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Keurig 2.0 Genuine K-Cup Spoofing Vulnerability
An anonymous reader writes A security researcher has released a humorous vulnerability description for the Keurig 2.0 coffee maker, which includes DRM designed to only brew Keurig brand coffe pods (K-Cups): "Keurig 2.0 Coffee Maker contains a vulnerability in which the authenticity of coffee pods, known as K-Cups, uses weak verification methods, which are subject to a spoofing attack through re-use of a previously verified K-Cup." The vulnerability description even includes mitigating controls, such as keeping the Keurig in a locked cabinet when not in use.
Also at Hackaday.
Holy fuck! These pirated K-Cups are going to hurt the whole industry!
And they don't care if YOU the home user violate their profit, they care if somebody selling cups by the crate does it.
It's like a courtesy lock, it's only there to tell people you don't want them in, not to stop criminals.
K-Cups? Is this like inkjet printers? Can these genuises work out how i can spoof my lexmark pro?
I demand additional ineffective security procedures for my Nespresso machine. I'm completely ineffectively unprotected.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I know someone who keeps a genuine k-cup lid around and just sets it on top of the off-brand cup every time he uses his machine.
Why in the hell would anybody buy a coffee maker that uses DRM to prevent using "non-genuine" coffee?
deserves to be DRM'd (now a verb!).
Oh, you thought this was a joke? Lawyers laugh last.
And here you are, posting on Slashdot...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Considering the impact on the environment of pods that just ends up in the garbage there's now two reasons not to buy them.
OK, the coffee they make isn't bad, but what's wrong with an ordinary espresso machine?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I can only imagine how expensive that must be. The last pair of double-D's set me back a fortune before it was all said and done. Although, they were nice.
rm -Rf /home/kitchen/keurig
I fixed my Keurig problem. I now have $25 standard coffee pot in the kitchen.
This smacks of IBM and the PS/2. Long after they lost control of the market they created, they attempted to force their own propeitary expansion bus and other architecture on everyone. The end result is that the market took from them the few bits they liked and shoved them aside like yesterday's trash.
With so many alternatives out there, why on earth would anyone buy this idiotic machine that attempts to force you to use their cups yet fails miserably at doing do?
Waste.
Keurigs one selling point is that only coffee that is wanted gets made(baring people who toss it after it gets cold). I can't tell you the number of pots of coffee I made that I have thrown out. Probably around 30%. The k cups allow only coffee that is desired to be made at the cost of extra plastic waste. Bonus you can get increased variations of coffee. ao different people can get the different flavors they want including hot chocolates and teas for those who don't drink coffee.
You can't do that with just any coffee maker easily.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Or someone likes to have fun.
The machines are designed to need less maintenance and to be mess-free when operating. If it's hooked to a water-line, put in the pod, put in the cup, push button, pick up filled cup, throw away pod.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Keurig coffee, with all their DRM, just adds to our waste-plastic problem and costs about twice as much as coffee you grind at home. (http://goo.gl/NiVJ8D)
Get yourself a stainless steel cup, throw some coffee in there, and use the pilfered K-Cup tag to make it all work together.
Internet of Things.
Where all manner of previously easy to use appliances and household goods come with phone-home DRM for "added value".
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
It really isn't that great of coffee. It's not bad, just a quick cup of mediocre coffee done quickly.
But the appeal has always been coffee in about 30 seconds, with only a button to push, and no cleanup.
Having both a keurig and a single serve espresso machine: in the mornings I'll go with the Keurig -- coffee's ready by the time i finish leashing up the dogs and getting ready to take them outside. If i want an actual cup of coffee to relax and enjoy though; the espresso machine wins 100% of the time.
But I think it is the other waste factor that people are more concerned about, trash generated per cup of coffee.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I now forgive you in perpetuity for Bennett Haselton and Dicevertisements...
Mostly from ignorance (It' not like the box will have "Uses electric verification to reject physically compatible coffees!" on the box in big friendly letters), but partly from being trained to expect physical incompatibility with products that use a "machine and consumable cartridges business model" like this (razors and blades, printers and ink, etc.)
