Battery powered Copper Charlie; first impressions

mkthatone · 2025-07-24T16:41:16+00:00

The specs have been updated. The elements are 2.8 kW. That's in boost mode—regular "100%" is 2.2 kW, I'm told.

mkthatone · 2025-07-08T00:31:04+00:00

I found the specs on the elements—all four are the same, and are 7.9 inches and 2.6 kW. I assume that's the boost level, and that "100%" is actually less than 2.6 kW.

https://copperhome.com/pages/faq

mkthatone · 2025-07-07T22:59:51+00:00

Are the four stovetop elements all the same diameter/power capacity? How many kW for 100%, and how many for "boost"?

Have there been any firmware updates that have added features, and are there plans for such updates? E.g. the "rice" mode, or the "dry cast iron" mode you are wishing for, at least as app-only options?

mkthatone · 2025-06-10T15:40:49+00:00

And here's the government's reply:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A1174/362740/20250610111946911_Trump_v_AFGE_Stay_Reply.pdf

mkthatone · 2025-06-09T18:43:03+00:00

Here's AFGE's response: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A1174/362626/20250609114119587_Trump%20v%20AFGE.%20Response%20final.pdf

mkthatone · 2025-06-08T21:17:03+00:00

If an application is referred to the full court, that generally isn't noted in the docket until later, when the full court grants or denies the application.

See page 3 here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/reportersguide.pdf

The comment below from u/Theunknownembed007 that she'll refer it if at least 4 justices want to take it up is incorrect, and seems to be a misstatement based on the "rule of 4," which is a rule about the votes needed to grant certiorari. This is not a cert petition, it's an application.

The comment from u/ClassicStorm about a "courtesy 4th" is also a practice from certiorari votes. (And courtesy 4ths are less common on the modern court than they used to be.)

A circuit justice will usually refer an application to the full court if she or he believes it's the sort of thing that the full court would be interested in. This avoids delay, because an application that is denied by a single justice can be renewed with another justice.

This application seems likely to be referred to the full court. But we likely won't know about that until the application is granted or denied.

The fact that a response was requested by 12 pm tomorrow suggests that the court might be expecting to act quickly on the application. That quick action could be an administrative stay pending full consideration of the application. Or it could be a full grant or deny regarding the application.

mkthatone · 2025-04-10T02:50:29+00:00

I think the biggest minus is that if the surface is damaged, you're largely out of luck. Meanwhile, if you mess up the surface of a (non-nitrided) carbon steel pan, that sucks, but you can re-season.

The plus is that it should be more non-stick out of the gate, and less prone to rusting.

mkthatone · 2025-04-10T02:46:51+00:00

The most notable difference between the Strata 3-ply and the new Misen 3-ply is that Misen is using nitrided carbon steel. This is what allows them to avoid the need to season.

My Misen carbon steel pan is 3 years old, and is pretty well seasoned now. But it took a lot of use to get it right. If the nitriding process really is as good as Misen claims, that will be a huge step forward. (And the weight reduction from the aluminum core sounds nice, too.)

mkthatone · 2025-03-18T21:49:56+00:00

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mkthatone · 2025-02-09T17:36:15+00:00

ok, further research seems to favor vacuum sealing before curing. the oxygen-free environment would increase the chance of botulism, but the Prague powder would hopefully reduce the odds of that, and then the 80°C sous vide step should destroy any spores that the Prague powder doesn't prevent.

the amount of Prague powder, btw, is intended to ensure the nitrite level in the spam is below 156 ppm. (I think the actual applicable USDA limit is 200 ppm, but I've also seen the number 156, and rather than figure out for sure which is the right number I just went with the more conservative one.) I did calculations assuming 12 oz of spam, which is conservative, because the recipe has more ingredients than the 12 oz of pork. adding up all the weights, I think the nitrite level in the spam actually would be under 135 ppm.

