vanderTrick: Remove Twitter follower(s) without blocking (”soft block”).

There may be an occasional Twitter follower that you would like to remove from following your posts, though not by severing all ties with them.  Remember that blocking means that you won’t see their tweets either.  A surprisingly simple, but unintuitive solution is available.  Follow these steps, and … follower gone.

1. Go to your Followers and click on the unwanted follower's handle or icon.
2. Click the settings wheel, next to [Follow], and click on [Block].  
   
3. This blocks the follower, but also removes your access to that stream ("hard block").
4. Click on the settings wheel again (now otherwise a mostly blank page) and on [Unblock], and that Twitter stream returns.
5. Check your list of Followers and that particular follower should no longer be there.

Note that nothing stops that follower from refollowing you, though most won’t notice in a busy daily feed.  If that happens, then stop after Step 2, which fully cuts your connection with that follower (no follower and no stream).  Or, just accept that all tweets are public.

(@vdpluijm)

Spilling the beans on super-automatic coffee maker

.... and so it ends (March 2018).  A little over a year after the first machine failure occurred (see below), the unit again became clogged and leaking from the sides and bottom (yet, rinsing works without a problem).  This time no more free warranty repair, so ready for a replacement.  Disappointed with the Krups' fail after only 39 months of use, but not with home coffee brewing.  STAY TUNED !

It grinds, packs, pre-wets and pump-steams to brew a cup of espresso, cappuccino or strong coffee.  After considerable research and sticker shock for some coffee maker brands, we got the Krups® Espressaria EA825000 Full-Auto Espresso Machine. It is moderately priced in its category ($600-700) and well-reviewed on Amazon.com.

Buying and setup is an easy beginning.  Finding the right coffee and right amount of water is a journey.  Our experiences are described below.

[latest update: Dec 2016]

The machine works well.  Appropriately noisy, so you know that it does a bunch of things and that it was expensive.  The unit uses a lot of coffee for one cup, which is typical for all espresso makers, but does allow the amount of water to vary.  While it stops when water runs out and resumes on refilling, I was surprised to see that the grinder and coffee making continue when the unit is short of beans, resulting in a watery drink and wasted grind.  No way to stop once the cycle is underway.
The latter also presents an issue when making cappuccino.  Two attachments to froth milk are included.  One is the usual spigot that draws in air, while the other is a larger, container-based attachment that pulls milk through hot steam, resulting in sumptuous creamy froth.  Best I've ever seen from 1/2% milk.  I prefer to use just enough milk for a single cappuccino, but frothing ends with blasting air after the milk runs out.  Turning off the steam is not immediate, so a mess ensues.  That mess and the cleanup of the container attachment are laborious.  But, great cappuccino!

Onward to coffee beans for a (small) cup of coffee.  

Illy - This was our first try with the new machine and using beans.  Lovely crema ("coffee foam"), with a little burny flavor for some, but very nice to my palate. Regrettably, it is the most expensive, 8oz for $14, and the machine has a serious appetite for beans per cup.  A little sweet brew for some, but generally a balanced flavor.
Busch's Columbia dark -  Taste is too burny, but creates some crema.  Modest price, $10 for 12oz
Busch's Espresso roast- Flavor is pretty good, while creating cup with reasonable crema.  Better than its Columbia dark sibling, with same modest price ($10 for 12oz).
Starbuck's French Roast - Creates a cup with little crema and the most burned flavor so far. The fresh grind seems over-concentrated for espresso machine that employs pump pressure; it may be better for (gravity) drip.  Not suitable at any price ($11).
Starbuck's Espresso - Tast is less bitter than Starbuck's french roast and has more caramel flavor with excellent crema.  It is good for espresso (duh), but also as regular coffee.  For the latter, I use 130ml setting for regular coffee, which makes a strong, but not overly so, cup.
Seattle's Best #5 - This brand is no longer easy to find in my area, but SB already makes our favorite drip coffee (SB#4).  Our local grocery, Busch's, discontinued the brand for shelf space for chain coffee brands (like Dunkin' Donuts) and local favorites (like Zingerman's).  No SB#4 beans in our area, so we tried the darker SB#5 (~$8).  The beans offer modestly intense flavor, but bordering on bitter.  Also, the drink leaves little coffee after taste.  The experience is similar to Starbuck's French Roast (same roaster?), so this bean is not optimal for our machine (and our flavor) either.