So if they try a coffee and it doesn't work they assume it's a physical incompatibility and resume buying the branded ones that they know will work.
My wife went from making 4-8 cups of coffee a day to making the 1-2 she actually drank.
My cost is about 80% less buying these things (because she is not over making coffee). We empty them when done and toss them into the recycle bin. She also many times grinds her own (as she did before).
So I predict that the v3 of these things each cup will have a semi unique serial number . Then they scan that and if they see the same sn more than once or say in the past 30 cups made. Just enough to be a PITA. Which is all that is needed for effective DRM.
DRM does not stop determined people. It just needs to slow down the lazy.
Considering the impact on the environment of pods that just ends up in the garbage there's now two reasons not to buy them.
OK, the coffee they make isn't bad, but what's wrong with an ordinary espresso machine?
(1) A Keurig doesn't make espresso -- its pressure is nowhere high enough. (2) Cost: if you really want espresso worth making at home, you're going to pay a LOT more than it costs for a Keurig. (Well, in the short-term anyway; if you keep buying the K-cups, maybe not.)
Anyhow, I would never have bought one of these things myself, but I was given one by a family member something like 6 or 7 years ago. She had used it, but had some trouble with hard water clogging things up, and eventually she got Keurig to send a replacement. But they requested that she remove the insert that allowed you to actually use K-cups, rather than sending the whole thing back.
The flaw in that scheme was that Keurig makes a different sort of permanent plastic "cup" that could be refilled with coffee grounds, allowing you to brew whatever kind of coffee you wanted. But in order to use it -- guess what? -- you needed to remove the insert.
Anyhow, after they had already sent the replacement, it too malfunctioned briefly, and this family member tried cleaning the old one -- and now it worked! (But obviously they didn't have the "DRM" insert to actually use K-cups with it, so they could only brew with actual coffee grounds.) Later they got the new one working again, so now they just had a spare sitting around... which was given to me.
It still works, 7 years later. I've never bought a single proprietary K-cup or even any off-brand ones. I've only ever used it to brew whatever coffee I grind at home.
I would sometimes use it for a fast cup of coffee, but eventually I grew tired of the inferior flavor and went back to a french press.
Point is -- at least with older models, you could brew with your own coffee grounds if you removed the insert and bought the special reusable thing for the grounds (which maybe cost $10 -- an amount you'd save even after a couple boxes of K-cups).
In that case, the environmental impact is really quite minimal and probably better than some other traditional home-brewing methods, since you only heat up enough water for a single serving at a time, rather than people who tend to make a pot of coffee in their drip coffee pot and then never finish the pot or let it sit on the burner keeping warm for hours.
Sounds like the HP and IBM law suits over printer cartridge lock-in.
This is *exactly* the kind of thing that the DMCA was made to prevent! Tape is a circumvention device and should be banned! (Since there was recently an article here about how the DMCA is being abused, so I'm itching for them to issue a DMCA takedown against this article so I can add it to the list of reasons to repeal the DMCA).
I would rather end up with liquid coffee and coffee grounds as waste products. The plastic and mylar? Not so much.
You know, they've had ground coffee in various flavors for literally decades, it's a solved problem. You can buy the bean whole or ground.
Maybe, maybe not ... but they've had this remarkable invention called a kettle for most of recorded human history.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
1. Go to your favorite sore that carries coffee makers
2. Purchase a drip, french press or percolator, or whatever type I missed as per your wishes.
3. Buy some coffee at the same store. This may come as a shock to many people, but there is a large variety of typs of coffees out there. Different grinds, or grind your own - it is amazing I tell you, must be something new. Keurig is not the only company out there. I'm partial to a brand roasted in Philly, that I purchase from of all places, a diner in Rio Grande, New Jersey. But I digress.
Brew your own fucking coffee the way we used to do it when men were men, and the sheep knew to be respectful. Enjoy it on the patio, yelling at kids to get off the lawn.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
And the advantage over a "generic" coffee machine capable of brewing single cups is...?
