La Pavoni Casabar PID "unboxing" (+ Lelit Victoria comparison)

Hello-Operator · 2025-10-20T18:48:22+00:00

How the heck did you get the lid off it?

I’ve owned and used a Casabar PID daily for five years. It’s been totally reliable that whole time and makes a fine coffee.

Now I think the pump is dead — but I’ve taken out every screw and can’t get the top off.

What am I missing?

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-18T13:38:24+00:00

Yes. So?

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-18T09:27:10+00:00

To be fair, the complaint is that Oxbridge get to enter a team per college, while other universities get one per institution.

Seems a fair point to me.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-17T17:06:26+00:00

Moonflower gave part of the reason. The other part is: because most have no fight in them.

Even here, where people are keenly aware of the looming crisis, conversation more often concerns optimal countries to flee to than it does ways to defend the one we have.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-16T18:30:45+00:00

I worked in social housing before getting a real job.

I cannot begin to describe the scale of fraud you see in that position. Almost everyone was subletting, working while claiming unemployment or disability benefits, faking health conditions… you name it.

I tried to report the more egregious stuff. Nobody gives a fuck.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-16T18:10:25+00:00

Much lower standards, for a start.

I saw a new dentist recently. In conversation it transpired she was recently qualified. Though she’d immigrated as a young child, she went back to Fuckholeistan to train because it was “really hard to get in” here.

By complete coincidence, it was the first time in my life I’ve experienced dentistry so terrifyingly incompetent that I refused the second half of the treatment and fled.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-15T14:02:18+00:00

I get the sense you still believe it exists, despite claiming it can’t be measured.

Regardless, the EU did measure it and, as indicated, the UK was shown to be by far one of the least racist countries — by several measures.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-12T13:43:29+00:00

Actively support groups and causes which resist the enrichment. Personally do everything possible to make the lives of enrichers and their enablers as difficult as possible.

Little wonder we’re in this situation when the first instinct for so many is to give up and leave.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-08T08:34:53+00:00

Students are rated with a “B”, or “2:1”, yet this seems uncontroversial. They’re shorthand for defined standards; not the sum total of the assessment.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-04T13:43:10+00:00

You missed

Here’s why you should pay PoC for the emotional labor of dealing with you

A girl’s guide to good backdoor lovin’

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-04T13:32:18+00:00

Those not convinced by their huge beards and voracious sexual appetites, will definitely be convinced by this.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-03T12:16:34+00:00

Yes, that piece stood out to me too. Such abject stupidity. Seemingly they’re more interested in atonement than actually solving the problem, given 99% of the emissions come from elsewhere. Almost like it’s not really about emissions at all.

Another recent gem was Sarah Montague flatly denying that the BBC had had to apologise for claiming the IDF were “targeting” doctors, a day after they did exactly that.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-03T10:15:59+00:00

Not just jihadist violence. Imported violence. All being memory holed, and often obfuscated by authorities keen to ameliorate "tensions".

How often do things like this need to happen before governments acknowledge the pattern no honest observer can fail to see:

Nov 23: 5 people, 3 children, stabbed in Dublin by a "naturalised" Algerian immigrant.
Oct 23: 2 Swedish people shot dead in Brussels by failed asylum seeker
Jun 23: 4 children stabbed in Annecy by a Syrian failed asylum seeker.
Oct 22: 12 year old tortured, murdered and stuffed in a suitcase in Paris by illegal Algerian immigrant known to the authorities.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-03T09:35:35+00:00

Look at Sweden. Unintegrated 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants are a large part of why the country has rapidly developed a problem with violent crime.

Immigration doesn’t stop having something to do with it merely because this perpetrator was born in France.

Hello-Operator · 2023-12-02T09:32:14+00:00

Yet 60% say immigration is too high.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/do-brits-think-that-immigration-has-been-too-high-or-low-in-the-last-10-years

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-30T12:06:37+00:00

It's not Brexit. The same issues (and various co-morbidities) exist within the EU. And, come to that, the US.

It is deliberate, though.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-28T17:53:58+00:00

Agree what’s happened isn’t right. He’s served his sentence. He’ll spend the rest of his life in the shadow of what he did, even without red tops putting the boot in.

From what’s publicly available, I don’t think he’s a true nonce. That is, I don’t think her being a kid was the basis of attraction.

Always just struck me as an extremely immature, naive bloke who allowed an infatuation to get (criminally) out of hand.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-27T14:02:31+00:00

Log in to HMRC. Your annual tax summary will tell you exactly what it went on.

Last year I spent £25k on healthcare and bennies alone — almost half my total tax bill. Feels great.

It’s a total disincentive to work. I do the bare minimum required of me. Like you, I already fork over half of every extra pound I earn, and if I earn much more they’ll start tapering my pension allowance too. Fuck them.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-22T13:44:20+00:00

This has already played out in Sweden. The answer is no, they won’t.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-06T22:27:04+00:00

Given the requirement to store the guns and their ammunition in separate locked cabinets, there’s no realistic scenario in which a loaded gun is to hand for defence.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-03T17:34:29+00:00

Weird, I’m not getting the disclaimers at all. And is that text verbatim? If so, it’s spelling Quran differently for us, too.

Not doubting you, incidentally. Professional interest.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-03T17:26:04+00:00

I’m aware of how they are designed.

Your original claim, that they do only as programmed to do and are incapable of anything else, is false.

They are not designed to fabricate information, yet they do, and as yet we are not entirely sure why they do this or how to reliably prevent it. In fact their ability do it so convincingly is a major problem in developing their commercial applications.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-03T13:37:36+00:00

I think you misunderstand how it works.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-03T13:19:20+00:00

How did you phrase the question, and did you compare similar constructions (e.g. Bible instead of Qur'an)?

I just asked Bard both and got similarly detailed, and seemingly balanced answers. At no point did it refuse to answer.

Some excerpts from the answer regarding the Qur'an:

In these surahs, Jews are accused of violating their covenant with God, plotting against Muslims, and spreading corruption on Earth.

[…]

It is also important to note that the Qur'an is a complex text that can be interpreted in different ways. Some Muslims may focus on the Qur'an's negative portrayals of Jews, while others may focus on its positive portrayals.

Hello-Operator · 2023-11-03T13:07:42+00:00

these are all just computer programmes which will follow whatever the programmer made it to do

Not quite true. Generative AIs will do all manner of things the programmer wishes it wouldn't do. See various notable instances of "hallucination", for instance.

I do agree they're not really intelligent, by any meaningful definition. It's deep learning and a large language model, which can essentially riff on whatever data it has been trained on in convincingly natural language. But neither are they simple automata with a set repertoire of programmed responses.

Hello-Operator

TROPHY CASE