I went to the Westa car show in Hiroshima a couple of days ago with an MCCS but trip. Good time, walked around with an open Asahi extra dry and basked in the glory of Japanese Western mod culture. Which oddly enough is not just Western cars (There were a surprising number of low riders), but also includes older model Japanese cars (all Showa era). This show is where I knew I wanted an early 70's Nissan "pigs but" Laurel .
And it's not just cars, the music as well. There was a mix of Hip Hop, Girl band Pop, 1950's American Rockabilly (surprisingly popular in Japanese counterculture), and alternative Punk. On the way back we stopped at the You Me mall, where I hit up the super market and got a number of Japanese beers I cannot find on base. This is one of those beers.
It took a little bit of research as the label is almost entirely in Japanese characters aside from the deceleration that it's from Japans first microbrewery and that it is a premium beer. The brewer in question is Echigo, which started as a brewpub in 1995 thanks to Japanese licensing and capacity laws changing two years prior. They are currently the largest craft brewer in Japan and they have won a number of international awards, that number I have yet to determine as there is not allot of info about this brewery in English, but it's at least six or more. Promising, but I prefer to let the beer do the talking. And the beer that will do that talking is their pilsner, who (according to the Google translate version of the companies web page) is brewed with Zatsu hopps, the original hop of pilsner (also barley malt). I think they mean Zatec hops, as in the city of Zatec in the Czech Republic, which would mean the variety is actually Saaz. Other than that it is 5% ABV and has an IBU of 26, oddly enough making it one of there most bitter brews. The can is a golden color as it seems to be a theme with this brewery to color code their cans. For instance there stout is a completely black can and their red ale is a red can. Time to open.
It smells more like a wheat beer from the can, kind of like a fresh ear of corn with a little sourness. Color is golden, slightly amber with a frothy, but quickly dissipating head. Nose from the glass is faint but it actually smells like a pilsner. It has a touch of sourness to it but not enough to drive me away. It has a malty sweetness that I would say is the beers main character. It is kind of a light mid body with low acidity. It's not notably carbonated, but there's some life inside of the glass. Finish is rather dry.
So, I'm rather dismayed by the utter lack of information there seems to be with a simple internet search on defeating robots. There is article after article about how we're designing killer robots and how soon we could have disposable killer robots made to kamikaze their way to any target that meets specific criteria.
I had no idea as a teenager that this would actually be a reality of the world I lived in.
I saw an interview with Adam Savage and Jamie Hineman (of Mythbusters fame) where they were asked the question and their answer was to install kill switches and fail safes. That's all well and good if it's you're own robot, but what about someone else's swarms of small, cheap, flying drones that are essentially flying smart grenades coming for you? Have we entered a realm where skeet shooting with an automatic shotgun is a necessary military survival skill?
I've finished this beer, but I really want to keep talking about the real robot problem that nobody wants to talk about, so final thoughts on this beer and then I'm switching to a Westmalle tripel. It's a decent pilsner, not the best, not even the best Japanese one, but worth trying. I'll give it my blurry seal of approval.
So anyways, killer robots and how we're all doomed. I suppose it will be necessary to replace the focus the infantry has on anti-personnel to anti-material, as our enemy's increasingly become automations. The obvious route is to counter automated combatants with automated combatants and make them the center of a rifle squad. What this will look like is anyone's guess at this point, but in the near future you'll be seeing things like this:
yea right, always accompanied by a soldier, we'll see how long that lasts. I think using the M240 machine gun was a little naive though, kind of like the idea of magazine cutoffs in bolt action rifles at the turn of the 20th century. These machines would absolutely function better with a main gun designed around them and not a human. Maybe the army really believes that robots will never replace human soldiers on the field. Maybe in the near future, but you know that's not going to last. It's kind of like this socket set I got from my Grandfather, it ways made in the late 50's-early 60's and it says "made in Japan under American supervision". How long until everybody realized that the Japanese were probably better at making those sockets than their supervisors? How much longer until until the Japanese took everything we taught them about manufacturing and American businessed harder than American business. (I've run out of the Westmalle and have switched over to a LaTrappe Dubbel). The Human operators are just to give people a warm and fuzzy, just like the American supervising the Japanese that would eventually employ them. Everybody from the Engineers to the operators know these machines could make perfectly good decisions on their own, probably better than their human operators. It reminds me of a story I read from a couple of years ago about the automated turrets that guard the De-militarized zone between the DPRK and the ROK. They were armed with .50 caliber machine guns and made to take down trucks (or people, but the article strategically neglects to mention that). It scanned its area perfectly, issued warnings to potential targets, and could automatically execute almost perfectly accurate direct fire on its target, but would only fire if a human overseer pressed a button and approved the action. Do you think that kind of restraint would really be used if the DPRK decided to charge across that three mile strip and assault the ROK's position? Absolutely not, after a single wave they would set that machine to confirm its targets and then terminate with extreme prejudice. Before WW2 people were uncomfortable with the idea of mass bombing. Now, if you follow our mission against ISIS, we prefer it to sending actual people to combat. I figure we have one good conflict until people almost completely accept robots making the decision to kill a person.The problem is that, for some people, I'm that person.
