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Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

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Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#221

Post by norome »

jorvi wrote: post #201
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

Yeah, that's a horrible way to enjoy life. By your reasoning, you should subsist on protein blocks and watch paint dry for entertainment. By lowering the bar to the absolute lowest threshold, you'll classify everything as enjoyable. The pareto principle holds strong. Just put 20% of the effort in and you reap 80% of the results.

I think it's a good starting point though. I like to try out the cheapest option and see how it really feels or tastes. For mattress shopping i always ask, "what's your second cheapest option?". For most consumer goods the diminishing returns kick in pretty quick

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#222

Post by yoz-y »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #127
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I never enjoyed shitty coffee. I never enjoyed shitty chocolate or chocolate flavored things like cakes. Until I was 30-something I thought I just didn't like coffee or chocolate. Then one day I had actually proper coffee, and I discovered that good coffee isn't just some imperceptably theoretically better version of regular coffee that snobs are basically just faking being sophisticated for show. They are two entire…

When chocolate was discovered they consumed it in an extremely different fashion from what we think of good chocolate today.

The dried beans were simply cooked with water. Later with milk. Chocolate as we know it only became a thing centuries later. (Dried milk was only invented in 1802, and you can’t make milk chocolate without that for example)

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#223

Post by faeyanpiraat »

cyberax wrote: post #93
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

On the other hand, a part of becoming an expert in some field should be getting to be _realistic_. Learn not to deceive yourself. I can give you an example from my experience. I got annoyed by my dull knives, so at first I went and bought really expensive knives, the ones made of hardened high-carbon steel that start rusting if you look at them dirtily. And I spent hours reading reviews before buying them. That's pro…

I went down the knife-sharpening rabbit hole a bit, too, but I only managed to make my knives duller with whetstones, even though I have good dexterity.

Eventually, I just took my knives to a professional sharpener and got the paper-thin, tomato-slicing sharpness I wanted.

Funnily enough, I had both an expensive "forged" knife and a cheap IKEA one, and the IKEA knife was sharper and held its edge much better.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#224

Post by 1313ed01 »

OisinMoran wrote: post #144
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I too have this fear sometimes, and for example never want to learn anything about wine, but it's not always the case. A friend and I have bonded over appreciating the "shit" things, like white bread toast and hotel coffee and I think that's quite a good habit to instill. I love coffee and will hunt out the best spots in any city for a single-origin V60 on ice, but I am equally content in a diner when the only option…

I used to have some medium expensive good headphones. That was pretty much the only non-shit hardware I ever invested in and I really could hear a difference. But with age and decreasing hearing now I cant tell anymore, so that one thing I cared about not buying cheap trash is no longer relevant.

The trick for most things is to just not spend time and effort to learn what to look for. Happy to see in this thread I am not the only one.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#225

Post by hbarka »

keiferski wrote: post #185
jacobolus wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible to get a careful dark roast, but often "dark roast" coffee mainly tastes like burned toast. It's still warm and caffeinated, but it's not really that enjoyable. There's a reason so many people make this kind of coffee very watered down or drown it in cream and sugar. Maybe it feels historically connected to cowboys brewing coffee in a sock over a campfire or whatever, but is that connection real…

I just prefer the taste and it reminds me more of Turkish coffee, which is my favorite way of preparation. And also black coffee reminds me of various cultural things like diners, detective fiction, etc. Like this quote from Phoenix Wright, the game: “Blacker than a moonless night. Hotter and more bitter than hell itself… that is coffee.” Lighter roast coffee just isn’t a thing I generally enjoy, to me it feels like…

There’s a name for that coffee. Nostalgia blend.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#226

Post by Johanx64 »

submeta wrote: post #216

Tinkering is the ultimate satisfaction of a hacker. When you love perfecting your tools, shaping your terminal, your Emacs, your Neovim, or whatever tool you use, exactly the way you want it. You spend hours doing it and feel enormous satisfaction from every small improvement. That is exactly what a Japanese swordsmith, a chef, or a craftsman does. Perfecting their work, finding joy in refinement, and taking pride in…

This is not what a Japanese swordsmith or any craftman does, they obsess over the end result, polishing it until it reaches perfection.

