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Captain Ned wrote:

A kegerator has been one of my fondest dreams. SWMBO, OTOH, has firmly declared NO and she's not wrong.

What do you think about this. I was looking around at options and thought that's a really good middle ground. Especially if you have a local place to fill it with goodies. They have a 1 gallon version too. It's in my post trucking plans for sure.

GrowlerWerks uKeg Carbonated Growler, 64 oz, Stainless Steel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YR9NUEI/re ... HDbNS9HR84

Heiwashin wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

A kegerator has been one of my fondest dreams. SWMBO, OTOH, has firmly declared NO and she's not wrong.

What do you think about this. I was looking around at options and thought that's a really good middle ground. Especially if you have a local place to fill it with goodies. They have a 1 gallon version too. It's in my post trucking plans for sure.

GrowlerWerks uKeg Carbonated Growler, 64 oz, Stainless Steel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YR9NUEI/re ... HDbNS9HR84

The mini-keg/growler is pretty cool. I don't think they've been on the market long enough to have a good feel for long-term reliability, but a couple of people in the homebrew club have them and seem to like them.

In my case, SWMBO resistance to things beer-related fell to near zero when she got into homebrewing herself.

Well, OK... she still occasionally comments on how much of it I drink, but she's not wrong there either.

I suppose I should've mentioned what's currently on tap:
1) Mango Lassi IPA (leftovers of a batch my wife brewed for a local beer festival)
2) British Golden Ale (a style that more or less splits the difference between an English Bitter and an American Pale Ale)
3) Blonde Ale (this was actually part of a homebrew club Kveik yeast experiment)

Edit: ...and on deck:
1) Brut IPA (another yeast experiment)
2) Smoked Brown Ale with cherries (leftovers of the batch *I* brewed for the above mentioned beer festival)

As an added bonus, the additional air circulation is keeping the tap tower a little cooler, reducing foaming. I was hoping it would help with that, but didn't expect much. Pleasantly surprised.

Can't tell if it is the Onion lite or not.

One of the more amusing blendings of technology: 16yo photo negatives transferred to digital, using a Neewer LED light panel as the table, a spare smartphone screen protector to hold the negative flat, and a digital camera with macro for the digital capture. Full Inception: this image of the work was captured with a Google Pixel, and is being displayed again on whatever you're watching it with.

On a related noted, I discovered the AutoLevel feature in Paint.net is useful for correcting the extreme orange shift of the negative (or blue, after inverting). With images that are even vaguely balanced, it usually produces wild distortions.

Who are these people who want foldable phones? I don't get it. Am I just having a "get off my lawn" moment? Is this just the megacorps chasing another imaginary trend, or are there people who actually want these things?

Redocbew wrote:

Who are these people who want foldable phones? I don't get it. Am I just having a "get off my lawn" moment? Is this just the megacorps chasing another imaginary trend, or are there people who actually want these things?

I see two benefits (or "benefits") of a folding smartphone design:

1. It reminds people of the pre-iPhone flip-phone era.
2. The screen is protected in "folded" mode.

And that doesn't mean that it isn't also a gimmicky trend being pushed by megacorps.

Until they get better at making the foldable screens, the protection of having the screen folded up inside is outweighed by the fact that the screen is a lot more delicate to begin with.

Seventeen O.o

Like...I have questions...and I probably don't want the answers to those questions.

Redocbew wrote:

Who are these people who want foldable phones? I don't get it. Am I just having a "get off my lawn" moment? Is this just the megacorps chasing another imaginary trend, or are there people who actually want these things?

To play devil's advocate: the Nintendo DS was panned as a weird gimmick at its launch because of its double screens, and Nintendo sold 150 million of them. There can be a use case and a market for a clamshell with two screens.

That being said, Nintendo is surprisingly amazing at selling weird, new, good interfaces to the masses. I don't think Microsoft (or any phone manufacturer, really) can match Nintendo in that way.

Chuckaluphagus wrote:

Redocbew wrote:

Who are these people who want foldable phones? I don't get it. Am I just having a "get off my lawn" moment? Is this just the megacorps chasing another imaginary trend, or are there people who actually want these things?

To play devil's advocate: the Nintendo DS was panned as a weird gimmick at its launch because of its double screens, and Nintendo sold 150 million of them. There can be a use case and a market for a clamshell with two screens.

That being said, Nintendo is surprisingly amazing at selling weird, new, good interfaces to the masses. I don't think Microsoft (or any phone manufacturer, really) can match Nintendo in that way.

TBH I think gamers are also going to be more tolerant of "novel" interfaces. It isn't really fair to compare a handheld gaming console to a phone.

just brew it! wrote:

Chuckaluphagus wrote:

Redocbew wrote:

Who are these people who want foldable phones? I don't get it. Am I just having a "get off my lawn" moment? Is this just the megacorps chasing another imaginary trend, or are there people who actually want these things?

To play devil's advocate: the Nintendo DS was panned as a weird gimmick at its launch because of its double screens, and Nintendo sold 150 million of them. There can be a use case and a market for a clamshell with two screens.

That being said, Nintendo is surprisingly amazing at selling weird, new, good interfaces to the masses. I don't think Microsoft (or any phone manufacturer, really) can match Nintendo in that way.