Still shaking from all the coffees we tried so far, it is clear that many don't work too well.  Cappuccino is forgiving, so most darker beans will do fine, but a small cup of coffee is much more sensitive.  From the dark roast bunch we favor Starbuck's Espresso for a regular coffee after tuning the amount of water (130ml).  The latter is always key to good coffee, pump or drip.  Not too much, not too little water, which this machine allows one to adjust on the fly.

I'll update as more coffees are tried ......

... A few weeks later (Feb15).
Encouraged by friends to leave national brands behind and try boutique/local coffees, and spend a few more $$ ($12-13).
Higher Grounds - Fair trade, organic medium dark roast.  Surprisingly flavorless and not at all suitable for espresso.  Among the characterless coffees and, frankly, not acceptable for lovely espresso machine.  Relegated the remainder beans to grind for drip coffee, as I hate to throw it away.
Roos Roast - A local roaster who makes a recommended espresso blend.  The fresh (2 weeks) beans smell great and produce a lovely crema.  The flavor, however, is bland and not sufficiently powerful for espresso, let alone cappuccino.  It reminds me of the standard coffee served in the many good restaurants here, so perhaps I discovered the Midwest flavor.  Too bad it is not for me.

... A few more weeks later (Mar15).
And the winner is: Peet's Coffee, Major Dickason's Blend (deep roast).  This CA-based national brand produces a rich, strong flavor with lovely crema, without any burn taste.  Using 120 or 130ml makes little difference for a coffee, while the espresso (50ml) has excellent presence in my cappuccino (I use less milk than typical barrista fare, more cortado+froth style).  The coffee is just a tad less bitter than Starbuck's Espresso (above), which remains a good option too (but not the French Roast).  As a national brand, Peet's (http://www.peets.com/) should be available in several grocery store chains (like Busch's here) and offers consistent roast quality.

Lastly, a point about cost.  Based on measuring dry ground weight per cup of coffee/espresso, the machine requires 2 times that  of a strong (Seattle's Best #4) drip coffee.  Obviously, one gets a stronger and richer drink for that, but, with the ease of making another one, it result in lots more coffee use with this supermachine.  None of this matters now that we found the perfect combination of roast and coffee.
Salute.

... One year later (Jan16).
Machine is still working perfectly fine.  It is used multiple times each day, so well over 1000 cups so far.  I cleaned the system with the tablet that was included, but, as we have soft water, little scaling occurs.  I did notice that the two spouts deliver unequal water volumes, so we stopped making two cups at once.
With regard to beans, I believe that the Peet's Coffee, Major Dickason's Blend roast we liked so much changed sometime last year.  It is not as rich and strong as before (for 120ml cup).  We returned to Starbuck's French Roast at the 130ml setting, which makes a great cup and is consistent in taste and richness.
Also, glad to see that my little write-up has somehow reached a good number of folks.

Update 16Dec2016: FAIL !
Suddenly the unit started to leak coffee from the bottom instead of filling the cup.  Rinse cycle worked OK, but filled coffee chamber somehow blocks the outlet.  Contacted Krups customer service, who were very helpful (fail occurred exactly on the day of ordering the unit 2 yrs earlier). I was told that dark espresso roast tends to release oils that clog the system and is not recommended for the unit. Hmm, an espresso machine challenged by dark roast.  Krups kindly offered to fix the unit under warranty and it was returned in fine working order about 10 days later.  They returned the original machine based on characteristic scuff markings from prior use, with its insides cleaned or replaced (no repair record included).
One of the commenters on this blog describes the same experience, so this appears to be a systemic problem with the unit (and other such machines, I heard).  Nevertheless, I'll be using the repaired unit as before, although rinsing daily as opposed to a couple of times a week.  Hopefully we'll get another two years of use from the unit, as the daily coffees remain great (still Starbuck's French Roast).

Drilling into an active earthquake fault in New Zealand (U-Michigan News)

ANN ARBOR—Three University of Michigan geologists are participating in an international effort to drill nearly a mile beneath the surface of New Zealand this fall to bring back rock samples from an active fault known to generate major earthquakes.