I'm not a big coffee drinker, I had a roommate with an espresso machine for a while - brewed at most two cups at a time. After brewing you throw away the grounds, rinse the strays out of the "cup", and you're good to go again. Like a cast iron pan, it's only used when exposed to germ-killing heat so you don't even have to wash it unless except occasionally to prevent buildup of unpleasantly flavored residues. And it takes what, 2 seconds longer? You'll spend a lot more than that paying for those expensive little pre-packaged coffee scoops.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Trash generated in the household per cup of coffee, you mean. I wonder how much waste is produced by the whole supply chain of coffee beans -> your home? It's like that electric car thing where you still need to generate power somewhere, and if you're not using clean energy, you're just moving the location of the pollution.
Okay the cups are probably greater magnitude of waste but still, unused coffee does have a higher cost than just "pour it down the drain".
A malicious attacker could substitute toxic fake coffee or hot chocolate for the real thing.
A malicious attacker could also substitute a coffee or hot chocolate that is tainted with a chemical that creates slight etchings in the surface of the coffee cup or other cup used to hold the end product. For certain types of cups, the result will be a cup that will be more likely to harbor bacterial growth than one with a smooth surface. Assuming a successful attack, the risk of illness or fatality is low for a healthy adult but it might be significant for a person with a suppressed or compromised immune system.
Recommended mitigation:
Keep people who want to kill you away from your coffee maker.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As another person pointed out - a coffee filter and used up coffee grounds not that detrimental to the environment - there's a high level of biodegrability there.
Plastic cups? Not so much.
This also negates the fact that from a cost perspective, regular ground coffee (even better varieties) cost significantly less than K-cups. You may be financially ahead throwing out your extra.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
How
Fucking
Handy.
And so cool that the last people get their cup long after the first are done, or more likely if the guests have manners, the first will wait ahile their coffee gets cold.
In a world where people become lazier ever day, it's hard to imagine how such a waste of time would ever catch on.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize Keurig users don't have any friends. Carry on.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The 2.0 can brew a cup or carafe of coffee depending on the pack inserted. They are just using rfid to differentiate. If they can not differentiate they don't brew.
Well given that we had an "article" on turning your monitor sideways it must be a very, very slow news day.
I don't even know what you're talking about here. Up until a year or so ago, none had DRM. And you don't need to remove anything to use your own coffee grounds. I have quite a few reusable K-cup sized filters that I've been utilizing to put my own grounds in forever without modifying the machine. I've never actually met anyone that didn't have at least one -- eventually if you drink coffee, you realize how much money you could save with one of those versus the K-cup.
I use the Keurig for when I have multiple people wanting something. I like my coffee incredibly strong, so most people don't drink my french press coffee. But with the K-cups, they can get coffee, tea, whatever without me having to expend any extra effort. Makes hosting people easier than reworking my fancy coffee setup for 12-18 cups of coffee.
Well if you don't mind paying 50-100$/pound of coffee, I guess the Keurig thing works out for you. And I suppose if you only drank one cup per day, it might still work to your advantage.
In all seriousness, research the cost differences between traditional coffee makers and coffee vs the Keurig.
"(baring people who toss it after it gets cold)"
Well yes, usually when you're bare you're cold.
" I can't tell you the number of pots of coffee I made that I have thrown out. "
You'll have to change your habits when you live on Mars, eh?
Coffee grounds aren't waste, find someone who gardens and give them to them. They make a wonderful soil amendment and if you have high pH soil it also help lower it some.
Time to offend someone
We have refillable Keurig coffee cups and grind our own beans. Our own setup is virtually trash free other than the empty bags of beans.
Trolling is a art,
Here in Montreal some dude has a mushroom growing kit that grows on a bag filled with coffee grounds. They were the most intensely flavored mushrooms I ever tasted. I was like getting hit in the face by a boxing glove made of mushrooms.
