I have a lap cat so I get lots of cat-in-lap time 🐱
I get to work from home every day, and so does my wife.
We each have our office space so we can work in peace but at any point in the day we can just have a chat, we can have lunch together, we can have our evening planned and be out of the door at 5pmIt’s just all so much better than the old office-based life
Nothing about that is absurd
It would be if you had this exact same scenario 5 years ago. It’s absurd if you remember what it was like before, and it highlights how absurd return to office mandates are.
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You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I will try to emulate your good example
It’s ok Nintendo, calm down, he didn’t mean that kind.
2 gbps symmetrical fiber optic internet
What do I need to do to make this happen in my neighborhood? I want to push municipal optical internet at the city level so bad.
I have cable internet and it’s actually fantastic for typical consumer-based ISPs but I’m tired of the horrible upload speeds.
Millions of dollars. Sadly that is what you need.
Nice, we get 8gig here :p
nice!
I have the option for 2 gbps but it costs more than the 1gbps connection I have at the moment. Do you get any use out of the higher speeds? Did you have to upgrade your local network gear to take advantage?
sfp+ modules are pretry cheap, just running om3 patch cords everywhere.
Things download faster, so steam games, off-site backups go faster.
Clean tap water.
People have no idea how fortunate this is until it’s gone. Several years ago we had a bad algae bloom in the river that supplies our water and we couldn’t drink it for a couple weeks. Every store in town was out of water and you had people with well water leaving hoses and signs out front of their house offering it up to people. One Pilot gas station tried scalping 6 packs of Dasani for ~$50. It’s so crazy how you take it for granted until you can’t just go to the sink to fill up a cup of water (we have excellent tap water) along with taking for granted the fact that stores have bottled water on the shelves.
Ever since then we’ve kept a small stock pile of water in the garage just in case.
Thanks, i sould appreciate it more. Tap water in switzerland is maybe even healthier as bottled water.
Air conditioning, indoor and safe plumbing/water supply, Internet to name a few
Growing up in the Midwest of America I took AC for granted. Pretty much every home and shop had AC, and if it didn’t there were at least window units. Moving to the Pacific Northwest with a more mild climate almost no one had AC, and it’s just normal not to have it.
Until the heatwave a few years ago that melted power lines I didn’t care, but I realized it was a safety issue and had a heat pump installed. That’s when I realized it’s a luxury. Almost $10,000 to get it integrated with my existing HVAC.
It’s wild, it’s definitely a luxury that most people just assume is normal. You have to go somewhere that doesn’t have it to truly appreciate what it does and how much it costs.
Native midwesterner living in SoCal, and these shithole window A/C units have me at my wit’s end. This is the technology state?
Also, natives here have no concept of closing doors after themselves when entering a place with heat or A/C. I get it that we grew up with this but is it hard to figure out later on in life or something?
Those are all absurd luxuries? Not luxuries but absurd luxuries?
Well, that depends. If you’re talking amongst my own country (the US)? No, probably not. If you’re talking compared globally? I’d argue yes.
I have a genetic predisposition to be a night owl. I proved it with a DNA test, comparing my results with actual scientific research on various genetic-related conditions. Plus, my mother’s side of the family always stays up super late every night.
Unfortunately, I signed up for the US military when I was 17 and they require you to get an early start every day. So I spent 20 years going to bed when I’m not tired and getting up at godawful early hours of the morning. I would basically get a lack of sleep for a few days until I was so tired, I’d pass out early and get a solid night’s sleep, then start the cycle over again. My days off were the only days I got to sleep in.
Now I’m fully retired and have nothing important going on each day, so I can finally let my body adjust to its preferred sleep schedule. I’m wide awake until 2-4 AM (sometimes later), then I sleep until 10 AM to 1 PM. It’s so nice not having to set an alarm anymore and naturally wake each day. I’ve never felt so rested!
Son you’re fully retired at 37? Good for you mate! Enjoy!
Lol!
Or they just got a better or non-military job that didn’t require strict bed- and wakeup-times, but still didn’t let them sleep in.
I get to handle over $1 million in musical instruments every day for my job.
(I’m a church organist and pipe organs are insanely expensive)
Coffee
Love muh tea muhself
I usually try a new single origin every month, and this is the first time I’m reordering one because it is so good. Some stuff is pretty unique and I never see it again, so I can’t miss out on more of this.
It’s like pineapple and brown sugar and is so sweet and refreshing, especially at room temp or fridge temp. When it’s hot outside, it’s a bit tougher to find a coffee I get excited about and this stuff rocks.
