Product Reviews

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency review Sherlock for the stoner set

Review: Ambronite

It’s a ritual as old as civilization: hunt and gather, cook, masticate, repeat. Like everything else, though, the primal act of eating real food is under siege. Celebrity cyborgs dismiss traditional meals as a wasteful indulgence, and dream of a dystopian diet that’s as grim as it is efficient. Legions of likeminded techies—toiling away at startups from Mumbai to Silicon Beach—can’t wait for the day when autonomous vehicles drive us down the road to gastronomic ruin. These are the people who would gladly spend all their waking hours coding or chasing VC checks instead of visiting a produce market or whipping up a tomato rag.

Ambronite

6/10

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Wired

Unlike other meal-in-a-pouch products, Ambronite is made from real food instead of processed supplements. Almost semi-palatable if gulped quickly. 500 calories (and 30 grams of protein) per bag is almost enough to keep you from reaching for the trail mix.

Tired

Priced not to move. Seriously, it’s expensive. Despite the all the organic ingredients and feel-good vibes, this vegan-friendly shake is still joyless sustenance.

Buy It Now | Ambronite

To appease the slow food hater demo, dozens of calorie-dense products promising maximum nutrition with minimal effort have flooded the marketplace. Blendrunner, a clearinghouse for this emerging cottage industry, lists 47 different Soylent clones that target customers ranging from pot smokers (Stoner Shake) to chemists (Joule Fuel) to Hasidic Jews (Schmilk), each one with a convenient carb/protein/fat pie chart. For those who prefer the lifehack approach, DIY Soylent offers hundreds of free open source recipes like Superfood For Fat Guy In His 30s and Trader Joe’s Soy + Whey. Just plug in your own bio/lifestyle data points, and an algorithm will adjust the formulas accordingly.

It may sound easy on a Reddit forum, but making powdered meals from scratch is a tough nut. In fact, just clearing the water-solubility hurdle and minimizing the flatulence-factor (tip: easy on the sulfur) is a time-consuming process. Which is precisely what the sci-fi trope of nutrients-on-demand is not supposed to be. That’s why most bootstrap office drones purchase their instant kilocalories on Amazon. But what if you want a healthy Soylent that’s more Whole Foods than faux foods? Say no more.

Ambronite markets itself as “the world’s first Real Food Drinkable Supermeal.” Like all drinkable supermeals, Ambro R&D regularly tweaks its formula. The company just launched a new recipe that features several improvements. In addition to being easier to mix and yielding a smoother texture, the new stuff is supposed to taste better. Bold statement. Is Ambro v5 the answer to Elon Musk’s prayers, or just more PR malarkey?

Cash for Cache

Ambronite is god-awful expensive. Five packets (five meals) will set you back $59. A 10-packet box is a bit cheaper per ounce: $99. To put those numbers in perspective, consider that seven bags of Soylent (28 meals) are only $54. Huel, another player in the powdered supermeal category, has a similar price-point: $55.09 for two bags (28 meals). Some brands charge more, some less. But they’re all roughly in the same range: about two bucks for a single 500 kcal serving. Why is Ambronite more than four times the cost of the competition? To start with, this stuff is made in Finland. The average hourly wage for industrial workers there is 14 an hour ($15.50). Throw in fancy organic ingredients, pretty packaging, marketing, shipping, a lot of unbridled greed, and presto: 59 bucks.

Confirmation Bias

In 2014, Finnish sailor Ari Huusela completed a trans-Atlantic solo boat race. His diet during that arduous competition consisted partly of Ambronite. Here’s what Mr. Huusela told the International Business Times about the powdered meal-in-a-bottle invented in his native land: “Ambronite is rich in energy, healthy and feels good. As nutrition it works well.” Just as I cannot block that glowing endurance athlete endorsement from my memory, neither can I un-see the heroic video of Ari lustily chugging a bottle of Ambro at sea. Now that’s product placement: Man pitted against the elements in a life-and-death struggle, fueled only by the sheer will to survive, and the occasional Ambronite shake. Must not allow Finnish Aquaman to cloud my judgement!

It’s In There

The Ambronite hook is that it’s made of real food that’s been pulverized into a fine dust. Unlike other sludge shakes on the market, there are no ultra-processed supplements in this stuff to sully the ingredient list. Those ingredients, limited to just 20 (some organic and “wild grown”), tread the fine line between health food store and Chez Panisse menu.

There is nettle leaf, sea buckthorn, bilberries and black currants. Every line item sounds like something healthy. There’s no artificial anything. That deep green hue, which conjures images of fern-covered Nordic forests, comes not from Green Dye No. 1, but instead a generous portion of spinach, chlorella and spirulina. The two main ingredients are oats and almonds. Ambro is also vegan, non-GMO, and contains no additives or preservatives.