Mostly random stuff.
My own personal coffee hack has eliminated 100% of the would-be trash and environmental impact: I don't drink it. Feel free to bask in my holier-than-thou light.
Tassimo
Nespresso
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
in the Java run time environment
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
What? Impact on the "environment"? Just stuff them in the recycle bin.
We recycle everything that our center will take--little cups like the K-Cups, etc. We contact manufacturers if it isn't evident that a "thing" can be recycled.
All of this is very simple and easy to do. We have done this for years.
Really just awesome. Hey can someone down mod me to negative bazillion?
"And you don't need to remove anything to use your own coffee grounds."
Wrong. There is no My K-Cup or derivative thereof that doesn't require you to remove the insert in the machine that has the needle in the bottom of it -- the one used to puncture the bottoms of the pre-made K-Cups.
Cheers.
So you're trading biodegradable coffee waste for persistent plastic waste that takes more net energy to produce, how is that a win?
Please share the info, I'm pretty sure other people here live in (or near) Montreal.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
It's horrifying, M$ should do something quick.
I was like getting hit in the face by a boxing glove made of mushrooms.
Sounds like they were some pretty good mushrooms. were you also at a pink floyd concert by chance?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Too bad you can't easily use the coffee grounds when they're encased in dozens of stupid little plastic cups.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Please keep the discussion to coffee. I'm straight, as is most of the population, and I don't want to know what you do when you go to San Francisco
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
For infringing DMCA, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, circumvention and dissemination of DRM, racketeering, leading to losses of [pinkie] One Billion Dollars [/pinkie] to Keurig.
Stand by for completely over-the-top reaction from the Establishment.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
We use something like these which are dirt cheap at just about any drug store:
http://topicspill.com/2013/01/03/official-cafe-cup-website-reusable-coffee-cup-you-can-fill-with-your-own-coffee/
We use K cups because we're lazy, but if we're go tot he trouble the refillable cup above drops in just like the real deal. It sounds like 2.0 (without the hack in TFA) would end that.
>virtually trash free other than the empty bags of beans.
that's not virtual or trash free.
The way demonstrated in the video is a pretty ugly way to fix the problem, you have to constantly put your fake lid on top of the cup you make. Towards the back left side of the piece that lowers down there's some kind of small optical sensor that looks for the keurig border that's only on keurig cups -- if you peel the label off one you can cut out a small piece of just the border and tape it directly under the sensor -- you just have to make sure it's lined up the way it expects and you'll never have to futz with an extra lid again. Some quick scissor work and a piece of scotch tape and it's been going strong for probably around 2 months now.
This is why I used a cafetiere for the longest time.
I made all the coffee I wanted to drink at once, and the only waste was the grounds (and yes, it seems I'm wasting them, thanks for the tips about using them as soil improvement, sibling poster.
Now I use an Aeropress.
It makes better coffee, at the cost of a small circle of filter paper as waste. The grounds are much easier to deal with because it compresses them into a puck. I may even start saving them for my herb garden....
Wrong. I have these
I usually use these with my Keurig. Ocasionally I use standard K-Cups. No need to remove/reinsert the insert.
And for that convenience you sell your control over your coffee maker.
I mean, seriously. It's a hot water machine with DRM on it. If the bottled water guys get hold of this idea, they'll make a kettle that only boils when you put the cap from the bottle into a slot. See what a ludicrous idea that is?
I have an Aeropress. You put a paper filter, and coffee in it. When you're done, you're left with a puck of coffee grounds which you eject into your (compost) bin.
You then rinse it under the tap and enjoy your coffee. Maintenance done.
I was waving at you but I guess the dancing Nazi hammers had you pretty distracted, maaaaan.
"Keurigs one selling point is that only coffee that is wanted gets made"
My Breville Youbrew (I have no affiliation...) does that, too. The amount is variable from a small cup through a full pot. Strength is adjustable. No extra waste if you use the gold foil basket. Plus, it will grind fresh beans immediately before brewing. So, the only incremental costs are coffee beans, water and electricity.
