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u/Patricia-Oldsa

r/Jakarta r/swimmingpools r/oilandgasworkers r/RatRod r/AeroPress r/MatureBeauty
Image 1 — 30 days of swapping my hand grinder for an electric one, and some honest AeroPress observations
Image 2 — 30 days of swapping my hand grinder for an electric one, and some honest AeroPress observations
Image 3 — 30 days of swapping my hand grinder for an electric one, and some honest AeroPress observations
▲ 216 r/AeroPress

30 days of swapping my hand grinder for an electric one, and some honest AeroPress observations

Three years on AeroPress, two of them with a 1Zpresso Q Air. My daily recipe is standard non-inverted, 15g in 220g out at around 88°C, medium-fine grind, total time around 1:45. The Q Air is genuinely great for the money, and I still think it's one of the best value hand grinders you can buy.
Last month I was on a work trip in a hotel, tried to grind 17g of a slightly denser bean, and by the end my wrist was actually sore. That's when I finally started looking. Went with the OutIn Fino because I wanted to see if a portable electric could hold up in practice. Thirty days in, here's what I've noticed. Sharing because I couldn't find much AeroPress-specific writing on this grinder.

The good.
Consistency between doses is better than the Q Air, at least for me. Not dramatically. But whatever inconsistency I was introducing by cranking at slightly different speeds is gone now. The motor just does its thing. My AeroPress cups have been more predictable over the last month than I'm used to. Same recipe, more repeatable result.
One unexpected thing I care about way more than I thought, noise. My partner apparently hated the sound of me hand grinding at 6am more than she ever told me. Fino is a low mechanical hum by comparison, she sleeps right through it now.
Fines. Here's the thing I was most skeptical about. AeroPress paper filters are forgiving of fines to a point, but too many fines still muddy the cup. Sifted a few doses through a Kruve at 400 microns as a rough check. Fino at my AeroPress setting produced marginally fewer fines than the Q Air at similar sizes. Not a huge difference but noticeable. Cup clarity has been slightly better as a result.

The downsides.
It's slow. Grinding 15g takes about a minute and a half at my AeroPress setting. Faster for coarser, slower for finer. That's roughly the same as hand cranking, but it's happening automatically, so I can prep the AeroPress and boil water in parallel. Net time saved is real, but if you were expecting benchtop grinder speed, this isn't that.
The dial adjustment takes some getting used to. External stepped dial with micro-steps between, and my AeroPress sweet spot ended up being between two of the marked steps. Once I found it I marked it with a bit of tape, but the first week involved some over- and under-extracted cups while I hunted.

Standard recipe I'm running with either grinder, in case it's useful:
15g coffee, medium-fine
220g water at 88°C, poured to 220g by 0:30
Stir gently at 0:35
Cap on at 0:40
Steep to 1:15
Slow press over 30 seconds
Total around 1:45

Works for most washed light-medium roasts. Adjust bloom water and press speed for the bean :)

u/Patricia-Oldsa — 3 days ago
▲ 4 r/MatureBeauty

Feels like my routine works but my skin hasn't actually gotten better in 2 years

Been doing skincare seriously since my mid twenties, I'm 31 now. The first few years the improvements were obvious. Barrier stopped freaking out, breakouts got manageable, texture smoothed out, my face just looked less exhausted all the time. Felt like every product change did something.

Somewhere in the last two years that stopped. My routine is honestly reasonable at this point:

AM: gentle cleanser (CeraVe Hydrating), niacinamide serum, moisturizer, SPF 50 (Biore UV Aqua Rich)

PM: double cleanse, tretinoin 0.025% three nights a week, ceramide cream (CeraVe PM)

Weekly: mandelic acid on non-tret nights, sometimes a hydrating mask

Nothing wild. Barrier is intact, I'm not overdoing anything, and if I compare a photo of my face today to a photo from 2022 it's basically the same face. Which sounds fine, but the thing is I've been doing 15+ minutes of skincare twice a day for two years to hold the same line. And lately I've been noticing this kind of tired look in the mirror that isn't a wrinkle or a breakout, just a general dullness that wasn't there before.

