The "I just bought..." thread.

[Greenman]

I'm a little uncertain regarding an amazon boycott. Bezos is a shitbag, but aren't they all shitbags? Would walmart act any differently in amazon's place? You have to be a sociopath to run a corporation. It's almost required.

I have a few active boycotts on technology/web properties, but there's clearly better alternatives in that case. It's not simply a matter of trading masters.

The problem is Amazon has good prices and great service. My last dozen orders I could have picked up 15 miles away and paid 10 to 20 percent more for them, and still would have been dealing with a big box store.
When I first moved here my address was screwed up in amazons system and my stuff kept being delivered to a guy a mile away. Every time I called to tell them they made a mistake they refunded me 100% because I had to go pick it up from the other fellow. That total was well over a thousand bucks. I gave the guy who kept getting my stuff 10% for calling me when it arrived at his house.

 

[lxskllr]

If it's something I can buy locally without a massive store hunt, I'll usually buy locally, even if it costs a bit more. My last axe I bought at a local hardware store. Cost the same as amazon. I'm not sure where to buy bulk quantities of some stuff. I've found a candy supplier(from amazon originally). I'd like to find a place where I can buy flats and cases of canned fish. I guess I need to spend some time with a search engine, and see what's around.

 

[MrSquished]

If it's something I can buy locally without a massive store hunt, I'll usually buy locally, even if it costs a bit more. My last axe I bought at a local hardware store. Cost the same as amazon. I'm not sure where to buy bulk quantities of some stuff. I've found a candy supplier(from amazon originally). I'd like to find a place where I can buy flats and cases of canned fish. I guess I need to spend some time with a search engine, and see what's around.

Check the Costco website

 

[lxskllr]

The Sound of Swinelence, by Porcine Banque

track by Porcine Banque

porcinebanque.bandcamp.com

LoL!

I got this pitch on mastodon, and couldn't resist...

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Bought one of these usb c male to usb c female adapters (not exactly like this):



I have a Steel Series wireless headphones that has probably one of the worst designs for a wireless receiver:


It's so wide, it covers up the second usb c slot on my laptop.

 

[Muse]

I'm a little uncertain regarding an amazon boycott. Bezos is a shitbag, but aren't they all shitbags? Would walmart act any differently in amazon's place? You have to be a sociopath to run a corporation. It's almost required.

I have a few active boycotts on technology/web properties, but there's clearly better alternatives in that case. It's not simply a matter of trading masters.

The point of a time-frame boycott isn't to strangle the target, it's to show that a significant portion of their customer base is saying they want to register that they have a dim view of the company for whatever reasons. Thus, if Amazon sales for the week of 3/7-3-14 are down 15%, Amazon's going to notice and think "maybe we should address what's giving rise to this."

Two Amazon boycotts are set, also two for Walmart.

 

[lxskllr]

Looks like performance art. I'd be surprised if it even shows up on a graph.

 

[Muse]

Might try getting him ready for riding this summer if he behaves. I kinda think that he'll be ok with it (apart from being a bit lazy) as he's happy to have you leaning over him now. Only thing he doesn't like is having his feet picked up but he's going to have to put his big boy pants on and get used to that.
There's a cart available that would fit him and he's certainly got the build for it but I can see him just standing there rather than pulling!

Put some treats 10 meters in front of him to give him incentive to pull and he'll catch on.

 

[sdifox]

Looks easy. Try making baklava. It took me a bunch of tries before I mastered it.

Due to height of NA stoves tossing is trickier.

 

[Pohemi]

Storz & Bickel 'Venty' dry herb vaporizer. Also got a mini-bubbler and adapter to use with it, and the maintenance kit should be here Monday. Yay for quality German engineering!

Ordered it from 'Planet of the Vapes' because they had an added discount code when you register which gave me 25% off, making it considerably cheaper than direct from S&B.



ETA: Holy frickin' shnikey, does this thing rip. The vapor is nearly as thick as smoke. Any doubts about the value-to-price ratio just disappeared with the first test-run. I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Muse]

COSORI Food Dehydrator Machine for Jerky, 5 BPA-Free 12.2" Trays with 165°F Temperature Control and 48H Timer, 350W Dryer for Fruit, Herbs, Meat, Veggies and Dog Treats, 50-Recipes Book Included

Have made ground beef jerky a couple of times and dried banana and apple slices. Also bought 200 5g food grade silica gel dessicant packets off ebay for about 15 bucks.

I used my Rubbermaid commercial thermometer to test the temperature when running at the top heat of "165F" and it read as high as 170F. 165F is recommended for safe jerky.

 

[lxskllr]

I used to have a dehydrator. Kind of forgot about it. I wonder where it is? I used it for fruit. I liked apple in it, but it's a lot of work for not a lot of return.

 

[sdifox]

I knew I would fuck it up. Supposed to be rectangular

 

[lxskllr]

Looks like it tastes good.

