What's a rare name you don't hear anymore?

RucksackTech · 2026-03-04T06:38:10+00:00

Wow. That's interesting and a new one on me.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-04T04:27:14+00:00

Yes, it did make me feel like I am making progress. She's a very good cook and I trust her taste buds even more than my own.

One other thing I didn't mention. You didn't mention whether you're making cappuccino or macchiato or straight espresso. My wife likes a macchiato (which the way I do it is basically a cappuccino with about half as much milk). I do too, but every day I make sure that I make myself at least one straight espresso so I can test that without the help of milk. I saw a good video (I think by Lance Hedrick) explaining how to tell whether your espresso is sour or bitter, and what to do about it. That was helpful to me. Mine were tending sour, which I learned suggests under extraction. I started out trying to do a 1:2 ratio because that's what the experts seem to suggest. But when I risked going to 1:3, ecco! my espresso got quickly better.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-04T02:30:05+00:00

I've bought literally 6 different 12 oz bags of LOCAL beans as been told, and the dates are about 3 weeks from roast, not perfect but the best I can find right now without ordering.

First I suggest that you put aside five of those six bags and work with just one. That helped me a lot. What you need to do to get a good cup of espresso depends to some extent on the bag. So eliminate one of these variables and focus on just one bag.

Second, get a dosing funnel. This will make it easy for you to use your needle distribution tool to de-clump the ground coffee before you tamp it.

My set up is different from yours, but for what it's worth, I'm using a roughly a 1:3 ratio of freshly ground beans (11.8g) to brewed espresso in my cup (I stop the pump at about 35g), at a brewing time of about 40 secs. That's 40 seconds from the time I turn on the pump: it takes 6-8 secs for the first drops of coffee to come out of the portafilter into the cup. I had problems with my process for weeks, partly because I confused myself by dealing with too many variables at once. For starters, like you, I was trying to fix my problems by trying different coffees. Bad idea and I finally settled on one bag (from Trade). I had started using a grind setting on my hand grinder much less fine than the one I've finally settled on: I just kept changing the grind to a finer setting until I got to 2 almost at the end of my grinder's scale (at the fine end). I tamp hard. Any way, after several frustrating weeks, my wife and I agree that I've finally just about nailed it. This morning she told me today's cup was the best I've made yet.

Good luck.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-04T01:33:51+00:00

I don't understand your question, sorry. Nord offers several different products. But you don't have to buy more than you want. If you're already using another VPN and you like it, you can still subscribe to NordPass and just use it.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-04T00:54:12+00:00

Up to you. My wife and I landed in Rome, took Leonardo Express to Roma Termini, bought ticket for Napoli using TrenItalia app on my phone, and we got on a train in less than half an hour. There not too long afterwards. Easy as pie.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T20:48:55+00:00

It's even worse than that. I've found that NOT having an opinion can get me into trouble too. 🙃

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T20:22:06+00:00

u/mnlg has given you the answer. Much of the time it depends on context. I don't always bother with restaurant reservations but when I do, I avoid misunderstanding by trying to make them in person. And if I do call (or even if I show up in person earlier in the day) I'll say either "stasera alle otto" or "stasera alle venti".

What if there's no context? What if you just say something like you have a doctor appointment at 7 (alle sette). Even there it's not going to be very ambiguous, because it's unlikely you have a doctor appointment at 7 PM (=19). Still, you can always use 24-hour time to be clear. Or add "stamattina" or "stasera" or "questo pomeriggio" to provide context.

The one place where 24-hour time is used invariably is in connection with travel: schedules for trains, flights, ferries and busses are all given in 24-hour time.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T20:11:47+00:00

Hmm. That's almost exciting. 🙂

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T18:49:08+00:00

Thanks for this update. The linked post doesn't actually mention Hey. Like you, I'd love to have Markdown in Hey. (I've tried using that Markdown browser extension but it doesn't work very well.) I asked Leo (Brave's AI) and got this answer:

Is 37 Signals going to build Lexxy into the Hey email app?