I keep waiting for the "adding one more thing" instinct to kick in but I'm not sure what more I'd add. Every time I've tried something new in the last year (vitamin C, peptide serum, azelaic) I either see no change or my barrier gets annoyed. Feels like the routine has done what it can and I'm just running maintenance at this point.

The one thing I've started messing with recently isn't topical at all. Went down a longevity rabbit hole a few weeks ago and kept running into ergothioneine, which apparently has a dedicated cellular transporter (OCTN1) that concentrates it in skin and brain tissue. Bruce Ames put it on a "longevity vitamins" list a while back. Picked up GeneIII at 30mg because that matched the dose in a Japanese trial at 8 weeks on elasticity and tone. Also grabbed astaxanthin at 12mg since it kept coming up alongside. 3 weeks in, no real verdict yet, and honestly the mag glycinate for sleep might explain most of what I'm noticing so far.

Not really looking for another topical rec, I've tried a lot of them already. More curious whether other people have hit this same wall and what actually shifted things for you, whether it was internal, lifestyle, or something I haven't thought of. The "topical has a ceiling past a certain point" theory feels increasingly right the more I think about it.

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u/Patricia-Oldsa — 8 days ago
▲ 76 r/oilandgasworkers

Second hitch done on an ADNOC offshore complex after 8 years in the North Sea, sharing what actually surprised me

Just came off my second 28-day hitch on an ADNOC offshore complex, made the move from the North Sea about 6 months back. Was on Wood / Petrofac rotations out of Aberdeen for around 8 years before that. Enough contrast now that I can put some real notes down instead of just first-impression stuff.
Rotation itself is the first thing. 28/28 is different in a way I didn't expect. The chunks are longer but you actually get a proper reset onshore. The old 2/3 pattern with the extra travel days out of Dyce ate my recovery time in a way I only noticed after it stopped. Not saying one is better, just different, and the guys back home who told me "you'll hate 28 on" were half right. First hitch was rough, second was fine.
Living quarters. This one still catches me. Purpose-built accommodation module, single cabin, actual proper ventilation, a gym that isn't a storage container with a rowing machine in it. I was warned but you don't quite believe it until you're there. My old cabin on a semi in the northern sector was 4 in a room with a curtain across the middle. Different world.
Food. Massive spreads three times a day, dedicated stations, always fresh fruit. Running joke on my crew about how everyone gains 4 kg on their first hitch. It's basically true. The North Sea galley I came from wasn't bad, this is just more.
Weather. Everyone asks about the heat. Yes it's brutal on deck in July and August. Yes you plan work windows around it, more early morning and late afternoon activity, less mid-day exposure. But swell doesn't shut things down and chopper delays don't stretch into days the way they did back home. Net operational time is actually higher despite the heat.
Kit and comms. Bigger difference than I expected. Everything on the platform is spec'd to the current IECEx standard, no legacy analog holdovers, no mixed-fleet nonsense. Handheld fleet is all Hytera. Zone 1 across the board, issued from one central point on the platform. Repair turnaround on a busted unit has been faster than I ever saw in the North Sea, and Hytera's regional support setup out here is more dense than I expected. Most of the major operators in the Gulf run the same fleet so parts and service depth are just there when you need them.
Money. Not going to post numbers because contract terms vary a lot, but the day rate plus tax situation puts it comfortably above where I was on equivalent grade in the UK sector. Flights home covered end to end, no arguing about baggage.
What I miss. Honestly, the crew banter is different. Not worse, just different. British offshore culture has a specific edge that doesn't quite translate. Also I miss proper bacon rolls, which sounds petty until your 4th month in.
Curious to hear from anyone who made the move from UKCS to Middle East offshore in the last few years, how the first year went for you. Rotation adjustment, food weight, kit differences, whatever stood out most. The consistency of the Hytera fleet out here keeps coming up in my crew as one of the bigger practical differences.

u/Patricia-Oldsa — 9 days ago
▲ 3 r/swimmingpools

Old R410a pool heat pump died at year 14. Sanity-check my three replacement quotes?