An aerial view of the Alpine Fault at Gaunt Creek, where the Deep Fault Drilling Project is scheduled to begin next month. Three University of Michigan geologists are participating in the $2.5 million international project, which will drill nearly a mile beneath the surface and return rock samples from an active fault known to generate major earthquakes.  Image credit: Ben van der Pluijm

The goal of the Deep Fault Drilling Project is to better understand earthquake processes by sampling the Alpine Fault, which is expected to trigger a large event in the coming decades.

"We're trying to understand why some faults are more earthquake-prone than others, and that requires fundamental knowledge about the processes at work," said Ben van der Pluijm, the Bruce R. Clark Collegiate Professor of Geology in the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Van der Pluijm and two of his EES colleagues—doctoral student Austin Boles and research scientist Anja Schleicher—are part of the team scheduled to start the two-month drilling project early next month. Schleicher will spend October at the site, and Boles will be there for about six weeks starting in early November.

It will be only the second science project to drill deep into an active earthquake fault and return samples. Several years ago, scientists drilled a nearly 2-mile-deep hole into California's San Andreas Fault. Van der Pluijm was a member of that team, as well.

"I hope we find something different this time, a different rock signature that contrasts with what we saw at the San Andreas," he said.

The goal is to drill 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers) into the 530-mile-long Alpine Fault, which marks the boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, on New Zealand's South Island. Though most of the movement along the fault is lateral rather than vertical, the fault is responsible for lifting the Southern Alps, the rugged mountain range featured in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

Earthquakes occur on the Alpine Fault every 200 to 400 years at magnitudes of 7.5 to 8.0, with an average time between successive large earthquakes of about 330 years. Though earthquakes of that size that originate at shallow depths are capable of tremendous damage, the region is sparsely populated.

The white rocks in the center of the photo are a surface outcrop of the Alpine Fault. The Pacific tectonic plate is to the left and above the fault, and the Australian plate is to the right and below the fault. Movement along the Alpine Fault generates large earthquakes every 200 to 400 years, with an average time between successive large earthquakes of about 330 years. The last Alpine Fault quake occurred in 1717.  Image credit: Ben van der Pluijm

The last Alpine Fault quake occurred in 1717, and the probability of another big one occurring there in the next 50 years has been calculated at about 28 percent. So the $2.5 million Deep Fault Drilling Project presents a rare opportunity to collect and analyze samples from a major fault before it breaks.

The task for van der Pluijm and his colleagues is to analyze the possible role of clay minerals and friction melting in the fault zone. Radiometric dating, X-ray studies and isotopic-analysis techniques will be used to determine how much clay is in the rock samples and when those clays formed, as well as the likely source of the water that helped produce them.

"The information we can extract from these clays is remarkably rich," said Boles, who will use data from the New Zealand study in his doctoral dissertation. "These clay minerals are a key tool that we can use to better understand the physical and chemical processes happening in an active fault."

Clay minerals can help reduce friction and heat generation along a fault, lubricating it so that pressure is released through steady, relatively small and nondestructive "creeping" motions rather than the periodic violent jolts known as earthquakes.

Creeping motions were observed along the portion of the San Andreas Fault drilled by scientists several years ago. Temperatures in that fault were relatively low, and clay-rich rocks from the active zone were returned to the surface.

"We think that clays are a significant player in making faults less earthquake-prone," van der Pluijm said. "We know that the section of the Alpine Fault we'll be drilling has a history of producing large earthquakes. So finding little clay and, instead, evidence for frictional melting in the rock would better fit the large-earthquake scenario. That would be a fantastic breakthrough."

In addition to sampling the fault during the two-month drilling program, researchers will install permanent pressure, temperature and seismic-monitoring sensors in the borehole.

The U-M researchers are hoping to obtain a rock sample about the volume of a baseball from deep within the Alpine Fault. That would be plenty to complete their various studies, which are funded by the National Science Foundation and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program.

"Getting the right samples is more important than the amount," van der Pluijm said. "Returning samples to the surface from depth is always a challenge, but I'm confident that it will work."

