What’s the last thing you bought online?

JJinPA

Balsa wood gliders (The 2 for $10 ones that used to cost a quarter).  I am starting a YouTube channel where DIYers can get tips on DIY in little shops with little tools.  I plan to slice up a spruce 2x4 so I can make a plane in the same dimensions and compare them.  $5 their planes vs pennies for mine.

The channel will cover many of my projects from the past as well as several planned for the future.  Toys, kitchen remodel, bicycle mods, custom furniture… The plane will be my first video.

As I suffer from motor control issues this is therapy too.  Use it or lose it.

Sandy_123

I've ordered a phone and tablet charger cables 

66Mustang

@JJinPA

Sounds like a niche channel but funnily enough exactly the kind of thing my Dad is obsessed with! 

He spends hours watching DIY, woodcraft, metalcraft, engineering videos etc. and I think it’s quite a passion…He recently stopped a 36 year career as a detective to become a caretaker and recently just got promoted to a “fabricator” which basically means he’s paid to build stuff, a dream job!!!! What’s more he has access to a business account with a black chequebook for when he needs a new tool  

If you’d be willing to share the YouTube channel (in PM if you wish) I’m sure he’d want to add it to the extensive list of similar channels he’s subscribed to??

JJinPA

How go you @someone or does being a newb limit it?

JJinPA

@66mustang

I'll let you know when the channel is operational.  My interests are all over the place and so shall be the channel.

Albus_Scope

That sounds like my channel @JJinPA haha, I should really specialise, but I just enjoy making videos about my various hobbies.  

JJinPA

I figured out the @ secret.  It was too simple to be obvious.

@Albus_Scope I like channels like that.  Drop me an address?

Mine is going to try to be about not having the tools but doing it anyway. 

Albus_Scope

You'll have to let us know when you start pumping out content @JJinPA

I'd share my channel, but I do need to keep my anonymity on here, I don't want the DWP sending assassins after me for helping people.

JJinPA

@Albus_Scope

Yeah, I get it.  Maybe I'll keep mine to myself also.  I mean, I will not be anonymous in many other places on line.  I'll have a public presence.  I'm not sure what it serves to be anonymous in that case, but I'll let things play out.

Lou67

Perfume mist for my mum my daughter and my friend.

I had bought it to take on holiday and use here they all kept saying how much they loved it so I treated them. 

66Mustang

@JJinPA

Sorry wasn't trying to get you to break any anonymity that you may have, I just thought you'd want a subscriber but I do understand the desire to keep your online identities separate because up until very recently I did exactly the same

Good luck with it all the same and maybe my Dad will come across it unknowingly

66Mustang

@Beaver79

Yoga seems like a good idea to keep fit and stuff, good luck with it. Do you do Yoga already or will it be a new thing for you?

66Mustang

@Ada

Great to see you!!!

I would gladly send a phone to you if I still had a spare one but I literally only have one I usually keep an old one when I upgrade but my last one got totally destroyed so I don't have any others 

66Mustang

I just bought some shoes

I like simple thin-soled shoes for driving so I can feel the pedals and bought some for £17.99 last year and they were perfect, however the soles are wearing out where you press the pedals ... maybe I press the accelerator too hard

I tried to find some "better" ones as I like to buy quality stuff if I can, but it just seems you can spend 5 times as much if you want to and all you are getting is a brand name and not actually any superior quality

So bought the same ones again, they've gone up to £18.99

Albus_Scope

I'm teh same with shoes @66Mustang I threw away my favourite trainers last night, a lovely pair of DCs that I've totally worn out over the last 6 years, the fabric was flapping all over the place. RIP old friends. 

Of course, I bought another pair of DCs a few months back, but I couldn't face not wearing my comfy DC slippers.   

66Mustang

@ada

I know what you mean about being proud but I see it as recycling something that would otherwise get thrown into the landfill and being good for the planet

My Dad works for the NHS and very often gets told to dispose of perfectly good and often quite expensive stuff for no apparent reason. A good example is the other day they asked him to throw out a pristine microwave from a good brand that's maybe £100 to buy new. It had only been used maybe 5 times.

He was quite annoyed that they wanted him to put something into landfill that was as good as new... so he relieved them of it, as asked, but now we have a nice new microwave in our kitchen.  

JJinPA

@66Mustang

I never throw anything out… well, old leftovers and other honest garbage I do, but most defunct or even redundant items I'll do my best to repurpose.  Microwaves: The one that came with the house, its buzzer was so annoying I had to get rid of it.  I cleaned it up and gave it to the Salvation Army.  Wow were they excited.  We had a counter top microwave from the old house that now resides atop the upright freezer next to my shop.  It isn't used much but saves me from walking upstairs to warm my coffee.  We had a little microwave that I'd kept in the kitchen with the new one but it went belly up.  It was convenient to have the two because most meals I'll use the big one twice.  But since it doesn't work I stripped it.  The housing is good sheet metal.  I collected all of the switches.  There were two motors, a fan and a reduced gear motor, both very useful.  I don't know what to do with the magnetron yet but I kept it.

If it has screws holding it together I'll usually strip it and piddle its parts away on small projects.  I'll do my best to not send anything to a land fill.  My shop is full of parted parts.  I have a blast playing with repurposing them. 

My moto, nothing is useless.

66Mustang

@JJinPA

A person after my own heart there

I wonder how much better off the environment actually is for producing cleaner but ultimately whole new products (which are often built to be thrown away after a few years) rather than repurposing current ones. As an example, cars? Would the ozone layer be better off reusing the old ones? I have never done any proper research so I can't claim my way would be more environmentally friendly but it does make me wonder

We acquired a KitchenAid which is a good brand designed to last forever but a small silicone worm gear had perished, if I remember right it's designed to as a metal one wouldn't work...however the previous user decided to buy a new mixer and we acquired their KitchenAid  that took an hour and a half of cleaning up and fixing, we had a free mixer that would have cost over £500 new

JJinPA

@66Mustang Thanks!    

As for cars, there are 15 billion cars and trucks on the world's highways.  It wouldn't matter to save and use the old ones.  There would still be 15 billion vehicles.

Any energy we use is going to cost the Earth.  The problem is we keep using more and more.  Very little is manual now.

I've said the rise in the Earth's temperature coincides directly with the rise in traffic.  But the truth is we started using more energy everywhere about the same time.  It's not just cars.

We have built a world that relies on energy.  If there was a sudden and complete loss of energy about a quarter of us would die quite quickly.  Starvation would claim another quarter.  Half the population would perish before the end of the first year.

As I see it the problem is and has always been a complete lack of forethought.  It's all about grabbing all the wealth they can as fast as they can.  There has been no plan for sustainability.

No one is pointing out that the long term deficit of electric cars is going to be worse than petroleum.  We've had petroleum for 100 years.  We won't make it a hundred years with batteries.  We will poison the very ground we rely on.

Those 15 billion vehicles?  They will require new batteries every 10 years or so.  Only 5% of a battery can be reused.  So what are we supposed to do with 1.25 billion dead battery carcasses every year?

Sorry.  Soap box fever.  *Steps down*

OverlyAnxious

Microwaves shouldn't be put into landfill. The WEEE regs have been around for nearly 20 years now. As they're mostly made of iron & a bit of copper, the vast majority of a microwave would be recycled.

You may also find that none of your household waste goes to landfill in your area. Where I live it's incinerated to produce electricity, then magnet fished to pick any iron out of the ash for recycling. Much better long term than just burying it, though obviously better still to reduce the amount of waste produced.