This works for cleaning a lot of things. I regularly clean the coffee maker (a Bialetti espresso thing) by putting some powder detergent in the water compartment, then „make coffee“ without actual coffee and leave it in overnight. Neutralize with white vinegar (which has the added benefit of descaling) and rinse thoroughly. It‘s as new afterwards.
And yes, it’s not good for your skin, so avoid immersing your hands in it or wear gloves.
That seems a bit excessive, especially since the water compartment should typically only come into contact with water.
The most critical part is the part you put the coffee in, which you can just put in the dishwasher every so often. Soaking the top compartment might make sense, you could use a dishwasher but I'd worry about the rubber seal.
I don't think boiling water with dishwasher detergent in it is a great idea (because of potential fumes). I might have misunderstood what you mean by "make coffee" but maybe something to look into if you do this regularly.
By „make coffee“ I meant „use the coffee maker as usual, without ground beans but with detergent in the water“. The fume/steam is surely not healthy if inhaled directly and up close, but then again your dishwasher vents those same fumes into your kitchen untreated in much larger quantities than a 200ml coffee maker possibly can.
I regularly use things to clean that I am more worried about, such as bleach, acetone, turpentine and the likes…
Dishwashers don't boil the water, and they anyway use different kinds of detergent specifically designed for the usecase.
Anyway like I said I doubt it's a huge deal. Washing liquid isn't _designed_ to be boiled but I certainly hope the engineers consider the possibility that it might get boiled, and avoid things that would be toxic in that case...
I don't have a theoretical explanation, especially one that won't be batted away by another theoretical explanation.
I just feel like there's better ways to clean your coffee maker than putting dishwasher detergent/powder/whatever in it and running a coffee making cycle. Sounds like a horrible* idea.
* I should offer a "why" - off the top of my head: if it rinsed out that quick, why does the dishwasher take so long?
I can understand your reservations, „running a coffee making cycle“ makes it sound as if it is some kind of machine - which it isn’t. It’s one of these percolators, made of stainless steel, that you put on your stove to make coffee. Look up „Bialetti Moka“ and you get the idea, it’s really quite simple.
The reason why the dishwasher takes so long is that it takes time to break down the grime. Same in the coffee maker. There is a deep crevice in the coffee compartment that cannot be cleaned mechanically because you can’t really reach it (clearly a design flaw if you ask me). But remaining coffee tends to build up there and over time it affects the taste. Using detergent and letting it sit overnight breaks down this oily residue and leaves it shiny as new. Then you take the whole thing apart, gaskets and all and thoroughly rinse it. If I put the coffee maker into the dishwasher it would be the exact same chemicals (ok, at 70 instead of 100 degrees Celsius) plus less thorough rinsing. But no one would object.
Google Sheets indeed does everything a common user would expect from a spreadsheet, without having to install anything and fiddle with licenses. This in itself is the killer feature.
For me personally the absolute killer feature is the bidirectional integration with BigQuery, something you won’t get that easily (if at all, correct me if I am wrong) with Excel.
I have the complete opposite experience. I use CSV files a lot, LibreCalc has a sane import dialog and handles these files near perfect by default. When working with Excel-users I always get a reply along the lines of „the file is weird, can you send me xls?“
And yes, I know that Excel opens CSV just fine. But it is not straightforward enough to explain it to a semi computer-literate office drone…
Excel used to give you the option of using the import wizard for CSVs when you opened them. Now they've intentionally hidden that in a submenu, for some bizarre reason.
Libre Office is good enough for basic use, but Excel has a lot of great features for intermediate users. Some of the newer functions they've added in the last few years are great, I use LET with my own lambdas and the quite often. I also kinda like the Power Query/M language, but the implementation in Excel is absolutely horrible.
True, the price tag might buy you a second hand car. But if you factor in the maintenance cost of cars it comes in cheap in comparison. I’ve just had to replace the clutch in my car (~2200€), whereas having the whole transmission (all sprockets and the chain) in a bike fixed is around 250-300€. Less if you do it yourself.
And being able to do it myself feels really good, I couldn’t agree more!
With insurance you get get two. Of course if you have two, that's not enough. I think the correct number is N + 1. Everyone says Sydney is the worst place in the world to ride a bike, but, it's still better than any other form of transport for a short distance.
> It's 100+ €/h for a skilled worker who replaced that clutch
I'm pro-bike, but this issue also applies to having a bike repaired at a decent workshop.
