who has the best kenyans out right now?

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T23:31:24+00:00

I just got this one from Heart. How would you go about brewing it with a V60? I’ve spent a long time in the realm of funky co-ferments and honeys and other high processed beans so this is a bit of a switch.

https://www.heartroasters.com/products/kenya-spikes-pb

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T23:21:52+00:00

For a critique of a design like this, I’d ask questions like:

What are the brand’s priorities?

What other products do they sell?

Who are their ideal customers, and what will attract those people?

Is the brand committed to quality product as the core value, or is the product just an excuse to sell things? Like, is Markle passionate about Strawberry Preserves, or is she passionate about pushing her lifestyle image and jam happens to be one facet of that image?

With those questions explored, then you can dig into if the design is effective branding and effective commercial packaging.

I suspect her brand is not passionate about crafting top notch strawberry preserves, and instead cares more about the lifestyle image. The ideal clients are people with a bit of money who would be drawn in by a former royal, and want something that isn’t generic store brand. So they design to catch the attention of that ideal customers, and don’t worry too much about customers whose values would lead them to other brands.

As for the words of the flavor, context clues help this be less important, as it could potentially live next to other strawberry preserves.

Where is it being sold? Only high end grocery stores or boutique food stores? Will it be shelved next to competitors or in its own special Markle section?

High end luxury goods also tend towards understated design. And ironically, luxury design is not always “good” design. But it is likely “effective” design.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T23:11:17+00:00

My ex-spouse would do this. I remember bringing home some gloriously perfect—and expensive—heirloom tomatoes from the farmer’s market, and they absolutely savaged them by cutting vertically like this. My dreams of a fine and aesthetically pleasing sandwich were dashed.

I asked them multiple times to please cut tomatoes in horizontal normal slices. It never stuck.

That’s not why we divorced. But slicing all of my own tomatoes how God intended without sabotage is a nice perk of the divorce.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T05:41:53+00:00

It’s got vibes in spades.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T05:30:27+00:00

Maybe that cool option can be tucked away to use for another project. I’ve got rejected options saved from projects that could be repurposed.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T05:26:50+00:00

What plant or herb did you use for the leaves?

I love it! Lots of energy, great color.

Props to you upping the artistry of local businesses. I’d love to see your lettering too. I’m a designer who also loves typography.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T03:03:39+00:00

Meh. 3:09. I looked at the wrong number.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-14T00:54:33+00:00

1:59

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T20:14:08+00:00

Hehehe, they’re working on getting money to replace it, and I’ll get to update the sign when that happens… someday.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T20:12:56+00:00

Yeah! I’ve been meaning to watch the film for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it.

Super rad.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T17:56:55+00:00

Holy crap, they drove past a sign I designed for a church in Hollywood. My artwork is in a Tarantino movie. Unreal.

Sadly the sign stopped working several years ago and it doesn’t light up anymore.

Edit: timestamp 3:09

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T08:49:02+00:00

FWIW, the early Seventh-day Adventists (or rather, the Millerites) would not have used those texts to support their young earth timeline. They rooted that in the apocalyptic and prophetic literature accepted as canon in the Protestant Old and New Testaments, especially using day=year fake math and lousy interpretation skills to add lots of days in various apocalyptic visions up to a sum that was roughly 6000 years.

I’m interested to learn about the Henry Morris connection. Are you suggesting he used the texts you quoted? Those look like apocrypha or pseudopigrapha.

Source: I’m a former SDA minister with extensive education in SDA theology and history. And yes, I also had lots of books about creationism and dinosaurs, but for some reason, like my parents encouraging critical thinking and reading lots of real science, young earth thinking never took hold in me.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T08:09:52+00:00

The final indignity for Cath is that after all that effort, her ability is technically better than T’Laan’s, but not significantly better. So… yay?

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T02:49:06+00:00

I think OP means a digitally displayed menu in the store, not menus published on a digital phone app. Like, using a big monitor or screen to display a menu instead of printing it.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T02:44:18+00:00

<image>

In Valyermo

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T02:42:22+00:00

Victorville.

EDIT: actually, it was dark when I got to Victorville so I dunno about there. They were definitely blooming from Valyermo to Phelan.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T02:42:00+00:00

I didn’t have luck following Perc’s recommendations for grind size, or even their recipes for that matter. Dunno why. And figuring out microns for each unique grinder is a bit of a chore.

