If you had any idea the kind of info that mothers and daughters have to talk about, you wouldn’t worry about helping your son trim the verge :D

I don’t have a source but I’ve read that young children can learn up to 4 languages at once, without mixing them up, before they show any sign of strain.

I think it’s fair to say that kettles and funnels can be found in non-plastic materials. And I have to admit I’ve never seen an”coffee maker” that wasn’t plastic. I suppose a restaurant grade Bunn machine has a stainless steel basket and a glass carafe, but there isn’t anything for the home. Unless someone is about to tell me I’m wrong, which, this being Reddit, someone probably is.

Sounds like it would amount to much the same thing: you’d need some special wiring, and a kettle made to take advantage of it. No one has made that kettle.

Just curious though, since you seem to understand electricity better than I.

If it’s as you say, and all we need to do to get more energy is to raise the amps, then why do Americans still install 240V lines for laundry machines, ovens, large power tools, etc etc? Why don’t any of those just do what you said, and operate 120V at 30 amps?

You make an interesting case. I haven’t seen one of those that I liked. Just the nasty ones from the 80s that were always crusted over with scale. We do have to descale the Zojirushi often.

Starting from room temperature water to near boiling takes a ton of energy. I don’t know if keeping it hot for 8 hours takes more electricity than starting it back up in the morning.

This made me think.

It seems like it would be a wash in the end. The Zojirushi is insulated, so it stays pretty hot even in the 8 hours it’s turned off overnight. But let’s imagine it is losing a certain amount of heat called “x” per hour.

In the morning I’d have to spend 8x to get it back up to temperature. But it still loses heat even when it’s turned on. So I’m already spending the same x every hour just to keep it on.

Now let’s imagine that the insulation loses x per hour but 4 hours is enough to leak all the heat out. Okay, I’ve lost 4x. But I would have spent 8x to keep it on all night.

So it seems like it can only be a gain to turn it off for certain spells. And that is intuitively obvious, too: turning something off should save energy.

I’m also a woodworker. What do you use a kettle for out there? Mixing your own shellac or wax or something?

You can’t. You can’t use European 240V kettles in the US because of phase differences (or something - an electrician told me so and declined the job to give me an outlet even though he accepted and performed other work for me).

No one to my knowledge has marketed a 240V kettle for the US market. It’s a business idea for anyone who wants to pick it up.

My electric kettle has plastic parts. Also my pour over funnels are plastic. This is not a meaningful distinction between the two.

Yes the preference for coffee over tea is very strong and a lot of people do t drink either.

Another factor is the coffee maker use. Personally I think they’re pointlessly limited machines and they get nasty quick. But people love them for some reason.

I’d love it if someone would market a 240V kettle for the US. I’d install the 240 line for it. I mean I use the damn thing multiple times per day, more than my stove, and that has a 240 line.

Still. I’m not convinced it would make a major difference. Like I said I have a 240V induction stove and I have experimented with how fast I can boil water on that thing in a suitable pot or kettle, versus the 120V electric kettle. It is not a big difference. We’re taking a few seconds.

In the winter months when we’re drinking lots and lots of warm beverages we plug in the Zojirushi hot water carafe and have hot water all the time, instantly. It does consume some energy to keep it hot all the time, but it’s well insulated and we use a timer to turn it off at night and then on again in time for morning wake-up. Eliminates the wait entirely.

Uh we do.

So why does anyone launder money? Isn’t the whole purpose of that to hide conspicuous flows of cash from illegal activities? If it’s safe to pay taxes on ill gotten gains, why launder?

I just mean that the aphorism about drugs dealers is colorful and amusing. I understand it’s making a real point but it’s also funny.

I havent heard that one. That’s rich.

I’d really like to fix the whole mess. Our economy relies on these folks but they are kept a second class, subject to exploitation and prosecution at any time. All so agricultural and construction labor can be got for less than minimum wage. It’s disgusting and broken. And anytime the racists get riled up, they have a legal basis to browbeat everyone with. It’s ridiculous.

I have to wonder how many would ever use it to file for a tax refund though. Wouldn’t that out them to the government?

Yeah you can’t really talk though.

Only 3? Found the optimist!

Yeah I’m pleased for everyone who seems to know this book but I don’t and now I don’t feel like there’s any point i seeing this.

Just as a point of perspective, I’m 51 and my wife is 46. We are entirely independent and on great terms with all our parents. I still don’t relish the idea of staying overnight at her parents house with them.