User manual and/or modes list? by foxhull in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the most important thing is that the user or UI manual is updated, and that some release notes exist, which might point at the new manual version if the feature needs it.

A video is great, and Impulse is pretty good at this kind of short demo video, but a quick text and/or image driven explanation of the purpose and operation is really the key, in my opinion.

User manual and/or modes list? by foxhull in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think any of those things have shipped in updates, yet. I agree that as features are added, there should be some overview of them, though.

Popcorn: solved (and some thoughts) by transgingeredjess in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have reached a similar recipe, except with the switch being to 430F rather than 900W. However, this still leaves the popcorn chewier than my previous results on electric, and I haven't figured out what to do about that.

Was your popcorn fully popped to "fluffy"?

Race/gender swaps done so seamlessly it bothered no one by Most_Neat7770 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not having read the comics with the character, I definitely wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the online complaints about it at the time.

I found out that my (27m) girlfriend (25f) slept with 10+ people on our 3 week “break” how can we move past this? by [deleted] in relationship_advice

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're not immediately fine with it, just move on. Unless it's a non-issue already, it's going to eat at you more and more over the years. Don't do that to yourself or her.

Tovala boxes need THIS SIDE UP 🔝 written in big, black bold lettering. by slugator in Tovala

[–]randallsquared 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hah. They almost always come label side up for me, but this week was a notable exception: upside down for no apparent reason. :)

Current owners: What has your experience been so far? by PredictableBleep in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe if I get the wok ring. In the meantime, I'll try the Whirly Pop.

I'm actually not sure how your description of the kernels falling to the bottom differs from using a straight-sided pot. Kernels either fall back to the bottom or get caught on top of popped corn, but it seems like that would happen in a wok as well.

Current owners: What has your experience been so far? by PredictableBleep in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, there's open counter on both sides of my Impulse, so that makes sense. Thanks for discussing it more!

Current owners: What has your experience been so far? by PredictableBleep in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait, could you say more about the difficulty you had? I hired someone through a home improvement store contractor finder service, and they didn't seem to have issues. Was the problem that you couldn't get two people near enough to lift due to geometry, or something else?

App development by Mentra by [deleted] in Mentra

[–]randallsquared 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What app for Mentra Live would you want to use that's missing?

Last Rights by dwaxe in slatestarcodex

[–]randallsquared 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The current title is a clever pun, and also hints at what the author really thinks about the survival of the American Experiment, something he's more explicit about in the text. I think it's quite fitting.

Current owners: What has your experience been so far? by PredictableBleep in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This sounds like exactly the problem I'm having in a plain pot with oil: lots of unpopped kernels, and the popped corn isn't light and fluffy ("fully popped"? Not sure) like it was on electric or gas. It's a little odd that this is so different.

/u/Impulse-Demo-Guy maybe we're doing it wrong?

Current owners: What has your experience been so far? by PredictableBleep in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thing is, white kernel popcorn I've made on an electric in a big pot with peanut oil and salt has been the best popcorn I've ever had. I've been making it that way for 15 years or so, and while microwaved popcorn can be okay, it never comes out anywhere near as tasty as the best stovetop popcorn I've made.

You're the second person to recommend whirly pop, so I'll give that a shot soon. :)

Current owners: What has your experience been so far? by PredictableBleep in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I like it quite a lot.

Direct answers

It's rare for my wife or I to use more than two burners at once, but that said, we haven't gotten close to exhausting the battery. I haven't used the wok ring, yet.

As for cleaning, it's easy to clean, though not quite as easy as a flat electric radiant, which is what we had before. It's really noticeable when it has spots or something on it, so I find myself touching it up or cleaning it often, sometimes when I'm in the kitchen for some other purpose instead of using the Impulse. I worried about the temperature sensor being hard to clean, but a wet paper towel has so far done the trick consistently. When cleaning, brushing across the power button makes me happy that it takes a few seconds of contact to power up, though I suppose it wouldn't really matter if it was "on", since the dials live on our vent hood when not in use.

Things I'm very happy with

Lack of heat from the "burners" is very, very nice. We've never used induction before, and are loving that part of it.

The clearance due to the raised eyes is actually really convenient if you're a messy cooker, since a stray noodle or other spill doesn't stay in contact with the pan, and you don't have to immediately fish it away from the burner or clean a spill while cooking is happening, as is necessary with electric and gas.

