As in thought they were talking about composting people? Yes. Yes I did.

They are doing that in some places, but is generally something you have to fight to be allowed to do rather than compulsory.

I absolutely agree with everyone who recommends an older machine and a good service centre. But I’ve gone against that advice for myself and have a newer computerised machine for myself, simply because it has a needle threader and my eyesight is not great these days - I was starting to struggle to thread the needle on the older machine.

Anything that’s not the cheapest machine will generally be ok. Most of the fancy options that make machines expensive are not really necessary, as long as the machine can sew straight and zig-zag you have nearly everything covered.

I’d mostly like to keep them to a few posts so the actual discussion posts won’t get lost. At the moment the idea is people can post that sort of thing in the pinned introduction post, but I am thinking of something along the lines of themed picture posts in the future.

There are plenty of groups which have primarily photos, you are free to join those if that is what you are after. This group is for discussions, if that is not what you are after feel free not to join.

Lemmy is trying to help stop me procrastinating and refusing to let me log in to my Aussie.zone account on the computer. I’m going to show it that my procrastination cannot be stopped so easily and clean out the cat litter tray. The things we do when we should be studying. 🤣

I vote we officially name the spinny thing the Spinny Wheel of Deletion.

“> insert Spinny erasor comment here>”

I’m not sure that “just” digging a trench and burying waste in a garden bed that you have conveniently lying around unused waiting for next year’s vegetables is either easy, or practical for most people with limited garden sizes.

The author tries to make it sound like some sort of free and easy method of just scattering waste without any rules, but in reality there are a lot of provisos. You have to have an area of ground you don’t need to use to be able to spread everything out so you are not creating one stinking pile. You have to have opportunities to collect all of the material, and although it is glossed over in the article the inclusion of the paper plates, napkins, shredded documents etc. would be vital to this working - the “ratios” that are sneered at as if they are some sort of arbitrary rule you can gleefully ignore are the difference between composting and rot (too much green material) or mulch (a layer of dry brown material). Covering the material with mulch is not just about making it look better because you are fussy, it actually allows the right conditions of moisture & darkness to allow the organisms to break down the waste, if you don’t do that you will mostly get dried up old food sitting on top of the ground.

Hot composting, where the goal is maximum nutrients as quickly as possible, can be a complicated process and presenting that as the standard method does put a lot of people off. But presenting the alternative as “there are no rules” is misleading and likely to lead to failure for a lot of people too. Understanding a bit about how composting works, especially that there does need to be a balance of materials to feed the soil organisms that are doing the work for you, will lead to a much greater ability to create a system that works for each individual’s circumstances.

How different stoves work for you partly depends on what types of things you cook, but there are also a lot of variations in how crappy standard electric stoves are.

I’ve used old coil stoves that were not that bad, but my mother’s new glass topped thing was so awful I learnt not to even try cooking some dishes. If you needed to brown anything you had to put the pan on for a 10-15 minute preheat to get anywhere near hot enough, then if you needed to reduce the heat to simmer it was best to just move to another burner if you could because it would take 5+ minutes to cool down. The top heat was just enough to brown something if you left it a long time and did not crowd the pan, but doing something like searing a steak or making a stir-fry just wasn’t possible.

But then I’ve also used gas stoves that are hard to work with and don’t have much control over the temperature - even my current stove I tend to switch burners to accommodate different heat levels better. So I guess a lot comes down to having the right specific stove to meet your requirements, more than being just a gas vs. electric issue. Having previously believed I’d never want anything other than gas I have been pretty impressed by the portable induction cooker I’ve been trying out, and I’m sure a better quality model would suit me for pretty much everything.