TBH I think gamers are also going to be more tolerant of "novel" interfaces. It isn't really fair to compare a handheld gaming console to a phone.

How many of the sales were because that was the only option? Would an updated GBA have sold just as well, if not better

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Chuckaluphagus wrote:

To play devil's advocate: the Nintendo DS was panned as a weird gimmick at its launch because of its double screens, and Nintendo sold 150 million of them. There can be a use case and a market for a clamshell with two screens.

That being said, Nintendo is surprisingly amazing at selling weird, new, good interfaces to the masses. I don't think Microsoft (or any phone manufacturer, really) can match Nintendo in that way.

TBH I think gamers are also going to be more tolerant of "novel" interfaces. It isn't really fair to compare a handheld gaming console to a phone.

How many of the sales were because that was the only option? Would an updated GBA have sold just as well, if not better

You have my vote on that. The DS design was an annoying gimmicky junk box that gave me hand cramps from the stupid game controls trying to use that screen control design in uncomfortable ways. I'm one of those purchases, but you couldn't possibly see that it was in a trash can a couple weeks later.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

How many of the sales were because that was the only option? Would an updated GBA have sold just as well, if not better

Indeed. Stunningly successful, the Game Boy Micro was. /s

Really, the DS was successful because it preempted the touchscreens-for-games boom by several years. That, and Nintendo were always masters of the handheld market.

The Game Boy Micro was a rare mistake from Nintendo when it comes to handhelds. I had the Famicom red and gold one back in The Day, but I don't know where it went. It's a collector's item nowadays.

This is pretty cool: https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/

Text-to-speech tech is getting pretty good. Choice of multiple voices and accents, most of which sound way more natural than I expected.

The space community lost a titan today. RIP Alexei Leonov.

just brew it! wrote:

This is pretty cool: https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/

Text-to-speech tech is getting pretty good. Choice of multiple voices and accents, most of which sound way more natural than I expected.

Wow. Would never have known about this without venturing into this DYMT thread which my inner voice told me to do. Dammit! This deserves to be on the front page, not hidden inside a forum. This is what we need more of. Technology that we can control and use as we see fit so we can do more with our increasingly limited time. And have fun doing so. Thanks, JBI!

Probably easier/cheaper to run the bottles through the capping line like that than to reset it just for the bay leaves.

I'm sure it also acts as a gasket around the edge of the jar, improving the seal when the lid is screwed on. It was still pretty amusing to see though.

Nice bay leaves, BTW... seemed more aromatic than most I've had in the past, were cheaper than the McCormick ones, and seemed to have more large, intact leaves than the other cheaper brands. (Why the local grocery store felt a need to stock a half-dozen different brands of bay leaves was a bit baffling though, and resulted in me spending way more time than I had intended in the spice aisle.)

Hurrah for Aldi and lack of choices.

just brew it! wrote:

Nice bay leaves, BTW... seemed more aromatic than most I've had in the past, were cheaper than the McCormick ones, and seemed to have more large, intact leaves than the other cheaper brands.

Skipping the generic stuff and using good spices is one of the easiest and best things you can do for better food.

Redocbew wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Nice bay leaves, BTW... seemed more aromatic than most I've had in the past, were cheaper than the McCormick ones, and seemed to have more large, intact leaves than the other cheaper brands.

Skipping the generic stuff and using good spices is one of the easiest and best things you can do for better food.

Yeah... unfortunately, for less commonly used spices, using them up before they lose their potency can be a challenge.

On a related note, when a recipe calls for black pepper I always crack it myself. Occasionally this results in things being very pepper-forward. I suspect that in these cases, whoever wrote the original recipe used pre-ground. The difference in strength is night and day...

just brew it! wrote:

On a related note, when a recipe calls for black pepper I always crack it myself. Occasionally this results in things being very pepper-forward. I suspect that in these cases, whoever wrote the original recipe used pre-ground. The difference in strength is night and day...

I never cared for black pepper as a kid, always thought it was bland and just added a bit of grit to food. I don't think I had freshly cracked pepper until I was at least in my late teens, and it makes such a wonderful difference. Good peppercorns aren't expensive, and fresh pepper on eggs is one of my favorite things in the world.

I just get a big thing of peppercorns from Costco and load up a grinder. I don't quite have the gadget to mill a lot of pepper quickly/easily, but the fresh cracked is infinitely better than the sawdust.

While we're on the topic of spices, put paprika in more stuff. I've just been experimenting by throwing a little in/on dishes, and it's almost always an improvement. Heck, I threw some into the cheese sauce for my mac n cheese last night and got the best batch so far.

superjawes wrote:

I just get a big thing of peppercorns from Costco and load up a grinder. I don't quite have the gadget to mill a lot of pepper quickly/easily, but the fresh cracked is infinitely better than the sawdust.

I need to get a proper spice grinder too. Milling lots of pepper by hand does get tiring.

superjawes wrote:

While we're on the topic of spices, put paprika in more stuff. I've just been experimenting by throwing a little in/on dishes, and it's almost always an improvement. Heck, I threw some into the cheese sauce for my mac n cheese last night and got the best batch so far.

Yup. Smoked paprika is great too, if you also want to add a hint of smoke flavor. We go through a lot of paprika; it's one of the spices I don't need to worry about going stale.