alphahydro

Good call. i forgot about the military academies. would definitely include those on my list. friend of mine is west point, went to law school, worked at a prestigious international law firm, and is now C suite at a big company. aside from all that, he is a total badass, and i think a lot of that comes from undergrad and his military service. we all call him tank commander. imo, it's not that undergrad isn't important - it's really important because it shapes you. but when i think about how a kid gets shaped by (a) the prestigious liberal arts college that coddles its students and (b) leaving home, getting a job, acing community college, then navigating a large public university --that's another reason why i don't stress about undergrad admissions like a lot of my friends do. Sandia Nat'l Labs? small world. my dad worked there.

other observations, all admittedly anecdotal - 1) grade inflation, at least at my kids' high school, is insane. Even in AP classes. apparently, nowadays, selective schools pay a lot of attention to which classes the applicants take (looking for difficult courses). cuz grades don't mean as much anymore at so many high schools. from talking to my kids, it sounds like the admissions process has a lot of arbitrariness to it. smart kid will get into Harvard but not Northwestern. Shit like that. I think the schools just aren't that great at sorting through applicants. unreliability of grades might have something to do with it, but idk. 2) was having lunch last week with a friend. Yale undergrad, Stanford Business School. he interviews undergrad applicants for Yale and Stanford. He says he interviews all these amazing high school kids and none ever get in. He asked the guy who runs the local Yale club and that guy said every year Yale admits the top athlete from the rich kid public school then the top nerd from the super smart kid public school and then shuts it down. lol. 3) Same Yale Stanford guy, same lunch. He basically runs his own shark tank. He relates how his Stanford connections are 100x more valuable to him financially/professionally compared to his Yale connections. (from this convo I gathered he was not tapped for Skull & bones). That's anecdotal, but everyone I know who is similarly situated feels the same way. I pick him because Yale is prolly as good a school as any if you are looking to make connections. I just don't think undergrad is that valuable anymore for people who go on to grad school. 4) month or so ago, was in Palo Alto visiting friends. Friend said hey, do you and your kids wanna tour Google HQ? Sure, why not? (pretty cool, btw). anyway, lady who gave us a tour was a recruiter for Google. she started her career at google recruiting undergrads. we were chatting during the tour and she said google straight up does not give a fuck about your undergrad (at least for CS applicants) - except that there are a few schools they like bc they teach CS in a way that is compatible with what google does (I don't remember the list, but they weren't prestigious schools) Again, all this is why I don't sweat undergrad admissions for my kids.

this is how I think about undergrad. might be a little contrarian. and I hope I don't offend. I live near a bunch of people who stress out way too much about where their kids go to undergrad. I'm a big community-college-over-Cornell guy. Caveat, I think what I am about to say mostly really only applies to parents who think their kid might end up in a professional school or phd program after undergrad. Second, it only applies to the competitive parents who want their kids to go to the "BEST" or HIGHEST RANKED type school. If you are one of those types of parents, IMO all you should care about is the ceiling associated with the undergrad that ends up on your kids' diploma. By ceiling, I mean, if you do really well in undergrad at that school, are all postgrad options realistically available to you? UT undergrad has the same grad school ceiling as Harvard.* So does UNC, Cal, UCLA, Michigan, UVa, and maybe Florida/Georgia. If you can get in-state tuition at these schools, IMO, most kids' "best" path is H, Y, P, Caltech, MIT, Stanford, if your kid is up for it one of the state schools listed above straight out of high school community college away from home/other system school (eg UTSA), kick ass, then transfer to one of the state schools above and finish there Guess my point is: if your kid didn't get into Cornell, I wouldn't sweat it. Personally I would rather my kid go option 2 or 3 than go to Columbia or Williams or Amherst. I would rather give them the extra $$ I saved and let them start a nonprofit or business with it. And if you can't kick ass at UTSA and then UT, why am I paying for Amherst anyway? And even if they didn't get into UT straight out of high school, I wouldn't sweat it either. I think option 3 is at least as good as option 2. Again, this only applies for parents who are trying to help their kids position themselves to get into a good grad school. for normal parents, other factors might be more important. * Yes, you can be a little lower in the class at Harvard and still touch the grad school ceiling, but frankly might be easier to be the top kid at UCLA than the 12th kid from the top at H

