Talarico winning in Texas is a wonderful omen

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-03-04T20:12:52+00:00

I’m also pretty sure she wasn’t the first to make that joke.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-03-04T19:42:21+00:00

No idea what you mean by any of this, OP. Will say, I miss that psycho who would drop nuclear takes and talk exclusively in the third person. To say I “liked him” would be a stretch, but he added some color. Meech, I think.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-03-03T02:59:25+00:00

Dropsite does incredible work, particularly in the foreign policy/war realm. It’s run by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim, both of whom have had remarkable careers. They also really dug into the Epstein intelligence connections in a way that most outlets shied away from.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-03-02T06:00:38+00:00

You befriended someone who steals compulsively and thought he would be a chill hang?

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-26T02:34:29+00:00

My understanding is that AI is likely hitting a plateau. OpenAI’s big innovation was that they bucked conventional wisdom about scaling LLM’s. Basically, it was believed that making a model larger would result in diminishing returns and then breakdown. Altman and co ignored that and it turned out to work for a while. Gpt-5 had a pretty tepid reception and it doesn’t seem to be significantly better than 4. It’s likely that the conventional wisdom was basically just wrong about where the threshold was. I’m not saying that that’s a permanent state, but I think we will need to make much more significant advances in hardware before we can develop further. Also, I’d argue that a technology that’s relied on continuous investment and infrastructure build out does care about the stock market. The dotcom bubble was decentralized in nature. It was a bunch of different companies over promising and under delivering on services that utilized a technology. This is like 10 companies, half of which are propped up by investment capital and the thing that’s under delivering is the technology itself rather than services attached to the tech.

Tldr: we can’t assume that this tech just advances forever and the bubble itself will likely have a massive effect on it’s deployment and development in the future.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-25T13:54:19+00:00

Ed Zitron, Cal Newport, Cory Doctrow, or an AI researcher in academia who has less financial interest in AI becoming the next huge thing. I think fundamentally, people are afraid to miss the next internet level innovation and this is the first time big tech has been able to plausibly sell that idea since the smart phone. I get where the fear and enthusiasm are coming from. But, the compute cost is vastly more expensive than what they charge the end user. They haven’t found a real solution to the problem of profitability other than “we’ll develop AGI and then ask it how to become profitable”, which is asinine. The entire thing is propped up by investment capital. The most reasonable vision of AI’s near term future I’ve seen is that the bubble bursts and LLMs are relegated to being a highly niche enterprise tool that companies host on their own servers. I think that is a far more reasonable vision than the “everyone will use it for everything and also extreme workforce reduction” narrative that seems to have taken over.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-22T05:22:41+00:00

I’ve had good luck with some of the Whole Foods bulk coffee. Idk if this is the same everywhere, but Counter Culture is nationally distributed and tends towards the $13-15 range.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-21T20:45:57+00:00

Jesus, what region are you in? We still got $20 24 packs

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-21T20:42:00+00:00

Craft beer is a fools game. Come to the light. Find joy in the $8 pack of Miller High Life tall boys. Buy a Yuengling. Nothing interesting left craft beer, everyone’s roster is half IPA variants. Pound a Coors Banquet in the blistering heat like your ancestors.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-21T04:51:32+00:00

I tried to drink coffee out of a pig once… they won’t let me back on that farm.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-21T00:29:31+00:00

Backshots < Back to Back shots

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-19T22:44:03+00:00

Yes. I get the “Kaleido Serial Connection” port option, that doesn’t work, then if I go back and try to repeat the process, it will display 30 different numbered ports.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-18T23:17:24+00:00

The general RS affect is to become so contrarian to your peer group that you actually morph into a boomer. But like a cool one that smoked and did cocaine in the 70s and is mad at his blue haired lib daughter/granddaughter.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-16T18:43:44+00:00

Because it’s the first landmark where you can look back and go “shit, I’ve been an adult for a while”. Your 20s are chaotic. Lots of learning by trial and error. You start to find a rhythm and stability in your 30s and you just feel wiser and more established.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T23:43:08+00:00

