u/Cymbal_Monkey

My old Isomac Tea, which has given about 25 years good service, has a cracked heat exchanger, and I can't find a replacement part.

I am handy and love a project, and a Gaggimate or Gagguino seem like very tempting roads to go down. My hesitation is that I mostly make cappuccinos, and the single boiler system seems like a pain after I've gotten so used to a heat exchanger. I'm not making a lot of back to back coffees, but being able to pull a shot and then get right into steaming is nice.

I also wish it had a rotary pump so it wasn't so damn loud.

The Gaggimate seems like a budget way to get a lot of high end features and I love that spares are so easily had, but it also feels like it locks me into some annoying compromises like the vibe pump and single boiler.

Thoughts? Alternatives? Suggestions? I put 2k because I'm not really sure where the sweet spot is, but I'd like to keep the spend down. I love how much machine you get hack into a Gaggia for under 1k, but I'd be willing to go over that if the value proposition feels right.

This was my first Octavia Butler exposure, and I'm posting this in the hope that someone has a dramatically different read on this series than I did, but the way I read it, found the series shockingly repugnant. So if you love this series, and think I've absolutely missed the core themes at play here, please let me know, because I would *love* a totally different perspective on this series.

First the good:

Butler has a real talent for dialogue. Her writing is dialogue heavy and I always enjoy this kind of storytelling, and her dialogue really hits for me. The characters feel alive and full of personality.

This book as some of my favorite aliens. I love creative aliens and Butler knocks it out of the park with the Oankali. They really feel alien, from their unique reproductive methods to their strange but robust systems of ethics. 9/10 aliens.

Now the bad:

The bad is literally all of the thematic content of the books.

When I finished part 1, I felt a little conflicted about it. The aliens are not... malicious, but they do completely strip humanity of autonomy, and many humans are understandably angry about this. The whole thing has a very "white-man's burden" sorta feel to it, the aliens see themselves as saving humanity from itself, and that the protestations of humanity are basically the irrational screams of violent apes being dragged out of the darkness by saviors they're too small minded to understand. What rubbed me the wrong way by the end of Dawn is that Butler doesn't seem to push back on this at all. She presents humans as the violent, irrational, cruel, monsters the Oankali see them as. I kept waiting for the "yes, humanity has these deeply embedded problems but there's something beautiful here that is worth preserving", but that never comes. There is nothing beautiful worth preserving, humans resisting the Oankali are primitive morons.

But hey I solder on into book 2, "Adulthood Rites", thinking maybe she'll push back on the Oankali's interpretation of humanity a little bit, and show that for all their brilliance, advanced technology, and wisdom, there's something about humanity that they can't see or understand that they're going to destroy forever. Instead we get a story about a young Oankali/Human hybrid who is permanently compromised after being kidnapped by a resistor village and raised among humans who becomes a sympathizer for some reason. He then pleads with the other Oankali to create a colony on Mars for purebred humans to have another go at not wiping themselves out. The other Oankali agree to this but tell our protagonist that this is cruelty, because it's inevitable that the Mars colony will wipe itself out again because of the fundamental nature of humanity. We're given absolutely no reason to believe they're not 100% correct in their assessment. I can't help think about the North American reservation system, where the natives are forced off their land to barren chunks of the continent, but Adulthood Rites absolutely sides with colonial forces here and basically says "wow shit's really going to suck for those who don't assimilate and have to go live Mars. They're going to fail because they're such savages, honestly would be kinder to just kill them."

Then we get to the last book, Imago, which I am *so desperate" to see some kind of shift in tone on, some kind of pushback on the Oankali. Instead we get a couple Oankali/human hybrids who are physically dependent on human mates for survival and use custom crafted pheromone to make humans fall in love with them and break down the resistance of the last stronghold of un-modified humans on earth so they can be create a new community for the next population of hybrids. This is treated as a good and optimistic thing.

So I went into this specifically because I was reading a lot of scifi written by white men, and Butler is one of the genre titans, so I thought "I really should read some Butler for a fresh perspective."

I was just shocked to find a trilogy of colonialism apologetics. I thought at first she was just failing to really sell the idea that humanity un-changed by aliens was worth perserving, like she thought that idea was just didn't need defending at all while also painting a picture of humanity so bleak and depraved that she seemed to be fighting against her own themes. As the series went on, I stopped thinking she did think that this was worth perserving, that actually she really did think that the only hope for societies would be to be forcibly dragged into enlightenment by more powerful and advanced outsiders.