that sucks. whistler got a ton of snow about a month ago, no? bad luck. we were there 2 years ago February and lucked out with great weather, but I remember it being a little touch and go right before or after our trip. kids loved the skeleton and bobsled at the sliding centre.

sort of off topic, but thinking of taking my son to 1 or 2 games next year, haven't decided which. we live outside of texas. options - michigan OU (we were at 49-0, so he's been to a recent OU game) georgia possible playoff game at UT (knock on wood; i know that's not guaranteed) have friends i can visit/stay with in austin, dallas, ann arbor. i've been on the fence about michigan. this thread is making it seem more interesting. just curious which would you pick as your #1 game?

ignore my rec. Promesa just closed down, apparently.

idk about touring la mancha, but you can get to Valladolid in 1 hour by train and visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_de_Cervantes (i've never been, might suck). but... i really like that area, Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid is worth a visit if you have any interest in statues/religious iconography (i barely do, and i still thought it was awesome), plus it's the place where spanish theologians first debated the rights of native americans (~50 years before don quixote)- has a reputation for being the birthplace of modern notions of human rights. nearby Abadía Retuerta LeDomaine is awesome. it's a 1000 year old abbey turned hotel + vineyard + spa. i know that sounds cheesy, but it's actually very well done. was built by catholics in the early part of the "reconquista" when they got to the duero. really great restaurant inside the original 12th century refectory. incredible, peaceful vibe (at least for me personally, i could see it not being someone's thing). i'm not a hotel person, and i really like this place. Also, Salamanca is nearby. salamanca cathedral is one of my favorites, because they kept upgrading it over time, but you can still visit the old parts. so you can see Mozarabic decoration, byzantine decorations from the 12th century, and baroque ceilings, all in one place. great visual overview of spanish history. aslo, university of salamanca is great. (Miguel de Cervantes' alma mater) home of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Salamanca - perhaps the origin of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and all that. salamanca school thrived right around the time of don quixote and part of an intellectual transition in spain that informs, i htink, a lot of what de cervantes is exploring in the book. plus, the university and surrounding area has a great vibe to it. i love all of spain, and yeah this is more of a "deep cut" type trip than barcelona/madrid/sevilla/ronda, which i also love. but i think it would be great. depending on your trip, you could train to valladolid, rent a car, stay at abadia, drive to and from salamanca, then train back to madrid. if you had more time, it would pair really well with seville/cordoba/granada, i would think. and maybe a quick trip to morocco if you are feeling nuts. have fun.

dunno if it's too late, but Toledo is one of those places that can get really busy from daytours, esp on weekends and during high season. i'm no expert, so I can't tell you what it will be like in February, but i was there in summer and we spent 2 nights in Toledo to be able to avoid the tourist bus crush (arrive late, full day in Toledo, leave early next morning), and I am glad we did. toledo is pretty cool to wander in the morning/evening without the tourists. but it's not life changingly amazing, imo. I am a huge fan of el greco... even then, we basically had an evening and a full day plus next morning in Toledo and that was plenty for me. having said all that, if it's not busy in february, you should be fine with a day trip. sorry if this isn't too helpful. lol.

not an expert, but was in carmel a few weeks ago. popped into Promesa, based on the google reviews. https://promesacarmel.com/menu spanish food. rustic, chill, kinda boho-bougie vibes. Hermanos Gutiérrez album playing softly in the background. food was good. esp the Valencia Paella. i remember looking ahead of time and being underwhelmed by the restaurant selection in Carmel. carmel is picturesque. imo, big sur is worth a trip. i would either drive ~15 mins south to around Soberanes point, or if you're up for it, (and it's worth it, imo) about 50 mins south to Coast Big Sur (which is a decent place to stop, grab a bite, and then turn around.)