Written by Jim Erickson, University of Michigan News
http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22392-drilling-into-an-active-earthquake-fault-in-new-zealand

UPDATE (January 2015)
The drilling project stopped short of its goal because of equipment damage.
"Damage ends Franz Josef Glacier drill probe into quake peril - Jamie Morton (NZ Herald):
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11383213

Hello Anthropocene, Goodbye Holocene - A Commentary

The debate about the Anthropocene and the geologic boundary that, if approved, would mark its start is lively and extensive, and contentious.  In a simple Google search, three quarter million hits and many hundreds of academic papers are returned, including perspectives in this journal, Earth’s Future (e.g., Ellis and Trachtenberg, 2014).  Since its informal introduction about 15 years ago (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000), some reject a new epoch entirely, while others debate the position of its boundary in the geologic timescale.  The thrust of this commentary is a correction to the recent geologic timescale, advancing the thesis that epoch status for the Holocene is unjustified and that, instead, we should define a Pleistocene-Anthropocene epoch boundary.

The Holocene is the youngest geologic epoch of the Quaternary.  The official geologic timescale, managed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (http://goo.gl/GFdeit ), is based on identifiable markers, or “golden spikes”, which, for the Holocene, is defined as:

“The base of the Holocene Series/Epoch is defined in the NGRIP ice-core record at a depth of 1492.45m at the horizon which shows the clearest signal of climatic warming, an event that marks the end of the last cold episode (Younger Dryas Stadial/Greenland Stadial 1) of the Pleistocene.” (http://goo.gl/VYtCRT; Walker et al., 2009).

Thus, a moderate atmospheric signal characterizes the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary as currently defined, with the end of the latest (last?) glacial as its primary geologic signature (yet, the process of receding ice is similar among all Quaternary interglacials).  The atmospheric/climatic trend of an interglacial that heralded the Holocene is continuing today, but the recent era of human influence on its environment, marking the Anthropocene, reflects a geologic change of greater, global proportions.
A particularly compelling perspective on the Anthropocene was produced by Will Steffen and others, sometimes referred to as “The Great Acceleration” (e.g., Steffen et al., 2004; http://goo.gl/W7akNv ).  By tabulating dozens of change indicators over the past couple of decades and centuries, a picture emerges of rapid change in recent times.  Some of these changes are social constructs (such as, McDonalds restaurants), but others represent lasting geologic signatures that are global in scope.  Notably, our demands for resources and nourishment, which necessitate invasive mining and agricultural practices, have changed the surface of today’s planet almost everywhere.  These demands and associated waste products create a boundary that is readily recognizable in surface geology (e.g., Wilkinson, 2005) and by concentrations of chemical compounds (e.g., Rockström et al., 2009).  A recent class project at the University of Michigan revisited and updated the Steffen analysis, confirming and extending the key patterns established earlier.  For example, Figure 1 shows data from Law Dome ice core in Antarctica (see supplementary data), which record rapid changes in chemical compounds that reflect modern agricultural and industrial practices.  Selecting a boundary from these data would place the beginning of (accelerated) change in the window 1850-1950, which coincides with the onset of the mid-19th Century “Industrial Revolution” and early 20th Century “Transportation Revolution”.

Figure 1.  Atmospheric concentration of CH4, CO2 and N2O from Law Dome ice core (Antarctica) since 0 CE; inset shows data after 1700 CE.  After MacFarling Meure et al. (2006) and supplementary data.

The human influence has led others to define the Anthropocene boundary elsewhere.  Agricultural practices underlie Bill Ruddiman’s proposal for a boundary as long as 7,000 year ago (Ruddiman, 2003).  Others, including the original advocate for the Anthropocene, Paul Crutzen, favor the chemical anomaly from atomic explosions since 1945 CE, although related isotopic tracers have a limited lifetime.  Neither, however, reflect geologic change to the same degree since the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century .  Finally, there is growing evidence for a modern species extinction episode (e.g., Elizabeth Kolbert’s, The Sixth Extinction).  Species extinctions have traditionally defined the boundaries between geologic eras that contain complex life, i.e. the Paleozoic-Mesozoic and the Mesozoic-Cenozoic boundaries, as well as lower-level timescale boundaries.  The nature of today’s species extinction, however, does not allow one to draw a decadal scale boundary.

As the official timescale keepers deliberate the introduction of the Anthropocene and a Holocene-Anthropocene boundary (Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy; Zalasiewicz, J., M. et al., 2010; http://goo.gl/wIm6X0 ), they should consider the alternative: Remove the Holocene Epoch from the geologic timescale.  Whereas any timescale change is a contentious issue, let alone changes to an existing epoch, modern human society’s interactions with its planet and ecosystems, embodied by the Anthropocene, are sufficiently large to produce a lasting geologic marker that supports such modification.  This new boundary would remain visible in the geologic record of oceans and continents (see also Corcoran et al., 2014 on plastics), meeting the stratigraphic requirements that ultimately underlie the timescale and marking a shift from the Pleistocene’s Milankovitch forcing to the Anthropocene’s human forcing.

