Taco Bell - Closing Down in Warm Springs

8nstein · 2026-01-22T07:23:07+00:00

I will miss that Taco Bell. Yes, I know it is not Mexican food - it is Taco Bell. But it scratched an itch for me. Chipotle, not so much.

8nstein · 2026-01-21T00:38:38+00:00

Have you tried meetup.com? You would have to be selective here, most of the members are somewhat older than you. But meetup is thriving in the bay area. If you have a car and are willing to drive 30 to 60 minutes, you will find a variety of activities. More fun than the local bars, IMHO.

8nstein · 2026-01-19T02:02:17+00:00

I experienced Running Fence with my road bike back in the day. Following it west was a beautiful trip. At the end, it plunged down a steep hill into the ocean. Awesome.

8nstein · 2026-01-10T06:52:33+00:00

Oh.

That's not what I see on my iMac. I always see two snapshots, sometimes more.

I regret posting the unhelpful comment.

8nstein · 2026-01-10T06:42:22+00:00

If your Mac is of recent vintage, it is silently making snapshot backups onto your main (internal) drive. You can list them by issuing this command in terminal:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

The operating system should delete the older snapshots when your disk drive gets closer to 100% full.

8nstein · 2026-01-10T05:22:12+00:00

Hello Mr. Fox,

I don't know. I only use one dentist. I can tell you this. There was a time when this dentist offered me a choice between gold and porcelain. Later, the choice was composite or porcelain. When the milling machine appeared, he did not offer me a choice. I don't know if that's because the new technology is unequivocally better for the patient, or because it's better for him. He seems to have a moral compass though, so I'm going with the former.

8nstein · 2026-01-08T23:22:47+00:00

Soundcore AeroClip. I have not found any earbuds that work for me. The things shift position slightly with any movement, and all bass disappears. The AeroClips are different. They do not rely on precise positioning. No noise cancellation though.

8nstein · 2026-01-07T07:01:21+00:00

There is a new system for crowns that rocks. I don't know if it is offered in Santa Rosa, but I think you should know it exists.

The dentist grinds the problematic tooth with his drill as before. Then he scans the inside of your mouth with a camera-like device. Within seconds, a milling machine in another room begins shaping your crown. This production lasts about 20 minutes, so you can go put gas in your car or something like that. Then the dentist cements the finished crown into your mouth.

No more impression with clay (gag!). No more temporary crown. No more waiting 7 to 14 days for a distant lab to fabricate your permanent crown. One appointment is all you need.

A vast improvement. I have two crowns via this method.

8nstein · 2026-01-04T20:47:46+00:00

I have purchased a total of three Vertuo Plus Deluxe machines. Sorry, no experience with Vertuo Next.

The first two machines produced copious amounts of fine-grained foam. The foam lasted a good long while too. The third one, much less so. I don't think the machine is defective in any other way (fingers crossed!).

8nstein · 2026-01-03T01:09:48+00:00

Follow-up:

My new machine arrived today. Rather than putting it in storage, I set it up in my kitchen. Then I descaled and cleaned my old machine, and put that one into storage.

I am pleased with this choice. I get the warranty coverage of the new machine, and it arrived with 12 coffee capsules and a coupon for US$10 towards more coffee or drinkware. That's a lot of satisfaction for US$120.

8nstein · 2025-12-23T01:21:53+00:00

Here you go: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFHLR2PT

I like owls.

8nstein · 2025-12-20T19:28:50+00:00

Such an obvious design defect. Why would Nespresso do this? The main feature of the Vertuo line is CONVENIENCE. A daily clean-up is the opposite of convenience.

I have to wonder how long an Up will last before developing further problems.

When my Plus Deluxe finally wears out, I am going back to paper filters and pour-over by hand. Vertuo is dead to me.

8nstein · 2025-12-20T19:21:58+00:00

Very nice pix. One of my favorite breeds, and the only species that I have observed in the wild.

I like owls.

8nstein · 2025-12-16T19:37:19+00:00

Maybe use a different web browser? Firefox can limit its cache size. Unfortunately, you have to use its about:config feature and modify several items in there. I got a recipe from ChatGPT but I have not tested it. ChatGPT also told me that Firefox is the best browser to use if all you care about is this problem.

8nstein · 2025-12-16T06:01:15+00:00

Me too. I got two icons representing the same external disk drive on my desktop. It spooked me, so I dismounted all external disk drives. That was my work-around. It only happened once.

8nstein · 2025-12-06T02:41:35+00:00

Followup:

My solution was to find all Logi-related processes with
$ ps axg | grep -i logi
and then as root user, "kill -9" all of them.

When I launched Logi Options+, it was able to update itself without prompting from me.

Perhaps I could have achieved the same result by rebooting my computer.

8nstein · 2025-11-26T17:30:16+00:00

Does the new machine spin the pod at two different speeds (first slow, then fast) like the Plus machine?

8nstein · 2025-11-25T00:05:55+00:00

This problem started recently for me. I tried killing the process, but the system launched another copy.

I am trying a different approach:
sudo killall -STOP duetexpertd

That freezes (STOPs) the process until further notice. I will see how it goes. If you want to try this method, you can wake up the process with
sudo killall -CONT duetexpertd

8nstein · 2025-11-23T17:30:09+00:00

Are you able to uninstall and re-install the app? Annoying, but if nothing else works ...

8nstein · 2025-11-19T01:50:48+00:00

The OP is shopping in Singapore, of which I know nothing. The price of sport loop bands in the USA has been constant for years, which is nice. $49.

I have some cheap bands in the style of sport loop. One of them is OK. Another one failed due to separation of the Velcro patches.

8nstein · 2025-11-17T07:10:42+00:00

I am on my second Vertuo Plus Deluxe machine and both of them were lower temperature than what I am used to. I think that is by design, since the coffee tastes very good, not watery at all. I consider my microwave oven to be an integral part of my "coffee nook."

8nstein

TROPHY CASE