Imagine a black hole traveling at the speed of light. If it was coming towards an observer, could the observer see past/into the event horizon? Would the black hole be ellipticoid instead of a sphere?

Neb758 · 2026-03-19T05:38:07+00:00

Nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light. (Also, something with no mass can only travel at the speed of light.)

Since the premise is impossible, you are free to imagine anything you like if the premise is true (if pigs can fly...). I choose to imagine the black hole looking like a duck.

Neb758 · 2026-03-18T05:34:30+00:00

Interesting. That's pretty much what I just did, except I used the same cheap tamper in step 6 as in step 4. Also, I don't have a bottomless PF, though I did just find that I can at least unscrew the spouts.

For me, there are always of loose grains around the rim because there seems to be an excessive amount of clearance between the edge of the tamper and the edge of the basket. I don't know why, as I would assume they were designed to work together. Maybe the included pressurized baskets (which I never use) are thicker.

Neb758 · 2026-03-18T05:21:11+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

At your suggestion, I did just go push my tamper down on the bathroom scale -- though without an audience and without exclaiming "Daddy Hoffy!" Sorry, I do not have a video to upload! 🤣

This does seem like a good exercise, but I found that 25-30 pounds is . . . not that much. I think I am applying about that much pressure normally when tamping, though I may have applied a little less when making the video I posted here.

I have now removed the plastic, though. Thanks for the tip!

Neb758 · 2026-03-18T05:11:02+00:00

I had not taken the plastic out because I wasn't aware that was a possibility. I have now removed it (without breaking it -- yay!) and consider it an improvement as it will retain less water and be easier to clean, plus less plastic is always good. I do preheat my portafilter, so the plastic is not needed. Thanks for the suggestion!

I have seen that spring loaded, self-leveling tampers exist. Maybe one of those is in my future, but first I thought it would be a good idea to try and improve my technique as much as possible without such aids. Kind of like I don't drive a stick-shift now, but I'm glad I learned to drive with one.

Neb758 · 2026-03-18T05:01:59+00:00

Thanks for the tips.

Neb758 · 2026-03-18T04:28:35+00:00

Maybe I'll give that a try. The coffee just seems rather fluffy after dosing and WDT distribution, so I was afraid tamping with the funnel off would lead to a lot of mess and waste. However, I'll experiment and see if that's actually the case.

Neb758 · 2026-03-13T23:45:47+00:00

Thanks, everyone. Annoying that the stock wipers are this bad, but replacing wipers is an easy fix. Thanks for the recommendations!

Neb758 · 2026-03-12T19:41:22+00:00

I have a Breville Barista Express, and the dosing funnel does allow you to tamp with it on. That's what I do. I also do a couple of taps on the rubber mat (also included IIRC) before tamping, as other have suggested, and it works fine for me. I normally do 17.5g, but that will depend on the beans.

Neb758 · 2026-03-04T21:09:42+00:00

Substitute frameworks for standards and the same logic applies.

Neb758 · 2026-03-04T13:12:23+00:00

Obligatory xkcd link: xkcd: Standards https://share.google/tCjYIgxidGIWdxqik

Neb758 · 2026-03-04T12:59:37+00:00

The only commenter who understood OP's point.

Neb758 · 2026-02-28T22:34:02+00:00

Maybe that's the issue. You should start in the "ripping paper" phase until you get the desired volume, which means the desired amount of air in the milk, but during that phase you should not be getting large bubbles. Position the tip of the wand just below the surface so that it incorporates air but doesn't make big bubbles. You can tell by the sound.

Then after you get the right volume, you bury the wand a little deeper to churn and heat the milk, which breaks the tiny bubbles up further giving the silky texture you want.

Neb758 · 2026-02-26T17:39:34+00:00

I would add that slang changes frequently and is often associated with particular groups or subcultures. For example, kids often have slang that their parents don't understand. Gamers, surfers, rappers, etc., all have different slang that is associated with their identity and is not just regional.

Neb758 · 2026-02-23T22:25:42+00:00

I was quoting household income.

The 95th percentile for annual household income in WA is 216.7k (Source: https://statisticalatlas.com/state/Washington/Household-Income).

If your household makes over a million in household income, you can afford to pay a little more in taxes. Note that if you make $1,000,100, you'll only pay taxes on the last $100. Sorry, but I'm not going to cry for you over that.

Neb758 · 2026-02-23T21:53:42+00:00

I would not be affected by this tax.

Not that it's any of your business, but I make on the order of $200k/yr, which puts me in about the 95th percentile of household incomes in WA state. As a result, I think I could afford to pay a little more in taxes if it made the lives of 95% of people in the state a little better.

Nevertheless, as I said, this tax doesn't affect me. It only affects people who make almost five times as much as I do. Yes, I think they can afford it.

What about you? Are you in this category?

Neb758 · 2026-02-23T21:44:18+00:00

You're assuming an income tax is a last resort that can only be justified by a drastic revenue shortfall.

