Filter Fail: How to Cure Internet Addiction

August 9, 2013

...is an incredibly useful research tool and a great way to reach out to the urban homesteading community. That being said, I just can’t seem to stop watching those dancing raccoons. We may be well past the point where the distraction potential of the internet is beginning to adversely effect its usefulness. Preventing filter fail So what can be done on a personal level to prevent “filter fail?” Only two things have worked for me in the past: Checki...

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The Sound of One Hand Snapping

Mr. Homegrown

August 25, 2006

Tools

1 Comment

...rs, and driven hundreds of nails with it, hanging molding, fixing windows, making furniture, and countless other tasks. It’s possible, in fact, to drive nails with this thing without using a hammer and it’s especially useful in tight spaces where there is not enough room to swing a hammer. If SurviveLA ever sells out, it will be to whore ourselves out to the folks at Spring Tools who manufacture this elegant, simple and effective tool right here i...

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Unflipping the Gentrifence

Mr. Homegrown

January 24, 2020

Design

8 Comments

...he home grounds.” This pamphlet is part of the Internet Archive’s Building Technology Heritage Library, an essential resource for anyone interested in historical preservation. I recycled all of the old gentrifence, but had to buy some more lumber to complete the project. To make the oddly shaped pickets, I used a combo of table saw cuts along with a jig for my jigsaw. Making jigs increases speed and safety. I’m not entirely happy with the metal ha...

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Le Phone Freak

Mr. Homegrown

May 6, 2019

Appropriate Technology

9 Comments

...illiness. What caught my eye with this oddball piece of transitional phone technology is the punch card, invented in the early 19th century to control looms. I’m tackling Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow this spring after one failed attempt to read it in the 1990s. The book is full of loom metaphors such as this one, “While the great Loom of God works in darkness above,/And our trials here below are but threads of His Love.” The loom repre...

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The Energy Environment Simulator

Mr. Homegrown

January 22, 2014

Water and Power

15 Comments

...extreme, your own personal zombie apocalypse. One of the energy sources is labeled “new technology.” This could either be solar or that UFO doughnut from the Thrive movie. The only info we have on it is that it was manufactured by Tenntronics, a defunct company that was in business from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. It came with a handsome storage cabinet that also serves as a pedestal. Photo: Niklas Vollmer I’m guessing that the Energy-E...

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