RustyRaven

I'm roasting beans today and have just finished my first batch. I'm experimenting with single origin blends combining a few different roasting profiles. These are the lightest roast I will do, the next batch will be a darker roast, with a half quantity of an even darker roast. In theory this will give a more complex flavour profile.

I am still quite new to roasting and I am trying out different things to see what I like. I generally do plunger coffee not espresso, and find I prefer lighter roasts in general. Small changes in how you roast can make big differences in the outcome though - I have been focussing on cooling the beans quickly after roasting which made a noticable improvement in flavour.

Taken 20 years ago in the remote Queensland town of Chillagoe. Known for limestone caves, Aboriginal art, nesting sites for the white-rumped swiftlet, and as the final resting place of my Volvo, which never made it home.

A bit dramatic - buses do not seem to be doing well lately.

It sounds like the bus was empty and no one hurt, but traffic obviously is a mess.

Are you a fan of espresso, cold brew, aeropress? Do you try new beans and roasters regularly, or stay with what you know and love?

I generally prefer filter coffee (with a re-usable filter, no oil sucking paper!) or plunger, but currently have only the plunger because of lack of space. A good syphon can also be supurb. I've also started roasting my own beans - I'm definitely a long way from expert, but am getting pretty solid results and am am slowly improving.

"Open House Melbourne is an independent organisation that fosters public appreciation for architecture and public engagement in conversations about the future of our cities."

Over the weekend of 29 & 30 July there are a lot of buildings open to the public and tours which are conducted. Most of the ticketed events are sold out, but there are many open places which don't require tickets.

I enjoy doing outdoor activities like visiting parks, but it is a bit cold for that at the moment. A lot of indoor activities get pretty expensive, but I have in the past found a few free building tours and similar which are really good.

I'd love to hear about things everyone else enjoy doing that don't cost too much, and any resources you use to find activities.

I have just finished this book and it was very infomative, and very well written to be both accessible and informative to a general audience.

It covers the importance of soil to the health of both individuals and the planet, the threats our soils face, and ways to improve the health of our soil (and in turn the planet). It places the accumulation/degredation within the many ongoing cycles impacting the wider environment and highlights their interconnectedness.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the health of our planet.

After my license number was leaked in the Latitude breach I decided to put a credit reporting ban in place to provide extra protection. Having applied for a couple of banking products since then and having had the bans lifted a couple of times I am a bit disturbed by how easy it is.

To lift the ban you just fill out an online form with name, address, birthdate and license number - the same information that someone trying to steal my identity would have. Why isn't there some sort of two factor identification check? It seems like it would be pretty easy for someone else to lift the ban in order to access credit in my name, and even though I would realise quickly that something was wrong when I received the confirmation email that the ban had been lifted it would be difficult to do anything about it.

Welcome to Rusty Raven's Random Rundown on things of note occurring elsewhere on Aussie.Zone and Lemmy.

Other Aussie communities
Pictures now has a pinned thread for the discussion of photography, in addition to some great photographs people have been sharing.
Aussie Frugal Living, Aussie Cars, and Gardening Australia
have recently started, so if you are interested in these areas visit and help start a conversation.

You have probably noticed a few changes to the layout of the site, such as the appearing then dissapearing red line beside posts. This is due to a number of upgrades to the server. As Lemmy is still developing quickly we can expect these to happen regularly, although they won't always make visible changes. It you want to keep an eye on what is happening regarding this the Meta community contains information about upgrades and site maintenance. There is also discussion there about the running of the site as a whole, including costs and donations.

Meta have announced a new service, Threads, which is being marketed as being similar to Twitter, and has the ability to link in with Lemmy sites. Which could mean people could use their Instagram account to post on Lemmy. Whether that is a good or bad thing is hotly debated. This Aussie.Zone post has some links to further information as well as discussion about the issue.

And of course our newest moderator, bot #001, seems to be managing to post the daily discussion thread each day. There could still be disruptions caused by updates or computer/internet crashes at my end, but so far so good. There is the capacity to add other regular posts easily if required too.

Feel free to plug any other Aussie.Zone groups are mention any other issues you know of that effect Lemmy and the Aussie Zone in the comments.

The way Lemmy is organised tends to focus users on new and popular content, which means that slower moving ongoing conversations tend to sink in the page and get overlooked. A lot of valuable content is created in those slower discussions, so I am trying to set up ways to keep them visible and findable. I believe for a good group a moderator needs to be part librarian, not just rule enforcer.

I am creating ongoing topic threads which are linked to from the sidebar, and will also be linking them in the daily discussion thread where most activity in my group currently occurs. I am also looking into creating regular posts for specific topic discussions, which should help searchability. Making the system more complicated leads to users not following it though, so I want it to be as simple as possible to use and not have too many things like that happening at one time.

I would love to hear any other suggestions or about things you are doing to set up the structure of your groups.