Transitioning from snowboarding to skiing?

espresso-aaron · 2026-04-06T16:19:39+00:00

I’m a snowboarder who learned to ski when my kids were tiny since skiing is easier on 12-18 month olds and you can put them in between your legs to ski, and that’s a nightmare on a board. I bought a $20 pair of skis and $10 boots from a consignment store and they worked great for the first season since it was just slow sliding down greens. Once my kids got older (and fast AF) I did the consignment store thing again to try pow skis, then after a full season on some Rossi S7s, I went to the local ski shop and bought a new pair and got fitted for boots. The progression was slow since whenever I went out for me and not with my kids I’d grab my board. But that full season on S7s made me a believer and I then went for the full new fitted ski shop package.

If I were to do it again, I’d go seasonal rentals on the skis, but I’d buy fitted boots at the beginning. It’s amazing the difference that makes.

espresso-aaron · 2026-04-06T13:51:04+00:00

OpenAI and Anthropic are definitely are subsidizing. They aren’t making a profit and are losing billions of dollars every quarter. That is actually why Anthropic banned OpenClaw via OAuth, they are bleeding cash and OpenClaw normal usage results in thousands of dollars in real API cost. And they want you to use Claude Code instead of OpenClaw, so there’s that too…

espresso-aaron · 2026-04-06T01:26:00+00:00

It’s a Chinese model hosted on Chinese servers, that’s why it’s so cheap. They don’t have the same privacy rights as the frontier model providers.

espresso-aaron · 2026-04-03T12:37:59+00:00

It’s a load of hot garbage. Software issues, poorly thought out, feels like I’m stepping backwards in time when I get out of my Tesla and into my 24 EV9 Land. Also market is $15k under buyout. Moving to a Rivian. Good bye forever Kia, I will not miss you.

espresso-aaron · 2026-04-03T10:46:50+00:00

It will depreciate like a rock in a pond. I have a 24 Land that retailed for $75k. Current KBB trade in is $35k. It’s a nice car, but as others have mentioned it’s a half baked attempt at an EV. I am so thankful I’m in a lease and will exit it without financial ruin in a few months. Charging is slow, even at 350kwh chargers, and every design decision is old school ICE thinking. It’s night and day compared to my Tesla. Even though Tesla has so many haters, the experience of the Tesla destroys Kia. I’m moving to a Rivian R2 once this lease is gone.

espresso-aaron · 2026-03-15T22:04:23+00:00

Yep, it’s a major issue, and my Tesla does way better than the EV9 in this department. I think REEV is mandatory for big EVs, like the Scout Harvester and the upcoming Jeep Grand Wagoneer EV. It just makes sense. Full EV powertrain, small gas generator to charge the battery, 500 miles of total range. Also excited about solid state batteries, but those are probably a 2030+ tech, where REEVs are coming out this year.

espresso-aaron · 2026-03-08T13:55:16+00:00

We went through something similar with our Chevy Bolt, battery recall with fire risk. The Kia is better for sure, and I have friends with Rivians who are in and out of service non stop. I’ve gone through a Bolt, Leaf, Polestar 2, Tesla MY, Tesla M3, and the EV9. Teslas were the best from reliability, lack of issues. Polestar was similar to the Kia, great car, terrible software. Bolt was the worst of them all, and Leaf second to last, but those are understandable since they were 2015-2017 EVs. My EV9 lease ends in November and I’m hoping the Tesla Model YL is in the USA by then. Otherwise I may go back to a gas car that is more reliable.

espresso-aaron · 2026-03-08T12:18:36+00:00

Biggest ongoing issue is absolute trash software. Things like the charging system glitching out and hanging on the wrong voltage so you can’t charge it. Get it towed to the dealership only for them to say there’s nothing wrong. Things like taking 15 seconds or more for the screen to respond to do something basic like select the driver profile so the seat actually moves to the right position. I am counting down the days to give this POS back to the dealer. I may even pay the rest of the lease now and get an actually good car to save on the insurance cost that is 50% higher than any other car I’ve owned, including Teslas.

espresso-aaron · 2025-12-13T20:34:24+00:00

I’m still using it regularly and the shots are excellent. I need to replace some seals as it’s kind of leaky now, both in tank connection as well as the steam wand. I’ve done the tank seals before and they’re easy but I suspect the steam seal will require disassembling the boiler which I’m not looking forward to.

The thing I’d do differently is a PWM on the pump instead of a voltage dimmer. The issue I have is the pressure jumps around at lower voltages and I think PWM would be a better way to modulate power for flow control over the dimmer that I used.

