But at least they’re free range microplastics?
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So that explains why I pooped out this the other day!
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Yeah, I’m totally into foraging. And it does seem like a mostly vegan/vegetarian diet might be best, overall, which I’m close enough to to feel okay. Beer and shellfish being top of the list bums me out, though. Being a fun-loving Mainer, those are 2 of my favorite summer treats.
I’m guessing the beer is due to the water it’s brewed from, the shellfish due to concentration, and the salt…? No clue on that one.
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I don’t know if the article contained information about the types of micro plastic present but not all kinds of plastic float - many kinds will sink.
So I’m guessing that for the shellfish it’s because they are bottom feeders, and for the salt it’s because it’s collected from evaporation ponds where this stuff can accumulate.
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Dandelion leaves in sun tea is a most excellent source of nutrients.
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Most of the shellfish we eat are filter feeders. If it’s in the water, it’s in them. Sadly, microplastic contamination is so universal it’s pretty much impossible to avoid, only minimize. They have even been found in fruits and veggies where plastic sheeting is used for mulch, which is most commercial farms. Like PFOA’s, we have altered our world to be unfriendly to our own survival. .
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After paying an appliance repair company nearly $600 (initial consult, parts, labor, fucking WA sales tax), I finally have a working dishwasher again.
I looked at the old control board to inspect for damage and at first I didn’t see anything obvious - in part due to the whole damn thing being encased in about 6mm of epoxy, but looking closer I saw this:
Between the transformer and two radial capacitors there’s a little TO263 IC (guessing it’s a voltage regulator) — I’m guessing it blew up. It seems to be on the path to high current motor connectors so it all makes sense. I don’t have a schematic and I didn’t feel like investigating further but it was clear that something in that general area was a culprit.
Hopefully this is the last major appliance repair of this year.
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I’m amazed you can figure that out. Bravo!
But like, I imagine, 999 out of a 1000 or so dishwasher owners, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
(As you likely know,) for the vast majority of us, repairing dishwashers and most other appliances is beyond our skill set. And bringing in a hired repair person can cost more than just buying a new one. And so, we just resign ourselves to buying a new one, even though what’sbroken might be fixable with a very minor, cheap repair. What a vast amount of waste that is, and what a damaging contribution to environmental contamination.
Fuck today!
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I was baffled initially, too. But you can see that the resin to the right of the transformer is chock full of brown burny goodness. (I hear that’s often the result of failing to deglaze every couple few wash cycles.) You might be surprised how often electronic failures can be identified simply by sight and/or smell.
Could not agree more. Spent an entire evening recently trying to diagnose/repair a powered steam mop thinger that I refer to as the Hydro Torch. Pretty sure it was a solenoid-like part that failed, but that was as far as I got. Hated throwing away the mostly functional carcass.
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Indeed! Whenever a piece of electronics dies I like to figure out why just for my own curiosity.
With many catastrophic failures it’s pretty obvious once you know what to look for - bulging or leaking electrolytic capacitors are a “go to” for me, or sometimes I’ll get lucky and see a scorch mark or burnt component. When all else fails I’ll go for the “sniff test” and see if I can detect the telltale scent of magic smoke having been released.
In this case the epoxy may have been helpful since it preserved the failure like a bug in amber. Otherwise it may not have been visually detectable.
I think for me the most frustrating thing wasn’t the repair cost - even though that well and truly sucked - it was after watching the guy do it I knew I could have easily done it myself for maybe a third of the cost.
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I actually think this is true about much of the world—how much can be diagnosed by smell. Humans tend to ignore smell as an operative sense, but it can be incredibly useful with even a bit of training.
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Oops, I may have been repeating an urban legend. Didn’t occur to me to check such an esoteric source as Wikipedia before doing so, either. But it is halfway to lunchtime and I’ve had no coffee yet, so, yeah.
Polynesians have the word ‘Ha’ which commonly translates to ‘the breath of life’. When the English made their way to Hawai‘i, the locals were baffled that these people were attempting to diagnose illness without even smelling the person’s breath. So they started calling the invaders ‘Ha‘ole’ which means ‘without Ha’. I’m not sure if that was a reference to them not knowing about Ha, or if it was believed that they lacked Ha themselves but the name stuck and I was a teenager before I found out that ‘fucking’ wasn’t an official prefix of the word.
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It’s getting harder and harder to protect democracy.
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OT, but have you got any references for that story? Sounds interesting.
(Sidenote: breath was (and is) used for diagnosis. Traditionally by smelling, but there are also GC/MS studies involving ML techniques.)
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Uhh… no, I kinda don’t.
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