results of the coffee water conditioning experiment
Back in August I decided to try an experiment with filtering my coffee water.
To recap, all I use is a plain drip coffee maker, plain coffee filter and tap water. I run the water through the coffee maker with just the filter, leave the filter there, add coffee, then run the water through it again.
There is definitely a taste difference, and it's significant enough to where it's now my preferred way of brewing. I thought at first it was just the aftertaste that was different in the positive direction. I was wrong. It's the whole brew that improves.
However, there are two things I don't know.
First is whether a faucet-mount water filter would achieve the same result with a single pass through the coffee filter.
Second is if the act of double-heating the water is just as important as the filtering itself.
What I might try next is running the water through the coffee maker first without filter, then a second time with filter and coffee. Doing that will tell me how much double-heating actually affects the taste. It might be more important than I realize.
old school car stuff i should get
Back in my teens, if I needed something for the car, the only choices to get things were the local Kmart and mail order through the JC Whitney mail order catalog. I only did the mail order thing once and then said screw that and got whatever I needed at Kmart.
Auto parts stores were always around, but the same is true now just like it was then where everything always costs more there. Since I'm not wasting my money at those places, I buy online.
There is some stuff that's tough to find unless you specifically know what it's called. These are a few of them:
Lace-on steering wheel cover. This is not a brand but a cover type.
The lace-on type is, without question, the most annoying type of steering wheel cover to install. Once installed however, it fits best, feels the best, and most importantly does not shift around once it starts to age. Other covers get loose after they've been on the wheel for a while, but the lace-on doesn't if installed properly. The worst thing that happens with one of these is it starts falling apart when it gets really old, but again, it doesn't shift. All you get with one of these is a box with the the wrap and tie, which is all you need. If you're really good at installing one of these, you don't need to cut excess tie when done and can just tuck it in.
Vent trim decoration strips. Serves no purpose other than to look cool, but I like these because it has a luxury sport appearance to it.
These things size to fit and press on. They don't damage vent flaps and can be removed easily. There are two types of car brands this works on more than any other. Any BMW owner who wants the sky/blue/red "M" stripes on their vents, and Toyota truck owners who want the vintage style yellow/orange/red stripes on theirs. For others, you just get the color that matches the paint color of the car.
Magnetic dome lamp. I don't need this for the interior but rather the trunk.
I've owned hatchbacks, SUVs and sedans, and not a single one of them ever had truly good lighting back there. This is where modern super-bright LED really saves the day. They even have motion sensor type for cheap. RV guys use these for interior closets but they also work in trunks and the rear storage area of SUVs.
Mini MagLite. I can use my phone's camera flash bulb like a flashlight just like everyone else can, but it's nothing compared to a real deal MagLite.
If it's night, I'm sitting in the car, drop something and it either goes between the seats or worse yet under the seat, the phone's light isn't good enough to find the whatever-it-was I dropped. If there's anything that needs to be seen at night in the engine bay or at the tires, same thing, the phone light isn't good enough. Even if it's to find something in the center console or glove box, again, the phone won't cut it. A mini MagLite however, specifically a red one (easier to see when going to retrieve it compared to black), will blast enough light. Two AA batteries is all it needs. No recharging crap required. If it gets wet, it still works. If it's even dropped on concrete, again, still works.
Waterproof memo pad with Rite in the Rain pencil. I qualify this as necessary car stuff.
I've been meaning to buy some of these for a while now. For me, the sole purpose of having this is to jot notes for extra long term storage. Specifically, car info (ex: fuse info, windshield wiper length, maybe insurance policy #, etc.) that I might need later. If the info goes in the phone, it would be the way of things that the one time I really need to bring up those digital notes, I won't be able to. If I use a regular memo pad, that paper over time may become unreadable even just sitting in a glove box. All the paper on a waterproof memo pad is treated and therefore lasts longer. The Rite in the Rain pencil is what that pad should be complemented with because it never needs ink and always works.
well, that didn't go well
I was, repeat, was on Kubuntu 26.04 LTS. Not anymore. I'm back to 24.04 and am staying with it. For now.
