I can't speak for the people that made the community but I don't think that places like this are necessarily made by vegans for vegans as you describe. Personally I can attest that it's just extremely frustrating to be made to feel like an out group in the ONE community where you shouldn't be made to feel like that. I personally welcome nonvegans to participate in discussion so long as they come with the understanding that they are a guest in our community and should respect the community as such which does include taking care to not come across as tone deaf. I'm not religious and in fact actively oppose religion but if I found myself at a church for whatever reason I'm not going to go in there and start a bunch of arguments and whatnot. I would be respectful because I understand that going to their place of worship and causing a commotion is uncalled for and doesn't benefit anyone. To be clear, I'm not trying to say that veganism is a religion because it is not and it is not viewed in the same way as religion is by its followers. I am merely using the analogy to illustrate how you should act when going into a community that you are not a part of.
In my experience it is not NEARLY as prevalent as when someone learns that you are vegan or finds out about vegan communities and whatnot. People make countless memes about vegans for example, but when was the last time you saw a meme about someone choosing to eat Halal? Because to my knowledge there is no scientific study on the different experiences of these groups it is impossible to talk about this topic in any way that isn't anecdotal but for what it's worth I have been all over the US and the anecdotal experience that I have had is so overwhelming that I refuse to believe someone is arguing in good faith if they are claiming that, for example, someone eating Halal has even a remotely similar experience to that of vegans.
My guess is that this is because people tend to associate other dietary or lifestyle decisions as being just a different way to live. Like oh, that person is Muslim or Jewish and that influences their diet. And they don't take that as a personal judgement anymore than they do when they learn that that person is Muslim or Jewish to begin with. But with veganism it is usually not something that a person is raised into. It is a decision that that person has made after learning more about the animal agriculture industry and it is usually for ethical reasons primarily. Not because a religious book told them to. Therefore they hear that someone is vegan and are instantly defensive in a way that isn't true with halal, kosher, etc.
There is a big difference between getting a solid idea for what will happen before testing and literally being able to see the future as clearly as the present. If a software developer literally can see the future and already knows what error will occur if he tries to run the code then he would not run it. Or to use the engineer example, let's say someone is creating a humanoid robot which is still in the early phases of development but the creator believes that it has just reached a point where it is able to sort of balance for a second. First of all, he can't KNOW that it's at that point without testing. And even if he has a very good idea that it is probably at that point he certainly won't know exactly how it is going to fail eventually during the test. If the designer is all-knowing then he would literally know every force that is applied to the robot as it attempts to stand, the exact way that it will stumble down to the minutiae, etc. There is no reason, not for fun, not for learning, literally no logical reason to run that test in that case.
I also agree that religion is a bunch of BS but if I were to try to come up with a justification to the question of why an all-knowing creator would test their creation, I would say that it isn't for the sake of the creator but rather to teach the person they are testing about themselves or some BS like that. That being said, I think there are many many ways that you can poke holes in the logic of a creator being all-knowing, just, and all-powerful; all three of which are claimed by believers. Alternatively, you can also focus on the all-knowing aspect specifically by illustrating that it is impossible for free will to exist if god is all-knowing. At least not the version of free will that most people refer to. If you want to claim that free will can exist even if there is only one possible time line then that's another argument.
Did you block it before or after taking the time out of your day to post this useless comment? And can you show me on the doll where it hurts?
In my experience they often do go vegan overnight though. The key tends to be actually connecting the food on your plate with where it came from and accepting that animals are capable of suffering. Once that connection is made, animal products simply aren't seen as food anymore and going vegan overnight is the only logical conclusion.
Some people may be further along the spectrum towards being vegan when this connection is actually made but regardless of if you are vegetarian, "only eat free range meat", or an unapologetic meat eater, once the connection is made they are vegan.
(Not who you replied to) I think they might be more concerned about the possibility of Trump being in power than the litigation being shelved as a result.
Makes sense. What a ridiculous statement to have made to begin with though.
