Complete coffee snob here, but I also like to think that I can find the happy medium between crazy/exquisite and important. Here are my pointers:
1. The most important factor is fresh grind of good-enough beans. Grind just enough for each brew.
2. Water temp, which you mention, makes a difference, but no need to get a fancy kettle. Take water off a boil and count 10 seconds. Good enough!
3. Good-enough beans are basically anything that you can buy in whole-bean form. You could spend $10 on a pound of high-end Starbucks or you could spend $5 on a mid-range pound of 8 O'Clock. They taste different, but I find both levels of coffee to be sufficient.
4. Make coffee stronger than necessary and dilute to your preference. Never use fewer beans than necessary as it will make the coffee bitter.
5. Like flavors? Add them afterwards. Additives in flavored coffee will generally leech into almost any brewing vessel and subtly alter future batches.
Brewing method generally doesn't matter. French press is nice if you don't mind inevitable grit and a manual process. Most auto coffee makers are good enough. I try to steer people away from cups and pods due to waste, cost, and the fresh-grind factor, but they are very convenient if you're optimizing for time. My preferred work/flavor balance is a Melitta cone filter that requires hand pour of water.
The trick with a french press is to grind the beans just slightly coarser. If you aim for the consistency of sand, there's enough surface area to brew well in 3-5 minutes, but it's not so fine that you end up with a mouth of grit at the bottom of your cup.
Really? We're talking about an article that claims Monsanto is, "responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes?" In the very first sentence!
Sorry, I don't care how relevant or accurate the other information is, but it's not valid after that. Monsanto may or may not be evil, and the farmers may or may not be good, but you certainly can't (shouldn't) form any opinion based on this junk.
AKA: Quadrocopters - Flying Robots Deliver Themselves To You!
With all the crazy scamming I've experienced on places like Craigslist, I can't imagine there wouldn't be some jerk that would just start taking the vehicles. Even if there's some type of visual/tracking, they'd figure it out. How many tacos would have to be delivered to deal with that kind of shrinkage?
Thanks for posting. Something about this rubs me the wrong way, so I read it a couple times to help me formulate my feedback.
I think the problem I have with this is that I can't create the same level of abstraction on the 'modern system' and 'slavery' that the author does. I'm not offended by the use of slavery as a point of comparison, but I don't think that it's really compared to the 'modern system' in a useful way. They are so many leagues apart, which can't be shown through the logical comparisons present in the article.
Also, the examples of entanglement aren't really inescapable evils that the argument requires (I'm looking at you car and iphone). I have no doubt those evils are out there.
But, you say, I'm missing the point. True enough, and I think there's a good point in this post that can be teased out through a little more revision. I think the payoff is at the end...the portion on disentangling. This is the hacker ethos, yes? Recognizing the artificial/restrictions and subverting it to make your life better. The best part of the article was where the author linked to his/her startup; it really shows where the logic is taking us. I guess I'd prefer it if this were more explicit in the conclusion (and probably more appealing to the people in this venue, although the many supportive comments indicate that many make this logical connection automatically). Again: Thanks.
Thanks for the feedback - you make some good points.
I started from the point of slavery mostly in response to other authors who describe the modern system of employee/employer as slavery, which I think is the wrong word, but it seems I didn't do quite a good enough job of making that clear.
It isn't that consumerism & 50 hour work weeks are inescapable, only that they are difficult to escape and remain in mainstream society at the same time. Looking at people who have chosen alternate lifestyles (Like ERE or being a bum as someone else pointed out) are often marginalized ans ostracized - the system does not seem to like that they challenge the basic assumptions of what is good about our society.
I personally have been trying to bootstrap a startup as a way to escape some of the control a 9-5 brings with it, but I don't see entrepreneurship as a catch-all solution. As another article I am working on will point out, Startups are better off in some areas but are also often forced to trade off in others. Depending on the structure, leading a startup may often be worse from a lifestyle design perspective than working for a corporation.
I don't have a general purpose "solution" to the problem of dis-satisfaction in modern society, but I do know that what we have going for us is sub-optimal, and I would like to find alternate ways of living and structuring society to address some of the issues I tried to bring to light.
Thanks for the feedback - I think perhaps I will expand on the areas you mention in the future to help make it more clear. I would appreciate your input :)
"Recognizing the artificial/restrictions and subverting it to make your life better" - I think we all strive to do that. Like you, I have some reserves will the article, but it definitely rings a bell.
Yet how exactly is creating a company any better? If you keep servicing other people interest, it could be called an illusion of freedom. You will compromise yourself at a time or another.
If you hire people to really get your freedom, it's subjugating others, and it may not be any better if you consider other persons besides yourself also matter.
"Yet how exactly is creating a company any better? If you keep servicing other people interest, it could be called an illusion of freedom"
If you sell a product or service, you get to choose what goes into that product or service. Look at apple: If they listened to the general public, the Ipad would have never been released.
" You will compromise yourself at a time or another."
You don't ever need to. Plenty of companies release what they want and it just so happens to coincide with what other people want.
Thanks KE! This was my initial reaction as well. Sometimes it's nice to apply abstraction in order to grease the wheels of reason, but abstraction has a nasty double edge. ("Owner cared for well-being") does not equal ("Only individual cares for well-being"). Not even a little bit.
We had (and used) both services, but the price hike caused us to reevaluate all of our media expenses. Cancelled all Netflix and our cable. Retained Xbox Live (and internets, of course).
We were more annoyed by the Netflix change than enraged by it, and it was a convenient reason to examine the value vs. expense ratio of what we were buying every month. So while we used both the streaming and DVD services, we didn't use them enough to justify the expense. Same with cable. Now we just watch less TV and play the same amount of video games. Library card and internet usage have increased.
That's interesting to hear. Netflix forced you to re-evaluate the value proposition and it makes sense to consider all forms of entertainment while you're at it. I wonder if there are a significant number of people like yourself that also took this opportunity to cut the cord on cable (and satellite).
I would have loved to cut off the cable and rearranged our streaming choices, but my wife is a rabid college football fan and I'd be in the dog house ;)
1. The most important factor is fresh grind of good-enough beans. Grind just enough for each brew.
2. Water temp, which you mention, makes a difference, but no need to get a fancy kettle. Take water off a boil and count 10 seconds. Good enough!
3. Good-enough beans are basically anything that you can buy in whole-bean form. You could spend $10 on a pound of high-end Starbucks or you could spend $5 on a mid-range pound of 8 O'Clock. They taste different, but I find both levels of coffee to be sufficient.
4. Make coffee stronger than necessary and dilute to your preference. Never use fewer beans than necessary as it will make the coffee bitter.
5. Like flavors? Add them afterwards. Additives in flavored coffee will generally leech into almost any brewing vessel and subtly alter future batches.
Brewing method generally doesn't matter. French press is nice if you don't mind inevitable grit and a manual process. Most auto coffee makers are good enough. I try to steer people away from cups and pods due to waste, cost, and the fresh-grind factor, but they are very convenient if you're optimizing for time. My preferred work/flavor balance is a Melitta cone filter that requires hand pour of water.
Good luck!