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Nestle Patents Coffee Beer
Dotnaught writes "New Scientist reports that Nestec, a Nestle subsidiary, has applied for a patent on a fermented coffee beverage. In other words, coffee beer -- it foams like beer and packs the caffeine of coffee, with "fruity and/or floral notes due to the fermentation of the coffee aroma."
More wide-awake drunks.
I, for one, welcome our new drunk AND hyper overlords!
Marge: "Caw-fee!"
Bartender: "Bee-er?"
The coffee keeps you going and the beer makes sure you don't have to care too much.
Physics is good
I think Drew Carey has a lawsuit.
NB. I said beer was "knock-me-out" not "knock-me-up", so don't go getting any ideas. Not that the two are mutually incompatible, I guess...
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
WTF kind of programmers are you around? When I tell people that I avoid caffiene, they look at me like I'm crazy.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Why do people willingly put crap like this into their bodies? Caffeine isn't good for you. Neither is alcohol. Combine the two and you're not helping yourself.
;)
It's fun to play chemistry with your body. Showdowns between Starbucks and NyQuil, NoDoz and Sudafed, Red Bull and Sleeping pills. It's legal so it can't possibly hurt me, right?
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Off topic, but it comes up every now and again.
If it's in moderation, alcohol and/or caffeine is alright. Maybe you're thinking of extreme cases, like the unemployed guy down the street drinking 10 beers before lunch time. I have met many smart people who drink alcohol socially. Caffeine has been around for centuries and again, within moderation, it isn't going to kill you or make you stupid.
Before you start harping on people drinking caffeine or alcohol, take a look at what people eat. The nutrition value of meals these days, in the US, has taken a large nosedive. Obesity is huge, and it is mostly because of what people eat and the lack of exercise.
Moderated beer consumption doesn't make one a good or bad programmer....
Eh. This stuff has no alcohol content. No thanks! I'll take one of the Mountain Sun Brewery's Java Porters over this crap any day.
While many of the best humans I have ever met are strong advocates of caffeine and alcohol use.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Is it wrong to assume there is some method of testing/supervision for new programmers and reviews for old to avoid that very situation happening?
I don't give a rats ass if a person is stoned, hyper on caffine or buzzed if they accomplish what they attempt, always. If there isn't a method to see if a person is capable for this mission critical software, THAT is the problem.
I don't know. A little extra anxiety and paranoia might be a good thing for people writing antivirus software and firewalls....
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Actually this drink does not contain any alcohol at all. I don't think it is really beer.
But anyway, for all those nay-saying this patent, I think it's a fairly decent one. It certainly isn't obvious!
From TFA:
Nestlé admits it was tricky to preserve the characteristic coffee smell in the production process. Coffee beans are roasted normally, and the chemicals containing the natural aroma collected in a cryogenic condenser, before being converted into coffee oil. The remains of the roast are then ground to powder, mixed with yeast and sucrose, and fermented for 4 hours at just below 22C. At this temperature the yeast can still metabolise but does not generate alcohol.
The aroma oil is then mixed in with the liquid and nitrogen is injected to make it foam. Adding a touch of extra sugar also helps trap the aroma until the drink is poured, Nestlé claim.
Now, ask yourself, is that obvious? I think this patent is perfectly acceptable.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
My guess is that the selling point of the product is that it is a packaged foamy drink. It is easy to market foamy. Coffee shops do a good job selling foaminess. The other bottled caffiene drinks are all flat. So, something that foams might stand out.
Dude... shut the hell up. I work with real programmers, where if we get something wrong it hits millions if not billions of people, and they all get mad.
We do "real programming" as much as anyone else.
Fact is, you can take whatever opinions you have about beer and caffeine, but the average person doesn't share those opinions. The average person sees nothing wrong with either caffeine or beer. This is the reason why Starbuck's makes tons of money, and why any gas station has probably about 1/4 of the beverages that it has for sale which are alcoholic.
Your small little prudish subsection of the world may not give a shit about caffeinated beer, but neither will devout Mormons, Arabs, nor dry counties all around the country. Just because you don't give a shit, doesn't mean no one else will. Especially even among even "real" programmers.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Also, There has been a lot discussion lately about coffees health benefits, see the following articles for example:
Coffee found to be high in health-giving antioxidants
Coffee is America's No. 1 Source of Antioxidants
Coffee: The New Health Food?
My quality social news site.com.
Beg to differ. Let's start programming and you drink spring water while I drink Red Bull and expresso and we'll see who's still functional in 72 hours. I've worked around people that do Cocaine and they get worthless after awhile but the caffine drinkers fair well. Different drugs effect the body in different ways. I do fine large amounts of caffine clear your head and can somewhat overcome a lack of sleep. I can't recommend it and ideally the best is 8 hours of good quality sleep but I find for various reasons it's not always possible. The bigger issue is exercise and trying to eat well. Caffine isn't the dangerous drug it was once made out to be and the body tolerates it fairly well. The biggest issue I can see with fermented coffee beverages is caffine is a dieretic and the body needs water to process the alcohol so you might find hang overs worse unless you drink extra water. If you are fantatical about your body I'd avoid sitting infront of a computer, drop your calorie intack below 1,000 a day and pick a career where you are kept physically active for 8 to 10 hours a day. Also go for a low stress lifestyle. Stress will do a hundred times the damage caffine will ever do and that is a fact. Outside of diet and exercise stress would be in the tope three for americans for contributing to ill health. If you are drinking Caca Cola I'd worry far more about the sugar than the caffine. I think the acid it contains would harm your health more than caffine. In coffee the cream and sugar are worse for you than the caffine. No one is perfect the idea is to do your best.
I have some bad news for you. Your mission critical software has errors. Maybe not quite as many as some "less mission critical software", but it has errors.
BTW: It isn't just guesswork that reduces errors. If you have formally proven your systems, (which I'm quite sure you have right?) then they are correct. It isn't necessary for the implementer really to be sober as long as you have a formal proof and others, including yourself with your pristine substance free (no sugar right) body, can check the proof. Going from a provably correct system to real code is pretty easy work what with all those nice tight pre/post conditions an all.
Oh, and of course you only use compilers that are subjected to similar standards, right?
And please don't tell me any of this runs on windows, none of it runs on windows, right? I bet you're only solid mission critical operating systems that have had every line of code checked and double checked against a formal system? Right?
After all, we wouldn't want the software with bugs. It has to be as good as the rest of the airplane, bug free, nothing will fail, nothing has been overlooked, the design is PERFECT!!!
Reminds of that accident that happened sometime in the late eighties/early nineties where an airplane toilet had its contents jetisoned while still in flight and the frozen contents came crashing into someone's living room. The victim was quoted as saying "Of course it surprised me, the last thing I expect to come crashing into my house in this day and age is an icy BM."
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
There are plenty of chocolate-makers in Europe, besides Nestle. Being in Finland, the two dominant companies here are Cloetta/Fazer and Kraft Foods (which owns such brands as Marabou and O'boy, as far as chocolate is concerned). There ARE products by Nestle available here (Kitkat for example), but they are not the dominant player. Nestle might be the biggest one overall, but they do not dominate the field, IMO.
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What about Cadbury and Mars (who make mars, m&m, snickers and other things I think). Both are (at least in australia) quite large.
whoa, someone needs to lay off the caffeine
Look in to the history of chocolate. It was Mr. Nestle himself that invented powdered milk. That's where the name - Nestle - came from. Of fucking course it's made with powdered milk. The whole point of using powdered milk is that it allows you to control the moisture content more closely - creating a more even product. Using fresh milk - and calling it quality as a result - is a pure marketing gimmick.
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