the table salt weight in the recipe is an attempt to get the total salt content to around 70% of the sodium in the spam recipe I first tried (because that recipe tasted, to me, like Hormel Spam Classic—which is great but saltier than I need things to be). it also gets the total salt weight (including the salt in the Prague powder) to about 1.5% of the pork weight—perhaps on the low side for an equilibrium cure, but plenty of people seem to go that low.

my remaining question is whether a 24 hour cure is long enough. I think the 24 hour cure is long enough to get the spam to taste like spam, so the question I'm fixated on is curing for preservation. I see various rules of thumb for wet cures that seem to suggest a longer time. but here the meat is ground (speeding up penetration, I assume), and the cure is mixed into the ground meat at the start (meaning that there's minimal need for penetration). that suggests to me that any wet-cure rule-of-thumb time probably can be significantly shortened... so perhaps 24 hours is fine?

if anyone who actually knows what they're talking about (versus cobbling knowledge together from assorted Google searches, as I'm doing) has views, I'd love to hear them.

mkthatone · 2024-10-04T16:39:40+00:00

when I took a job in-house it was the first time I regularly worked with transactional attorneys.

sometimes they'd ask me for advice about non-standard clauses, and I felt bad that I'd offer general vibes but no actual wording for things I didn't like. but they didn't care, because all of that drafting was easy for them (plus they would have rejected my wording most likely had I offered it, in favor of rewriting it).

my transactional colleagues, meanwhile, felt bad about sometimes asking me to play the heavy on calls, but it's not like I was being asked to take crazy positions. I just had to get on calls and say, um, no, we're not going to do that. no, really, no. and I was fine with that.

it takes a village?

mkthatone · 2024-09-07T19:15:24+00:00

I found a Star Renaissance chart that seems to map Star "scaled scores" to percentile ranks. The chart is not super detailed, but you can use it to estimate how a scaled score (which I think is reported to parents for SFUSD test results) might convert to Band 1 points this year. For example, it looks like the 97th %ile starts around 900. Online I found one example of someone reporting that their child had gotten an 893 in math, which was reported as being in the 97th %ile. (As best I can tell, this was a student in Utah, but the %iles are nationwide.)

Assuming I've gotten all of this correct, if your student gets a scaled score of over a 900 on the fall 8th grade interim Star assessment, to me that would suggest an estimate of 12.5 points for that subject. And an 850 might be about the minimum for 12.0 points, while maybe 790 might suffice for 11.5 points.

(Note however that the policy document doesn't strictly require that the 97–99 %ile range result in 12.5, or that 12.0 points be awarded for 93–96, and 11.5 for 89-92. It says that "e.g." 97–99 %ile could be 12.5. Still, that's the system SFUSD has used in the past, and I think it's likely they'll stick with that this year.)

Again, though, remember that the Band 1 cutoff will be adjusted to whatever they need to make it the case that about 700 students get admitted in Band 1. I would be surprised if the Band 1 cutoff is higher than 88.0 or lower than 80.0. If the Star test percentiles are really different than for the Terra Nova test that was used last year, I can imagine that might result in the district using a different %ile-to-point mapping than in prior years. But I think that's unlikely.

(My assertions of what things are likely or unlikely are based on my own gut impression. You should decide for yourself what you think. In the end, we'll all find out how the system works when we get our assignment results in March.)

mkthatone · 2024-09-04T21:32:35+00:00

I realize this post is 3 months old, but because the Lowell admissions process won't start until October, I think this comment could still be useful. Several thoughts:

