I Ate 100 Power Bars

...latest buzz-phrase by large food companies. Every natural food product is labeled either “pro-biotic” or “pre-biotic.” If one could distill all those booths down to one item you’d end up with a pro-biotic turmeric, kimchi, kombucha, paleo sports bar grown “regeneratively,” whatever that means. But I’m getting cranky again. On a more positive note I met a nice Root Simple reader who works for Q Drinks, an Oakland, California based producer of toni...

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Solar Eclipse 2024

...operate in most of Texas anyways so we would likely have ended up drinking beer on our friend’s couch, not necessarily a bad outcome. Instead of a trip to Texas I decided to stay put and participate in a physics experiment run by HamSCI out of the University of Scranton that is attempting to answer the question, “How do solar eclipses impact ionospheric structure and dynamics?” To answer this question HamSCI uses data collected though amateur radi...

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Crapper Livin’

...so that fat cats can continue to go on $16,000 trophy hunts while drinking beer on the back of a truck. Read more about his plan to turn Santa Rosa into a retreat for disabled vets (an excuse to keep the fat cat hunt going) in the Washington Post. Please fax Hunter at this address ASAP and tell him that Santa Rosa Island belongs to the people, and should be run by the National Parks Service: Rep. Duncan Hunter, 2265 Rayburn HOB, Washington, DC 205...

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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

...were paid to do the things you like to read about on this blog: gardening, beer brewing, jam making, beekeeping etc. Or how about a world in which teachers, nurses and caregivers made more money than tech CEOs? Sadly, we don’t live in that utopia. Instead we have an economy that often rewards people who either do nothing all day or whose work degrades our lives. Anthropologist David Graeber takes up these questions in his book Bullshit Jobs: A The...

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Mortise and Tenon Magazine

...wo years ago I decided to declutter some of my eclectic interests (goodbye beer making) and focus on upping my carpentry and woodworking skills. Partly, this was out of necessity. Our house needed some work and those skilled with planes and hammers are busy building custom staircases for Barbara Streisand and don’t have the time for a 980 square foot bungalow in the HaFoSaFo district. I took a few classes, subscribed to some woodworking and home b...

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