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mycatsays @aussie.zone
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Comments 26
What to do with extra mushrooms?
  • Slice and dehydrated some!

    Dehydrated mushies can be kept (long shelf life) to add to meals. Or put them through a food processor to make a powder (takes up much less space, if that's an issue for you) which is great for extra flavour in soups, sauces, casseroles, etc.

  • Reminder that soil testing via VegeSafe/GardenSafe is free
  • Did mine a couple of years ago after reading an article about the potential for lead in soils in residential areas.

    Thankfully my yard is fine, only the drip line of the house shows elevated lead (probably was originally painted with lead paint). So we just won't put food plants in the beds next to the house.

  • Dodo's Price Hike and Speed Cap Change - Worth Switching Plans?
  • If you can find an annual plan that fits your needs, and paying for a year at once is possible, that may work out cheaper per month.

    It's been a while since I looked for a new plan, but it seems to me that the direction mobile plans are going is that the only differences are how much data and whether anything international is included. Most plans these days include unlimited calls and texts. As someone who doesn't do much calling or texting and needs like 2GB/month tops, pretty much everything has more than I need. A few years ago I was service hopping to whoever would give me a $10/month plan, but many of those have increased to $15/month.

    The plan I'm currently on is no longer available to new customers, so unfortunately I can't recommend it to you.

  • Just finished the SA books and ... the magic system ?
  • The more of the Cosmere you read, the more things will connect and the clearer the picture will be. Every time I re-read SA, I see new connections I'd missed before. Some of that is familiarity with the magics of other planets, because that changes your read from "character did a weird thing" to "hey! that's magic from this other planet; why/how has it turned up here?"

    In the earlier books, the crossovers between worlds/magics and the underlying "how things work" are more subtle and you'll miss things on first read. In more recent books, it's more overt.

    Some of that is because of how much the protagonists themselves understand. For example, in the first Mistborn trilogy the characters really don't understand what's going on on their own planet, so of course you don't get a good explanation. In Secret History, the POV character does run into people who know quite a lot about what is going on, so when Secret History revisits the events of the main trilogy you're able to understand the forces driving those catastrophic events.

    The characters in SA started off thinking magic wasn't real and knowing nothing about realms and worlds beyond their own. They are learning a lot through their spren and Hoid, but there is still a lot that they don't know. And you as the reader are learning along with them.

  • I have 2 dozen eggs to use up
  • You can boil them to extend shelf life. Once a food is cooked, you have another week (approximately) to use it before it goes off - maybe a little longer for eggs still in unbroken shells. Boil them, store them in the fridge, and add them to meals over the next week.

  • :: Spoiler discussion on DragonSteel Prime and also Way Of Kings Prime
  • I just finished Dragonsteel Prime. I read Way of Kings Prime when it was released (so: not recently). Dragonsteel (canon) hasn't been written yet, so I'm not sure what you want to compare DP to?

    Brandon has commented that Dragonsteel (Prime) never got published because the story didn't really work. Some elements of it eventually turned up in Stormlight, of course.

    I enjoyed both Prime books as a look at early versions of characters, settings, and magics. Reading WoKP after several Stormlight books, it was a little jarring to have a character die in Prime who is very much alive (as of SA4). DP didn't do that to me; and as much as Brandon says there's an early version of Shallan in that book, it felt like a wholly different character. I quite enjoyed getting to know Frost a little bit, and seeing early Hoid.

  • Why did you buy a big phone?
  • My first smartphone was a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact. I'm a woman with all the small pockets that entails, and that phone was a great size. Sony was one of the last manufacturers making a smaller version of their flagship phone without sacrificing performance quality. I would have stuck with this line of phones if it hadn't been discontinued. Alas.

    My current phone is a OnePlus 6, a gift rather than something I chose. It's not huge, but it is the biggest phone I have owned. And had I been choosing, I likely would not have considered this model because one of my criteria is that the phone fits comfortably in my pockets.

    It was a happy surprise that the current phone actually does fit well enough (mostly). And this has shown me that I can be more flexible than I thought when it comes to phone size.

    Not sure what direction I'm looking when it comes time to replace this phone. Truthfully, I'd still probably prefer something a little smaller. But in a limited market, you take what you can get.

  • [Question] best ways to freeze lunch meats and cheeses?
  • If you already have the cheese on hand, do an experiment. Cut off a piece and freeze it overnight. Next day, defrost it and see how it is. Because the issue you're concerned about is change to texture or taste after freezing and thawing, you only need to leave it long enough to be fully frozen through - not as long as you normally would for storage.