I get it. the water at my current place is really hard. idk if that's why, but filtered water out of my fridge dispenser tastes perfectly fine and I've never had issues with my coffee. I can get my coffee tasting delicious. so water is not something I want to mess with. not saying my water is Oslo quality, but there's no hum in my speakers, so I'm not about to rewire my house (or order any shakti stones). for other people, it may make sense to look into messing with the water. I'll try the free third wave packet that's heading my way. but honestly, I hope I can't notice a difference, because my coffee routine is really simple and I'd like to keep it that way. (having said all that, the filter in my fridge makes a huge difference. I tried using tap water, and the coffee was much worse. I think it has something to do with the shit they put in water in my neck of the woods - which gets removed by most water filters) if any of you guys are just using tap water, maybe worth trying filtered water/brita and see how that goes.

randomly came through on reddit

same. the espresso i had there was fine. the aeropress they made was not great. i thought i might get a bag while i was there but walked out empty handed. i'm not gonna say it was the water, but....heh

there were audiophiles who would like redo the powerlines from their house to the box out front to make the power as clean as possible. TBH, for a while I had a spectron "digital" amp and when i lived at one house in particular where the power wasn't clean i would definitely get an annoying buzz through the speakers with that amp. having said that, never occurred to me to rewire the house. maybe that's the equivalent of the coffee guys who strip their water then remineralize it before brewing coffee. anyone here have thoughts on brewing water? I htink it's kinda like the power deal - if you live in a house with decent tap water, there's less need to mess with the water. also, once you go nuts and start spending a bunch of money on grinders, you are willing to go the extra step and "fix" your water. idk, but i bet none of the guys who rewired their house had cheap speaker cables. the norway guy i followed said the water in oslo is like impeccable, and he claimed that even at Tim Wendelboe, they make their coffee with tap water. i made coffee a couple times with water from the tap and it was nasty, but i'm fine with whatever filter is in my fridge. *shrug* i think when they ship my espresso machine i get a free packet of third wave water, and i'll try it. kinda hope i can't tell a difference. not something i wanna mess with.

lol. if you haven't read that article someone posted above, it will give you a good idea of how crazy audiophiles are: https://www.suncoastaudio.com/products/audioquest-dragon-zero-speaker-cables-pair?variant=36353923612836&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync you could be right tho. people used to sell (maybe they still do sell) little stands that would lift your cables off the ground. apparently the claim was the cables worked more efficiently if they didn't touch the ground. i never bought any but i definitely rolled up some index cards and made my own. lol i was like, no way i'm paying for that, but i'm gonna make my own just in case. (not surprisingly, i couldn't hear a difference, so I got rid of the index card stands). those shakti guys were bold tho. i definitely walked into a room they rented at CES where they had music playing and those stones set up all over the room. I didn't ask them to take away the stones, so I could A/B. but i should have. lol.

i think that's about right. only thing i would add is i personally would pick this technique over french press or pour over, but it could be a matter of preference. the equipment you need is only $30 (plus filter paper, which isn't expensive). https://www.amazon.com/Dripper-servings-coffee-extract-dripper/dp/B07NS2SV3W?th=1 as i think about it, maybe better to start with french press, and then this would be something else to try next. *shrug*

tried to find one where it looked like someone was close to jumping off the ship.

if we get Michigan's best DT(s) to transfer and then we roll into Ann Arbor and beat the wolverines, we need to start renaming buildings on campus, imo. Darrell K Royal–Texas ONE FUND Memorial Stadium we can change little field fountain to close to jumping fountain. seriously, thanks to everyone helping behind the scenes with the nil efforts.

