Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coffee Is Hard

stilldrinking.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 232 posts

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#181

Post by jasonkester »

The Coffee part of this article resonates with me.

I have a stovetop espresso machine, and I'm constantly amazed at the new and ingenuous ways I come up with to mess it up. Making coffee before you've had your morning coffee is the great connundrum of our generation. Here's a short list of failure modes I've run up against:

  - Machine on stove, no water
  - Machine on stove, no coffee grounds
  - Machine on stove, completely empty
  - Coffee and water in machine, machine in refrigerator
  - Coffee grounds in water reservoir
  - Coffee grounds in brewed coffee reservoir
  - Brewing correctly, brewed coffee reservoir still filled with water from washing
  - Brewing correctly, head off to work
  - Brewing correctly, coffee grounds returned to microwave
That's just a subset, and amazingly I still come up with a new one every few weeks.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#182

Post by jdkee »

jasonkester wrote: post #181

The Coffee part of this article resonates with me. I have a stovetop espresso machine, and I'm constantly amazed at the new and ingenuous ways I come up with to mess it up. Making coffee before you've had your morning coffee is the great connundrum of our generation. Here's a short list of failure modes I've run up against: - Machine on stove, no water - Machine on stove, no coffee grounds - Machine on stove, complet…

Set theory is your friend. :)

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#183

Post by pushpop »

cerberusss wrote: post #179
jkoudys wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, little kids absolutely love familiar, boring, repetitive things. They also like routine a lot and can get upset when given too much choice. Look at how often toddlers want to re-watch the same cartoon over and over.

Just give them a different spoon with their morning porridge and watch the drama unfold :D

So true. So very true. I wish I could up vote this more than once.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#184

Post by indemnity »

cerberusss wrote: post #179
jkoudys wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, little kids absolutely love familiar, boring, repetitive things. They also like routine a lot and can get upset when given too much choice. Look at how often toddlers want to re-watch the same cartoon over and over.

Just give them a different spoon with their morning porridge and watch the drama unfold :D

Just finished bath time with new toys...I didn’t think the old, mouldy, janky beyond repair toys would be missed. Oh boy, was I wrong.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#185

Post by dang »

empath75 wrote: post #142
davinic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just ye…

He killed himself.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#186

Post by c3534l »

ascorbic wrote: post #175
knzhou wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a totally backwards take. Most of these things are modern labor-saving devices that replaced even worse drudgery. Sweeping takes longer than vacuuming. Washing dishes by hand takes longer than a dishwasher -- especially if you don't have unlimited running water, or dish detergent, or if you need to start a fire to get hot water. Ancient Romans didn't have to deal with rush hour traffic, but research says their…

If anything, you're underplaying it. Beating a rug takes far longer than vacuuming or sweeping. Before the washing machine, doing the laundry could easily take a whole day (which is why people wore clothes far longer between washes)

Sure, but even before that we didn't have rugs or floors to clean, we just died in damp caves and made stone blades.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#187

Post by arc_of_descent »

monktastic1 wrote: post #60
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your point that it's all about perspective, but you can easily spin it negatively. "Life is suffering" -Buddha "Tedium is the worst pain" -Grendel I realize that first quote is meant to be encouraging, but you can take it at face value to mean what it is: most of life sucks. Pessimism and optimism are choices we make on how to interpret reality based on our experiences. This might sound like some feel-go…

"Life is suffering" is not something the Buddha ever said: https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/life-is-suffering/ He did say that we turn much of life into suffering by our unwise reaction to it.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#188

Post by Broken_Hippo »

unoti wrote: post #149
joe_the_user wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a fan of meditation and mind body awareness. I think that digging a ditch can a quite interesting because, while somewhat repetitive, it also involves variation and the challenge putting your entire body into the activity. Even dish washing or sweeping involves quite a bit of integrating intention and the use of the body. All that said, I don't think you can say this is just a question of attitude. Some activitie…

> manual data entry and things of this sort can't be redeemed by attitude Actually, this is false. I've been programming for 30 years straight, except for a brief 1 year stint as a data entry operator. I made it my goal to be the best data entry operator they had ever seen. This was for Robert Half/Accountemps, an employment agency that both acts as a headhunter firm for data entry operators and a contracting company…

... Push for excellence?

Seriously, if the dishes are clean, how much more excellence do I need? Same with most menial house-cleaning tasks. I don't mind a messy house, so why put more effort into doing these things than necessary?

You weren't doing what they were doing any more than a person with a dishwasher or robot vacuum are doing the chore of washing dishes or vacuuming, even if they are getting a similar result. You simply made the dishwasher, which is far more interesting than doing the manual stuff.

It wasn't redeemed by attitude, but by tools that made it better. Others might not have had the knowledge to so, which reflects better on what most folks are stuck with. Either no knowledge of ways to make it better or lack of permission to use that knowledge. Unlike you, they are stuck. The conveyor line only moves at x speed, you cannot tear the sale signs fast enough, federal laws say you have to fill out these forms, the company wants everyone to do it this way because compliance is better and standardised.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#189

Post by jodrellblank »

pugworthy wrote: post #170
sulZ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you may have replied to the wrong thread[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289827

I'm curious why people would have voted this person's comment down, simply for a mistake. Seems sort of harsh to do that to someone's reputation simply for a mistake.

Because almost everyone who comes to this thread has a better experience if that comment is buried down at the bottom in "don't bother reading territory".

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#190

Post by jodrellblank »

felipemnoa wrote: post #124
Loughla wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to sound too much like a hippie, either, but I learned (actually after having a kid as well) that when people talked about enjoying the ride, that's what they were talking about - the tedious stuff. I always assumed it meant travel more and look for adventure, but I have come to understand that 'enjoying the ride' in your life, not always just pursuing some next thing is about enjoying the tedium. Some of my favo…

>>that when people talked about enjoying the ride, that's what they were talking about - the tedious stuff It sounds like a rationalization to me.

So what?

"Oh this person rationalized happiness out of a miserable life, instead of just being miserable. Somehow, that's bad and nobody should bother doing that" .. ?

Post reply on HN