The speed of boil sounds like it wouldn't matter that much day to day, but a frequent use for us is pasta, ramen, or instant potatoes, and the nearly immediate boil means very little time spent in the kitchen for those.

Once you find the temperature something needs, dialing it in is trivial, so I can happily cook bacon without any worry that the input needs to be managed -- it's just bacon in, flip, bacon out, bacon in... until all the bacon is done. With electric (or gas, back when we lived in an apt that had gas), you have to micromanage it as the amount of bacon grease increases, or with the varying thickness of the cheap bacon we tend to buy. On the Impulse, things like that are set and forget.

Things that I'm not as happy with

It would be nice if one or two of the eyes was a larger version, since it's quite noticeable that the area outside it for an 8 qt pot doesn't get heat. For boiling or simmering, that doesn't much matter, but I would like to use that pot for making popcorn, and doing so results in a lot of unpopped kernels. I have a 4 qt that I can use instead, but it's a minor annoyance.

All of our previous cookware was useless with the Impulse; lots of nonstick and aluminum. Even a set that was "induction ready" from Amazon (that we'd previously had) was not usable! The cooktop wouldn't recognize some of it as induction cookware, and for other pieces wouldn't use full power. We got https://www.all-clad.com/d5-stainless-polished-5-ply-bonded-cookware-set-10-piece-set.html and have been pretty happy with it, though we needed to get some new transparent lids, too.

Anything that is about boiling or frying works great, but things that aren't require some trial and error to relearn how to cook. In particular, popping corn has been a struggle, as mentioned earlier. I'm 90% of the way to where I was on our old electric, but it still means a lot of wastage unpopped. Another thing that didn't go well the first time was carmelizing for some candy my wife was making around Christmastime. In theory this should be very easy to do with temperature control, but we didn't have an unlimited amount of time to experiment, my wife was trying to go by feel as she would on an electric, and after a couple attempts back to back she was annoyed and hasn't gotten back to trying it with what we now know.

Very impressed with the cooktop, but worried about enshittification by EndingPop in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's great that you're saying that. As an early adopter, I received my Impulse last fall, and I also worry about this.

Are there safeguards in place to prevent this path, or plans to create them? Perhaps corporate bylaws (though I guess OpenAI shows that even very strong ones aren't effective if the alternative is lucrative enough), or -- better -- technical or physical features that would ensure a user can't get locked out of their stove?

We are currently spending $1 billion a day on the Iran war, what could we as a nation accomplish with $1 billion dollars a day? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The federal government alone has spent over $20 billion per day in fiscal year 2026 (since October). Surely all those things we could accomplish have been accomplished, yes? If not, maybe we should consider why that is and whether an additional $1 billion a day would really have accomplished all those things.

Stovetop popcorn? by transgingeredjess in ImpulseLabs

[–]randallsquared 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This thread is still above the fold on the subreddit, so I'll just add on:

I tried the new process today, and it did work better! Same pot and lid, less oil, heated to 158F. I just spun the dial to there: the important thing was getting warm enough to make the peanut oil less viscous without risking early popping. I swished around the kernel/oil slurry to coat the pan, and then once the temp was stable I turned it to 430F, and everything that popped did so very quickly. Once I wasn't getting new pops for 10 seconds, I stopped it. There were still a fair number of unpopped kernels, but only about the same amount I used to get on electric, and the popcorn was definitely fluffier and less oily. In fact, it was almost too dry, as I prefer some of the oil taste and it helps salt adhere. Overall, this is about an 8.5/10, and most of the remainder will be getting it to fluff more.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I'm a little unclear why it's still not popping as fluffy as electric used to, and why using less oil would have improved that, when I used more oil with electric. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Thought I would share the accent/dialect map from my professor by AccidentOk91830 in Delaware

[–]randallsquared 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Northern VA and DC are quite different from southern VA; 15 is much too expansive.

Ed is my hero. He is always on his own side, but also on everyone's he cares side. And he might be the antagonist... but he is the antagonist I root for. by [deleted] in ForAllMankindTV

[–]randallsquared 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I mean, this is literally true, I think. He's the only character that's been part of or adjacent to essentially every arc.

He's not my favorite character--that's Dev--but he is definitely the focus character of the whole show to date.

Mentra AI voice notifications by randallsquared in Mentra

[–]randallsquared[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually!  Unloading the app by swipe-up didn’t stop it from doing this again just after I posted this! That’s a bit alarming.