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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Nick@mander.xyztoBuy it for Life@slrpnk.netDurable water bottle
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    2 months ago

    I’ve been using a Klean Kanteen for a decade now, and I have nothing but positive things to say about them. The straw lids come apart very easily for cleaning, and each of the parts is separably replaceable. When my partner needed to replace the silicone mouthpiece but couldn’t find it on the website, we just emailed their support and they were more than happy to send us a replacement free of charge.



  • You said that we aren’t using hydrogen as a fuel source, which is patently false. You must think we’re burning those hydrogenless hydrocarbons that so famously exist. It’s not in the form that you like, but we’re literally using copious amounts of hydrogen as a fuel source and have been for decades. It isn’t suddenly not hydrogen because it’s attached to carbon when we choose to burn it. Plain elemental hydrogen doesn’t exist in abundance in any capacity that we’re capable of harnessing, which is why you have to bring up methods to create it even when it’s the most abundant element in the universe. You’re the one who chose to respond to me, in my comment about its use in cars, in response to someone else’s comment about hydrogen in cars, in a thread about cars and somehow I’m the one who’s changing the topic?


  • How are we sustainably converting elemental hydrogen into a state where it’s readily storable and transportable for use in vehicles? I’m not pushing against it as a viable energy source generally speaking, but it really doesn’t need to be in a car, where it’s used to power an electric motor in the exact same way as a battery is, except the battery can recapture energy through regenerative breaking. I was pushing back against the implication that humanity is stupid for not using hydrogen in general, because we use a lot of it.

    For the record, your all-powerful and flawless elemental hydrogen can power the grid just as readily as it could power a car. It’d be great if it were a larger share of our energy generation, for the record.


  • I’m definitely open to being wrong about the world’s impression of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but I’m not sure it’s borne out in the data. Europe doesn’t seem to be adapting it anywhere near the rate at which they’ve adopted BEVs (I couldn’t find a 2025 report in my cursory search, but would love to see one if anyone else finds it), nor does China, which is all in on BEVs. In fact, it seems like California may have more hydrogen fuel cell vehicles alone than all of Europe combined. That’s two of the major markets accounted for, but it might be possible to convince the US to adopt hydrogen when they decide they no longer want to be left in the past.

    I’m not sure the infrastructure build out for hydrogen is directly comparable to the charging infrastructure for BEVs. At least some segment of the population has access to charging infrastructure just by virtue of having access to an outlet at their homes, which allows for trickle charging, as well as the option to install a dedicated charger at home that allows for much cheaper charging that’s also fast enough to charge from 0-100 overnight, so no need to stop at a fuel station at all. This meant that there were people who were willing to adopt the technology through the growing pains. With hydrogen, you run into a bit of a chicken and the egg problem where companies aren’t encouraged to expand infrastructure without adoption rates being high enough and consumers aren’t itching to purchase a vehicle where fuel is more expensive and less convenient to access. The refuel card incentives were supposed to get consumers over that hump, but it doesn’t seem like it was anywhere near enough. I think the conditions were ripe for an emergent technology to eventually replace ICE vehicles, but hydrogen fueled vehicles were on the back foot to begin with.


  • Hydrogen is a major fuel source, just not in the form that’s necessary to power hydrogen fuel cell cars. Regular gas vehicles are powered by hydrogen, since they’re a component of gasoline. Any energy generated by liquified natural gas (though I hate the term) is using hydrogen as a fuel source. It’s not exactly easy to create, liquify, store, and transport pure elemental hydrogen for use in hydrogen fuel cell cars, let alone the cost to develop all the infrastructure to do so. I don’t think it’s a collective action problem, and if we were going to rally around a singular transportation issue, I think it’d be far more valuable to demand robust public transit options.


  • In the US at least, I really don’t see hydrogen ever taking off. Even in California, there’s so few stations that you can’t really travel from the top of the state to the bottom without going out of your way. The hydrogen fuel stations that are in place are even more expensive than they were a few years ago, if they’re still functioning at all. We’re talking like $180 USD for the equivalent of a tank of gas, at stations that aren’t as convenient as a gas station or an outlet at home. It’s even the subject of a lawsuit, which may or may not be successful.

    It seems like hydrogen has already lost the race for the rest of the world, with BEV adoption growing substantially in Europe and China. Personally I wouldn’t want my market to rely on solely Japan and a US headed by someone blatantly antagonistic to alternative fuels.




  • This isn’t just about saving the environment, but sure. There’s also the public health element of removing a major source of indoor air pollution that’s detrimental to the residents of these units. These units aren’t equipped with range hoods that can adequately ventilate the space, even if they’re being used every time someone cooks.

    I had no problem buying a portable induction wok “burner” outside of China; they were literally $50 USD at our local Costco a few weeks ago and that was including the kinda-cheap-but-more-than-adequate stamped carbon steel wok. I didn’t even go looking for it and it found me. I’ve also had no problems charring peppers, onions, or ginger by just placing a pan over the stove element and sticking them on the pan when it’s hot.


