site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   939 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for April 23, 2025

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I would think that this is a wash, because you still need something to ignite the coals when you use a chimney starter (just throwing a match in there doesn't cut it in my experience)

Soak kitchen paper or cotton in cooking oil. can get a chimney starter to emit blue flame in 6 minutes.

I didn't know that one, I'll try it out. But my overall point was just that you need to use something to get the chimney starter going, and that something (probably) coats you money. Using oil and paper towels is cheap, but so is lighter fluid. So my guess is that no matter what method you use to light coals, it'll be similar in costs.

For me, our house gets a bunch of Chewy boxes in the mail, so spare cardboard is handy at about any moment.

I hope I abuse this smaller grill enough to break it so I can get a proper Weber kettle soon.

The objections against lighter fluid are usually taste not cost wise. Never used the stuff so I can't comment.

But I think that for me this is more of a - a knife never runs out of bullets situation. If you are grilling you will have paper towels and cooking oil nearby, buy you can run out of lighter fluid.

You don't get any junk mail or grocery store circulars? I agree that the "lighter fluid bad" crowd tends to be a bit overzealous, but the problem I have with it is more one of consistency—unless you're very careful about how you apply it, there are always a few briquettes that don't seem to light, and you usually have to stir the pot a bit to get everything going. Match-light charcoal avoids this, but it's also the most expensive solution. This is the same reason why I think lump charcoal is an affectation as well. It looks cooler but is more expensive to produce and doesn't give the consistency that good 'ol Kingsford blue bag does.

I do, although to be honest I have never thought to keep them for that purpose. I just throw them out immediately. It's a good idea, though, and one I will probably start implementing. The paraffin wax cubes I currently use to light my chimney starter are not super expensive, but free is even better.

I think that a lot of people still live with the first seasons of good eats, not realizing that the 80s suburbia is long gone. More and more briquettes are pressed dust with some starch as binder. And they deprive themselves of the brilliant asian briquettes with hole - those things can make your local blacksmith passing by to ask if they can use your forge for some minor work.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats