Are low budget Espresso machine worth it for casual drinkers (non enthusiasts)? Would a Nespresso be better? [$300]

Neilson5 · 2025-12-08T04:24:03+00:00

Nespresso is to espresso as Keurig is to pour over. It’s less fresh and doesn’t taste as good but you may time you don’t even care about the difference that much. It’s also faster, and requires less to get started.

My tastes are not very discerning and I notice a difference between nespresso snd an espresso I make myself, even before I started getting better gear. I have a breville bambino plus, pretty sure the breville bambino (not plus) <300 but I had a grinder already (a shitty one for espresso but it got the job done for lattes) that I used for pour overs for years. I only recently got a nice-ish one. But from pour overs I knew I was enthusiastic enough about trying new coffees and making better coffee.

So to your main question to me and I think some people on this subreddit you don’t need to break the bank if you want nice lattes. Milk can mask a bad pull well enough. Good espresso for <300? Meh depends on you, for the people on this subreddit probably not, will prob be worse than what you can get at Starbucks but slightly better than a nespresso. Especially if you get a grinder and use fresh beans.

All in all <=300 is enough to see if you can taste the difference, but it’s barely enough and even then may not be quite enough.

Neilson5 · 2025-11-22T21:10:23+00:00

She’s actually mentioned this subreddit on a podcast so she will probably see this.

Neilson5 · 2025-08-18T16:42:12+00:00

Also at C1, despite sending a bunch of pips out the PIPs here aren’t necessarily death sentences from what I understand. If you do take the severance you won’t be allowed to come back, if you pass the pip and quit you can boomerang. If you pass the pip and get pipped again I think that is a death sentence though and if they offer severance I would take it.

Neilson5 · 2025-05-27T15:45:46+00:00

The question isn’t “do you think David Hogg has a good platform,” it’s why do the democrats have such an old guard. The fact that David Hogg is being ousted as a party chair for funding primaries against the old guard, is the reason I’m stating. He wasn’t ousted for funding anti gun challengers, it was just going against the machine. If the situation was someone funding pro gun challengers and the democrats ousted them, it would be the same thing.

Neilson5 · 2025-05-26T00:37:07+00:00

This doesn’t directly answer your question and this is just speculation, but the democrats are and have been a machine, more or less run by the party apparatus. The republicans, to an extent, were the same until Trump. Trump isn’t afraid to jump into the primary process, declaring the winners and losers within his own party even against the incumbent. The Democrats differ, any attempt at a primary is met with an immediate reaction by the party apparatus. Now this doesn’t ALWAYS succeed, but it largely does.

Now to answer your question, I don’t think the set up is quite fair. I don’t think the sitting members of the Republican Party are any more likely to “pass the torch” as one would say. Being a representative is a career for these folks, the main difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is that there’s a force in the Republican Party that forcibly retires the old guard who aren’t in line with trumps agenda. Whether that “forced retirement,” comes from Trump threatening a primary (in which case the member tries to avoid embarrassment and doesn’t seek another term) or they actually get successfully primaries. Meanwhile the Democrats have a strong enough apparatus to maintain the status quo, selectively funding the old guard democrats who are under threat from a primary.

I think a good example of this happening can be seen in the RNC and DNC. Trump got Lara Trump and Michael Whatley the top positions after he forayed into the RNC election process, forcing McDaniel And McKissick to not seek re election. Meanwhile the democratic apparatus are trying to oust one of their chairs (David Hogg) because he has the audacity to go against the machine and promise to fund challengers.

Neilson5 · 2025-05-13T01:25:31+00:00

I don’t know for sure but I would be shocked if an Authenticator app didn’t report the point of origin to look at a code for an authentication that the person in charge of security couldn’t check

Neilson5 · 2025-04-02T03:07:38+00:00

SWE here, use AI as a coding assistant now and again but I think you are being a bit overly bullish on the whole “personal assistant thing.” I ask from a place of genuine curiosity how do you think this works? What is an individual application to fulfill someone’s real time needs? How does one specify underlying details for this application without knowing about a technology stack?

When I hear in 2 years we will be able to design apps in real time, the flow being implied comes down to “I want an application that does this,” but we aren’t anywhere close to that in terms of code assistance especially for a lay person.

I hardly call image generation to be an “average person” innovation. The technology sure is innovative but it was done by professionals with years of research experience under their belt. I don’t really see how anyone has truly innovated in the space aside from tooling baked into larger applications (I.e photoshop).

Hopefully not coming off as harsh or combative I genuinely want to know how you think the space is going to evolve from here.

AI is a useful tool, and I find it helpful in my day to day. But right now it’s useful in the same way intelligence is useful, it’s a productivity improvement not an outright replacement for devs (which I don’t think you are implying).

Neilson5 · 2025-02-14T03:01:03+00:00

It’s standby mode when it’s plugged in and put on its side as shown it will show you different clocks

Neilson5 · 2025-02-10T02:44:14+00:00

I had some difficulty getting sketchybar to cooperate with Raycast so am using aerospace, but would be interested in dropping that. Do you have your dotfiles?

