site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2254 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 25, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What's the best bang for your buck (in terms of QOL) purchase you've ever made? The cheaper the better.

I'd say in-ear earphones with solid ANC are up there. I'm sitting outside the arrivals section of a busy international airport, and I felt mildly annoyed by the honking and general noise with earphones on and ANC engaged. Then I took them off to check and was practically deafened. Yup, they're cutting down 90% of the cacophony.

I own a pair of Galaxy Buds 3 Pros, purchased at about £130. I think they sound great, the ANC isn't quite as good as the Airpods I bought my brother on his birthday, but it's clearly a cut above my older Buds 2 Pro (Plus?). I happen to prefer the sound quality, and unless you've got an iPhone, they're about the best you can get on an Android device that isn't rooted and running Libre Pods. In fact, good ANC tends to improve sound quality overall in my experience, as it preserves bass by changing the acoustic impedance.

(The default Android kernel has a buggy, non-compliant Bluetooth stack. Until Google upstreams a patch, you need the root to get actual standards compliance and the ability to make use of all the Airpods' features.)

Easily our cast iron skillet

Have you tried carbon steel? I switched out my cast iron skillet for one of those and I wouldn't go back. It gets rip roaring hot and lasts forever like cast iron, and it's much easier to cook with because it's so much lighter (though admittedly that does mean it retains less heat). I highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't tried one, as to me they more or less are a straight upgrade from cast iron.

I have a carbon steel wok, and it seems like the ideal material for that (light enough for wok tossing, quick temperature changes when I need them), but I can't see why I'd want it for a skillet. My wok doesn't season as nicely as my cast iron skillet, I don't move my skillet around while cooking so I don't care about light weight, and I do care about heavy weight - retaining as much heat as possible when we (sometimes over-...) load it with steaks is like 90% of the point of that skillet! For anything that doesn't need a long sear, what's the advantage of a carbon steel skillet over (thick, quality) stainless?

If you're interested, Chris Young has a video about different pan materials.

Cast iron retains heat but doesn't move it very quickly, so the pan directly under your steak gets cold, and the heat in other parts of the pan is slow to move in. Thick, quality, (sandwiched around aluminum) stainless is his ultimate recommendation.

Not that that stops me from cooking in cast iron, but I found it interesting.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats