R3qn65's recent activity

  1. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

    R3qn65
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    Americans only think Americans are bad tourists because they've never seen British tourists.

    Americans only think Americans are bad tourists because they've never seen British tourists.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's surveillance of cyclosporiasis in ~health

    R3qn65
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    Salads can work quite well in soup. Using lettuce in soup is pretty common in both eastern European and eastern Asian cuisines. I think it'll work better than stir-fry for you.

    Salads can work quite well in soup. Using lettuce in soup is pretty common in both eastern European and eastern Asian cuisines. I think it'll work better than stir-fry for you.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Chat control 1.0 passes even though majority actually voted against in todays vote in ~society

    R3qn65
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    For all its flaws, the electoral college is vastly more democratic than the EU commission system.

    For all its flaws, the electoral college is vastly more democratic than the EU commission system.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    R3qn65
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    Godwin's law achieved within about 90 minutes! I don't fully understand the reference. The Nazis had a whole thing about "degenerate" art (for obvious reasons), not about aesthetically unappealing...

    Godwin's law achieved within about 90 minutes!

    I don't fully understand the reference. The Nazis had a whole thing about "degenerate" art (for obvious reasons), not about aesthetically unappealing art. What lessons is the OP supposed to draw about themself from reading about this?

    19 votes

  5. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    R3qn65
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    It's true that a lot of people do believe this, but it's actually one of the most policed aspects of the intersection of art and taxes.

    This ties in to the suspicion that people have that high end art is a money laundering scheme for the rich. This is conspiratorial thinking, but whenever I see an expensive piece of modern art I have a suspicion that some rich guy is artificially manufacturing hype around that artist, because they already have purchased other pieces from that artist for cheap, and if they make them famous they can instantly turn those pieces into multimillion dollar assets. Which is kind of a corruption of artistry, if true.

    It's true that a lot of people do believe this, but it's actually one of the most policed aspects of the intersection of art and taxes.

    Contrary to what you might think, art collectors can’t claim huge tax deductions for donating artworks based on their own valuations. The bequest and donation of artworks generate millions in tax revenue, so the Internal Revenue Service takes great care to assess and appraise artworks as accurately as possible. In order to do that, the federal agency relies on a specialized panel of art experts known as the Art Advisory Panel.

    According to the Internal Revenue Code, all artworks with a claimed value of $50,000 or more must be referred to the IRS Art Appraisal Services unit, who may consult the Art Advisory Panel—a group of 25 experienced dealers, scholars, and museum curators who work pro bono to determine fair market value or adjudicate contested art-related tax credit cases. In 2016, the panel reviewed over 500 artworks and recommended adjustments over $100 million, according to the Washington Post...

    6 votes

  6. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    R3qn65
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    Your opinion is your own, of course. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Certainly not all of it is pleasant to look at -- that's not the intent of much art, I don't think art necessarily...

    Your opinion is your own, of course. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Certainly not all of it is pleasant to look at -- that's not the intent of much art, I don't think art necessarily means "pretty" so much as "evocative," -- but again taste is very personal.

    Keep in mind, though, that most of the weirder stuff wasn't really intended for you -- "you" meaning a casual viewer who likes art for the aesthetic and not the meaning. Marcel Duchamp's famous la Fontaine (a signed urinal) was never intended to go in someone's house to look nice. It was aimed at the art world itself, designed to provoke the exact question about the meaning of art. You need the context to appreciate it, but that doesn't mean that it's inherently stupid. Lots of things in life only make sense in context. Should an elegant bit of programming irritate me because I don't know how to code? Is a poem in Arabic objectively unbeautiful because it sounds guttural to me, not knowing what it means?

    Again, this is all taste so if you don't like it, you don't like it. The only thing I'd really reject is the suggestion that money spent on art could've gone to a better cause. Nothing survives that test, and just because you don't think abstract art is worthwhile doesn't mean it's objectively worthless. (Think of all the things you like that could easily fail that same test. Music? Video games? Films? Fine dining?)

    21 votes

  7. Comment on Did Kamala Harris's silence on Gaza cost her the White House? in ~society

    R3qn65
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    This post measurably changed my opinion on how much gaza mattered, thanks.