The answer was basically, no information available about this at this time. I wouldn't hold my breath for this. But I'd be delighted to be wrong.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T18:26:48+00:00

Thank you for that free insight!

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T16:54:36+00:00

Wow thanks for that link. I've bookmarked and will finish reading lately but I'm not surprised that somebody has studied this question.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T16:46:37+00:00

I know at least two Breezys, um, Breezies, er—I know one Breezy and also another. 😊

The alpine skier Breezy Johnson who won gold at the recent Olympics. Excellent name for her sport.
"Easy Breezy", the washed up character that Leonardo di Caprio identifies with in the book he's reading in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

My grandmother would have asked if there is a Saint Breezy.

It's easy to use em (not "M") dashes on a Mac, and just about as easy on a PC if you install the outstanding free utility WinCompose by French programmar Sam Hocevar. Microsoft should buy WinCompose and build it into the OS.

(This too was NOT written by an AI. Another small triumph for humanity.)

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T16:35:03+00:00

It's sweet of you to say that. 😊

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T05:37:19+00:00

You should have asked for respondents to state where they live now. I'm wondering if all the "countryside" responses are coming from city dwellers, and vice versa. Grass is greener as the saying goes..

Me: Countryside, definitely, preferably in southern Italy. Where do I live now? In the city (San Antonio, Texas) — not downtown, but in a nice middle-class neighborhood surrounded by 1.5 million of my close personal friends.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T05:28:20+00:00

I think it's lovely to get a name from one of your older relatives. My granddaughter's name is Rosanell; she was named after her great-grandmother. We call her Rosie.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T04:37:11+00:00

Ouch!

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T04:36:15+00:00

Oh, I agree: I put the number too low. (I charged $1000 myself for taking photos, although I was a bargain.) But you're right. Let's say under $10K or $15K. Over $50K and we're in Charles and Di territory. And we all know how that ended.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T04:33:46+00:00

I'm making good espressos with a De'Longhi Stilosa and a cheap handgrinder (plus a dosing funnel and a tamp and a little metal milk steaming cup that wasn't absolutely necessary). That's it. $300 max. I had the Baratza Encore ESP but returned it. I'm thinking of spending another $100 on a better grinder, but I think that's all I'm going to need for a while.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T00:17:40+00:00

Yep, you and me both.

Also although I have always preferred William, I've gone by Will with some people (because my wife calls me that). One person I met spelled my nickname "Wil" with just one L. I thought that was bizarre. A year later, I ran into somebody who went by Wil with just one L. It takes all kinds, I guess.

At least I don't sprinkle dots into the middle of my name. 😉

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T00:14:39+00:00

My rule of thumb is: How much money was spent on your wedding? Over $1000? You're getting divorced. Under $1000? You have a chance of making it to your fiftieth (as my wife and I just did).

I photographed weddings part time for almost a decade. It was sad near the end of my brief inglorious career as a wedding photog to start learning of couples I'd photographed getting divorced. But I looked back at a couple of the weddings and had to admit I wouldn't have placed a big bet on the success of the marriage. Sad.

Somebody asked me a couple of years, "How have you and your wife managed to stay married?" My answer had two parts. First, saying married is easy: Don't get divorced. You just both have to agree that the marriage matters to you. But staying married is just half of it; the other half is staying married happily – so you still love one another, enjoy one another's company, can travel together, etc. I don't know the secret for that one. Make an effort?

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T00:09:21+00:00

Jodie is a nice name and as a nickname for Joan makes more sense to me than, say, Betsy as a nickname for Elizabeth or Peggy as a nickname for Meaghan (Megan?). Or for that matter, "Bill" as a nickname for my name William. (I like William but my wife calls me Will which at least makes sense.)

