HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Came here to post this :D

The TC channel is definitely a hacker's eye view in to all the technologies that we take for granted every day. Tons of fascinating tech history covered, too.

Other fun ones:

- a defense of the simple drip coffee maker https://youtu.be/Sp9H0MO-qS8

- why do the turn signals not sync up when you're at a stop light? https://youtu.be/2z5A-COlDPk

- how humidifiers work and ehy the simple swamp cooler style are pretty ideal https://youtu.be/oHeehYYgl28

- why dishwasher detergent packs are stupid (use powder/liquid) and why you should use the pre-wash slot and not bother pre rinsing your plates https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04

- why do light switches click? https://youtu.be/jrMiqEkSk48

⬐ oezi

> - why dishwasher detergent packs are stupid (use powder/liquid)

? I thought that powder and liquid for dishwashers have come out worse on any consumer reports test (at least here in Germany).

⬐ WastingMyTime89

Most dishwashers are designed to do a pre-wash, change the water, then do a wash. Pre-wash requires detergent to work optimally, ideally one specifically designed for pre-washing. Even dishwashers which have no pre-wash detergent dispenser will typically tell you to add some detergent directly on the door in the instruction manual. Most packs are suboptimal for that. Technically they should be used in addition to pre-wash detergent but that kind of defeats the point of using a pack.

⬐ Scoundreller

Best advice I learned from that channel was to run the sink faucet until it’s hot. Then run the dishwasher so it starts its cycle with actually hot water.

⬐ blacksmith_tb

Hmm, dishwashers I have had (including my current one) have a large heating element in the bottom, I would have thought that could heat the relatively small volume of water in there pretty quickly?

⬐ zo1

Most (actually all) dishwashers that I've encountered are designed to not get hot water coming in. Where I live a high-pressure hot-water outlet is not the norm at all. And yet, we don't have a catastrophic country-wide problem with dirty dishes. I'd argue that something else it at play.

⬐ Scoundreller

Not on this continent. But obviously the advice can be ignored if your dishwasher isn't connected to hot water.

The reason for your setup is probably 240V electricity that is affordable enough to resort to resistive heating.

⬐ oezi

A good dishwasher (based on testing) will never need some manual tinkering like this.

⬐ oezi

Packs should be put in the dispenser so they don't act during prewash.

⬐ mschild

Detergent packs in the US seem to be mostly gel packs. In Germany, most tabs are simply hard pressed powder. Gel packs did fail in their cleaning function and the recommendation generally goes for either tabs or powder, where powder can save you money because you set the dosage according to how full your dishwasher is.

⬐ lupire

Fine tuning powder per wash sounds like overoptimization. Just useing powder instead of tabs will save most of the money.

⬐ Scoundreller

But I save time by pouring in less when less is needed.

⬐ oezi

Prepackaged tabs with self-disolving packaging is actually the cheapest if you assign a non-zero amount of money to your own time.

⬐ kortex

How much extra time does it take to dump out some powder? I don't actually measure precisely and just eyeball it. The advantage is I can dump some extra in the bay to act as pre-wash. The cost is 4-10x more for the self-dissolving packs.

⬐ sokoloff

I looked on Amazon at Cascade powder ($0.22/oz in large packages) and the same name tablets ($0.30/tablet in large packages).

A load with powder is typically 0.75 oz. ($0.165/load) or about 55% the cost, not 10-25% the cost.

Being able to dump in extra for pre-wash is an advantage to powder for sure.

⬐ pottertheotter

I take his stuff with a grain of salt because I found the dishwasher detergent recommendation to be a bad idea.

A while before the TC video came out, I had an appliance repair person working on my fridge and asked him what he thought the best detergent was and he said use powdered, not the packs. So we switched to that.

Not long after our dishes were never getting cleaned. I thought it was a problem with the dishwasher so I took apart the filter, cleaned all the sprayers, etc. but nothing worked. Was thinking we needed a new dishwasher until one day we ran out of powdered detergent but had a couple packs left over so my wife used one.

Bingo! Our dishes came out PERFECT. We haven’t had a single problem since.

⬐ lupire

When you used powder, did you add detergent to the prewash cycle?

TC did make an apology video after the first detergent video.

⬐ pottertheotter

I usually put some in the prewash area.

⬐ cromka

Quite the contrary for me. I suppose your powder detergent might be of lower quality than the packs one, or is not as concentrated and you need to use more of it?

⬐ pottertheotter

I used Cascade Complete powder and Cascade Platinum packs.

⬐ desmosxxx

Did you get the powder from Amazon perhaps? I'm pretty sure we got fake detergent on Amazon before and it caused our dishes to not clean properly.

Also if you have a water softener you should typically use less powder.

We definitely get a better wash using the right amount of powder, but had to adjust the levels ourselves.

Powder should be better, but dishwashers can be weird, so whatever works best.

⬐ cromka

I, too, had to adjust the amount of powder. Roughly 1/2 of recommended dose goes onto tray, and an additional 1/5 directly into the washer for prewash cycle.

⬐ BoiledCabbage

Did you change brands or types when you switched to powder?

⬐ pottertheotter

I used Cascade Platinum packs before and after trying powder. When using powder I primarily used Cascade Complete (there was a short time early in the pandemic when I had to grab whatever was available on the shelf).

⬐ smhg

I tried the 'add detergent to the pre-wash-cycle' part. While it seems to make sense, it also caused a lot more rust spots on cutlery. The detergent is just too aggressive that way.

⬐ alliao

the goal is to use the cheapest not the most expensive... my miele tablets were destroying my duralex picardie big time, so I now use the cheapest powder and if I feel like the stainless steel don't shine bright enough (maybe once a month) then I use one miele tablet...