Our daughter's hand-me-down bike (previously "owned" by both her elder brothers in turn) had new brakes and brake cables fitted recently, and the repair bill was the best part of €150.
The difference is that a talented bike mechanic can get most jobs done in less than an hour. Its hard to imagine a bicycle job that would take more than 2 hours of labor, whereas most car jobs start at an hour and can stretch into 10 plus hours for more complex ones.
The equivalent job of replacing all of the brake lines and brakes on a car would be a multi-hour job with several hundred in parts alone. By comparison, having a competent mechanic completely overhaul and inspect the most critical safety system on a bike for €150 seems like a pretty good deal.
> €150 is a fairly substantial repair cost relative to the new cost; remember that this is a child's bike suitable for an 8-10 year-old.
In that case, if you bought a top of the line racing bicycle for the child, it would be a much lower proportional cost for the brakes! (joking of course)
Nothing exotic, a Peugeot Traveller van. The spare parts were 700€, rest was labor. Took a whole day to take apart the transmission/front axle and put it all together again.
I think to be fair, if you’re going to include labor costs in the “total cost” of a car, you should include the price of a skilled bicycle mechanic in the cost of a bicycle, just to compare apples to apples.
IMO not enough people have the know how to fix their own cars. And I am surprised that this is not changing given 1. how ridiculous the price of auto mechanic labor has gotten and 2. the wide availability of DIY info on YouTube. Even just basic, basic stuff. I have friends who take their ~5yo cars to a mechanic (or worse: the dealer’s service dept) for routine maintenance like lubrication and filter changes, and they fork over $1500 for this! We are talking about $150 in parts and consumables here. The mechanic inflates this to $500 and then charged $1000 for his labor.
That would indeed be fair. On the other hand, I couldn’t repair the clutch on a car on my own whereas taking a bike apart and putting it back together can be done in my living room if need be.
On DIY: absolutely on anything not safety related. I‘d never touch the brakes. Changing oil is perfectly doable for a reasonably skilled diy person. If you like that kind of thing and have the access to the necessary infrastructure (especially for oil disposal), go for it.
But I like to take the car to a mechanic for another reason: in Germany you’re required to get regular technical inspections (TÜV), if the mechanic does it chances are better that it goes through without problems.
you don't need a skilled bicycle mechanic to ride a bike the way you need a skilled car mechanic to drive a car. i've rebuilt a volkswagen engine, but i still wouldn't dare to try to do all car repairs myself on anything more complex than a model t. bike repair is something anyone can do—badly, yes, but not so badly it's not a viable option
They are complementary. I don't love riding bikes, but if the choice is riding a bike for 7 minutes through some parks or driving a car for 15 minutes because I can't take the shortcuts and an stuck in traffic ... I'd rather commute by bike
On the other hand my commute is now 50km one way, which is just not possible by bike.
Just yesterday I was driving in the left lane with cruise control set to the maximum allowed velocity, with the maximum gap behind a car driving in front of me. Of course someone overtook me on the right (illegal in Germany) just to swerve in front of me and then drive at the same speed, just 20m further ahead. He ended up being first at the red lights. I’ll never understand it…
People don’t intuitively notice speed, they see following distance as a proxy for speed: people with longer following distances are perceived as “driving slow” and they feel they are going faster if they tailgate. Both untrue, but almost universally assumed without a second thought
If you are traveling 80 in the left lane while the right lane is locked in at 60 (trucks who are limited to power speed limits), it is simply impossible to travel in the right lane. You are constantly overtaking vehicles, so it works out legally, but, yes, if someone wants to go 90, there is a conflict. Ideally, you wouldn’t cruise in the left lane because there would be room to cruise in the right lane, but higher traffic situations don’t really allow for it (well, not so high that you can’t go 80 in the left lane).
This usually happens when you are approaching a city and are going to get a new lane or two pretty soon anyways.
Well, it sort of does. Imagine your doing 100 in the left lane, as does the car in front of you and the three cars in front of them. There’s a truck doing 80 in the middle lane some 500m away. All of you are going to pass it. Now a sixth car starts tailgating behind the last in line and because there’s left a big safety gap he’s overtaking on the right.
I was the last in line, going at the exact same speed as the cars in front of me, just leaving enough space. Why would I switch lanes?
And yes, it’s not good for your skin, so avoid immersing your hands in it or wear gloves.