    This post measurably changed my opinion on how much gaza mattered, thanks.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
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    Have you tried carbon steel, by any chance? Similar performance to cast iron at about half the weight.

    Have you tried carbon steel, by any chance? Similar performance to cast iron at about half the weight.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
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    Thanks for doing that! Beautiful vintage pan. I'm definitely still not going to put mine in the dishwasher, but I think it's awesome you tested it.

    Thanks for doing that! Beautiful vintage pan. I'm definitely still not going to put mine in the dishwasher, but I think it's awesome you tested it.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
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    AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    I'm lazy with my (steel) chef knives, so I've seen after 10-20 dishwasher cycles

    AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    6 votes

  11. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
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    100%. The weaker your burner, the more you want a large thermal mass. The stronger your burner, the less it matters. That's why for most homes cast iron is the best tool available for searing, but...

    100%. The weaker your burner, the more you want a large thermal mass. The stronger your burner, the less it matters. That's why for most homes cast iron is the best tool available for searing, but a commercial kitchen wants a thinner aluminum or steel pan.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
    (edited )
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    Totally true that professional kitchens don't use cast iron, but the fundamental mechanics of searing completely change on a commercial range. A high end prosumer range, of the kind almost nobody...

    Totally true that professional kitchens don't use cast iron, but the fundamental mechanics of searing completely change on a commercial range. A high end prosumer range, of the kind almost nobody has, might put out 17,500 BTU. A commercial range starts at 30,000 and goes up from there. If thermal mass is more important when you only have 17500 (or less; your average electric range is probably something like 10k BTU equivalent on the biggest burner) to reheat the pan, conductivity (to your point) is more important when you can crank 30k or more BTU back into the pan. Plus, the weight and relative fragility and finickyness of cast iron are huge drawbacks in a restaurant but not necessarily a home.

    If someone was going to get only one pan, I would also recommend stainless clad. But I think you're reaching a bit when you claim that cast iron is worse for searing!

    4 votes

  13. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
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    I will freely admit that I've never cooked with a copper pan with the same thermal mass as cast iron. However, I'm not sure that's really a relevant comparison, since at that point we're talking...

    I will freely admit that I've never cooked with a copper pan with the same thermal mass as cast iron. However, I'm not sure that's really a relevant comparison, since at that point we're talking about a pan that is several hundred dollars versus one that's about $20.

    If the question is "what's the best pan imaginable," then I believe you. But the question in this post was about someone asking about their first cast iron. Saying that cast iron is outdated because a copper pan of equal thermal mass delivers better performance is like recommending a Ferrari to someone who is trying to choose between a Peugeot and a Renault.

    ...you did make me want to get one, though.

    10 votes

  14. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
    (edited )
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    I think you're right on the details, but wrong on what they imply :) When a cold steak hits a pan, the limiting factor for the first several seconds isn't "can the pan conduct fast enough" — both...

    I think you're right on the details, but wrong on what they imply :)

    When a cold steak hits a pan, the limiting factor for the first several seconds isn't "can the pan conduct fast enough" — both cast iron and aluminum-core stainless conduct far faster than the steak's own internal conductivity can absorb energy. The steak surface is the bottleneck, not the pan. So pan conductivity above a fairly modest threshold doesn't buy you much. What actually differs between the two pans is what happens to the pan's surface temperature during that contact. A high-mass pan barely dips, because it has a large reservoir to draw from even with mediocre conductivity, since the energy doesn't need to travel far (cast iron is much thicker, so it's drawing from material close to the surface, not relying on rapid transfer from far away). A low-mass, high-conductivity pan recovers fast (because conductivity is high) but it also drops more initially per unit area before the burner replenishes it, because there's just less stored energy near the surface. In practice, with most home burners (which are conductivity-limited at the burner-to-pan interface, not the pan-to-food interface), cast iron's huge reservoir tends to win for sustained searing of something like a steak, because the bottleneck is burner output, not pan conductivity.

    Your claim that "if the pan dumps more energy than it can receive from the heat source it will get cold" is true but irrelevant to searing performance, because the timescale of a sear (seconds to low minutes per side) is short compared to the timescale needed to deplete a cast iron pan's reservoir, even with a so-so burner. That's the whole reason cast iron is prized for searing in the first place — not despite low conductivity, but because mass compensates for it on the timescales that matter for a stovetop sear.