FWIW cold brew coffee is extremely easy to make, gives a different flavor profile than brewing with the same beans hot, and I find it super refreshing in hot weather. My only complaint is the extraction is inefficient so you go through a lot more beans for the same amount of beverage, which irks me. But then again, sounds like you’ve got the situation sorted, that tea sounds great.
That cold brew method is how I got into coffee, since I didn’t like it much at the time, so I didn’t have a coffee machine or anything specialized. I made the extract and made cafe au lait with it.
My current method for most days is to make coffee right before I go to bed. If I want it warm to hot, I’ll Aeropress and add warm or hot water in the morning. If I want it cold, I do pour over. I put it into a mason jar, and I think it keeps the original flavor profile really well, at least well enough for when I stumble to the kitchen at 5 am.
It’s not the same as the cold brew method, but the Aeropress with a metal filter is pretty close without the extra bean usage.
Cool! For the cold, are you just saying you put water and grounds together in a mason jar overnight, then use the Aeropress with the metal filter in the morning to strain? Cuz that’s pretty close to what I do. Mesh strainer (like for rinsing fruit), then through Aeropress with paper. Maybe I should try the metal instead, paper gets pretty gummed up and impermeable.
The metal filter will let the coffee oils through along with some of the fines leaving you with more flavor and mouth feel that the paper filter holds onto.
I’ve done the method you do, and if I’m remembering right, it’s much harder to press cold for some reason. I’ve done it that way hot too with very coarse grounds to clear up cowboy coffee when I want to make a bigger batch, but the gf doesn’t like the fines.
What I do is I make my Aeropress extract as normal. I do 20g beans, 200g water, inverted for 2 minutes and extract into the mason jar, cap it and toss in the fridge right away. Then in the morning, I add 150g water at around the temp I want to drink it.
It gets it immediately to the desired drinking temp, and the extract in the sealed container doesn’t taste old/stale/flat because it has been in the sealed jar, and it’s reheated by plain water, the coffee isn’t messed up microwaving it.
I do it mainly to put the effort in while I’m awake at night, and then all I have to do is microwave some water in the AM, so it’s either ready right away with tap water or fridge water if I want it cold or room temp, or in a minute to 90 seconds if I want warm or hot.
It’s essentially regular Aeropress brewing, but split over 2 days. Especially as the gf likes my coffee but doesn’t want to follow the steps and measurements, it lets me have 2 big cups of Aeropress first thing in the morning without all the measuring, boiling, and squeezing when I’m not in the mood for all that. Since we both don’t like scalding hot, fresh coffee anyway, it works out better for us, especially if we want different temps but at the same time to enjoy it together.
Interesting! I definitely see the advantages you mention. I’m curious about the strength, though, my understanding was that the cold brew just needs much more extraction time (which makes sense intuitively from a physics and energy standpoint). And you’re not using a particularly strong ratio, I actually use 1:8 for my overnight “steep”, slightly stronger than your 1:10.
With that said, you seem experienced. Works out to pretty “normal” strength coffee (whatever that means)? I guess something I’m vaguely remembering about the Aeropress is that the pressure itself helps it extract efficiently even with lower heat, but I’m not even sure how much pressure there would be with the metal filter.
Ah, I was not clear about the brewing water. The extraction is made with water just off boil, so it is a standard hot extraction. My final bean:water ratio is 1:18 which is fairly standard. I use that to scale up recipes when I do other things.
I don’t really consider any pressure from the Aeropress. With a clean paper filter or metal one, the pressure feels inconsequential. The Aeropress benefits to me are the immersion brew method of the grounds and the repeatability and adjustability of the brew since it’s all manual. You can tweak every variable, and I’ve never ended up with anything undrinkable from cowboy coffee to wannabe espresso.
Nice. I quit smoking weed and reduced my alcohol intake to near zero a few years ago. To make up for all of the lost ritual, I dove deep into coffee brewing. It’s the only part of my day that I have complete control over and I love that.
I will try those beans! Thanks for the tip.
Similar story here. Was never a huge drinker, but since getting on depression meds, the desire just isn’t there anymore, so I started exploring coffees and brew methods to keep up the taste adventures.
I take all mine black with sugar, as the sugar really brings out some of the flavors. This pineapple stuff has been great at all temps, but cooler temps make it bolder and more concentrated. It’s still very dominant hot though. I hope you enjoy it!
I’ve heard of people serious about coffee who use sugar. How much do you use? I’ve also seen people brew with sugar right in with the coffee grounds - do you do that or do you add it to your cup?
