Wow. So much to write about, but I'm no wordsmith so I'll try to keep this brief. Regarding signal to noise, kvothe [1] strives for keeping the SNR higher in efforts to preserve the value of gopher and phlogs. I too wish to phost about interesting subjects, and my futile efforts to force myself to write have only resulted in details of the mundane. Hopefully the acknowledgement of this will help keep clarity in most (let's be honest) future phosts. Coffee. Can't live without it. Can't help debating about it. I prefer mine smooth and with a little cream and am happy with it from drip, french press or pourover. Probably many other ways too but those are the most common, and while other means may be nice and fancy, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Or grind, in this case. I don't know if I'm in the minority or not but I have no qualms about instant coffee. Instant coffee is convenient and often useful for a midday cup when a full pot is too much. Currently I like the premixed packets from companies such as Maxim, Rose Bud, or Owl [2], but Taster's Choice is A-OK. These instant packets are ready to go and are balanced quite nicely. Maybe it's because I spent a few seasons as a professional camper, but it hits the spot. Now on to the dogpile of the half-week: connoisseurship. I've spent a few days trying to organize my thoughts on this whilst reading everyone's opinions. Each comment had my mind exclaiming, "ooh! ooh!", but I've long since forgotten what I was going to mention for each, so please bear with me on what little I do remember. I'm already going to skip the similar sentiments to avoid this being a reverb room: Solderpunk [3] hinted that connoisseurship is cultivated by "commercialised artisanship". Commercialised artisanship -- the juxtaposition of these two words is fantastic. These two words question the legitimacy of the craft product movement. Kvothe points out how beer [4] too is overtaken by the craft craze. Don't misunderstand me; I love craft beer. I had a whole rant on the industry written out but I thought better of it because it's unproductive. So I'm changing the subject. Connoisseurship shouldn't be loathed because it's the result of obsessing over every detail. To do so is to loathe the quest for knowledge. That is a quality of a hobby. The difference between a hobbyist and a connoisseur is pretentiousness, and that, to me, is a quality worthy of scorn. Shout out to sparcipx [5], whose phosts I wanted to incorporate but I ended up in dead ends. TEXT [1] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/kvothe/phlog/2018/02/19-snr HTML [2] http://www.owl.com.sg TEXT [3] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/solderpunk/phlog/against-connoisseurship.txt TEXT [4] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/kvothe/phlog/2018/02/26-connoisseurship TEXT [5] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/sparcipx/phlog/February_2018/02-26-18