 

[sdifox]

Second one is closer to the real deal. Now let it cool then slice.

 

[WelshBloke]

Storz & Bickel 'Venty' dry herb vaporizer. Also got a mini-bubbler and adapter to use with it, and the maintenance kit should be here Monday. Yay for quality German engineering!

Ordered it from 'Planet of the Vapes' because they had an added discount code when you register which gave me 25% off, making it considerably cheaper than direct from S&B.

View attachment 119980

ETA: Holy frickin' shnikey, does this thing rip. The vapor is nearly as thick as smoke. Any doubts about the value-to-price ratio just disappeared with the first test-run. I'm pretty happy with it.

The most underrated thing that S&B make are those little brushes! They are fantastic!

 

[Muse]

I used to have a dehydrator. Kind of forgot about it. I wonder where it is? I used it for fruit. I liked apple in it, but it's a lot of work for not a lot of return.

Don't know if I will do apple again, slicing into 1/4" slices, dipping in a DIY sauce. It's the slicing that's tedious. Bananas don't need the sauce, they're easier to slice too, plus bananas go bad 20x as fast as apples, they beckon me, "do something with me or I'll wind up in the compost pile." I took the procedures from the recipe book included with the Cosori dehydrator, it recommends 145F for all fruit. I run the thing until the chips are crisp. The bananas come out more crisp than the apples but I run it longer, 24 hours, actually.

I'm just starting with this. Can be used to make fruit leathers. I bought special trays to make those, haven't used them yet.

I have a couple plum trees and have made jam, sauces with them and canned them for decades. I'm going to experiment with the plums in the Cosori. I figure it will make prunes! In my experience, prunes keep really well, never noticed any deterioration over time and unrefrigerated.

 

[lxskllr]

I like the apples plain, but they turn into nothing after drying. I didn't mention the expense. Best use case is having an apple tree or small orchard, and drying to get rid of the extras or uglies. I wouldn't mind cutting if the product was free, and I was making use of something otherwise not useful.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I used to eat Apples a lot due to their purported benefits. I still managed to get some serious health issues. Now I don't touch them. An Apple a day my smelly feet!

 

[pmv]

I used to eat Apples a lot due to their purported benefits. I still managed to get some serious health issues. Now I don't touch them. An Apple a day my smelly feet!

Used to eat apples a lot becuase I like apples. But these days all the decent varieties (like Egremont Russets and Orange Pippins) seem to be unavailable, and all you can get are horrible insipid varieties like Gala and Pink Lady.

I mean, I'd blame Brexit, except the good varieties are all domestic British ones, while the nasty ones are all imports, so I don't know what's going on.

 

[lxskllr]

I eat an apple most work days. It's a convenient and easily portable food. Been pretty hot on CosmicCrisp apples. Better than HoneyCrisp, and AFAIK, they don't require the special attention HC needs to grow. I'm doing my part to help prevent a monoculture of HC, that'll inevitably end up biting people in the asses.

CosmicCrisp is also endorsed by Worf, and that's all anyone really needs to know. If they're good enough for Worf, they're good enough for anyone :^D

 

[repoman0]

I eat an apple most work days. It's a convenient and easily portable food. Been pretty hot on CosmicCrisp apples. Better than HoneyCrisp, and AFAIK, they don't require the special attention HC needs to grow. I'm doing my part to help prevent a monoculture of HC, that'll inevitably end up biting people in the asses.

CosmicCrisp is also endorsed by Worf, and that's all anyone really needs to know. If they're good enough for Worf, they're good enough for anyone :^D

I made the mistake of planting a honeycrisp tree in my front yard. Can confirm, huge POS that can barely survive on its own. My granny smith tree is way healthier and simpler. We’ll see if it comes back this year .. already had to replace it once because it got too cold for it last winter (-15 for a couple nights)

 

[igor_kavinski]

Apples contain sorbitol, something not without side effects. Also, the only good things in Apples are pectin and malic acid. The problem with the latter is that eating highly acidic apples isn't exactly fun, despite the increased benefits their malic acid may confer on the liver and overall energy production.

If I ever have to eat apples again for medicinal purposes, it would be green apples. Eat them till you can't eat anymore and then wait while they clean out your intestines completely, including bad bacteria.

 

[lxskllr]

For unreliable apples, AutumnGlory and LadyAlice are damned good. When you get a good one, they're amazing. When they aren't good, they're still fine, but nothing special.

AutumnGlory has hints of caramel and pear flavor, while LadyAlice tastes like cherry and amaretto.

 

[igor_kavinski]

all you can get are horrible insipid varieties like Gala and Pink Lady.

I was pretty partial to the Fuji variety. They are the most different kind of apples I've tasted. Pretty hard and not too sweet. Most other apples (excluding green apples) are just too mushy.