So what do we do? I, for one, say we should not shy away from automated combatants, because God knows our enemy's won't. Ultimately war is about imposing you're will over someone else, they teach you about that in Corporals course and I wish they would hammer it in a little bit throughout the Marine Corps a little more. It's not exactly a Libertarian ideal, but what are you to do when you are ultimately defending the idea of personal liberty? We should not go running to them as fools, as they are very dangerous, but as an undeniable reality of our world. Just like when we created the bomb, a reasonable and educated person knows that the Genie has been let out of the bottle and we cannot take it back. We have stumbled upon a way to cheat the previously known system with an incredible tool and we cannot forget it. I remember when I changed my Facebook profile picture to a nuclear blast from back in the 50's my great aunt Frieda Hatfield Tong commented that most Adults when she what a child did not like the bomb, but saw it as a necessity. I don't see why automated combatants should be any different.
So I think it is clear, we have our cold, emotionless, logic driven killing machines and they have theirs. There isn't anything anybody can do about it without reverting to feudalism. We tread the edge of oblivion and have since the day you were born (presuming you were born after 1945). We could all say that we should all get along, but I think we all know that's not possible. We must act with full knowledge of the position we are in. If it comes to oblivion, than that's a risk we must take, for what do you're beliefs really mean if you are not willing to risk all in their defense. Life will persist somewhere in a twisted perversion of what we knew. We have a creed in Ordnance: "In God and Ordance we adore, in times of trouble, not before. The schedule met, all troubles righted. God is forgotten, Ordnance slighted.". God is forgotten as we do truly do not know a single day without him, unless we are put in a situation where we have only ourselves and our evil hearts. I think we will not forget the automatic combatants and the ordnance they bring because we do not know a single day without them.You will tell you're children of the days unmanned Arial vehicles roamed the sky with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and how that was a big deal, and they will think "how pedestrian".
Wow,that got really, really dark. So, long story short, I'm looking for a mid 1970's Nissan laurel (Or 1980's Nissan sunny truck) in southern Honshu if anybody knows of anything.
I've had a bit of a hiatus from writing the blog as I've been moving to Iwakuni Japan. However I'm mostly settled in and can now resume my never ending quest to keep fewer than twelve beers in my room while also buying any beer that catches my eye and then writing about it. Iwakuni's 7 day doesn't keep quite the variety that inspired me to start this blog. Okinawa was quite the gem, now that I look back. It's no Ashville, or even Greenville for that matter, but if you wanted to know what the major breweries were cooking up around the world, Oki was a good place to find out. But anyways, this Hop Stoopid IPA is the first beer from Lagunitas of Petaluma California (originally from Lagunitas Cal.) that I have had on the blog and as usual I want to talk about the brewery that brewed the brew.
Lagunitas Brewing company was founded in 1993 by Tony Magee, who's book I'm reading right now. I won't give you the entire run down because it's 211 pages long, so I'll sum it up. He started off as a home brewer who decided he liked brewing enough to become a contract brewer making private label beers for local restaurants while also working his day job as a commercial printer. A little while latter he hired a guy to help him, and then it became several guys, and after a few years he completely left printing to brew full time. The brewery grew "tyrannically" in Magee's own words, making large quantities of money, but always being cash strapped as employees, suppliers, the landlord, and the bank always needed to be paid off before any of the profits showed up (such is the life of a brewer). Lagunitas currently operates 2 breweries, the "original" (Its been moved and upgraded several times), and a Chicago location that opened in 2012. They are opening a third brewery in Azusa CA, chosen for it's water quality and the fact that MillerCoors has a brewery there as well. While they were (and still are) one of the biggest craft brewers in the game, they cannot technically be called craft as they sold a 50% stake to Heineken last year. I don't know whether to call this a sell out or not, they didn't sell a controlling stake (although I don't know the exact details of the arrangement) and this seems like a smart business move as it will give them international distribution. At least they didn't sell out to the beer devil.
