French press is always going to have some “mouth feel” because of the mesh filters.

I can highly, highly recommend the “Clever” dripper which James Hoffmann reviewed here. It’s very similar to French press in method, great for single serve, almost totally foolproof, and uses paper filters for a very clean cup. I use Hoffmann’s recipe and basically always have a good cup. There’s a similar device called the Hario Switch which some people like more but I haven’t tried it; the Clever has been great.

As for grinding your own, do it. Pre-ground coffee starts to go bad after a day, and just isn’t as good. Start with an inexpensive burr grinder if you don’t want to invest hundreds of dollars right away, but be aware that price/performance increases roughly linearly up to like $250, so spending more gets you a better result. Hand grinders like 1ZPresso can be even better for the price but are a little more work. The nice thing about immersion methods like the Clever though is that they’re more forgiving of bad grinds, so you won’t need to spend too much unless you want to use a drip method like V60.

You’ll also need a cheap scale for weighing beans if you want consistent results. I recommend getting one that goes to 0.1 grams for single serve, with a large enough surface to hold your cup. It shouldn’t cost more than about $20. I use this one.

You’ll also want to experiment with beans. Modern coffee enthusiasts drift towards light to medium roasts instead of dark roasts, because you can extract more subtle interesting flavors and less bitterness. I have a penchant for very light, “natural” processed African coffees for their tart berry flavors. But it’s all personal preference. There’s way too much to get into in terms of processing, country of origin, blend vs single origin, etc. Try everything and see what you like. Coffee subscription services like Trade and Mistobox can be a convenient way to try a lot of things, or you can do what I do and just find a great local roaster to order from.

Btw, welcome! Check out James Hoffmann’s channel on YouTube, it’s my favorite coffee resource on the Internet. He has a ton of great advice in general. If you like print, he also has a small book called “How To Make The Best Coffee At Home” which is excellent and really all you need.

I use Mixel, and I quite like it. Lots of great recipes, you can rate them and save them, it matches based off your ingredients. One of the few apps I’ve happily paid for premium on.

I agree with the mods’ decision, because they have to CYA. Whether a law is right or not is immaterial, they need to protect themselves and Lemmy.world from being taken down by law enforcement, web hosts, or what have you. At the end of the day, “morality” (which we all disagree on) simply doesn’t matter - but material consequences do.

However - piracy is not stealing. Stealing means depriving someone else of something. Cf, “You wouldn’t download a car” - which was hysterical, because of course you would, if it was free and deprived no one of anything.

And is it morally wrong? You assert that like it’s a fact, but obviously many people disagree. What formal system of ethics are you, personally, basing your morals on? Christ? I don’t remember intellectual property mentioned in the Bible. Kant? Maybe - in a world with a categorical imperative to pirate, there might be less incentive to produce piratable content. But I’m not necessarily convinced, because stories, songs, and art all existed prior to the invention of copyright.

Piracy is just copying data around. The moral or ethical implications of that are a matter of personal belief and social norms, which have informed the creation of law (and vice versa). But the history of IP is a lot more complicated than simply “enforcing morality”.

If copyright law had existed contemporaneously with the advent of the printing press,the dissemination of books to the masses would have been much slower and more expensive, and we would likely not have seen the huge jump in literacy across Europe at the time. Once copyrights (called “monopolies”) started to be granted they were not used to protect authors, but were weaponized as tools of censorship, suppressing works seen as subversive. Additionally, they were often granted as privileges to the landed gentry and those in favor with the ruling elite, further consolidating power and control over information and knowledge.

Some people believe that piracy, especially of scientific studies and materials that subvert harmful power structures, is not only moral - but a positive good for society, by democratizing access to information. I think that’s hard to argue with. Of course, not all piracy meets such lofty criteria, but I think it bears more examination than simply dismissing all piracy as “morally wrong”.