Riced out Neovim/emacs setup doesn't and hasn't ever led to quality software in any shape or form, neither it ever will.

If it did, world would be full of polished, high quality software, what instead we have is endless sea of garbage produced by these cough, cough "craftsmen" - that obsess about everything else, but the actual end product.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#227

Post by LandR »

franciscop wrote: post #149
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I recently tried to play a bit of tennis, which I've already stopped. My friend was appalled when I proudly announced that my tennis racket costed $15. "But we are in tech!" he cried. But for a couple of games, I know I won't be able to tell the difference between a $15 one and a $150 one (I know because I've played tennis in the past). And true to my predictions, I no longer play tennis and I'm only $15 poorer. I do…

This is my thinking with photography, I love photography but I'm still not very good at it. So I use a D7100, which is probably considered a shitty relic nowadays compared to more modern stuff. But right now, the camera isn't the bottleneck for me getting good photos, it's me. The camera is still way better a camera than I am a photographer.

I'll get a better camera, when I'm a better photographer and the camera is actually the limiting factor, but I expect that is very very very far off.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#228

Post by submeta »

Johanx64 wrote: post #226
submeta wrote: post #216

Tinkering is the ultimate satisfaction of a hacker. When you love perfecting your tools, shaping your terminal, your Emacs, your Neovim, or whatever tool you use, exactly the way you want it. You spend hours doing it and feel enormous satisfaction from every small improvement. That is exactly what a Japanese swordsmith, a chef, or a craftsman does. Perfecting their work, finding joy in refinement, and taking pride in…

This is not what a Japanese swordsmith or any craftman does, they obsess over the end result, polishing it until it reaches perfection. Riced out Neovim/emacs setup doesn't and hasn't ever led to quality software in any shape or form, neither it ever will. If it did, world would be full of polished, high quality software, what instead we have is endless sea of garbage produced by these cough , cough "craftsmen" - tha…

Well, very valid points you made. I must admit.

Edit: But why do you believe that my super polished and streamlined WezTerm is less worth than a japanese sword? :) Which value has a perfectly made sword in a world today? Which value has a perfecly made machs tea? And other things only the maker or a few select people value?

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#229

Post by tb8424 »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #127
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I never enjoyed shitty coffee. I never enjoyed shitty chocolate or chocolate flavored things like cakes. Until I was 30-something I thought I just didn't like coffee or chocolate. Then one day I had actually proper coffee, and I discovered that good coffee isn't just some imperceptably theoretically better version of regular coffee that snobs are basically just faking being sophisticated for show. They are two entire…

+1 on this. There's a big difference for some between the 15 dollar whiskey and the 35 dollar whiskey, probably another jump between 35 and 80 dollar whiskey, and then after that it starts getting into crazy marginal gains. If you drink 15 dollar whiskey you'd get 90% of your gains from just bumping it up to 35 versus going straight for the 300 dollar bottle.

Same it was with me for coffee, I enjoy single origin vs supermarket coffee, but after that it got to a point where I couldn't realistically make up the difference.

There seems to be an 80/20 effect here on how much you should deep-dive into these tangent domains in your life.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#230

Post by baseonmars »

stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I think that's a shame - I take a different approach that means the article resonates with me a lot more.

It's about learning enough to be able to appreciate something beyond surface level. You struck a chord with coffee and headphones - yes, I've gone deep on both, but rather than suck the enjoyment out of cheaper options it's given me an appreciation across the segment. I can now buy a cheap coffee and make it taste excellent - I can appreciate a well tuned headphone regardless of cost or lack of technicalities.

When headphones reach $2k+ and coffee starts costing $50 for 100g, rather than get universally better they tend to get opinionated - a different flavor of weird as a friend once said.

So I would suggest that it's fine to go deep on something, but make sure you're doing it to get to a deeper true/understanding.

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