I bought a set of beer glasses recently, I had to leave all of my glassware back home so you may not be seeing the super traditional Orion mug for a while as having it mailed out to me is going to take a couple of weeks at least. It's a pretty basic set made for you're garden variety craft beers. I'm not really a fan of the tulip glass that came with it, it's almost a less extreme Scottish thistle glass than the Belgian "snifter with a lip" tulip glass I've become accustomed to. I'll probably have one of my tulips mailed to me from the States as well.Anyways, TO THE BEER!
The label claims to be 104 International Bitterness Units and is 8% Alcohol By Volume. It also has a little paragraph on the label that reads as such:
Don't judge me,I'm a busy man.
And, like all of their beers, has the Lagunitas dog.
Started life as a label graphic on a discontinued beer, but everybody liked it so much they made it the company logo.
The graphic on the green label is an old farmhouse which I remember reading about where it was, but I've completely forgotten and now cannot find the reference.
Nose from the bottle is piney resin with some maltyness. Pouring it, the head is thick and has quite a bit of staying power which I think can be attributed to how lively this beer is. It's like an orange-amber Jacuzzi in there. Nose from the glass is much the same as the bottle. On first sip, it is strikingly bitter and dry. Very grassy aftertaste, like eating a dandelion. On second sip that pine resin nose comes out in the flavor and the beer mellows out a bit with the same touch of maltyness. Mouthfeel is slightly acidic with no alcohol bite to speak of from the beers slightly over medium body. I'm surprised by how used to this beer I've quickly become. Admittedly I've been drinking a great deal of German and Japanese Pilsners and light lagers, quite different from my IPA and stout/porter heavy diet in the States, which may account for the initial shock I had at first sip. I may have only been here a short time already, but this is a much missed taste of home. I suppose its all for the best, if I had never left home I would have never embarked on this venture and would probably be one one of those sorry SOBs that only "likes" beer.
I recently purchased a decent turn table which is something I've never really had. I've either had those crappy Crosley ones I've gotten on sale (don't ever buy a Crosley, not even for the casual listener, their quality is terrible) or players that are well over fifty years old and are almost impossible to find replacement parts for. Although calling my new (at least, new to me) Audio-technica AP LP-60 decent is totally based on product reviews and I have no idea whether or not it's any good from a functional sense. It didn't come with speakers, but I swung by the base thrift shop and bought a second hand (or third, it's not like it came with a historical ledger) set of Logitech speakers which should suffice for now, we'll see when I actually get an LP in. Speaking of LPs, the one thing I want to come back from Japan with (other than exotic beers and a Showa era truck car) is an original Japanese copy of Cheap Trick at the Budokan. In my opinion, its one of the best rock concerts of all time.In fact, I'm switching my music over to that right now (at the moment I'm listening to 1000 mods, a excellent stoner rock band band, check 'em out.). ALL RIGHT TOKYO, (Japanese girls scream) ARE YOU READY!? (Japanese girls scream harder) WILL YOU WELCOME EPIC RECORDING ARTIST CHEAP TRICK! (the crowd looses it). I've had this concert memorized from the time I was a kid and I can sing every word. I went ahead and plugged in the new speakers, they work just fine.
After this beer warms up, the pine resin overpowers the malt flavor a little bit, as IPAs are want to do. overall I'm saddened by the fact that I'm out of this one (large bottle though it was). I am especially saddened by the fact that the PX is out of them. I can only assume that this was the last one on MCAS Iwakuni and thus it means that I must be traveling on now, there are too many beers that I've got to see. I realize that's taken from Lynyrd Skynyrd lyrics and not Cheap Trick, but that's how I feel about this beer. I give it my blurry seal of approval.