And, if you just want hot water, or want to fill the basket with something other than ground beans from the hopper, you can do that, too.
All easily done by pushing a few buttons.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I see your problem right there, dude. You gotta upgrade that machine to one of those expresso machines. They're way faster.
Tassimos also use proprietary pods. Nespresso's patent has expired and there is competition, but most of it sucks (unlike the situation with Keurig)
Freedom Clip: Clips onto your Keurig over the DRM sensor hole so you don't have to mess with extra foil.
https://www.gourmet-coffee.com...
We have a Keurig (which we won... didn't buy it) and were concerned about waste. My wife bought a reusable K-cup and buys coffee in bulk. She scoops in the appropriate amount of coffee into the reusable K-cup, brews her cup of coffee, and then dumps the grinds/washes the reusable K-cup. Every so often, she runs the reusable K-cup in the dishwasher.
Of course, Keurig 2.0 would flag her reusable K-cup as a non-allowed K-cup and wouldn't let her brew coffee. This is a big reason why we won't be buying a Keurig 2.0.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Did you see "Keurig" in the title and think "Hey, I better let people know what my coffee regimen is".
FYI: This isn't a survey.
Get a reusable K-cup. Then you can use whatever coffee you want and dump only the grinds (or put them into a garden). Of course, you can't do this with Keurig 2.0's DRM which is why we're sticking with our "1.0" model.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
because the management of the place where I work decided to put one in
Those makers that force me to use Genuine Coffee (tm) have been a godsend! Before I started using K-cups, sometimes in my morning pre-caffeine foggy haze, I'd end up putting all kids of shit in my "standard" coffee maker. Pencil shavings, oatmeal, cheerios- I even packed an entire bag of pork rinds in there once! Some things were surprisingly good- I still make Fruit Loop coffee to this day- but others were absolutely horrible (pork rinds only sound good in theory). Ever since I switched to my Keurig, I have been saved from myself countless times. No more gagging on nutmeg, no more iron filings! So to answer your question, *I* am the one keeping Keurig in business! You can have my K-cups when you pry them from cold, dead hands!!!!!
I've had better coffee from a coffee percolator than from a K-Cup. It's simpler too, if you have one with a mesh screen you don't need filters and easily rinses out if you don't leave the coffee in it all day. Else you can scrub it out with a long handled brush when it starts smelling like old coffee. (for me the percolator coffee seems to do the best job at high altitude, start boiling at about 92C for me)
Since K-Cup's can't make espresso (not enough enough pressure), no need to compare it to a proper espresso machine. It's simply an elaborate drip coffee maker. A $30 Mr. Coffee from Costco will also make a fine drip coffee. You can use expensive unbleached compostable paper filters if you want, they're still a few percent of what each K-Cup costs.
My compost pile loves used coffee grounds.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Thanks for taking the time to clear that up ace.
I agree. Keurig is trying to sell Keurig 2.0 which has limited selection since you can't use "Keurig 1.0" pods in it. I'm guessing somebody will make a Keurig 1.0 compatible coffee brewer (if they haven't already). This will immediately have a large selection of pods that can be used in it, thanks to Keurig 1.0's success. A couple of years from now, talking about making quick cups of coffee might refer to SOME_OTHER_MAKER machines and not Keurig.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The issue is that I pretty much only drink coffee at the office, and there's no way I'd be able to convince all my coworkers to switch. (At home, all I own is a cheap french press that I barely use.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
High pH would be very alkaline. I guess you meant low pH, because it's a common myth that coffee grounds are very acidic. They are pretty near to neutral and actually get more basic as they decompose.
I just measured the pH of some coffee grounds here in my kitchen. The results ---> 6.9
Keurig K-Cups are for people who don't know how to make coffee. Where did their coffee come from and how old is it? Is it a blend or single origin? What roast is it, or is it a blend of different roasts? What's the grind? What is the temperature of the water in the machine?