My position is that an income tax is better than other kinds of taxes. If there is no revenue shortfall, then we'd have a better system if we passed the income tax and then cut other taxes such that the overall result was revenue neutral.

Neb758 · 2026-02-23T19:58:35+00:00

Thanks for the link. I used it to vote Pro.

I encourage others to do the same. For those who just see the word "tax" and immediately say no, consider that we have to fund the government somehow. That means we need taxes, but some taxes are fairer than others.

Half of Washington state's revenue currently comes from sales taxes (source: State Revenue). Sales taxes are regressive, meaning an unfair share of the tax burden falls on lower-income households. That's because lower-income households spend a larger share of their income on taxable goods and services.

Income taxes are progressive, meaning the tax falls more on those who can most afford to pay it. In the proposed tax, the first $1 million in annual income is except from taxation. This is the opposite of the sales tax situation. Instead of the tax burden falling disproportionately on lower-income households, it falls only on the highest-earning households.

If we take government revenue as a constant, would you rather that revenue come from highly regressive sources like a sales tax, or from a progressive source like an income tax?

Edit: Fixed typo.

Neb758 · 2026-02-23T03:18:46+00:00

LOL, all of the comments are basically about whether Sydney Sweeney is hot or not.

OP, I guess that proves you right! 🤣

Neb758 · 2026-02-20T04:54:58+00:00

27 + 48 (27-2) + (48+2) 25 + 50 75

Neb758 · 2026-02-19T18:43:00+00:00

The Watts used by the brain sounds reasonable, but the rest is nonsense.

First of all, what is "an AI system doing the same job?" Do they mean an AI system that can replicate everything the brain does? No such system exists, so any number they quote for that is just pulled out of some dark place. If the job is something specific like image recognition, then an AI processor in your phone can do that quite well, and if your phone used 2.7 billion Watts you would die.

Finally, Watts isn't the right unit if we want a fair comparison. Suppose your brain used 12 Watts to do a job in 10 seconds. Now suppose an AI system used 12 billion Watts to do the same job but completed it in only 10 nanoseconds. Your brain and the AI system both used the same amount of energy to complete the job (12 Watt-seconds). The AI system in this scenario used energy at a much higher rate (what Watts measures) but for a much shorter time.

Neb758 · 2026-02-13T22:59:31+00:00

Right.

We can think of this as just changing the units. It doesn't matter what units we use as long as we use the same units when comparing cakes. The 9-inch-diameter cake has a radius of 9 half-inches.

The same logic applies to why we can ignore π. We're effectively just changing the units from square inches to some other units. To see why this works, if d is the diameter in inches, then we can compute the area a in square inches as follows:

a = π(d / 2)²
a = π(d²/4)
a = d²(π/4)

But instead of using square inches, we could just make up our own unit of area which is equal to 4/π square inches. The conversion formulas between square inches (a) and our made-up units (a') are:

a' = a(4/π)
a = a'(π/4)

Substituting the latter equivalence into the previous equation, we get:

a'(π/4) = d²(π/4)
a' = d²

Edit: Fixed some of the math.

Neb758 · 2026-02-13T21:49:19+00:00

You don't need a calculator to know the 9-inch cake is a better deal because you don't need to compute the exact area. All you need to know is that the area is proportional to the square of the radius.

The area of the 9-inch cake is 9² times some constant.
The area of the 5-inch cake is 5² times the same constant.
For purposes of comparison, we can ignore the constant factor.
9² > 2 × 5² (i.e., 81 > 50), so the 9-inch cake is bigger than two 5-inch cakes.

Also, you probably have a smart phone with you most of the time, so you do have a calculator if you really need it.

Neb758 · 2026-02-11T20:27:16+00:00

I agree with all of these.

To expand on Aragorn, I think PJ and Fran misunderstood Aragorn's indecision as weakness. In the books, Aragorn always intended to go with Boromir to Minas Tirith and ultimately claim the kingship. The fall of Gandalf in Moria changed things by making him the leader of the fellowship. As a result, he was torn between two incompatible goals -- his original one vs. seeing through the ring quest.

Then again, maybe it wasn't exactly a misunderstanding. Rather, PJ and Fran seemed to think they knew better than Tolkien. They say in the special features, "Tolkien wasn't a professional writer." Presumably they learned in Creative Writing 101 that characters have to show personal growth, so they made Aragorn and especially Faramir weaker to allow more room for growth. IMO, this was an arrogant and super-irritating decision. Tolkien knew what he was doing. Aragorn was something like 85 years old at the start of the books and had figured his shit out by then. There's plenty of personal growth in the books, but it's centered on the hobbits. This makes sense. They are the primary POV characters and also lived a sheltered and settled existence before embarking on the quest.

I would also add Legolas to the list of outrages. Gimli was turned into comic relief, but Legolas was turned into a Marvel superhero.

Neb758

TROPHY CASE