There are tons of great content creators in the coffee world. One of the one's that I felt I learned a lot from in the beginning especially was Lance Hedrick. Here's a shorter overview sort of video that will help a lot to get started (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohzsOjkYf5M). And a slightly longer more in depth guide that he's made as well (https://youtu.be/kVEvII6YalE?si=1VZG48hkWNszD-kN). Emilee Bryant is another great content creator that makes similar videos.
As far as what equipment you need goes, it sounds like you probably have everything you need to get started. I don't know what the milk jug looks like that comes with that machine or if it even does or if you're using it, but I will say that I think that having a quality milk pitcher can make your life easier. That's not to say that you can't use what you have because you almost certainly can. But if you're looking for cheap ways to improve your setup that might be where I would start but again, it is almost certainly unnecessary to see improvement. Ultimately, making latte art is just something that you have to practice. Where the videos and advice from other people comes into play is knowing how to practice. But you're still going to have to put in the work.
Some general advice that I can give: latte art is a result of many small variables all being controlled at once. Some of the variables have a smaller impact on the final product and others are much more crucial to focus on, especially in the beginning. Knowing what went wrong and how to fix it is a skill all on it's own, but in order to get to that point, first you have to even be aware of what those variables are. Some of the big ones off of the top of my head that I think would be good to focus on as a beginner
-Milk texture: If you don't have good milk texture it will be much harder or potentially impossible to make art. There are plenty of videos talking about how to steam milk and what good texture looks like for latte art. I would recommend looking that up if you are interested in learning more about that. In fact, as a beginner I would say that you should really put most of your effort into working on this before anything else. Here's a video on the topic to get you started (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTC3dJvwgUI)
-Spout proximity: When you are adding your initial milk to the espresso before you start your art you want the pitcher to be high up so that the milk builds up speed from the fall and sinks below the surface and incorporates with the espresso to make your drink. When you start your art you want the pitcher to be very close (think approximately 1 cm) to the surface of the drink so that you can gently "place" the foam on top and it doesn't have time to pick up speed and fall through. I see many beginners try to make art with the spout of their pitcher way too high and no design appears as a result. In fact, if you place a blob of foam down first and then intentionally lift your pitcher up, you can actually sink that blob of foam.
-Flow rate: the velocity of the milk coming out of the pitcher at various stages of the pour is an important factor in your art. I won't go into how and when and why you should be pouring faster or slower since it's honestly really not the thing to focus on now and there are plenty of videos that could do a better job anyway. Just be aware of flow rate as a concept and notice how flow rate affects the way the milk behaves in different situations.
-Timing: This is a bit of a broad category, but generally speaking, there are several critical moments when pouring latte art that we should be thinking about. First of all, when you let milk sit in the pitcher the foam will start to separate from the more dense liquid. We don't want that. So as a general rule of thumb, once you've steamed your milk you should be trying to keep it moving as much as possible by swirling it in the pitcher to prevent that separation. What you described as "a blob circle of foam that pours into the cup at the very end" could very well be caused by letting it separate before pouring. What happens when you do that is the liquid all comes out first and only at the end does the foam come out. It could also be a milk texture issue or spout proximity issue though. Once you've actually started pouring, knowing when to stop incorporating milk and to start your art is very important too. If you do it too soon, you won't have added much foam in the cup yet and the design will flow across the surface of the mug like water and hit the far wall. If you do it too late the foam will be stiff and you won't have much room left in the cup meaning you will have a hard time getting any momentum at all, causing a small design.
Anyway... I'm done rambling now I suppose, lol. Apologies for the wall of text. To summarize, you don't need any more equipment to see improvement. I would focus on milk texture as a pretty high priority, but also at least start thinking about these other things as you're pouring even if you can't control every variable at first (hint: you won't be able to and that's okay). At least that way you have something to actually think about and ask yourself afterwards, "was the milk too foamy? did it separate too much? how was my spout proximity? did I start my art too early/late?" etc.
Good luck!
Thank you. That's about what I suspected. And an email may not technically be a paywall but imo if they're going to sell it or even just use it to spam me with shit that's just another form of payment. I could make a fake email address or something but honestly I'm not going to go through all of that for what seems like a clearly shitty article from that parts that I can see.