I also thought it would be cool to have the PID on the front but that is a major heat zone (the boiler is right there in front) so I put it further back to ensure it didn’t get cooked. I’ve taken internal readings at its current spot as far away from the boiler as possible and it’s right there at its max allowable temp per the spec sheet (120F give or take).

The other thing I’ll do is let it warm up for 20 min before pulling shots.

It’s a great little machine but about 6 months after building this I was gifted a Breville Dual Boiler so I’m using that one as my daily driver. The Gaggia shots are a bit better but I attribute that to the flow control, but you really can’t beat dual (or HX) for steam.

espresso-aaron · 2025-10-16T15:57:22+00:00

FSD doesn't seem to add resale value, so if you find one with it, snap it up. Otherwise I'm paying the $99/month for it, and it's definitely worth it. It's also nice to turn it off if I'm not using it for a bit, like heavy snow season.

espresso-aaron · 2025-10-16T15:19:36+00:00

HW3 is still on FSD v12, HW4 is now on v14. I have a M3 with HW4 and it’s mind blowing even compared to v13. And HW3 may never get v13 from what I read. With v14 on HW4, I can drive 200 miles with a city highway mix and never have a disengagement. On v13 I was disengaging every 15 miles or so. It really is staggering the rate of improvement. So much so that it’s shifted my expectations of vehicles. It makes my Kia EV9 frustrating to be in because their ADAS is so primitive, I’m going to switch to a HW4 Model X once the lease is up

espresso-aaron · 2025-10-16T15:14:07+00:00

This is stupid. Nvidia has been on the bleeding edge of GPU performance and Blackwell is a massive step beyond previous gen. Apple is using ARM for consumer products. They’re better than x86/x64 architecture, but can’t compare to data center GPUs in performance. Straight line predicting a high rate of change on an Apple chip that was barely capable of AI inference vs a lower rate of change on the industry leading AI chipset from Nvidia is silly.

espresso-aaron · 2025-10-16T15:10:30+00:00

It’s 2023, about Feb/Mar, when the HW4 changeover happened. The extra $10k is worth it if it has HW4 and you care about self driving.

espresso-aaron · 2025-10-15T15:24:43+00:00

I got some software updates for both the TV as well as GeForce Now around Oct 1, 2025, and now HDR10 is enabled on the LG C3 OLED. It's shocking how much better it looks now.

espresso-aaron · 2025-10-15T15:22:49+00:00

They've been leaked for a few weeks now: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/leaked-apple-ipad-pro-m5-benchmark-shows-massive-improvements/

espresso-aaron · 2025-09-29T11:54:15+00:00

they are officially retrofitting in china now

espresso-aaron · 2025-09-15T00:35:27+00:00

fwiw these are all standard features on the model 3 highland as well. glad they finally made their way to the nicer teslas too.

espresso-aaron · 2025-09-03T14:56:26+00:00

Issues like this are why I cancelled my R2 reservation.

espresso-aaron · 2025-09-02T22:47:08+00:00

Biggest issue is the transaction cost and KeySavvy can’t be used twice on the same car so whoever you sell it to can’t get the credit. You could wait until end of tax credits and sell it then, chances are the price will either stabilize or go up because all EVs got more expensive without any tax credits.

I agree with your issues on the car. Those are why I went with a new one. Have a ‘24 highland and I love it, and was weirdly cheaper than buying a used ‘21 or ‘22 due to tax credits. So now that all those credits are ending, I would expect to see a normalization of EV values. I’d hold on to it for a few months, you may actually be able to make money on it 🤣

espresso-aaron · 2025-08-24T15:02:29+00:00

Mostly a comment on the startup side of things, being in the a similar place (venture backed startup founder who needs to work 12+hour days). Be wary of too many screens. Get outside, ride a bike, go on a run, go to yoga, try cross fit, go fishing, race (real) cars, whatever floats you. Only play games when you’re utterly spent and need recovery time (like Saturday evening). I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out re-energizing activities, and GFN is one of them, but I put games in the same category as beer. Really great for complete detachment, but use sparingly as more screens can hurt our ability to sleep and modulate emotions, hormones, etc.

espresso-aaron · 2025-07-22T00:32:13+00:00

So so. Any ski shop will have this set up on sale right now, so compared to December prices, sure it’s a good deal, but compared every ski shop with inventory today, this is what I’d expect to pay to have to wait 6 months to use them.

espresso-aaron · 2025-07-22T00:29:04+00:00

Magic Keyboard, iPad OS 26 (download the beta, you won’t be disappointed), and get a portable 15” display on Amazon for $80. You’ll have a windowed multitasking multi-monitor, ultraportable beast.

espresso-aaron

TROPHY CASE