⬐ _xerces_

The packs are just powder pressed into a cube with some colorful liquid added to a little pocket to make it look high tech.

⬐ kortex

What kind of powder are you using? Some really cheap powders are basically just sodium carbonate and silicate, with some enzymes, and no actual detergents. These won't work well if your load is "too clean", as it needs some grease to saponify in order to generate detergent.

The medium/high quality stuff contains more/better detergents, water conditioners, and sometimes rinse aids. The packs are just powder formulations pressed into a pellet.

⬐ pottertheotter

I mostly used Cascade Complete powder (there was a point early in the pandemic when I had to grab whatever was on the shelf) and use Cascade Platinum packs.

A couple months back we ran out of packs and had some powder leftover, so I ran a load with the powder. I ended up having to run the load again once we got the packs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9H0MO-qS8

The specific mechanism that gums up the works occurs at 6:45. When you raise the lid of the modern version, grounds and coffee bits that have dusted up to the lid of the coffee maker drip via condensation into rear water reservoir.

For greater detail, juxtapose minutes 8-11 with minutes 16-21.

Mr. Coffee represents the king of drip still. And it is the greatest contributor to this fundamental design flaw (imp).

⬐ p_l

Thank you very much, bookmarked for any future drip making needs to avoid buyib bad crap.

I just watched an amusing video that compares Mr. Coffee's original machine to modern drip coffeemakers. Mr. Coffee would cost $300 today (adjusted for inflation). There's been great simplification of the design over the years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9H0MO-qS8

Given a more than order of magnitude reduction in price, a shorter lifespan can be tolerated, and could even be a rational consumer choice.

⬐ dundarious

In this specific case, I think you're too quick to accept that trade-off. I don't remember the video drawing any such conclusion, and from memory, it seemed to slightly indicate that the older-and-more-expensive model was likely the less reliable of the pair in one or two ways (the flimsy and dangerous wire, and less importantly the dual heating elements). The new model is probably only less reliable in one way -- the outer shell is probably easier to break if you really smash it.

In general, I think it's almost always the case that compared to historical offerings, you can get an order or so drop in price, without sacrificing core lifespan. Sacrificing lifespan can be done, but for such devices, such sacrifices lead to saving an additional $10-$20 rather than $100-$200 -- those come from access to cheaper materials.

It's like buying shoes for $20 that you'll have to replace every year, instead of an $80 pair that last 10 years. It's a trap, and the goal should be to lift people out of it, rather than make an even worse $15 shoe, and so on.

⬐ pfdietz

The newer model is more subject to failure due to scale buildup inside the heating tube, causing the thermostat to trip.

⬐ bobsmooth

As Alec recounts you can run vinegar through it to descale it.

⬐ pfdietz

But that doesn't always work. I've wondered if coffee residues in the carafe contaminate the water (when the carafe is used to fill the water reservoir) and could get baked on to the surface of the heating tube.

⬐ maximus-decimus

The new one, using 2 heating elements, burns your coffee if you leave it because the heater needs to be warm enough to actually make the coffee two and it takes literally twice as long to make the exact same coffee.

Maybe people wouldn't use Kurig if they could still make their cup of coffee in 5 minutes instead of 10.

⬐ dundarious

The old one is the one with 2 elements — the new one has only 1. The bad taste from the hot plate is mostly a function of using the hot plate, rather than a specific temperature difference from old to new — he recommends not using the hot plate at all in either version, and just letting it get cold, and microwaving your next cup on demand. I think you’re mixing up his discussion of water temperature leaving the bubble pump.

⬐ a_shovel

What I like about Technology Connections is the level of detail he goes into. Another channel might see that old Mr. Coffee machines operate at a higher power level than modern ones, think "huh, weird" (or not even notice), and move on. Alec goes and buys an old machine and adds 10 minutes to the video to discuss its unique design and the differences with modern machines. He complains about going off on tangents, but really they're half the fun. (The other half is the jokes.)

⬐ krallja

Don’t forget to watch TC with captions on, because some of the jokes are only available there. It’s like the alt-text for XKCD.

⬐ latchkey

For me (because this is always such a personal opinion), Aeropress, inverted method, is the easiest and best result method.

Fill with water, pull the plunger out, let drip 50%, add more water, add plunger back, let sit for a bit longer. Plunge. Enjoy.

⬐ leobg

Inverted and pulling the plunger out? I thought inverted means that the plunger is essentially the bottom. Also: How long is “a bit longer”? Just want to replicate to see what you mean. Thanks.

⬐ latchkey

No problem, thanks for asking.

Plunger starts on the bottom with rubber side up. Put cylinder on top. Fill with water. Cap/filter (I use a metal mesh) on tight.

Then, invert with cap/filter on top of the cup. This is where you can pull the plunger out. Let it drip into the cup until halfway down the cylinder and then fill with more hot water. Put the plunger on top again 'a bit longer' (minute?) to stop the drip and let the newly added water brew. Then press the plunger in.

This way, I get a larger cup of coffee than the aeropress normally makes and not much dilution since the water still goes through the grinds. =)

⬐ fknorangesite

This video's really making the tech-social-media rounds today, hah. It's a good one.

Similarly - though with less history - from one of my favourite (if, unfortunately, seemingly defunct) youtube channels, engineerguy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRCu8v9V8EY

⬐ yftsui

His other video about drip coffee maker is also great explaining the details, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j4Q_YBRJEI

⬐ dtx1

Almost all of Technology Connections Videos seem to do that. I always look forward to his stuff