The nutrient pie chart is pretty standard: carbohydrates (40 percent), fat (36 percent), protein (24 percent). One bag is 500 calories and offers 30 grams of protein. Based on the USDA’s recommended 2,000 calorie per diem, four Ambronite bags is a daily allowance. All of the nutrient metadata can be found on Ambronite’s website.

If you buy a 10-pack box, you get a flip-top bottle made of food-safe plastic that looks like a skinny cocktail shaker. Rip open a packet, toss in the Ambro, add H₂0 (20 ounces) and shake vigorously, like a barkeep preparing a martini. Ambro claims a 2-minute prep time, but I made a mockery of that benchmark. My green goop was ready in 25 seconds flat. Those who have been around the Blendrunner block will marvel at this product’s impressive dissolve-factor and low-grit texture. When reconstituted, most powdered meals resemble grainy pancake batter. Clumping, particularly at the bottom of the glass, is a common problem. That rapid water solubility is a proprietary secret. The smoother texture is supposedly due to the addition of “Nordic oat protein.” Good luck finding that sold in bulk on Alibaba.

Taste Test

Although the new formula was engineered to taste better, Team Ambro doesn’t want to raise expectations on the flavor front. This caveat, sent via email by a PR person, stresses convenience over palatability: “I want to make it clear, one does not drink Ambronite for the taste. One drinks Ambronite to free themselves from the tyranny of cooking food!” Yes, but what about the tyranny of taste? Are coders and trans-Atlantic boat racers doomed to a life of sucking hideous-tasting green sludge from a tube?

Pouch-food people know hunger pangs the way Stephen Hawking knows black holes.

So here we go. Ambronite v5 tastes like an oatmeal Slurpee. Ambro’s party line is that the flavor uptick came about because some genius calculated the perfect cranberry-to-billberry ratio. Oddly, though, there is no discernable berry taste. The flavor profile is predominantly vanilla, with faint banana and cocoa notes. A generous amount of agave syrup imparts a honey-like sweetness. Not cloying, but not particularly pleasant either. Foodies who insist on slumming may experience a gag reflex. To be fair, Ambro does taste better than Soylent. In fact, Ambronite v5 might be the best supermeal shake money can buy. Still, that’s cold consolation. The tyranny of taste endures.

Rib Stickiness

One of the problems with a protein shake diet is satiety, or the lack thereof. Pouch-food people know hunger pangs the way Stephen Hawking knows black holes. That’s because chewing is an important part of the digestive process, signaling to the brain that the stomach is filling up. It also helps if the food stays in your stomach for a while. Ambro, for instance, contains plenty of fiber. But that powdered roughage has been ground so fine that it requires far less energy to digest. The green slurry passes through the alimentary canal like a greased eel. When it comes to “feeling full,” there’s nothing like a steak, a potato, and plenty of jawbone action. Ambronite ignores the laws of physiology. Satiety happens to be part of the sales pitch. One serving is supposed to stave off hunger for five hours. That was true for me, but I’m shackled to my desk like Bartleby the scrivener. Those who embrace a CrossFit regimen and Parkour to work every day might be famished three hours after taking an Ambro break.

Manna Or Junk?

Unless you have a medical condition or suffer from anhedonia, eating meals through a straw is a bad idea. Like celibacy, it runs counter to human nature. Evolutionary psychologists believe eating solid food is vital to humans because it permits the release of “dental aggressive urges.” Give up solid food, the theory goes, and you deny yourself an important outlet for tension. Stay on the Ambronite diet long enough, and you could end up bludgeoning your boss to death with a keyboard.

According to Sharon R. Akabas, the director of the MS program at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University, Ambro isn’t a “supermeal with 100 percent of everything” either, as the website propaganda insists. “The idea that this company has created the perfect food formula is ridiculous,” Akabas says. “You would need hundreds of ingredients, and hundreds more that we don’t even know about yet.” What about using Ambro as emergency meal, like on a long flight that serves terrible food? “A couple of Snickers bars is cheaper. These people are great at marketing, but terrible at science.”

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‘Doctor Strange’ reviews: Benedict Cumberbatch rules, smoke ’em if you got ’em

Plenty review Rachel Weisz rises above flawed David Hare revival

The Oscar-winner delivers an electrifying performance as a restless woman in postwar England but the play lacks a sense of place, time and purpose

For Susan Traherne, a former resistance courier and the heroine of David Hares Plenty, now revived at the Public Theater, the war ended with the liberation of France. Then the real battle began.

Susan (given galvanized life by Rachel Weisz) returns to an England miserable, grey, and loveless. She cant resign herself to a postwar life of peace and plenty. As she explains to Brock (Corey Stoll), the diplomat who will become her husband, women who served as she did feel rather restless back in England. So she hurtles from job to job and perhaps from lover to lover, restive in body and mind. She cant remake the world as she wants it to be; she cant endure it as it is. Brave, ineffectual, and possibly mad, shes Hedda Gabler in a powder blue sheath dress.

