The Future is Biomorphic

...inds me of the wisdom of what Nassim Taleb calls, “non-predictive decision making.” Why? Futurists and prognosticators are as accurate as a dead clock. Twice a day they get it right and the rest of the time they end up looking foolish. We can be especially thankful that the washing machine for people on page 179 of The Futurist never caught on. That said, the point is not always to predict the future. Architects, artists and designers push the env...

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How to Search for Science-Based Gardening Advice

...ave access to tools beyond Google. Hot Topics To that end, I’m thinking of making the trek to UCLA this year to look into a number of controversial horticultural and homesteading questions that have come up in the course of writing posts on Root Simple. Some topics I’m interested in: The effect of chloramine on soil health/human health. The temperament of Africanized bees. Hugelkultur in dry climates. Compost tea. Phytoremediation of lead and/or z...

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Tolkien and Trees

...ut artists who can’t draw trees, and has many trees of significance in his books, which he mentions in passing, but the following are the more direct defenses of trees: #165 To the Houghton Mifflin Co. , 1955 : I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals. #83 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 6 October 1944: It i...

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Perennial Vegetables

...out edible perennials until the publication of Eric Toensmeier’s excellent book, Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles . We’ve got a few of the species Toensmeier mentions: artichoke, prickly pear cactus, stinging nettles, crosnes (more on those in another post) and goji berries. Edible Perennials contains growing information for each species offering something for ev...

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