I was gonna buy one of those Lite phones, but it was expensive so I just deleted time-wasting apps and now my smartphone respects my time. Hardest part was getting people to just text me instead of various social media messenger apps. In the end, I deleted my accounts and now everyone from school thinks I’m dead, but those close to me can reach me easily. Sometimes I still binge YouTube via Firefox on my phone though, so I installed “Unhook” which blocks recommended videos, so I can only see what I search for.

I guess just remember that your smartphone can be dumb too. And still a lot more convenient than a flip phone.

My mom is a school counselor at a tiny school in a tiny town in Montana. There is no way the school stays open. Or 90% of our public schools for that matter. Part of me wants to tell her “I told you so” but generally it just sucks so bad I don’t have the energy

I’m currently trying to figure out how to use RSS for this reason.

Are we that degenerate already??

Today I’m experimenting with Ansible. Wanna try setting up a Docker hosted RSS reader with it. Hopefully will write up controls for my whole Docker server with Ansible once I’m more familiar.

I didn’t figure it out… Haven’t gone back to visit. But the water definitely could be part of the issue - it’s well water that’s super high in Sulfer so it smells like a hot springs. I didn’t really notice the smell unless I was showering. But I didn’t consider what it’d do to the coffee!

Thanks! No Asian markets in my town… Don’t love being so reliant on Amazon 🙃 Anyway, I looked up the Korean morning coffee and I guess it has an egg yolk, pinch of salt, pine nuts, and a couple drops of sesame oil. And you either leave the yolk intact and have it like a prairie oyster at the end of your cup, or you stir it in as a kind of creamer. I don’t have pine nuts, but I tried both methods without them this morning - prairie oysters are not my favorite… And then you have an egg aftertaste instead of a coffee one. Mixing the egg made the drink very rich, which made me imagine strong chocolate notes. Feels a lot like breakfast in a cup, which I think is by design. Probably adds a good amount of nutrition. But I don’t think it improves upon plain black coffee. Kinda just a different drink. Fun to try, I’ll try it again after I pick up some pine nuts.

I’m excited for the Vietnamese egg coffe - I watched a couple videos and it looks super fun

It’s called a BruTrek and is a local product for me. I was hesitant to pick it up in case it was garbage but at least at my level, it’s been great. They seem like coffee nerds and the packaging convinced me. My wife has a fancy electric grinder for her espresso and we compared the two (as best as we could) and I don’t think there was any difference that could have been more than my pouring inconsistency. Years from now I might experiment with grinders that are known to be excellent though 😁

It’s actually a local product! Very happy with it. Unsure how much inspiration it took from the 1zpresso but they seem super similar.

Haven’t tried roasting but I feel like I’ll want to someday. The little research I’ve done says it’s complicated. Or at least can be complicated. If I ever have enough land, I want to grow some coffee plants and process them completely myself.

I also haven’t tried an aeropress but have been thinking about it. I’ve wondered if it’s actually a good camping solution, and I know people love them

Looks like mine are called Booge but there are a bunch of different styles that might work well for suits. Mine are hollow so you can run a string through, some have keychains, some have elastic loops. Not sure if you plan to keep them in the suit pocket or attach to the hanger or something.

Yeah, I’m trying this tomorrow. I’ve wondered about it, like what would happen if you tossed your bloom water and such. With pour over specifically, I wonder about bypass as well, and how much of it is wanted (if much at all).

Very interesting! Funny how the “solution” of using less beans results in a worse problem. I might have to inspect my friend’s machine someday as I know he doesn’t likely clean it.

My wife cleans her espresso machine regularly though and has special chemicals for it - so she obviously is in the know about it

I might not be the best person to answer this as I’ve never used a drip machine - but waste-wise, my pour over setup still uses a paper filter every cup. There are metal filters you can buy but the result isn’t the same (more oils and small particles). You can use a reusable cloth filter and from what I hear they are great but high maintenance to avoid them smelling like laundry that sat in the washer too long.

I’ll just explain why I like pour over. First, I’ll say that it’s a bit hard and requires a good amount of knowledge. I’d recommend watching some Youtube videos before trying it out. James Hoffman has a good pour over tutorial.

I like it because of how tactile it is. Weigh and grind the beans while the kettle boils, rinse the filter, pour a bloom, swirl, do the rest of your pouring, swirl again. Lot’s of aromas. To me, way more fun than making tea.

The second reason I like it is how much control you have with the result. There are so many variables to tweak, and with practice you can do pretty well to get the best out of a bean. This is also a negative because without a bunch of knowledge and practice you can’t get very good cups. Or you get super inconsistent results.

So just depends what you’re looking for. Do you want to put in more work for your coffee? Then 100% try pour over. Will it 100% be better than your machine makes? Definitely not, at least without some work and knowledge - but with those it probably will be better.

Yup, I just added that to my to-try list. Super cool, thanks!! My wife also just told me about Korean “morning coffee” which has an egg yolk mixed into it. Kinda excited to try that tomorrow.

I started to reply with a story from this Christmas, but ended up making it a whole post in the ExMormon community - feel free to check it out! Vindicating Christmas story

My wife mentioned something about that ages ago - I’m a huge tinkerer, so I’m taking notes to look into later - thanks!

My brother was like you where he loved coffee from the first sip. As kids, he’d talk about how he loved the smell - and he even used to drink Pero (a coffee replacement). But he never got into coffee as a hobby so he still uses like a $15 machine he got second hand.

Good luck with your decaf!

Same. Once, a family member told me that I’d been super blessed my whole life but because I left the church it was all gonna come crashing down. Anyway, now whenever I get a work promotion or anything, I give them the mental middle finger. So now I feel like the general success of my life is important to prove them wrong. Fortunately, I’m super fortunate in life so it’s been easy so for (knock on wood)

It’s my wife’s espresso machine and it was a wedding gift from her bosses (from before I liked coffee). I guess it’s the same machine they use. Before the machine, she used a Moka pot for milk drinks. I still kinda suck at pouring espresso, but I haven’t put in a lot of time to practice it (yet)