Plenty is a thorny sort of play. It moves back and forth in time, from 1943 to 1962, and can be understood in ways both literal and metaphorical. This highly wrought exploration of a womans complicated psychology is also an allegory for postwar Britain and the ways in which some of the fruits of victory withered on the vine, leaving basic social structures (government, capitalism, relations between men and women) more or less unchanged. Its figurative use of Susans infertility to suggest Englands sterility is perhaps too obvious, but otherwise Hare manages the trick neatly, wittily and wryly.

Because the play works on so many levels and delights in so many ambiguities, it requires a firm sense of place and time and purpose, which David Leveauxs revival does not offer. The flashbacks to the war have a nice specificity, but the scenes set afterward dont feel nearly as particular. A large carousel bisected by a sturdy wall wheels Mike Brittons props and furniture on and off, but one place seems very much like another, one conflict too much like the next. Some of this is perhaps intentional a suggestion of the drabness and sameness of the postwar world but it stalls the play rather than pushing it onward. The action ought to seem more desperate or more desolate, but instead that set whirls on, dignified and unconcerned.

As Susan, Weisz has some big heels to fill. The role has been played by Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep and originated by Kate Nelligan, whose performance, nearly 40 years ago, some theatergoers still remember with adulation. Weisz is an intolerably beautiful actress, yet she still manages to suggest vast reserves of intelligence and feeling below the surface glamor. She sometimes strains for effect, employing a panting, gasping cadence to suggest Susans mania and flinging her body around the stage with a studied artlessness. And she could more strongly suggest the relationships with her rackety friend Alice (Emily Bergl) or with Brock (whom Stoll renders oddly colorless). But hers is a high-voltage performance, pulsating with alternating currents, flashing against the bleakness of Susans world.

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PJ Harvey review protest songs unleash magnetic, righteous drama

What’s next: FBI unlikely to conclude Clinton email review prior to election

Washington (CNN)FBI officials are unlikely to finish their review of new emails potentially related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server before the November 8 election.

Officials are constantly meeting and debating whether there’s any more room for them to add clarity without further harming the situation. The initial work of cataloging top Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s emails found on her estranged husband Anthony Weiner’s laptop could be done in the next few days, US law enforcement officials told CNN.

But the investigators are expected to spend more time doing other work, including likely coordinating with other federal agencies to determine what — if any — classified materials are in the emails. This makes it unlikely there will be a resolution prior to the election.

Ex-AGs Alberto Gonzales, Eric Holder, Michael Mukasey rip FBI director

“From the beginning, Ms. Abedin has complied fully and voluntarily with State Department and law enforcement requests, including sitting for hours-long interviews and providing her work-related and potentially work-related documents,” said Abedin’s lawyer, Karen Dunn of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP, in statement to CNN.

“Ms. Abedin’s willing cooperation has been praised by members of Congress and law enforcement officials alike. She only learned for the first time on Friday, from press reports, of the possibility that a laptop belonging to Mr. Weiner could contain emails of hers. While the FBI has not contacted us about this, Ms. Abedin will continue to be, as she always has been, forthcoming and cooperative,” Dunn said.

FBI Director James Comey’s decision to notify lawmakers of the review Friday is rocking the final days of the presidential race. Clinton’s surrogates along with three former attorneys general have blasted Comey for violating FBI protocol designed to keep the bureau away from election-year politics.

The investigators are using software comparable to a specialized search engine at FBI facilities in Quantico, Virginia, to try to isolate emails on Weiner’s computer that could be pertinent to the Clinton email-server investigation, the law enforcement officials said. Some of that work was done earlier this month when agents conducting the Weiner investigation stumbled on the Abedin emails.

After that work is done, investigators will examine the emails they believe are relevant to the Clinton investigation to see if they contain classified information and, if so, whether the individuals who sent or received the emails knew the information was classified.

FBI officials also believe it’s possible that investigators might have to conduct another interview with Abedin and others.

Officials say they are providing all the necessary resources to streamline the process given the sense of urgency so close to the election.

“We are very aware of the pressure on us,” one law enforcement official told CNN. “This is not a resource problem.”

In a letter to congressional Democrats Monday, Assistant Attorney General Peter J. Kadzik wrote Monday that the Justice Department is moving as quickly as possible.

“We assure you that the Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” Kadzik wrote.

Officials say it’s unlikely the public will hear from FBI Director James Comey until it is more clear about the substance of the pertinent emails, the officials said.

Comey is under fire from Democrats in the wake of his Friday disclosure to lawmakers that the FBI is once again looking into emails potentially tied to its Clinton investigation.