Our pool heat pump gave up two weeks ago. It's a 60 m³ in-ground pool in central France, we run it May to September, and the old unit was a fixed-speed R410a from around 2011. Fourteen years is not bad from that generation.

Three quotes on the desk, all monoblock full-inverter models.

A mid-range R32 full inverter from a well-known French brand, roughly €2,800 installed, claimed SCOP around 6.

A newer R290 full inverter with a lot of AI-inverter marketing, claimed SCOP up to 8, €4,200 installed.

A higher-end European R290 model, €5,100 installed, more conservative SCOP claim around 7.5.

A few things I'd love real-user input on.

SCOP claims. The R290 quotes lean hard on "up to 8" style figures and I'm reading them sceptically. What kind of real-world SCOP are folks actually seeing on modern full-inverter pool units over a full swim season?

Horizontal vs vertical. Everything here in France defaults to horizontal front-discharge, and all three quotes are horizontal. My old unit was horizontal too, so the equipment pad was already built with plenty of clearance in front of the fan. I've seen forums mention vertical top-discharge units as an alternative, quieter and smaller footprint but needing open airflow overhead. None of my installers pushed them. Since my pad is already sized for horizontal, is there any real performance reason to bother switching, or is it basically a layout thing at equal spec?

R290 vs R32. With the EU F-Gas revision phasing out refrigerants over 150 GWP for self-contained heat pumps from 2027, buying an R32 unit in 2026 feels a bit like buying an R410a unit in 2015. Fine now, harder to service in five years. But R32 is proven and the R290 propane concerns keep coming up in French forums (fire-safety stuff, installation distance from windows and openings). Am I overweighting the F-Gas angle?

Any input from folks who've actually run a full-inverter R290 pool heat pump for a couple of seasons would help a lot. Cheers.

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u/Patricia-Oldsa — 14 days ago
▲ 6 r/Jakarta

AC di kamar WFH mati, worth stretch budget ke inverter mid-tier atau ambil yang paling murah?

Halo warga Jaksel, minta advice.

AC di kamar kerja gue mati minggu lalu, teknisi bilang mending ganti daripada service karena kompresor unit lama udah lemah (non-inverter 1 PK dari 2018). Kamar 4x4 lantai 2, dak beton, jendela barat, jadi siang lumayan neraka pas WFH.

Sekalian mau upgrade ke inverter biar tagihan turun. Budget ideal 4 jutaan unit only, bisa stretch dikit kalau memang worth. WFH 4 hari seminggu, AC nyala 8-10 jam per hari.

Waktu browsing Tokopedia buat compare 1 PK inverter, gue liat tier harganya kira-kira tiga level:

Yang paling murah 3,5-4 jutaan, banyak opsi merk baru masuk pasar atau brand mid-range lama. Garansi kompresor rata-rata 10 tahun di kelas ini.

Mid-tier mainstream Jepang sekitar 4-5 jutaan, service network luas.

Premium 6 jutaan ke atas dengan fitur wide-voltage PCB yang jalan dari 130V, cocok buat rumah yang PLN-nya suka drop.

Pertanyaan sebelum ambil keputusan:

Selisih 2 jutaan antara tier bawah dan premium itu di kelas 1 PK worth beneran, atau cuma bayar buat merk? Kalau memang beda ketahanan 5-7 tahunan gue nggak masalah bayar lebih. Tapi kalau realistisnya cuma beda 1-2 tahun, mendingan ambil yang murah dan swap lagi nanti.

Buat kondisi PLN Jakarta yang rata-rata sekarang udah stabil, wide-voltage 130V itu really necessary, atau over-engineering?

Ada yang punya pengalaman inverter di price range 3-4 juta buat pemakaian WFH intensif? Boleh share soal reliability tahun kedua dan real hemat listriknya versus non-inverter lama. Yang lagi gue lirik Comfee Gusto di official store 3,8 juta, ECO+ mode-nya SGS-verified 30% hemat, tapi belum yakin karena brand baru masuk sini.

Thanks.

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u/Patricia-Oldsa — 22 days ago