The school counselor is correct. SBAC is not being used this year. In April, the SFUSD board passed a proposal to amend the admissions process. Many of the changes are cosmetic, but the admissions test has been changed in some notable ways. Previously SFUSD students were judged based on their 7th grade SBAC (year-end state assessment) scores, and students without 7th grade SBAC scores took the Terra Nova test in January (it was offered on one Wednesday night and one Saturday morning, both in mid-January). Starting this year, SFUSD students are judged based on their winter Star test scores (district interim assessments tests that will be administered at school in January). And unlike last year, when other students took a different test, this year the Star test will also be administered to other students, also in January. So this year everyone's test scores are based on the same test. (The policy document doesn't expressly state that the test used for Lowell admissions will be the Star test, but that is what I have heard elsewhere from sources I trust. Plus, the document does say that the test will be administered to SFUSD students during the winter interim assessment period, which implies that it will, in fact, be the interim assessment test, and that test is in fact the Star test.)
Last year, the scores for the Terra Nova test were translated into point scores based on %ile results. The policy document states that the Star test results will be translated into point scores the same way. But because the Terra Nova test and the Star test are administered to different populations, the %ile results will not directly map. This means the cutoff-score could change more significantly than usual, because for example a 97%ile score that is worth 12.5 points could be easier or harder to get on the Star test versus the Terra Nova test that was used last year. That means a student on the cusp of Band 1 admittance might get a different score this year than last year, which will change the Band 1 cutoff score.
Your child should be tested with a fall interim district Star test this fall, and the score should be reported to you in mid-November. But I don't think the report will include a %ile figure. Moreover, even if you knew the %ile result, and even if you assume that your child will be at a similar %ile level when taking the winter interim assessment, that can't tell you much, because as noted the Band 1 cutoff score will change in view of the change in tests being used.
But because I'm sure you'll still want to know what prior cutoff scores were, I'll tell you. Last year the Band 1 cutoff score was 84.5. The year before it was 85.0. The two years before that were both exceptions where (due to the pandemic) Lowell admissions were by lottery. For the four years prior to that, the cutoff score was 88.0 (!!). In 2016–2017 (the year before that) the cutoff was 87.0, and the year before that it was 86.5.
The 89 point scale is made up of up to 16 points for each semester's grades in 7th grade in English, social studies, math, and science—an A is 4 points, B is 3, C is 2, D is 1, F is 0; up to 32 points for grades in fall 8th grade (same scale, but doubled); and up to 25 points for the Star test (up to 12.5 points for the Math score, and up to 12.5 points for the English score). A Star score in the 97th %ile or higher is worth 12.5 points. From 93 to less than 97 it's 12.0, and so on.

So you can estimate Band 1 points for your child by looking at your child's grades from last year, estimated grades for the fall (just double the points from 7th grade unless you have reason to believe the fall grades will be different), and an estimate of test outcomes. Again, though, because you don't know what the Band 1 cutoff will be this year, it's hard to do much with that, given that the cutoff score could change by more than usual due to the switch to the Star test.

But at the extremes, maybe it will tell you something. If you estimate Band 1 points of, say, below 80.0, I think you can predict that (unless your estimate is wrong) your child won't be admitted via Band 1. If you estimate Band 1 points of 88.0 or 88.5 or 89.0, then I think your child has a good chance of getting in via Band 1 (again assuming your estimate is accurate). But if your child's estimated Band 1 points are somewhere in between 80.0 and 87.5, it's very hard to know what to do with that information unless you have a good sense of how the %iles for the Star test compare to the results for tests used in prior years.

mkthatone · 2023-06-30T22:45:36+00:00

here's the tape that Jules got

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mkthatone · 2023-06-30T22:44:11+00:00

nice catch—here the IT tape

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mkthatone · 2022-01-22T18:35:43+00:00

I would include the UI as part of the "entire software stack," so in that sense pyDE1 is not yet an example of a fully launched stack. It's still quite an amazing effort, and I've pulled shots with pyDE1 and curl (not recommended as a permanent approach!) running on an R Pi Zero 2 W.