One of the hardest things to let go of when I gave up smoking pot was rolling joints. The ritual was so calming, and after several decades, a huge part of my life. But preparing a pour over coffee is so similar to that: wetting a paper, grinding, strong smells, heat. Not to mention the flavours of the different strains and the tinkering with the process to get the most out of your “stuff”. Only now I don’t bumble on like an idiot for 3 hours!
Lol I feel more guilty about saying how much sugar I use in my coffee than most other things I could tell you about myself. Everyone always acts like I use an obscene amount, but it’s far less than a soda.
I use 12-16g, which is 3 to 4 packets worth. If I go less than about 12, it gets in a funky place where I’d almost rather have none. The same size soda has 3 times as much. I swear it’s to being out the coffee flavor, since at a dinner I either won’t add any, or 1 pink packet if it’s rough. There it’s all roast and get gross if I add much sugar. With the good stuff though, it just makes all those great tastes shine so bright! All those judgey people ask drink coffee just for the caffeine, not to savor it and explore.
The routine is fun. I enjoyed the experimenting with grind size, steep time, and all that. There are far worse vices one could have than coffee, so I will continue to indulge myself a cup each day.
I can afford to buy groceries from the expensive supermarket!
Hint: they’re all expensive 😉
Expensiver
Expensivish
Ron Howard
Having my washing machine and dryer inside my home. After having lived in an appartment with a shared laundry room for 10 years, that chore isn’t as tedious.
Work from home and live near a very nice park. When I am stressed or bored, I just put a fake meeting on my calendar or set my Teams status to busy and go for a walk to clear my head.
Living next to a park is great. I do the same, except I’ve got my phone with me connected to teams. I can get back home on my computer in under 2 minutes if I need to.
No human had a hot shower before a hundred years ago and now I have at least one a day
WFH.
I live in a tropical humid place that regularly gets 40+Celsius temps even during “winter” (it is currently “winter”)
But I can afford air conditioning. A lot of people in my country cannot, and have just an electric fan and a lot of water to get them through the days.
I can afford air conditioning
“No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater; than central air.” – Azrael, “Dogma” by Kevin Smith.
We live in a more temperate place, but with the summers going increasingly more smoky and hotter - dry 49.6c temps caused our town of Lytton to burn to the ground - we took advantage of new, aggressive building code that stipulates one room must not get above 26c, and the cooling it mandates, to move to a new qualifying building.
The A/C units - even these lesser VRFs - are fantastic. Truly it changes the mood when I can work morning and night (WFHx2) without me or the nerd gear being too warm. It’s worth this $4/sqft/mo price tag when the rent rebased.
I’m SO with you on this one.
Not even central A/C here. Just Split units on the bedrooms/home office – But it already makes life so much more bearable
Even in humid areas, evaporative coolers can work and significantly cool things off. I imagine a combination of those (which tend to be much less expensive than AC and don’t require any installation), a decent fan, a home painted white and a decent amount of shade trees would work quite well.
Of course, a lot of those things are luxuries as well.
True on all accounts.
Also fun aside – Evaporative coolers are sold under the name of “refrigerating fans” here, a sort of “alternative” for someone who can’t afford an AC (or can afford the machine but wants/needs to save on the power bill).
My ABCC11 gene is in it’s recessive AA form.
Which is more common in Asians, but I am European. This means my earwax is almost white and completely dry, which makes it just crumble/flake out. But more importantly, my sweat is almost odourless. I am a bigger dude and sweat a lot as it is. When I used to take a certain medication that made me sweat insane amounts I would literally be wet above the belt when I walked a minute. No stank. I check regularly and have my partner check my smell but I legit have to shower more often because my hair is greasy than because of body odour. When I had super short hair the thing that made me want to shower is when my skin gets oily, which happens after about five days. I still shower every other day because hygiene, but it’s a really nice perk.
Don’t be too jealous though, nature balanced that out with heaps of mental health issues.
Fun, I never heard about these before ! here’s all my good vibes for your mental health
Thanks, it’s well under control now, but I had some shit years, not gonna lie.
Do you have everything you need? Like, can someone take away your shit without your permission, to what extent are you able to self-determine your life as of now?
Oh, all’s well, friend. Long story short: Mega heavy depression from early teens, diagnosed in my early twenties after years of substance abuse, tried to off myself, odyssey of therapists, got better for some years, got bad again, got a great psychiatrist, got on some fantastic meds that we tweak occasionally (got rid of the sweaty pills).
I’m in my thirties, have a family, life is good (apart from /late-stage capitalism and my countries slow and seemingly inevitable decline into fascism).
My mom had this and also no leg hair. She told me “I shaved it once and that worked, it never came back”. Not Asian as far as I know but part Native American or Mexican, she never found out because her dad was so estranged from his family.