  • When I’m sitting down with a nice single origin chocolate, it’s nice to have some fruit to compare the acidity to. Priming the taste buds really does bring different dimensions of the chocolate to the forefront. It’s not something I indulge in often, but if I’m going to be paying for it, I’m going to also go through the trouble of trying it with as many suitable seeming pairs as possible.




  • They’re all about the same, just look at the thickness of the pans when deciding which one to buy. A thinner (~2mm) one will be a lot more reactive to temperature changes whereas a (3mm+) pan will be a much better tool for searing. The differences aren’t drastic enough that you need more than one unless you enjoy collecting. Premium brands aren’t necessarily going to perform better than cheaper ones, but I don’t think this necessarily means that they aren’t worth it. These pans should last more than a lifetime (my oldest has been going strong for a decade now), so if you’d like to treat yourself and have the means to do so, I say go for it. Things to pay attention to when comparing brands would be the cooking surface diameter, slope on the side walls, handle design, and whether or not the pan is riveted for easier cleaning.

    The two relatively popular exceptions to the rule of all carbon steel being about the same would be Strata and Misen’s Carbon Nonstick. Both are tri-ply pans with an aluminum mid layer, so they should be significantly lighter and more reactive than pans of similar thickness. Misen’s take comes with a treatment on the steel that supposedly makes it less prone to sticking and unreactive to acidic foods. I’ve never tried the Strata, and I’ve not had Misen’s pan long enough to speak to the longevity of the treatment, but I can say that it was definitely less sticky than untreated carbon steel pans out the box (though with proper preheating it’s not a huge deal). Acidic foods do still strip seasoning off of the pans, but the treated base layer doesn’t rust so you don’t have to be paranoid about cleaning (though I would say not to be paranoid no matter what pan you get). If you or someone that you know may struggle to handle heavier pans, both of these options are great.



  • It’s the latter of the two. The focus is on a side character from the original game, but takes place in an entirely different map/kingdom. You don’t need to have played Hollow Knight, but there are little lore pieces that tickle the brain if you have (and didn’t just skip over all the dialogue). I’ve been really enjoying the game so far, and there’s only one runback that’s felt REALLY tedious, but it’s on what I’m assuming is an optional boss based on what I’ve played so far.


  • It takes time to spin up projects and get them approved, meaning the visible progress on these sorts of bills are usually back loaded. Half of the funding was announced, but weirdly enough the person in charge of disbursing those funds isn’t Biden anymore. Who’s responsible for making sure those funds actually get disbursed now? I’ll give you a hint: if it doesn’t make it to rural America, they shot themselves in the foot.

    You also didn’t address the impact that the ACA had on keeping rural hospitals afloat. I guess health care access isn’t important to farmers until they no longer have it. Neither party is rushing to increase the already pretty generous farm subsidies, but only one party is making their inputs significantly more expensive while reducing demand for their outputs. I sure hope those farmers aren’t importing potash from the neighbor that we decided to initiate a trade war with. Farmers are finding out how exposed they were to global trade markets and the asymmetric effects of retaliatory tariffs. It sure looks like Democrats have been helping farmers all along by simply not being Republican.


  • You can’t both sides this one. Biden is a massive headass for not stepping down and allowing a Democratic primary, but he didn’t abandon rural America. Look at where the majority of the infrastructure money was headed. Remind me again, was it Trump’s concepts of a health care plan that was a lifeline for rural hospitals, or was that the ACA?

    For all their flaws as a party, Democrats don’t generally ignore rural livelihood, and they certainly do a better job of catering to it than Republicans. They’re just not as good at paying rural lip service on the places these people get their media. If you thought Democrats actually only cared about they/them, you’re not in a position to question how tuned in anyone is to politics. If you’re just talking about how rural voters feel about the parties, then sure, but nobody was disagreeing with that, just calling them naive for thinking that way.


  • I’d caution against buying any of them for pans that large, honestly. Manufacturers are not required to match the size of the coil to the ring that indicates the ‘cooking surface’ on the cooktop. I bought the Duxtop one that all the review sites seem to recommend, and while it’s still a capable burner, the actual coil does not extend to the full diameter of cooking surface (it’s a lot closer to the minimum pan diameter, about 4 inches). No pan is actually going to adequately compensate for this, I’ve tested it across several different cookware materials, and multiple different brands of multi-ply stainless steel. You end up needing to treat pans somewhat like a wok, with hot/cold zones and a very clear temperature falloff when not in the center of the pan. I didn’t have issues with warping, but I was also extremely careful when it came to preheating pans that were 10 inches or more.

    If you do decide to purchase one, you need to find the size of the actual coil itself. Most manufacturers don’t readily provide this information, taking advantage of the fact that most consumers are unfamiliar with the technology or won’t nitpick about the uneven heating. I hate it, because it can lead to an experience so bad that it turns people off from induction.