    (Also -- most pro kitchens, even starred ones, overwhelmingly use heavy gauge aluminum pans, not copper.)

    12 votes

  15. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
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    I haven't seen comments yet on the primary benefit of cast iron specifically: heat retention. It's what separates cast iron from stainless steel and even carbon steel. Cast iron is very slow to...

    I haven't seen comments yet on the primary benefit of cast iron specifically: heat retention. It's what separates cast iron from stainless steel and even carbon steel.

    Cast iron is very slow to heat (relative to other pans), because it has a lot of thermal mass and poor conductivity. For the same reasons, it's also prone to developing hot spots if heated rapidly without time for heat to disperse throughout the pan. Once hot, though, it stays hot, which is a huge benefit for things like searing, frying, baking.

    Have any of you used cast iron, then returned to Teflon or stainless steel after being disappointed in the experience

    It's a change, for sure. If you're into cooking, having a cast iron in addition to other, more conventional pans is the way to go. I don't think "returning" to stainless is the right framing. If you're not into cooking, I wouldn't necessarily pick a cast iron as my one and only pan, but there's no real reason you couldn't.

    16 votes

  16. Comment on Do you cook with cast iron? Is it the hassle everyone says it is? in ~food

    R3qn65
    Link Parent
    To make it a bit more explicit, regular dish soap is just fine to use on your cast iron. Don't, like, soak it in soap overnight or anything, but cleaning it and drying it is completely fine.

    Also, don't use dish soap containing lye, which I seriously doubt you were going to do anyway.

    To make it a bit more explicit, regular dish soap is just fine to use on your cast iron. Don't, like, soak it in soap overnight or anything, but cleaning it and drying it is completely fine.

    47 votes

  17. Comment on Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines in ~society

    R3qn65
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    Legally - and probably ethically too, frankly, but in any event legally - if you cause a situation, your ability to claim reasonable fear changes. A trite but common example is that if you start a...

    when what I've read suggests that something closer to "bad decision resulting from genuine fear for others' safety" would be a plenty believable interpretation. Is there some other factor I'm unaware of?

    Legally - and probably ethically too, frankly, but in any event legally - if you cause a situation, your ability to claim reasonable fear changes. A trite but common example is that if you start a fight and the fight escalates, by statute in most states you lose the ability to claim that you needed to use lethal force to defend yourself, whereas that claim could be completely legitimate if you were attacked unprovoked in an otherwise identical situation.

    Similarly, Song's group protested/rioted/attacked the ICE facility while armed and wearing body armor. Even if you think their actions were justified, they clearly incited the event and thus lose the ability (legally) to claim that they feared for their own safety.

    It's worth noting that the jury - not the judge, but the jury - convicted after a 12-day trial with 46 witnesses and 200+ exhibits. Not after just watching a grainy bodycam video.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines in ~society

    R3qn65
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    My friend, even if this is exactly true with no qualifiers, that is still a crime.

    I think it's debatable whether there even was a crime other than being leftist. ... abundant evidence that the intent was suppressive fire in defense of others.

    My friend, even if this is exactly true with no qualifiers, that is still a crime.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Re-watched the Bourne Trilogy after several years, I understand now why it was so influential in ~movies

    R3qn65
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    Reminds me of the machete order for Star Wars! Though I will say, I showed a partner, who'd never seen Star Wars, the films in the machete order and they were kind of confused. I think it works...

    Reminds me of the machete order for Star Wars! Though I will say, I showed a partner, who'd never seen Star Wars, the films in the machete order and they were kind of confused. I think it works better sort of already knowing what's going on - wonder if removing the exposition in Bourne would be similar.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Re-watched the Bourne Trilogy after several years, I understand now why it was so influential in ~movies

    R3qn65
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    Equilibrium rules, but yeah you're right that they're not super comparable. They're filmed totally differently. Bourne is shaky cam, rapid cuts to show the intensity and chaos of a close-in fight...

    Equilibrium rules, but yeah you're right that they're not super comparable. They're filmed totally differently. Bourne is shaky cam, rapid cuts to show the intensity and chaos of a close-in fight whereas equilibrium is a lot more steady focus to show off the choreography. Equilibrium is like a sci-fi take on a classic martial arts movie in that way.

    4 votes