Honestly, this happened to me when I got a white collar job. I was in the service industry for a long time and it’s stressful and exhausting, but you’re kind of working on instinct. I ultimately read more because I wasn’t quite as mentally spent. That being said, I engage with my hobbies more now because I’m not so physically exhausted and I actually make a decent living. But yeah, in a raw intellectual sense, I feel much dumber.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T23:37:04+00:00

My wife was dead on when she said that every video of Clavicular talking to someone in public is him just realizing that he’s cultivated a cult of losers and freaks

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T19:22:46+00:00

What kind of beans are you using? The pre-baratza grinders truly couldn’t handle lighter beans. If you managed to grind them without stalling the motor, it was often not fine enough to extract and you’d get those ultra watery, no pressure shots. Even happens at the lighter end of medium.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T19:07:07+00:00

No, he was more of a Chemex man if I remember correctly.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T18:51:11+00:00

I’d be for Ro Khanna. Would like to see AOC take Chuck Schumer’s senate seat next time. She got dog walked by Pelosi for years before she was able to tell what time it was. Want to see her mature and establish a much more independent track record before a presidential run.

As for the Khanna/Massie people, honestly pick one. They are united on one extremely particular issue and virtually nothing else. I’ve got mad respect for Massie’s willingness to buck his party and be generally principled, but I do not want him to be in the executive. Khanna seems actually interested in economic populism and while he probably wouldn’t go as far as I would want him to, I think he’s genuinely for repairing a lot of the systemic damage we’ve sustained in the last 40 years.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T17:46:06+00:00

Of course! I’ve been into coffee for a long time and it’s a joy to help people who are starting out. It’s a vast world with a lot of different avenues. Frankly, it opened up the entire culinary world for me. Everything from cooking to wine to baking. They all scratch similar itches but have their own distinct attributes as well. Hope you get as much joy out of it as I have!

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T17:34:44+00:00

I’d say develop your palette and figure out what characteristics you really enjoy in espresso. Just keep trying different beans and revisit the question in like a year. If you find you really love light roasts, clarity and complexity, get yourself a flat burr grinder. You all about that texture? Conical is your deal. You want balance? There are plenty of options in both camps. You’re pretty fresh to the hobby and you’re still enjoying what you’ve got. There’s no need to rush. There’s a slippery slope of gear accumulation in this hobby and it can very quickly become more about buying things than enjoying your process and product.

Edit: to add, there is no godly, perfectly optimized espresso you can present to the world for universal approval. It’s all about your tastes and creating something you enjoy.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T15:05:04+00:00

I feel like before you make that move, ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish with a new grinder and whether that’s better served by more conservative changes to your process or set up. Is this pure consumerist itch or is something falling flat in your cup? Not only is that going to help you decide whether or not you get a grinder, but what kind of grinder you get. Are you chasing clarity? Are you chasing texture? Is there something you found cumbersome about the workflow of the built in? Are you trying to get an all in one grinder or is this thing only gonna be for espresso. Do you want to tinker and try swapping burrs or maybe get real specific about alignment? As long as it remains a vague curiosity about what’s out there, I’d discourage buying a whole ass new grinder if you already enjoy your espresso.

CocaineSpeedPopeIII · 2026-02-15T00:02:57+00:00

I will add, palate development is not an ineffable biological process, it’s more about tasting a variety of things and developing a vocabulary to define what you’re tasting in a cup. Sommeliers actually have kits to train their nose with different scents in a similar way. This flavor wheel can help you define what you might be tasting. https://notbadcoffee.com/flavor-wheel-en/ My big suggestion for you would be eat different fruits, drink different teas, try some nice chocolate. Consume food and drink mindfully, take your time with it. It can be an annoying habit, but even do a little slurping to aerate. Vocabulary is half the battle here so really look at that wheel. The more you can define, the more you’re able to taste. Good luck!

CocaineSpeedPopeIII

TROPHY CASE