I roast green coffee beans, let them rest for a day, grind the beans just right for whatever method I'm going to use to make the coffee (drip, espresso, French press), and brew with good filtered water at the right temperature for just the right amount of time. Even $tarbuck$ can't come close.
Dear valued customer,
Our software is software is special, copyrighted stuff,
Just because the machine you bought contains it, does not mean you have a licence to use it for just anything.
To help you remember, we use DRM.
Just remember that circumvention of DRM to avoid a copyright issue is a federal offense.
Have a nice day.
Their marketing plan is a clever way to circumvent the need to make customers happy.
If you don't have any, you don't have to make them happy.
Clearly, that is their goal.
I wonder what the street price of a pre-2.0 machine is these days?
Yep. Pointy-haired-bosses make up the bulk of Keurig's market.
My grandmother used coffee grounds for her roses. Luckily I remembered that when I got my house and they work great!
You CAN do this with other coffee makers! There are other coffee makers almost exactly like Keurig doing the same thing without DRM, there is even a standard for this so that you can buy your coffee pods from multiple vendors. They're paper pods not plastic. Some even allow using the pod or a small scoop instead, with the same machine. There is nothing whatsoever that Keurig does that another vendor does not also do.
The difference is that Keurig seems to be borrowing a business practice from HP, sell the machines cheap, sell the cartridges/pods with a big markup, and do whatever it takes to forbid the use of cartridges/pods from third parties.
The sad thing is that even with all the varieties of coffee makers that take pods and which take pods from third parties, superior to Keurig, if you hit any major department store you will only see Keurig being sold. That is the only reason it is popular.
Not sure if you know, but the original K-cups were not DRM encumbered.
Its the new 2.0 cups that have this protection built in.
However, overall efficiency is still higher for electric cars even after repeated transformations. An ICE is like a traditional incandescent lightbulb - it converts energy to heat primarily. Side effect is you get a tiny amount of useful energy emitted as well - either as motion or light. But most of the energy stored ends up dumped as heat.
And honestly, it's far easier to clean up a dirty power plant than it is to clean up a million tailpipes. It did take a long while for catalytic converters to basically be standard, and mostly because old cars without catalytic converters were scrapped. Whereas a power plant can be cleaned up in a few years and even modern coal power plants are far more efficient than an ICE.
You can make smaller pots of coffee quite easily.
The real reason people like Keurig is because it's far more convenient - cup under spout, pod in top, hit two buttons (power and cup) and coffee in 30 seconds. Especially at inconvenient times of the day, say after waking up.
They were selling these at my local coffee shop.
Its just a cardboard box, some spores, and coffee grounds.
These aren't the people who were doing it at my local shop, but it looks like they are local to me too.
Maybe there are many people doing these kits now.
mushroom kit group
Then don't waste either the plastic or the coffee. Just buy a machine other than Keurig that uses small single-serving scoops or which uses standard paper pods.
I've got one of those too and they are very good. I got it specifically because it does the cup at a time. Their tea maker is amazing.
No... I'm pretty sure it would inject water.
Now the next revision will have a mandatory internet connection so they can blacklist used cups.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Another Aeropress fan here! It's perfect for me since I'm the only one in the house that drinks coffee. I do have a standard drip machine for when we have guests and I need more than one cup at a time.
I discovered the wonders of Aeropress on a coffee-related Ask Slashdot a few years ago.
Redundancy is good And also good.
I bet they'll still call them "K Cups" but like the modern "PC", the new generation will have no idea where the name comes from.
The coffee doesn't power the maker, your analogy is shit on a stick.
And there are other brands of espresso makers doing exactly the same thing, with more recyclable pods, without DRM, and which use a standardized pod used by many vendors. Those that don't explicitly use pods often have metal baskets that accept the pods. And other machines that are more normal coffee makers but which will still make single or double cup servings in a few minutes with easy clean up. Yes, some of those espresso makers that take pods are very expensive, but there are cheaper versions that are competitive with Keurig.