My wife is almost certainly going to have to move away, and there's no geopolitical reasons I can't go with her. We live in Seattle, she'd move to the midwest. I could probably get a job in the midwest.

Edit for additional context: She's just gotten an amazing job offer out there, and she absolutely hates her current job and hasn't been able to find anything in our area after job hunting pretty hard for about a year now. She'll never get a raise and she's deeply unhappy where she's at, the job in the midwest would be a huge raise and hopefully for her a job she actually enjoys and has some upward mobility in.

But what doesn't exist in the midwest is rock climbing. Rock climbing is literally the reason I moved to the PNW. It's the reason I'm no longer obese. It's the thing that inspires me to eat well, work out, earn a living. I spent almost every weekend on the rocks except in the winter when it's too wet. Then I go snowboarding, which also doesn't exist in the Midwest.

Going with her means I lose the thing that keeps me in shape, and keeps my mental health up.

Not going with her means I don't get to spend my days with her, hardly ever get to touch her (we're both extremely tactile), and have no sex life.

Both of these options are just awful. Either I lose the love of my life or I lose my love *for* life itself.

Is there a way to make long distance not completely awful? Is there a version of this that isn't so bleak? I feel like my life finally became tolerable about four years ago and now I'm going to get half of that formula torn away.

I'm handy with tools and soldering irons and this won't be my first time working on speakers, but I've never done car audio or whole system design before.

I am shocked by how marginal the ioniq 5's sound system is. Honestly the 2007 JBLs in my old Prius sound leages better. I'm ready to get in there and start swapping parts.

I'm interested in a fairy flat, hifi sound. Subbass is nice, but I'm not dedicating a bunch of cargo space to a huge sub cabinet. I want quality, clarity, and resolution at moderate volumes. No bone rattling systems needed here.

Can anyone help point me in the right direction here?

I've been to a lot of therapists, and at every single one I've felt they're surprised when I tell them that I think what they're telling me is just factually inaccurate, like the idea that a client might not just believe kinda surprised them.

The conversation would usually go as follows:

"I notice through my life experience that X, Y, and Z, and these things make me really unhappy"

"Well, what if instead of believing X, Y, Z, you believed A, B, C"

"But I don't think those things are accurate reflections of reality and they certainly don't feel like they explain my life experiences because D, E, F"

*surprised pikachu* and then we're sort of at an impasse. I've never had a therapist who actually tried to convince me that there were actual errors in my reasoning, they just seem shocked that can't just jump to a different framework of beliefs about the world that might make me happier even though I don't actually think they're true.

I know some people willingly choose to believe things they don't logically think are true on the basis that it makes them happier, but I've never understood how this is possible, or why that's not the psychotheraputic version of taking Soma and blissing out in delusion. Is therapy just not for people who live relentlessly in the real world? I thought it was supposed to untangle and re-arrange out thought processes, show the errors that make us miserable, not just say "why don't you just believe this total nonsense instead? This nonsense will make you happier than the brutally cold reality you currently live in"

I've tried, I've had so much vegetarian sushi and bentos and salads and they're just so boring. The flavours seem barely there.

It might be just my preference, I cook a lot of Sichuan, Thai, Ethiopian, and I Indian at home. Huge. Punchy, intense flavours. My experience of Japanese food is... Bland.

How much of this is just because I don't eat animals? Is this just how Japanese food is? Or is there exciting stuff in this world for us veggies?

Hey gang, I'm about to start my toughest challenge yet. The moment I leave the prison cell in the asylum, a team of barefoot femboys is going to go absolutely apeshit on my cock and balls. Just absolutely unrelenting whipping, kicking, slapping, and electrocution. Can I keep my focus while these tight buttholed femboys turn my avocados into guacamole? Or will I go hollow? Don't forget to like and subscribe for more dark souls content!!!

Through the dark art of necromancy, I've pulled the spirit of a 12th century serf back from the afterlife to see if he can beat Dark Souls: Remastered. He'll have to battle culture shock, a language barrier, and previously unimaginable graphical fidelity in order to overcome the challenges of Dark Souls. Can he beat Gwen, or will his soul be forced to remain in this mortal plane until the end of time? Don't forget to like and subscribe.

Hello and welcome back to the channel, today I'm starting something very special, I'm going to *attempt* to beat Dark Souls Remastered Edition using only... all the weapons, spells, and items available in game without mods. That's right, today we're seeing if it's possible!

First the rules of the run: any items, weapons, armor, spells that can be found in game are fair game. No modding in items from Doom or Halo. And, maybe most controversially, no console commands.

Is it possible? We're gonna find out. Like and subscribe.