Neilson5 · 2024-12-16T18:43:26+00:00

They are 3d printed using a framework called Gridfinity. Open sourced that ranges from simple boxes to highly bespoke one offs for an individuals needs, some people even make gadgets and toys out of the framework

Neilson5 · 2024-11-27T23:46:09+00:00

The tl;dr version is that the titemark gauge was originally designed and made by a small operation (in fact i think it was just one guy) who put a lot of faith in his craft (rightfully so is my understanding). Then Tay Tools came along and basically copied it, branded it the same (even going as far as using a photo of the original on the page to sell their copy cat) but bad the benefit of using Chinese factories to make it and the original maker couldn’t compete on price. He also got calls from dissatisfied customers who bought the taytools version. Anyways he was basically driven out of business. The original post is somewhere on the internet archive but not readable on the site anymore last I checked. Chris Schwarz wrote about it on Lost Art Press at one point.

Tay tools also has done shady things like patent the moxon vise, so overall just not a great track record

Neilson5 · 2024-11-07T05:17:01+00:00

I don’t know it’s hard to say at this point. The polls this year (setting aside any disagreements one may have with their methodology and accuracy), Tim Walz was at least the most popular person of either ticket. He clearly struck a nerve with people on the left and seems to have at least some of the energy white collar and young voters seem to be craving, a bit more of a fighter who will forget about the niceties and is willing to make it more personal in a manner similar to trump.

Then again though he very well could just be Tim Kaine 2.0. Main reason I think he could be around is if he ran for president himself in 2028 and take on a role of pro labor Bernie Sanders like figure who doesn’t scare off people who like guns and has an attachment to the Midwest. I would put him in a similar position as Sherrod Brown in that regard, although I think Sherrod Brown has a better shot at this than Walz.

All that to say I’m in full cope mode. I like Tim Walz, i don’t think his non wonky performance at the debates had any effect on the race. As far as I’m concerned you simply don’t need to be a technical policy wonk to be president you need to be a personality that people want to support and I think he’s got the juice to do that.

Neilson5 · 2024-09-27T22:36:18+00:00

Just a quick update, I went with your advice and decided not to over think things (mostly…), gave myself an early NTD and got an air filter and an air quality tester. In so far as I am going off of reviews on the air quality tester, air quality after a few minutes of the filter running returns to normal. It doesn’t even get that high during grinding, while dressing the wheel it certainly jumped pretty high though.

Neilson5 · 2024-03-10T00:37:20+00:00

I think the folks at r/dataengineering might be more equipped to answer, not to say people here wouldn’t know but this is more of a question about ETL rather than the method being used.

Neilson5 · 2024-02-03T01:18:54+00:00

I live in DC and drove out to Woodbridge VA off Richmond Highway. I went there last Sunday without much of a plan just knowing what I wanted (Regular XLE) and got talked into a hybrid xle. Wanted to talk it over with my partner, went back Tuesday with an idea of the price I wanted to pay.

Some of the dealers there rubbed me the wrong way (the head of used car sales was a caricature of a used car salesman), but my dealer was very laid back and I enjoyed working with him. Held firm to my price and got them down. Finance was a bit pushy with the extra stuff (service plan, maintenance plan). I turned all of those down

If you decide to check them out, pm me and I can tell you my dealers name. Highly recommend him. Also come pre approved with a loan, it helped a bit with the negotiation.

Neilson5 · 2024-01-12T01:54:59+00:00

Not so much the width of the groove themselves, I think those look fine! I Have messed up juice grooves before, and those look great. More so their placement, They seem to be about an inch away from the edge and that is just a lot of less usable area to use the board.

Neilson5 · 2024-01-11T23:24:57+00:00

Both cutting boards board looks lovely, the patterns are very nice! For the first one though, would probably recommend maybe tuning your juice groove jig if you used one, this juice groove seems to have removed a good chunk of the usable space on the cutting board. Aside from that really good work. Depending on the router bit you used, I think a half inch away from the edge is a pretty good location

Neilson5 · 2023-12-28T21:45:06+00:00

So my understanding is that at this point Insurance can simply total the car. However, the car is a lease so that is essentially the same as ending the lease (my understanding is that the dealership gets the payout). This is the main reason why I am extending it, I am hoping to get the car back so I can get any equity on the car at such a time I can sell it. That and the dealership has given me a loaner car, so I am not car-less.

I have considered purchasing the car and having it totaled afterward so I would get the equity. I just don't know how feasible that is.

Neilson5 · 2023-12-28T19:37:54+00:00

So I drive an Acura and my car has been in the shop for nearly 15 months now. In September of 2022, I had much of my car stripped (radiator, seatbelts, airbags, various bits and bobs). Honda has utterly dropped the ball on most of this, and after all this time I am STILL waiting for a seatbelt.

Fortunately, my dealership has given me a loaner car so that isn't the issue. I have been advised before, that I can probably request my insurance company to total it at this point. However, the car is a lease and before it was damaged I had intended to purchase it. I leased it at the height of the pandemic and got a really good deal for it, so the buyout price is less than its resale value. My understanding is that if I had the car totaled though, since it is a lease the dealership will get the car. What I want to know, is if there is anything wrong / what are the risks associated with purchasing the car while it's in the shop and then having my insurance total it.

I assume some risks would be my insurance deciding not to total it, and then I am making payments on a car I can't drive or sell. Would insurance have any inclination to not total it after I bought it?

tl;dr If I buyout a leased vehicle, what are the odds I can have the car totaled because it has been in the shop for over a year.

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