    (You wouldn't want to buy a bulk size piece of meat/cheese just to experiment, but if you already have some on hand it's worth trying for yourself to find out if you'll find the result satisfactory.)

  • Words Of Radiance Pricing
  • Shipping costs for the set bundles are listed on the campaign page. If you want add-ons, that will be extra and calculated later.

    It does say somewhere that Dragonsteel will cover import duties for all international backers.

    So really, the only unknown is shipping for add-ons. If shipping cost is a stress, maybe stick to the bundles with fixed shipping costs?

  • Cosmere bibliography by series?
  • Well - unless I am having a major mental blank, Mistborn and Stormlight are the only two series in the Cosmere. Some of the books which are currently standalone may get sequels eventually.

    I think this link is actually pretty close to what you're looking for: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Category:Books It's just that the table format is a bit "wall of text". But you only need the top portion which is the Cosmere works, and they are grouped by series (or by planet, if it's not a series).

  • Coriander plant revival
  • It might depend on where you live. For example, basil is frost sensitive, so where I live it won't survive outdoors in winter. Coriander races to seed in heat, so even staggered plantings won't help a whole lot in a hot summer. Parsley might do okay with a few planted at different times of year; at least it seems less driven by season than the other two, in my limited experience.

    You could have more success with indoor pots, if that's an option for you (that said, I've recently had a parsley plant going to seed in my kitchen, so results will vary).

    And if the plants start flowering you can prolong their usefulness by pinching off the flowering stems - though that only buys you some time, rather than preventing the process entirely.

  • Coriander plant revival
  • Coriander goes to seed quickly in warm weather. Let it self-sow and you'll get new plants.

    Parsley likewise will self-sow if you let it.

    It's not really possible to have a continuous plant to pick from due to the life cycle of these plants. But if you let them self-sow, you'll probably end up with surplus, which you can dry or freeze for use when you don't have productive plants.

  • Free/low cost dust and soil testing - Citizen science via EPA and Macquarie University. Xpost Gardening Australia
  • I did VegeSafe last year after reading an article about the potential for lead concentrating in homegrown eggs and veggies. Our house (and neighbourhood ) date from the era of lead bring in paint and petrol, so I wanted to check.

    Thankfully the only area of this yard that came back as a red flag was the dripline (i.e. next to the house), so we should be okay as long as we grow our food away from the building.

  • Wanting to move out of the US?
  • It's not a huge change, and day-to-day the differences will be smaller things like words that are used differently. You get used to that without even realizing it. I remember feeling very pleased the first time I naturally used the word "jumper" the way Aussies do (meaning "sweater" or "sweatshirt").

    Aussies are generally friendly toward Americans, and thanks to Hollywood they tend to feel like they know a little bit about the USA which makes them interested. (When we visit my family in the US, my Aussie husband says he feels like he is in a movie. 😆)

    I have never had any problem with people here not accepting me at face value despite being a foreigner and my accent giving me away. If anything, it's a talking point when getting to know a person I haven't met before. They'll often ask because they are curious, but they aren't hostile. If anything, they tend to be intrigued that I chose to live in their country instead of my country of birth.

    There are systemic differences that may or may not be difficult to get your head around. For example, I didn't find the health care system very strange, because I was young enough when I moved here that I hadn't really gotten my head around how it worked in the US. But when my parents come here, they won't consider going to a doctor if they need one because insurance, even when I tell them it's a flat fee and give them the amount the local practice charges. It's just not the system they know.

    As noted by others, Australia has its own issues with racism. You won't escape that by coming here, though it is different. Here it's rooted in historical treatment of Aboriginals as sub-human, and "white Australia" policies from the early 20th century. Basically white people have a superiority complex wherever you go in the world of former European colonies.

    I'm not sure whether any of that actually answers your question... Please feel free to ask more if need be.

  • Wanting to move out of the US?
  • There is a resentment of international students who get partway through a course and then cry poor. Our university (and probably others) held a big campaign during COVID lockdowns to donate money, clothing, groceries to international students who couldn’t work and couldn’t get back home...

    Understandable. I wasn't aware of international students struggling when I was at uni (doubtless there were some, I just didn't see them). COVID lockdowns and border closures were an extreme situation, and I would think there were probably some students who would have been fine normally but didn't have the extra resources to deal with that large a curveball.

    Generally, I think the rules around student visas are reasonable. You're here to earn a degree, and that needs to be your focus... Not holding down a full-time job to put a roof over your head. Studying abroad is a luxury. (Of course, universities like international students because $$$...)