reflections on the webnet

Ok.  So I'm not even sure if you call it the web, or the net, or something else these days.  Behind the times?  Perhaps.  But my last post got me thinking.

I confessed to my husband that 'my latest purchase' was too serious to be lighthearted and hence eminently readable, but also not intelligent enough to read and be educational.

Blogs are basically a monologue right?  But since one reads them in the quietness of their own space, one can stop reading whenever, and flick to a page more interesting.  Generally this would be considered rudeness if the context was two people talking, but with the barriers of screens and little-bits-of-information-flying-through-the-air-somehow (I'm sure there is a techy word for this), it is entirely appropriate to tune out, stop reading or even rubbish a blog post.

Maybe this isn't a bad thing.  It leads to honesty, and you don't have to cover up your true thoughts by faking body language (pretending you're interested when you're not).  You can make thoughtful comments, instead of saying the first thing that comes into your mouth.  The new ways of communicating provided by the internet mean we have to become accustomed to a whole new set of social conventions.  I just don't think I've worked them out yet.  And I think I still prefer the old system (extrovert tendencies I guess).  

In most conversations I wonder (and perhaps worry) what people are thinking about what I'm saying.  It's sometimes scary to find out what people really think, but often you can guess.

Perhaps it's scarier to never find out what people really think.

my latest purchase

(I occasionally have an aversion to capitals, and I think it's because I hope the words are slightly less emphatic if they are in lower case, just in case I didn't really mean them after all.) 

My latest purchase was the wonderful Bokashi Bucket. I have been planning on buying one ever since a friend said they only had one plastic shopping bag of rubbish a week, because the rest went into their Bokashi bin or recycling.  I have been storing old stew in the fridge for a few days, just so I could 'Bokashi' it instead of putting it into landfill (proper nouns just ask to be made into verbs!).  I have often been horrified by the amount of food waste our little family has, and although when we travelled to a developing county, I witnessed much poorer people also wasting food, my conscience still bites. 

Apparently the average household has about 11kg of rubbish per week, and about half of this is compostable food waste.  If food waste is thrown in to landfill, it creates methane.  I knew eating beef is bad for the environment, but I didn't realise it takes 50,000L of water to get some beef on your plate!  I don't think we're going to turn vegetarian anytime soon, so the take home message for us is to enjoy it all and not waste a morsel (or at least be organised to freeze leftovers).  See foodwise.com.au if you'd like to be alarmed by more statistics.  

My excitement at the purchase was only mildly curbed by my husband's cynical comments.  He cheekily claims it is merely a compost bucket, knowing I will respond passionately.  I claim it is much more than a compost bucket because of the EMs (effective micro organisms) which break down the waste and cause fermentation.  On reflection though, I guess this is what a compost bin does (with natural micro organisms in the soil..?), it's just we cannot house one in our unit. 

Like most things, the initial joy of my new purchase will probably be taken down by the frustation and drudgery of using and maintaining it.  I know the theory of setting systems in place to make it easy, but the fact that its out on the balcony concerns me that it will be too much bother some days, because it will take me 3 mins to dispose of the compost instead of 30 seconds.  I can only hope that the plight of our earth will continually weigh sufficiently on my shoulders such that my butt stays in gear...