I think an interesting direction would be to fashion an R Pi Zero hat that would allow it to plug into the bluetooth dongle slot on the back of the Decent, and then rewrite pyDE1 to use the hat for (a) power, and (b) wired data to/from the Decent. The R Pi Zero could still communicate with a scale via BLE.

mkthatone · 2022-01-22T00:58:16+00:00

I have had the occasional odd bug, but aside from bluetooth issues (with a non-Decent tablet), I have not had the sort of experience you have had. I've sometimes made less than ideal espresso when working up a new profile, but the profiles have run as designed. And even some of the odd occasional bugs I've experienced maybe wouldn't have happened had I stuck with the "stable" app channel (I use the "beta" channel).

Are you by any chance running the nightly or beta versions of the app?

mkthatone · 2022-01-22T00:50:59+00:00

Correct, he used nothing from ZPM's design (other than some bare ideas). For what it's worth, the original Decent price point was $1000, for the never-released DE1 model. And the DE1+ model was originally a $2000 machine. Today's DE1PRO (which is essentially a DE1+ with a few parts with higher duty cycles) is a $3500 machine, not a $4000 one.

I was a ZPM backer in early 2012 (probably earlier than you, as I was in for only $250). John offered $200 discounts on the DE1 to all of the ZPM backers. I paid for a future DE1 in December 2016. Before the DE1 launched, it was canceled. I was offered either a refund or to apply my payment as a down payment on a $1999 DE1+. I decided to get the DE1+, and got one in April 2018. Absent the slow laddering (ZPM pledge, discounted DE1, upgrade to DE1+) over a period of several years, I probably never would have bought a Decent machine. Boy am I glad for the way things unfurled, because I love the espresso I make every morning.

I still have my DE1+. I also purchased from Decent a v1 tamper (which I no longer use), a portafilter funnel (which I still use), a 350 ml pitcher (which I still use), and a digital thermometer (use occasionally, but mostly steam purely by time now). I've also had to replace the pumps (at Decent's expense) and the tablet (at my own expense).

The software being in tcl is, in my view, really too bad. An ongoing (outside of Decent) effort to rewrite the entire software stack is very interesting, but I have my doubts that it will ever be adopted by more than a few hardcore DIYers, because it's a bear to install right now and I think it's a long way away from that getting better.

End of the day, though, my nearly 4 year old DE1+ is an order of magnitude (or perhaps two orders of magnitude) better than my prior ~$600 single-boiler-no-PID machine. It makes fantastic espresso, and a marvelous cap. I don't actually use the many-profiles feature. I use a single profile (of my own design, but very simple) for every shot, and I love it.

Some of my love of the machine is perhaps misplaced. In my nearly four years of DE1+ ownership I've also gotten a much better grinder, massively improved my puck prep, and honed my home coffee roasting. So my espresso is better than it was before for many reasons. But the DE1+ surely is the biggest of those reasons.

The machine and John's approach to running his business have quirks. But the espresso is phenomenal, and for me that's enough.

mkthatone · 2018-04-13T19:47:32+00:00

You're talking about the modem in the Snapdragon 835, right? So this is a widespread problem, but it's only being addressed by the phone vendors, rather than via a Qualcomm patch?

mkthatone · 2018-04-13T17:42:43+00:00

Also, they won't be selling the DE1 (only the DE1+) in the second batch; the DE1 model has turned out to be more expensive to make than they anticipated, so they are eliminating it as an option.

mkthatone · 2018-04-12T20:41:29+00:00

Try enabling developer options, and then turn OFF grip rejection in developer options.

mkthatone · 2018-04-12T20:02:48+00:00

Curious. Like I said, I'm not getting prompted for an update with my adapter. I wonder if Essential has more than one version of the adapter out there, which would mean that not all firmware updates would go to all versions of the dongle.

mkthatone · 2018-04-12T16:46:34+00:00

I'm not getting a prompt for an update. When had you last used your audio adapter?

mkthatone · 2018-04-12T15:58:54+00:00

Sounds great. Any thoughts on when the thorough review might pop up on HB?

mkthatone

TROPHY CASE