There are some machines that take either a scoop of fresh ground, or a Keurig cup, or a coffee pod, for $50. Why stick to Keurig then and be stuck with a single source DRM encumbered system? Keurig literally has no competitive advantage over the competition except for good marketing and exclusivity deals.
http://www.podmerchant.com/cof...
http://aerobie.com/Products/ae...
And other vendors can make you coffee from a pod in one or two minutes with little to no cleanup, but without the DRM.
wow. that looks cool.
...
I hadn't paid attention to consumer kitchen appliances but I bought a Breville Blender and I've been nothing but impressed with it... I didn't want to spend the dough on a vitamix or whatever those thigns are
I wish I could find a toaster oven that works as well as my Krups (which is itself kind of a piece of shit but works better than any other toaster oven I've ever owned).
ok, so I'm off topic.
So does the stove top expresso machine it makes one cup nous more on les. Bonus: no plastic wasted. When you get the hang of it...notre much longer to make.
Have you heard of soda-stream before? :) They went even farther. You don't 'own' the bottle, you lease it. It uses a booby trapped connector that AFAIK will mechanically fail when attempting to refill a bottle with non-sanctioned compressors.
Does anyone else think these K-cups are extremely wasteful and possibility toxic? We had one these machines at my last work. Basically the machines pokes a hole and then pumps hot water thorough thin plastic. The garbage bin was full of these k cups which a normal coffee pot would just dispose of a paper filter and coffee grinds. I don't think they are recyclable due to the insides.... unless someone was to rip one open and take out the grinds. I hope these things get discontinued.
Keurig 2.0 machines brew K-Cup packs and larger K-Carafe packs. The new generation may not know what the K is but they will know what the Cup part is because you get one cup (200-250 mL) of beverage out of it.
I use a French press, beans, and a grinder. Zero waste other than the grounds (and if I had a yard, I could compost them). The grinder's a hand-cranked model, so the only power used is to heat the water.
I've been making coffee this way for years, but never thought about the fact that it's also very conservative of resources until now.
And I despise the capsule-style makers on general principles; as for Keurig--if I won't accept DRM for my music and video, I sure am as fuck not going to accept it for my coffee.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
However, overall efficiency is still higher for electric cars even after repeated transformations.
Totally off topic and likely wrong. Storing energy in a battery is wildly inefficient and when you couple the transmission and generation losses along the path from say Natural Gas -> Steam -> AC electricity -> DC Electricity -> battery -> motion there is a lot of energy lost. I'm not sure, but I'd not be surprised if you don't actually burn MORE Natural Gas going the EV route than a standard internal combustion engine would. All that transmission and conversion loss is going to really burn up a lot of energy, as will the losses of the battery which are a lot higher than you might think.
So the previous poster was right... EV's are NOT as clean as they appear to run, and don't get me started on the industrial waste they produce being made and scrapped.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The coffee doesn't power the maker, your analogy is shit on a stick.
I don't know, they might have something there... I'm pretty sure at 6 AM the coffee at least EMPOWERS the maker (me).
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Shouldn't it be CRM? Where "C" stands for "Coffee"?
There are reusable k cup like holders for scoops of geound coffee. No waste produced other than the grounds and left over coffee.
The coffee is entirely too weak and the cup is friggin' plastic. People complain about water bottles but not about this.
If the fork() commad has been run 1 or more times, you've got a full on rootkit there.
I mean, I understand the PHB/corporate group think that thinks this useful, but why, when I can get a perfectly good non-DRM official Keurig from amazon for less than I would pay for a Keurig 2.0? And no, it is not some discontinued model, it is the #1 best seller on Amazon.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Wait, you're seriously complaining about the possible waste of undrunk biodegradable coffee, and suggesting expensive disposible plastic pods as the solution?
