This pic very much has the feel of a triumph.

Ha, nice. Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of the cheap home roasters don't yield that much more capacity than a popper. I'm guessing at your mentioned price point you're looking at something like a Behmor, which actually will net you quite a few more grams per roast. If I was paying money for a home roasting machine, I wouldn't go any lower than one of those, else the popper mod is more compelling.

I actually have wanted to go old school cowboy-style and dry roast in a cast-iron skillet once I take my grill out of the garage. I think with this lockdown that is going to happen...

ButterflyEffect, not sure if you already have that $300 roaster, but I made instructions on how to quickly and easily mod a $20 popcorn popper to make a decent roaster:

If you're wondering if you'll dig it, might be worth dipping your toe in this way first. Cheap. Easy. Fun.

They changed the design of the popper I used in the tutorial, but not meaningfully. Same instructions should apply now.

https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3Af048c853-7e1d-4715-b73d-3b506b274a30

Interesting paper that suggest dry or steam sterilization at 121 C might be a kind of sweet spot for making masks re-usable. One hospital reported that 134 C deformed the masks, which is not desirable for re-use, but the 121 temp had good results.

Hospitals have autoclaves and could do this. Even a clothes steamer with mask in baggie would work nicely, though dialing in the temp might be finicky. I've seen some folks suggest dry heat from rice cooker as well. Even a pressure cooker I bet could get good results.

So my wife owns a women's clothing boutique, and everything is basically shut down due to Covid. It's a small business that carries a lot of seasonal inventory and pays a decent chunk in rent since she needs to be in a downtown corridor for the foot traffic.

In the midst of this, she's been posting and selling off of Instagram via DMs while her store is closed, and we spent yesterday morning and afternoon alone at the store packaging up purchases, adding in some free gifts and a handwritten notes, then driving around town leaving them on the buyer's doorstep.

And every single person who purchased something said the nicest things to my wife either directly or online after they got their items. My wife easily burst out crying 3 or 4 times yesterday from the love and support she's been getting from her customers. She just wants to take care of her ladies and make them feel great about themselves, and they've definitely returned the favor.

I like the sound of that :)

mk my post is all in italics.

I guess I meant what I said, but I don't know if I really really meant it.

mike I just want to let you know that Craztessgus 100 is now in two place: 1) My laptop's homescreen, and 2) the MoMA.

I wonder what number of separate checks he would have bitten at? I do like how he wasn't down with a mere 90% of the Craztessgus. What they lack in morals I think they make up in taste.

As the spread continues we've seen a progression of movement restricted first between nation states, then between towns, then between cities, then within cities, all the while knowing that the best way to combat the spread is to restrict movement at an atomic (within a domicile) level.

Totally makes sense we'll be getting there soon in a more universal sense. Other places have a while ago, and we've started here as well in a decentralized and not very cohesive way.

Consensus is coming for us all.

That was a great show. So much better when the audience is really feeling it.

I don’t think he’ll be charged with campaign finance law violations, not do I think he believes he will, thus motivating his behavior.

I do think that he cares more about his personal interests, and that alone is enough to motivate his actions. It’s not self preservation, -it’s ego imho.

Nice! Break out the masks and celebrate!

I knew who all these people were, and I knew where they stood. I didn’t NEED this debate. In fact, I was gonna launch into a whole spiel on this very website about how Debates Are Worthless.

I think the author is in the minority in that most of the lazy disengaged American public knows very little about most of the candidates, and that for as information-lite and vacuous the debates are, they NEED the debates because that pittance is an order of magnitude more information about the candidates then they will bother to acquire without them.

1. I didn’t know until today that he was the lyricist.

2. cgod borrowed me a rush album many many moons ago and while I liked it in a D&D sort of way, I didn’t love it in an “important artist” sort of way.

3. A couple years ago I was flipping through streaming channels on my TV and a free rush concert was available (the one where they had all the washing machines on stage). From the moment I landed on the channel I was absolutely transfixed and unable to move on. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I'm not good at it, but I've gotten better at it the more I've done it.

My method is this:

1. Start with a scientific paper, not a news article summarizing the paper. Scientific papers are laid out really nice, with an abstract that gives a simple overview, an introduction, conclusion, etc. The way they are structured and written, they provide a ton of context for terms that you don't understand, where an article will strip out the context providing insight to the term you don't understand, while overcompensating by explaining things at the "overview" or abstract level, which is not the problem you're really trying to solve.

2. Start with a paper on a subject you are super geeked and profoundly curious about. Like you are just climbing out of your skin to learn more. Not something you need to know more about for work or for school. Something that turns you on.

3. Read it on a computer, and literally do this: Each term you do not understand (this will likely occur in the first sentence, and there maybe several of these in the fist sentence and almost every sentence thereafter. Yup) you should highlight, right-click, and select "define" or "Search google" from the context menu. And....just read about that term. It will send you off on a tangent. You will spend a ton of time nowhere near the paper you are on, and each time you return to the next word, you'll not have made it past the sentence you're on, but 20 minutes will have past.

4. Rinse and repeat. Just keep knocking words down, one at a time. Oh also you won't fully grok each term before moving to the next one, but you'll start becoming familiar.

How I do it anyway.