the whole ball is at 0 C. The whiskey likewise don't instantly, or perhaps ever cool to 0 C. This warmer whiskey accepts energy from the environment less quickly, which warms the ice ball less quickly, which results delayed and slower ice melt.
This all happens because the surface area in contact with the fluid is much much smaller than with the snow.
So you get
* warmer whiskey (desirable for more flavor)
* less water immediately in the whiskey
* slower introduction of water into the whiskey
This is all because the large mass, low surface ice ball slows down the thermodynamic process which has all desirable effects. * The key is not cooling the whiskey as quickly & not keeping the whiskey at 0 C. If it _did_ keep the whiskey at 0 C (for example with lots of stirring) there wouldn't be a difference between snow and ice ball.
Normal ice cubes are a middle ground with undesirable effects to a lesser degree.
Room temperature on a cool day is what many will say is the 'right' temperature, but there is no right or wrong, despite what many questionable experts will tell you.
Nobody is going to agree that X is the best temperature for every whiskey. Whiskies and drinkers are all different. Room temperature whiskey and ice give the most control with the least complication.
Although I wonder if my posting about plastic ice cubes really misses the point of the article.
What I like about this article is that it's (for me) a rare case of an article that doesn't highlight the advantages of being a man, or the disadvantages of being a woman.
It doesn't strike me like the author chose to be a man or stay a women like how the rest of us chooses between vanilla and chocolate ice-cream. It was a profound realization that where she was going in life would not make her happier, only more sad.
Another explanation is that she identifies 50% male and 50% female and both are equally right or wrong for her. But she still needs to choose to be either or.
As a general practice, reparative therapy has historically been very harmful, and is usually what people are advocating for when they say that being transgender is something you "can choose".
There exist some people for whom transition is optimal for mental health and some people for which it is not.
"Transition" can also be deconstructed into different things:
- hormone therapy (which itself involves a lot of different possibilities)
- changes in gendered behavior (voice, body language, etc.)
- changes in gendered apparel
- changes in gendered self-perception
- asking to go by different pronouns
- becoming a part of trans-aware/queer communities where gender is perceived as more fluid
- various surgical options
Not that it really matters for the (excellent) piece. Just thought some other readers might be curious.
Interesting.
Further, what if the mansplainer's friends don't mind being "mansplained" to? At what point do accusations of mansplaining simply become nasty ridicule of those who take joy in knowledge of the world around them?
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-solnit13
That wasn't about joy in knowledge. He interrupted her to expound about a book he hadn't even read, while energetically ignoring explicit statements that she not only the author of a book on the same topic, but the author of the very book he was mansplaining about. And then, when he finally realized that an expert on the topic was in front of him, he still wouldn't shut up.
I know a lot of smart people who take joy in knowledge. Who take joy in sharing knowledge. But every one of them can also shut up and listen.
Mansplaining is about social dominance, not joy.
Also, if she wants to see condescending women, she should go to a meeting of mothers comparing the progress of their kids. Although as a trans she'll probably be spared.
Entertainingly, the author uses "condescending about ice balls" as a symbol of all things she hates about the testosterone-driven world. In the comments here: people arguing about ice-ball physics. Metaphor complete!
Guess I was hoping that for once, the technical stuff wouldn't dominate, that occasionally there is a place for more intimate and emotional writing, something more... human. But this is HN, so its ok and I should shut up, and instead be the change I want to see in the world and all. Sorry for the pointless rant.
Also, ironically, the whole article was very condescending - he/she is condescending about other people being condescending.
I don't know whether I'd say it's beautiful, but it's definitely well written.
It's cynical, but that's also part of why it's funny.
And of course it's attention seeking. All writing is?