The poster you replied to specifically said "an ordinary espresso machine"; from your reply ("waste") I gather that you are unfamiliar with how a typical home espresso machine works. They typically make one (or some larger machines two) cups of espresso at a time, and they use steam forced through a reusable metal cup with tiny holes in it. There is no extra coffe to get cold, there is not even a filter to toss away: just take out the cup and tap it with the metal part of the handle that twists off when you release teh cup, and the grounds fall into the garbage/compost bucket (coffee grounds make great compost). The steam means that the cup is sanitized on every use, so you don't need to wash it more than once a month or so, and measuring a couple of spoons of fresh coffee into the cup is super easy and quick.
If you are afraid that a home espresso maker is not going to make a nice "regular" cup of coffee, you might be surprised to find that if you buy some nice coffee and try it out, it will likely make a much nicer cup of coffee than your k-cup machine; the beans are the most important thing about your coffee.
You're seriously a moron if you think Keurig has coffee worth pirating.
You can, however, replace it with a different one and refill it with $20 for 20 lb CO2. Cost about $100 to get the equipment, but pays for itself after one full CO2 container. Simple and passes the wife acceptance test.
Your comments about efficiency losses for natural gas maybe true, but then you need to be be fair and consider all the energy that goes into extracting refining and distributing gasoline and diesel. Lotta shizz there.
The cups are not recyclable. They also contain coffee so your argument that brewing a traditional pot of coffee also produces waste is negated since both systems use coffee but only one leaves behind an un recyclable K Cup.
It wouldn't be if "virtual" and "trash free" were both meant to describe the setup independently of each other. Since "virtually" actually describes "trash free," the usage is correct. If you're going to be a pedant, at least be a correct pedant.
Does it pass the dead Palestinian children test?
Hell, C-Cups are already enough for me!
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
That's cute. If the plastic is unrecyclable you've just pushed the problem onto recyclers. You probably spoiled their batch.
While it's possible to recycle plastic back into usable fuel, or to make new items that pretty much never happens.
Recycled plastic is simply ground up and used as filler in more plastic items. A lot of which never get recycled.
Counterfeit pods to defeat DRM are all well and good, but I won't be impressed until someone makes one of these heaps of wasted technology make a real cup of coffee. And I won't be holding my breath.
Yes high pH soil is alkaline but a lot of plants people grow in their garden like a lower pH slightly acidic soil. I unfortunately live in an area with high pH soil (about 9 naturally) as it use to be a riverbed for a tributary of Glacial River Warren. I know that coffee grounds don't do much for soil pH and if that was the only benefit you were seeking you would be better served by adding some elemental sulfur or a bunch of peat moss to acidify the soil. Than again most people don't care all that much about their soil in their gardens and just use copious amounts of fertilizers or just change the dirt out periodically instead of trying to improve the soil quality. I have been slowly transforming the dirt in my garden into basically a form of terra preta.
Time to offend someone
He said espresso machine, though. Espresso machines make single espresso shots at a time, not whole pots.
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com
I hope Keurig competitors are taking notice. Having to hack your way around their lame DRM in order to enjoy the coffee that you want is stupid. This is such an anti-consumer move on Keurig's part.
My own personal coffee hack has eliminated 100% of the would-be trash and environmental impact: I don't drink it. Feel free to bask in my holier-than-thou light.
I don't drink coffee, either, but these single cup machines allow for other hot beverages (such as hot chocolate)
No centralized food waste collection where you live? If you have a fireplace you use, dry them out and burn 'em. Failing that, I wonder if flushing them would be a net win.
Now that you mention it, all the household trash gets burnt for electricity here, so I guess even that part's really not all that wasteful.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And the fossil fuel needed to get that Juan Valdez and his damn donkey to the kitchen so he can give me the damn coffee beans.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I think if you compost the used Keurig cups and use the compost to grow coffee, when it fruits the coffee comes out prepackaged in K cups.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Same thing I use to do... didn't make sense paying basically .50 per cup of coffee with real k-cups, the trash, the time wasted opening the k-cups to compost the grounds... just didn't make sense (not to mention the coffee couldn't really be sourced so if you're worried about deforestation and/or organic...).
But then I realized I was drinking weak coffee, so the poor old Keurig has turned into just a water heater for a french press lol