FBI discovered Clinton-related emails weeks ago

Clinton’s campaign, sensing political danger, is calling on Comey to immediately release more information about the emails.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that Comey had meant to transparently disclose information by sending the letter — but “clearly it had the opposite of the intended effect.”

Comey’s revelation left many unanswered questions about the content of the emails and how they could be related to Clinton, at a particularly politically sensitive time for the Democratic nominee eight days out from the election.

Former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, on Monday slammed Comey, saying his letter was an “error in judgment.”

“You don’t comment on investigations because commenting on the investigation may jeopardize the investigation. And that’s the box that he’s put himself in, because people are now calling for more information — for release of the emails,” Gonzales told CNN’s John Berman and Kate Bolduan on “At This Hour.”

Gonzales, who served in the George W. Bush administration, said Comey wouldn’t have been misleading voters by withholding the news until after November 8.

“If you delay the announcement, hopefully it’s not going to jeopardize an investigation, it’s not going to jeopardize the pursuit of justice, and voters will have the opportunity to vote on Election Day without information that may in fact be incomplete or untrue,” he said.

Eric Holder, the attorney general during much of President Barack Obama’s administration, called Comey’s action “incorrect” in The Washington Post on Monday.

“I served with Jim Comey, and I know him well. This is a very difficult piece for me to write. He is a man of integrity and honor. I respect him. But good men make mistakes. In this instance, he has committed a serious error with potentially severe implications,” Holder wrote.

“It is incumbent upon him — or the leadership of the department — to dispel the uncertainty he has created before Election Day. It is up to the director to correct his mistake — not for the sake of a political candidate or campaign but in order to protect our system of justice and best serve the American people.”

Donald Trump: ‘Thank you, Huma. Good job, Huma’

Despite the backlash, Comey stands by his decision and believes he did the right thing, according to a source familiar with Comey’s thinking. In Comey’s view, he was faced with two bad options: Not be upfront with Congress and risk the news leaking out or violating DOJ protocol and living up to his word to Congress to provide any updates related to the investigation.

He chose the lesser of the two bad choices in his mind.

“He’s doing okay,” the source said.

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Review: Zeiss ExoLens Lenses for iPhone 6/6s

I’m no pro photographer, but like every other smart phone user, I’ve taken thousands of snaps on my iPhone. And like every doting dad or wannabe Ansel Adams, I’ve often wished I could zoom in closer or capture a proper panorama without having to do that ridiculous pan-and-stitch twirl that iOS forces you do.

Add-on lenses are a great option for folks like me who want to improve their photography, but who have no interest in buying and lugging around a mammoth DSLR. That’s because the iPhone camera sensor is pretty good. It’s the feeble lens that is holding you back.

WIRED

The Zeiss ExoLens system fits the iPhone 6 and 6s. The company will likely soon release a system for the iPhone 7, but if you still have a 6-series phone that you plan to keep for a while, this set can be bought currently.

The system is actually three different products, all sold separately; all together the collection includes enough parts and pieces to keep you busy all afternoon. First are the frames, one for each model phone, which slide snugly onto your handset (once the case is removed). A tiny screw-on socket accepts each of the three lenses, including a 0.6x wide angle lens ($200, which includes the frame), a 2.0x telephoto lens ($200, frame sold separately), and a macro-zoom lens ($150, frame sold separately) for extreme close-ups. Various lens caps and hoods designed to work with their specific lens are included as well.

Across the board, the lenses work well. The wide angle lens really opens up the narrow frame of the iPhone’s standard lens to a sizably more impressive field of view, and I didn’t experience any edge blurring or fisheye distortion in my shots. The telephoto lens, with a mere 2x magnification, is less useful than I’d like, though it does make casual shots of novelty bumper stickers more appealing. The final macro-zoom lens is my favorite: It lets you get right up on your subject (practically touching) while keeping it in sharp focus, something that just isn’t possible with the standard iPhone camera.

Finally, don’t overlook the funky-looking frame. It has a purpose of its own, allowing for both a tripod and a flash to be attached, something you won’t get with phone cases designed to accept add-on lenses.

TIRED

Rest assured that the ExoLens collection will not turn you into a pro overnight. All the lenses provide a noticeable improvement to the rack iPhone 6 or 6s camera, but unless you’re pic-obsessed, the impact is modest. (Note that this set is definitively not compatible with the iPhone 7.) If you want serious zoom power or breathtaking landscape shots, this collection won’t quite get you there. $550 is a huge amount to pay for grown-up toys, so buying these piecemeal might be more apropos.

Among my other grievances: The frame blocks the flash and the included documentation is worthless. But my biggest pet peeve is that the various lens caps and hoods are bound to get lost, despite all the little cloth bags Zeiss provides for storage purposes. The only thing worse than spending $550 on iPhone lenses? Spending $550 on scratched iPhone lenses.

RATING

7/10 – Very good, but not quite great.

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