back on topic, if anyone wants to mess around with espresso - like, mad scientisty, and try out some of the newfangled espresso recipes the coffee nerds are experimenting with, i got one of these when deciding whether i wanted to shell out for one of the newer, more customizable espresso machines. https://www.uniterra-nomad.com/product-page/nomad-espresso-machine-silk-white it's not built to last, but it works really well. kinda dorky, but easy to control the water pressure over the course of the shot. espresso is a pain to get right, but like i said, if you reduce pressure on the back half of the shot, it's easy to pull espresso that is really sweet and tasty, imo. and if you're on the fence about whether to buy an espresso machine, idk, something to consider.

lol. You made me pop this open this morning. It’s really good. And if you haven’t tried it, I rec you do (maybe at a fancy coffee shop or whatever if you see it as an option one day - not necessarily worth hunting down a bag). If you don’t like it, nbd. But it’s just remarkably different, imo, from what most of us are used to as coffee.

that's wild. thanks for sharing. i know people like that - though not in audio. more in business. i will say i have heard amazing audio systems from time to time, and i can see why people would want them. but the really amazing ones i've heard are always insanely expensive.

100000% - i found this dude online (i don't know him, i just searched for his posts) in Norway, who had all these expensive grinders and burrs and he'd try them and offer his opinion - no financial incentive, just a hobbyist. he'd invite his friends over with their fancy grinders and they'd do double blind tests and shit. there was one grinder burr combo he liked, the way he described it matched what i was looking for, so i ordered it. literally a few weeks after i got it, he was like, nah, i think i like this other burr better. LOL. FML. turns out he is an audio engineer by trade and audio guy. i used to be into audio (i think there is a large crossover audio/wine and coffee snob) and i was at CES one year and this guy was selling stones that you put on your speakers to make them sound better. i think this is them. https://www.shakti-innovations.com/usesofshakti1.htm and i was like, fuck that, lol. im out. my point on this thread, i guess, is to prove to people that i'm insane and fell down the rabbit hole and for the most part with coffee stay away from the guys shilling fancy grinders and faster filter paper. just get beans you like and a good recipe. get good music and some decent speakers that fit the music you want to listen to. don't waste thousands on shakti stones and cables. i really do recommend that youtube recipe i posted above. the thing you need to make it is like $30 on amazon.

i htink the interesting thing about coffee and why i went down the rabbit hole, is, (this is the way i think about it) during covid a bunch of coffee nerds sat around with nothing better to do than make tons of coffee and run a bunch of experiments and blog about it and chat about it on discord or whatever. so there is this weird fledgling coffee science, and really bright people starting to mess around with different/ better ways to make coffee. some of these guys are literally astrophysicists, at the same time, there is a lot of bs out there, and a lot of opportunists who hype grinders on youtube.

what if i told you i used the word visualize? still don't get your pet peeve, but whatever. cheers

i don't get your pet peeve. if the grinds are not uniform, there are some that are smaller and some that are larger. it's common to use rocks as an analogy when describing this phenomenon, because we are all more familiar with rocks than with coffee particles. it's just an easy way to get someone who has never given much thought to coffee grinding to visualize what "more uniform grinds" mean people try to make insane, unfounded claims about the impact of the particle distribution (and i owuld understand if htat was your pet peeve), and it's not right to say that every conical burr set has one type of distribution and every flat burr has another, but most of the conical burr electric grinders people on here are considering are cheaper, aren't designed or constructed to high tolerances, and are designed to work for espresso and filter particle sizes. all of that that leads to a certain type of particle distribution which is not uniform, but my point is - IMO you shouldn't worry about it if you are asking on a sports forum. just get the cheap conical grinder, imo. focus on finding good beans, grinding them at the right time, and a good recipe. if you discover later that you are insane (or your coffee is laced with cocaine), then you can spend more $$ on a fancy grinder later. there is a lot of hype and pressure to get a better grinder, like it's gonna make your coffee better but imo most people just need to focus on good beans and good recipe.