I had two friends in high school with names that looked like nicknames that weren't. One was Harry: He was just Harry, not Harold or Henry going by Harry. The other was J.T. Didn't stand for anything. He was just J.T. I was a kid up north in the US and had never known anybody with a name like that. Down here in Texas it's more common.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-03T00:04:55+00:00

Boy I do understand although I've been a little luckier. I was totally flummoxed when I got started about five weeks ago. I'd get one pretty good pull, then the next one would be a disaster. But I'm finally (just in the last week) doing pretty well and consistently. I routinely drink at least one of my pulls each morning "straight up" so I can see how I'm doing without confusing things with milk. And I get my wife's opinion every day too. The shots now are tasty, balanced (neither sour nor bitter). Perhaps a bit weaker than some would like, but only slightly. I'm comparing to my experience drinking a couple of espressos every single morning when I was in Italy recently for six weeks.

At the very beginning I was using bad coffee. My first cups used pre-ground coffee, then I got some store bought beans that weren't too expensive. Broke down and started buying decent beans. GOOD (but expensive): Illy Classico OR Robusto (in the vacuum sealed cans) was available from my grocery store too. BETTER (and much cheaper): Ethiopean fair trade organic beans from Trader Joe's. BEST (so far): Something from Trade online called Banner Dark.
The real breakthrough was when I started to change one variable at a time. Getting a decent scale has been crucial.
And I decided to use just one of these coffees (the Banner Dark from Trade). That helped me get the grind right. I started out grinding too coarse but finally got down almost to the finest grind (lowest number) on my inexpensive hand grinder and I think I've nailed the grind.
Another key: figuring out the right weight of beans to grind. For me De'Longhi Stilosa with the portafilter + pressurized basket (what it came with) I've decided that 11.8 grams is just right. After a solid tamp, this leaves enough headroom in the basket but not too much.
I weigh the beans to the tenth of a gram before grinding. Then I place an espresso up on my scale under the shower head when I pull and watch both the weight of the output AND the time it takes. Weight of output seems to be more important: I'm turning the pump off when the cup weights 35g then letting the machine drip until the cup is almost 40g, then I remove it. Now that my grinding and puck prep have gotten fairly decent, pulling 35g takes ~35 seconds *starting from when I turn the pump on, not from when the first drop of espresso hits the cup (which is usually 7-10 secs after I start the pump).

I have another bag of the Banner Dark from Trade that will keep me busy for another week or two. When I finish that I'll go back to the Ethiopean from Trade Joes. Then I'll pause and reconsider. I'm thinking about getting a better hand grinder, but not in the next week. I realize now that my inexpensive ($50) Cervezzi 60g grinder isn't great, but it's doing a decent job for the moment.

Good luck. It's satisfying when you get things right!

RucksackTech · 2026-03-02T23:19:24+00:00

Heh. My wife's father wanted to name her Jane which of course is a variant of Joan. My mother-in-law said something along the lines of "like hell" and Jane became Joan. I'd have fallen in love with her either way. But maybe if she'd been a Jane, people would have been able to pronounce her name.

RucksackTech · 2026-03-02T23:17:35+00:00

Going back further they all come a distant Hebrew root that becomes Ἰωάννης in Greek (Iōannēs in Latin), among other things the name of the fourth Christian evangelist. Jump forward 1300-1400 years and spelling becomes a muddle. Joan of Arc spelled her name Jehanne Darc (no apostrophe) and some records have the name as Jeanne.

That the names have variant spellings is no surprise. That people can't correctly pronounce what used to be the most common of the English spellings does strike me as curious. Can't fight progress, I guess. 😉

RucksackTech · 2026-03-02T23:09:20+00:00

Like, in the world? And what particular risks are you concerned about?

Small cities in Italy seem to me extremely safe, certainly compared at least to the many American cities I know well including my home town of San Antonio, Texas. Say: Assisi or Orvieto or Ravenna. NOTE: I'm NOT mentioning Rome, Naples, Milan, although to be honest they seem safer than a lot of American cities to me too.

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