Notices by CoffeeGeek (coffeegeek@flipboard.social), page 2

This is very sad, and an example of what happens when the collective public relies on dubious 2 minute shorts on TikTok and Youtube to get their "information" from, more and more, and lose the ability to absorb long form content by people who actually know what they're talking about.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/21542/end-of-the-road-an-anandtech-farewell

Any Leica M10 / M11 Monochrom owners out there?

How do you like it? Do you use it regularly?

#leica #leicamonochrom

So some bad news regarding our account here on Mastodon and the #Fediverse

I'm going to have to suspend, at least for now, posting any links to content on our website on this platform. The #MastoDdos effect is only getting worse, and it now brings our website down for a solid 5 to 7 minutes everytime I post a URL. We've tried to fix this on our end, without any real luck. Caching, Cloudfare, etc etc. None of it works.

What I'll do instead is post links to our Threads account when new content is posted on our website. A bit of a weird fix, but until the infrastructure in the fediverse evolves to deal with this growing problem, I can't have our website go down that often. It has further unintended side effects (like harming our SEO ranking).

Of course, I'll still be participating here daily on coffee subjects!

Actually, I can still post content links here to CoffeeGeek, but I have to be smart about it: I have to post them as links, and also attach a photo to my post, so that the link doesn't trigger a card call to our website.

So, going forward (for now at least), when we do post new content on CoffeeGeek, I will post the link here, but also attach a photo related to the story. The link should still work, but not bombard our website from 1000s of instances looking for a card.

@BeAware I'm posting the full urls, and not the "share" link. I read the share links no longer work here. Now it looks like the full urls don't either.

Are youtube links no longer working on Mastodon as cards?

The last couple I've posted are just a generic youtube small card.

#youtube #mastodon #fediverse

#NCP

Posted without comment. Other than to say Bloomberg's site doesn't like MastoDDos floods, so the title below may not register.

It is:

The Moral Case for No Longer Engaging With Elon Musk’s X

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-05/the-moral-case-for-no-longer-engaging-with-elon-musk-s-x

I love coffee history.

I also love coffee's role in history.

For instance, do you know that coffee was a key factor in the Union winning the US Civil War?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-coffee-helped-the-union-caffeinate-their-way-victory-civil-war-180984502/

When I pulled the plug in October, 2023 on my daily Twitter engagement, and went all in on the #Fediverse, I had some goals in mind, written in my desktop notebook.

- No longer get my news from a social media feed (instead reading more traditional journalism)

- Try to avoid negativity, at least as much as my personality will allow

- Seek out creative, engaging content producers

and most important:

- Always interact; stop just consuming, and don't just use the platforms as an advertising, click-driving vehicle.

#NCP

This is actually some big news: a lot of folks originally joined the Tweeter because of #Diggnation and #TWiT hyping up Twitter in its earliest days. I know I joined because of them (esp. Leo talking about it all the time)

Well Kevin Rose, founder of #Digg, said if he got 1,000 likes to a post he made on Threads, he'd delete his Tweeter account.

He got them, and he did.

Makes me think - if I get 200 likes here in the #fediverse on this post, pointing out Kevin's post, I'll delete CoffeeGeek's Tweeter account too. (I promise, this isn't likebait lol!)

https://www.threads.net/@kevinrose/post/C8qfqaUM5rI

Another reference point: I posted this photo 24hr ago. Again, 13K+ followers.

I am a slave to #Instagram's horrible, skewed 100% to #Meta algorithm. If I don't post to IG, then companies, manufacturers, vendors etc go "what's wrong with you, why don't people like you on Instagram?" It's a 20 edged sword, with all the edges pointing my direction.

I really, really hate #Instagram and #Meta. I feel **absolutely forced** to use it, based on what I do, and where a segment of the specialty coffee community is. Everytime I use it, I feel dirty.

I have 13K followers there. Yet, when I post things, the algorithm BURIES them. For example, I posed this attractive photo of the Hario Suiren there 1hr ago. Here's what the numbers are. Remember, 13K followers:

I need some help, #fediverse

We need to better incorporate our Mastodon feed into the CoffeeGeek.com website.

Part of the problem is, in the platform we use (Wordpress / Elementor), there's almost zero support for Mastodon in our share, follow, and embed tools. So either we have to write something from scratch and make it work with our existing share tools, or... well if there is an Elementor / WP friendly share plugin out there that actively supports mastodon, I want to know about it.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Guides? Step by step to make it happen? The research I've done so far shows it's tricky to have a proper share popup for Masto like you can have for Facebook, for eg (second screen cap below) because of the decentralized nature of mastodon.

For instance, I want to have a Mastodon share button in this cluster, which is created via a convenient widget in Elementor:

What's the most common latte art pour these days?

the Tulip. Everyone and their pet monkey pours them.

A bit of trivia: guess who invented the tulip latte art pour?

My man, Sammy Piccolo, of Vancouver's Caffe Prado. He first poured the shapes in 2003. I think I actually have some photos and video of his early tulip pours, I need to find those.

#latteart #latte #tuliplatteart

Again, because I love the #coffee and #espresso #fediverse, here is a sneak peak at our choices for best espresso machines in 2024, all budget ranges, including travel and manual machines. No surprise there's a lot of Breville on the list:

Breville Bambino Plus
Breville Dual Boiler
Breville Infuser
Breville Oracle Touch

Turin Legato

Lelit Anna II
Lelit Bianca V3

La Marzocco GS3

Profitec GO

Flair 58
Flar Neo (new model)

Superkop

Gaggia Espresso Evolution (new budget king)

What would you add? (yes, I know the Decents are listed - we will only list machines we've used and tested).

Also worth noting: the profit margins on La Marzocco machines allow the company to fly all their main executives over to trade shows around the world, staying in fancy hotels, many times a year. Companies like Lelit also attend these trade shows, but on very fixed budgets.

I'm not begrudging profits, but at some point, when a company charges $250 for a drip tray cover replacement, the excess should be called into question.

LM's crazy expensive replacement parts / add on parts are one of the reasons why I recommend the Lelit Bianca over the GS3 these days.

Nice machine, game changer, ground breaker.

But if I had unlimited discretionary funds and was shopping for a top of the line machine today... I don't think I'd buy the GS3 MP.
I'd buy a Lelit Bianca V3 machine. And a kick ass grinder to pair with it.

Will have an article detailing why, very soon.

#espresso #lamarzocco #gs3 #lelit #bianca

cc @espresso

New on CoffeeGeek today, A continuation of our Origin historical series, this time focusing on Yemen If you like your coffee, and like your history, check this one out!

#coffee #history #yemen #coffeehistory

cc @coffee

https://coffeegeek.com/blog/history/yemen-the-ancient-origins-of-coffee/

@Edent You're describing geocities. It's been done. We'd all need to be addicted to RSS readers for it to be viable.

Come to think of it, maybe that's the REAL reason Google killed Reader.

We take reviewing coffee gear at CoffeeGeek very seriously. We want to make sure you have the best possible advice - honest, real, and relevant to the product you might be shopping for.

So I started off this post with an apology.

#coffee #espresso #reviews #influencers

cc @coffee @espresso

https://coffeegeek.com/blog/news/the-responsibility-of-product-reviewers/