Power loss is the main issue; I think there’s an inverse square law in there somewhere. But there has been progress in improving that; every do often you hear about some research that’s improved the efficiency of transmission.

Nicola Tesla really believed in this, and pushed it hard. He envisioned giant towers broadcasting out power to communities.

But, to continue with my (again, newly invented head canon): it works in Federation starships because there’s no loss. It’s an closed environment, and they obviously have advanced field technology if they have energy shields, tractor beams, scanners, and transporters. They broadcast power throughout the ship, and as long as you’re in it, you’ve got an essentially infinite supply (on the human scale). No energy is lost, because the ship structure/hull itself re-absorbs any energy not harvested by a receiver, so inefficiency loss is negligible. Leave the ship, whatever tech you have has to have its own power supply, and that can run out.

The Borg don’t spark, either. I think it’s because they have a lot of on-board electronics that have to run from fairly beefy internal power supplies. Borg units have to function outside of broadcast power range.

Federation phasers, tricorders, things like that are probably mostly solid state with embedded power supplies; the power conduits are probably etched directly into the components at the molecular level. There’s no empty space in a coms badge; it’s all solid tech. Like modern cell phones, only even less componentized. In TOS, they physically modified phasers and such to make them do other things; by the time of TNG, they just reprogram them.

But mainly, the Borg a) have no sense of aesthetics, so they can just cobble together whatever tech without regard for making it look nice, and b) individual Borg are disposable. Wires hanging off to get caught on stuff and ripped out, causing an individual to malfunction or function at reduced efficiency - preventing that is not as important as growth. Borg are fungible, not unique individuals with value. Lose one, another takes its place.

The Federation values individuals, and they want to look damned good while they’re doing their thing. So: streamlined, sleek, compact, safe, and reliable.

Dammit! Stop making it better!

Oh no. Oh, nonono.

I’m using a (nearly) 20 year old Behmor. There’s so much guesswork involved, especially if you’re someone like me and rarely buy the same beans. I roast my own coffee, but after 20 years I still barely know what I’m doing. I like what I get, but still; it’s a lot of trial and error, and guesswork.

The SkyWalker looks fantastic. It has all the features I wish I had on the Behmor: the sample tray thingy; temperature control; multiple gauges - there’s not even a thermometer in the Behmor; an automatic mode? I mean, I’d like to have either a sampler or an auto mode on the Behmor, but this has both?? A proper chaff tray, to get the chaff out of the oven so it doesn’t burn‽ A smoke filter or proper chimney to direct the exhaust‽‽

<groan> I don’t need to spend any more money on this hobby.

What’s that software (and device) you’re using to get the results profile?

There’s no wiring on the Enterprises. It’s all broadcast energy from the warp core directly powering whatever passes for chips, and it’s all solid state electronics. This is why, while individual components may fail, you never get situations like, there’s no power to only one lift; or, only the bridge looses power. Nobody crawls into a Jeffries Tube to fix wiring, and they never have bulky tool kits; their equivalent of sonic screwdrivers can either make molecular repairs, or the whole component is swapped out.

Many components are modules with onboard capacitors required for performing their functions; this is why control boards explode so much when the Enterprise takes damage: it’s capacitors discharging. Same for the sparks: rapid (but not complete) discharging for the capacitors causes sparks - it’s a designed safety feature to reduce full-on explosions. Sparks are better than booms.

You never see wiring. Ships fall apart in combat; stations explode; support beams fall on people… but never a mess of dangling wires.

I just made all of that up. I’m sure there’s a complete description of the electronics on Memory Alpha somewhere. But I think there are no fuses because there are no wires.

Adding “partner” automatically reduces your birth year by 30 years.

1. The NCC-1701 had a max warp of 8.
2. I have never before noticed how dirty the consoles looked.

Bonus if it can edit .sc files, a-la the best spreadsheet editor, sc-im.

I’m hoping the fanfic will start flowing. Not with Ball in her “I Love Lucy” persona, but more “The Dark Corner.”

Although, I think Janeway was directed this way, with Lucille’s dry wit. It wouldn’t surprise me if the scriptwriters weren’t paying homage to Ball with the Janeway character.

Lucille Ball would have made a fantastic captain.

All 100 billion of you.

What’s the theory as to why all Borg end up with such an unhealthy skin tone? How are they keeping the skin alive without hemoglobin?

Seriously. Never a bad one.

But the mycels are what make it go fast…

I have no idea. I currently have a much more expensive grinder, but it’s a big hopper type; it’s great for entertaining, or would be good for a small coffee shop… but it’s too much grinder for my use.

But you said your issues is with consistency. Maybe you just need to replace the burrs? It might be worth a shot. However, if the DFs had any issues with consistency, James would have jumped all over that, and in fact if you watch that video he uses his fancy new machine to measure consistency. Yes, it’s the 64, but by all accounts the new 54 is the same machine as the 64, but with a smaller motor. It’s going to perform very similarly.

If you think improved consistency is going to improve your coffee, and you notice poor consistency in your current grinder, then yes. The DF will be an improvement. I know nothing about your machine, but a less expensive thing you can try first - like I said - is replace the burrs.

This is what I’m waiting for. I have a birthday coming up. $299, great reviews on pre-production units, and the bigger brother (sister?) model is highly regarded.

Hoffman’s (comparison) review of the DF64.

I keep editing this. James’ review is for espresso grinding. As long as it can dial to as coarse as you like, and these should, they should be fit for purpose for pour-over.

He’s a king just for the sheer, blunt honesty.

Yup, agreed. Better than those damned pods, though.

Oh! Good point! Selling the extracted product would be viable. I can’t see any reason they couldn’t sell boxes of brewed coffee.

What, the device, or the coffee?

They’d have to seal the coffee in a near complete vacuum, or ensure all air in the packaging is replaced with an inert gas; once ground, coffee oxidizes rapidly, and this is what ruins the flavor. Even whole beans oxidize, just more slowly. This is why it’s recommended you ground at the last minute, and buy beans that were roasted within the past couple of weeks.

Of all the pretentiousness in coffee culture, this is probably the one most true, most important factors to coffee quality: the impact of oxidization on roasted beans. It’s why Nespresso pods make actually decent coffee: the air in the pods is replaced with nitrogen, preventing oxidation of the grounds. If Nespresso wasn’t owned by the completely amoral Nesté, and if the pods weren’t such a terrible impact on the environmental, I’d probably give up my current process and just drink Nespresso.

However, my point is that any packaging this company could do to preserve the product would probably be as horrid for the environment as Nespresso pods. They’d have to sell grounds, because of the process; bags would be the least impactful, but how fast can you drink a pound of ground coffee? Because the grounds will be oxidized and ruined within days of opening the bag - you’ll only get great coffee the first day after opening; OK coffee the second, and shit coffee the rest. So it’d have to be pods, and now we’re back to plastic waste.

The one way I can think of this working is for cold-brew folks, because you’re brewing one big batch at a time, and using 12 or 16 oz of grounds at once. Open a bag of inert-gas vacuum-sealed grounds, dump it in, fill with water, and let brew for 12 hours.

IME, cold brew makes good coffee, in that it eliminates most of what can make coffee harsh, but it’s also the most forgiving of bean quality in that it also removes a lot of other, desirable, subtlety in the result. Cold brew is the one coffee I’ll buy from Starbucks, because their shit-quality beans don’t affect the cup much.

And, @almar_quigley, I’m keying off your response, but I am not assuming you don’t already know all of this - I’m writing for non-coffee nerds.