It wasn't just the Wayland graphics platform breaking things that was the problem, especially since you can switch back to X11 (which I did do). Enough annoyances happened in 26.04 to where I said screw this, I'm going back to 24.04, and did.
The last I spoke of this, I talked about workarounds when using 24.04. Since I did a fresh install from scratch, I learned more this time around, meaning fewer workarounds were required.
I also gained back over 25GB of space on the new install because I had a Virtualbox image I forgot to remove on the previous one. Oops.
Speaking of which, While I was doing the 26.04 thing, I did briefly try Boxes, as you can convert a Virtualbox VDI to a Boxes QCOW2, which by the way is done using qemu-utils on Ubuntu/Debian:
qemu-img convert -p -f vdi -O qcow2 "/path/to/disk.vdi" "$HOME/disk.qcow2"
I used that for a Windows XP Virtualbox PC I have (mainly for legacy Garmin stuff), but it didn't work when I tried to load it in Boxes. Maybe I did something wrong. Not sure. Whatever. I just went back to Virtualbox. It was easier to perform an "appliance" export out of Virtualbox and just import to the new install.
So yeah, back on 24.04. For how long? Time will tell.
i have never financed a burrito
Some say an example of modern financial stupidity is that you can finance anything. All you have to do is go to Chipotle, use the Klarna app, do the BNPL (buy now, pay later) thing, make your purchase and ta-da, you've officially financed a burrito.
Is this any different from making the same purchase on a credit card?
No.
If one goes to Burger King and orders a Whopper Jr. w/cheese, then pays for it on plastic, that is absolutely a BNPL purchase. Until the card is paid off, that burger was literally financed.
Is it a bad decision to finance a burger? No. If over time the burger ended up costing 3x more due to payments with interest charges because the card wasn't paid off, the bad decision came from how the finances were handled and not from the burger itself.
Lately, I've been seeing a ton of videos on how so many people are in crushing amounts of debt. On the majority of these videos, one thing sticks out more than anything else.
Nearly everyone shown is under the age of 35.
Are people younger than 35 flat out stupid with money?
Yes.
Maybe not all under-35 people are mouth breathing knuckle dragging morons in how they handle their finances, but most are.
For example, Middle Aged Dude would buy a trunk organizer, because that's a genuinely useful thing for the car. An under-35 on the other hand would buy an illuminated gamer chair.
Another example is Middle Aged Dude would buy microfiber cleaning cloths, while an under-35 buys a t-shirt that says "sucks" on it.
And, of course, only an under-35 would be dumb enough to finance a burrito and go into real debt for it. Middle Aged Dude would just go to a gas station and buy a packet of peanuts instead, or say to hell with that and just cook food at home that's already paid for.
small square short tabs in firefox 157
The new Firefox 157 is actually really nice, with one exception. Rounded menus and rounded tabs everywhere, and it sucks.
But it can be fixed.
Getting rid of the roundy-everything:
1. about:config
2. Set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to true.
3. Go to Firefox profile folder, go to folder chrome. If the folder does not exist, create it.
4. In chrome folder, create blank userChrome.css file.
5. Put the following in userChrome.css and save:
:root {
--border-radius-xsmall:0 !important;
--border-radius-small:0 !important;
--border-radius-medium:0 !important;
--border-radius-large:0 !important;
--border-radius-xlarge:0 !important;
--border-radius-circle:0 !important;
}
Making tabs smaller so they're not bloated and stupid:
1. about:config
2. Set browser.uidensity to 1.
Restart browser. All menu and tab edges are now square to get all the space back you lost from the roundy crap.
Why is square better than round here? Easy answer. Easier to click on things you want to click. That roundy garbage made it more difficult to click on everything. Both tab and menu edges were effectively chopped off. Going square puts things back the way they were, which made more sense.
Remember what I said about upgrading? This is an example of being able to fix things when they get jacked up from an update/upgrade.