The Holocene is a climate-centric placeholder for change after the latest Quaternary glaciation, but does not, as defined, match the accelerated changes in land, ocean and atmosphere that mark modern times.  So, I suggest that (a) we remove the Holocene altogether in favor of a (young) Anthropocene Epoch that reflects planet-wide geologic changes since c. 1900 CE, or (b) we demote the Holocene to Stage/Age status, marking the end of the Pleistocene Epoch.  The latter, perhaps more palatable compromise, would recognize historical precedent and allow continued use of Holocene in the literature as a temporal (“Age”) marker.  Regardless, slicing the Quaternary Period in ever thinner epochs has no geologic merit.  Given the degree and impact of modern, human-induced changes on our planet, a young Pleistocene-Anthropocene boundary seems justified.

Acknowledgments
I thank Scott Miller, Will Steffen and editor Guy Brassseur for comments and thoughtful discussion, but I remain solely responsible for the contents of this commentary.

References
Corcoran, P.L., Moore, C.J., and Jazvac, K. (2014).  An anthropogenic marker horizon in the future rock record.  GSA Today, 24, 4-8, doi: 10.1130/GSAT-G198A.1.
Crutzen, P.J., and Stoermer, E.F. (2000).  The “Anthropocene”, Global Change Newsl., 41, 17–18
Crutzen, P.J., and Steffen, W. (2003).  How Long Have We Been in the Anthropocene Era? Climatic Change, 61, 251-257.
Ellis, M.A. and Trachtenberg, Z. (2014). Which Anthropocene is it to be? Beyond geology to a moral and public discourse. Earth's Future, 2, 122–125.
Kolbert. E., (2014). The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.  Henry Holt and Co., 336p.
MacFarling Meure, C., D. Etheridge, C. Trudinger, P. Steele, R. Langenfelds, T. van Ommen, A. Smith, and J. Elkins (2006). Law Dome CO2, CH4 and N2O ice core records extended to 2000 years BP. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14810, doi:10.1029/2006GL026152.
Ruddiman, W.F. (2003).  The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago. Clim. Change, 61, 261–293.
Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, F. S. Chapin, III, E. Lambin, T. M. Lenton, M. Scheffer, C. Folke, H. Schellnhuber, B. Nykvist, C. A. De Wit, T. Hughes, S. van der Leeuw, H. Rodhe, S. Sörlin, P. K. Snyder, R. Costanza, U. Svedin, M. Falkenmark, L. Karlberg, R. W. Corell, V. J. Fabry, J. Hansen, B. Walker, D. Liverman, K. Richardson, P. Crutzen, and J. Foley (2009).  Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14, 32.
Steffen, W., Sanderson, R.A., Tyson, P.D., Jäger, J., Matson, P.A., Moore III, B., Oldfield, F., Richardson, K., Schellnhuber, H.-J., Turner, B.L., and Wasson, R.J. (2004).  Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet under Pressure. Springer (Berlin, Germany), 336 p.
Walker, M., Johnsen, S., Rasmussen, S. O., Popp, T., Steffensen, J.-P., Gibbard, P., Hoek, W., Lowe, J., Andrews, J., Björck, S., Cwynar, L. C., Hughen, K., Kershaw, P., Kromer, B., Litt, T., Lowe, D. J., Nakagawa, T., Newnham, R. and Schwander, J. (2009). Formal definition and dating of the GSSP (Global Stratotype Section and Point) for the base of the Holocene using the Greenland NGRIP ice core, and selected auxiliary records. J. Quaternary Sci., 24, 3–17. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1227
Wilkinson, B.H. (2005).  Humans as geologic agents: A deep time perspective.  Geology, 33, 161–164.
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Steffen, W., and Crutzen, P. (2010). The new world of the Anthropocene. Environ. Sci. Technol., 44, 2228–2231.

From: Earth's Future, v.2, 2014.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/2014EF000268/

Update (3/23/15):
A more detailed look at a Pleistocene-Anthropocene epoch boundary that likewise recognizes (and seems to favor) option 2, in a 2015 paper by Lewis and Maslin (Nature 519, 171-180).