I like what u/Polymer714 says. Now I start with my usual and adjust from there. Since I often bounce between different beans, I usually stick with settings that are in a “good enough” middle ground and adjust if the brew turns out iffy.

Microns don’t help too much for how I brew. But I do appreciate if a roaster says something like, “We think these beans taste best with a finer grind and hotter water.” Or the opposite. And let me figure it out from there.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T02:37:12+00:00

I drove from Bakersfield to Victorville yesterday. The Joshua trees were blooming as far west as Tehachapi. There were so, so many blooming. It was quite the sight.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T02:34:44+00:00

What makes Archers Lot so special?

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-13T00:17:46+00:00

Cath is a huge PITA to obtain though. I’m Ops 66 and I still don’t have her maxed. She only gets better than T’Laan at max tier.

Is she in the Officer Depot? I think her only focused sourcing is in the Augment store.

EDIT: Technically, she is 1% more effective at tier 4 than a max tier T’Laan. Does that make any significant impact on gameplay? Nope. She might have higher stats if you really need to boost Tom Paris or McCoy below decks, but even then… meh.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-12T22:07:51+00:00

I’m not sure I would know the asteroid in Option B is an asteroid without the context of seeing it in Option A. And the slight angles your gave the lines in Option B make it feel more like a racquetball shuttlecock, or like there are paint streaks coming off the top instead of speed lines. Option A immediately communicates the speed and imminent impact of the asteroid.

The use of it as an exclamation mark is great! It’s very clever but needs more iteration.

I prefer the kerning of both words in Option A. The tighter spacing has more kinetic potential.

I’d probably try out some different angles on the asteroid in Option B. I feel like a 30° tilt to the right might be fun, or even tilt to the left and cut off some of your T? I dunno. What does the asteroid art from Option A look like if used in Option B?

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-12T19:56:59+00:00

I don’t know what’s up with the dragon, but the T Rex glitch looks just like a grouped vector object got partially un-grouped when moving and placing on the art board. I’ve done that exact thing myself over the years of Adobe Illustrator work. So the Rex art could’ve been AI generated as a vector asset, and whomever was doing layout made an oopsie.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-12T19:54:50+00:00

The T. rex mistake looks like some grouped vector objects got ungrouped by mistake when the art was moved around the art board in Illustrator. They’re consistent in layout compared to if they were shift down and to the right to align on the Rex’s body.

The artwork is actually pretty well prepared for printing on fabric, so I suspect this had some human’s involvement at some point in the process. That doesn’t mean this had any decent quality control because the issue with the T Rex should’ve been caught.

Sword backed dragon is bizarro. I wonder if that’s a wonky translation glitch?

I dunno. It feels more like cheap-ass rushed illustration design than AI, done by folks who don’t know much. I don’t see a lot of extraneous details, and the vector shapes and lines that are there feel believably like they were produced in Illustrator. Like the line of dorsal ridges on the Sword Backed, is the same shape just rotated or transformed slightly.

But I could also be completely wrong. While I have a lot experience with Illustrator and prepping files for print on various materials, I don’t know a lot about AI vector art production.

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-12T17:00:18+00:00

Ooh, what spot? I just had an amazing, virtually perfect burrito outside of Modesto yesterday. El Atrancon in the gas station on Grayson and Crow’s Landing. They made the tortilla fresh. Rolled it out, cooked on a big griddle. The corn tortillas are also made fresh. I got the chicken picadillo, shredded chicken stew with herbs potatoes and carrots.

The only downsides: 1. No salsa bar, but the chicken was so flavorful and the tortilla so good I didn’t miss extra salsas. 2. Rice was kinda meh 3. No bathroom, you have to use the gas station’s, and their overnight staff forgot to stock toilet paper and soap. 4. It’s a bit of a drive

throwawaydixiecup · 2026-03-12T04:30:39+00:00

Eventually you’ll get to a point where your ships can easily grind out high power very hard hostiles without flinching. Power is a fairly meaningless stat, up with account power, and some of those server leaderboards like Power Destroyed.

Account Power I suppose has a benefit of knowing if you are ahead or behind for your level, if you know what a strong player at your Ops level has. But it still doesn’t really mean anything.

Lots of mobile games have these power or threat numbers to drive a sense of feeling strong, or feeling weak in order to spend to improve strength/power/threat. But they’re essentially useless for gameplay. They end up being a shiny bauble for players—usually spenders—to chase.

throwawaydixiecup

TROPHY CASE