There’s No Such Thing as a Free Watch

February 16, 2018

...after being produced, it is reviled, doomed to live out its stainless steel life, less a teller of time than an incarnation of petty deception. In that sense, it may be the best artifact of capitalism one could ask for. You almost need to go back to Thomas Aquinas’ complex Aristotelian thoughtstylings about transubstantiation to wrap your head around the story Odell tells. While we’re on the topic of transubstantiating things, the Church of Engla...

Read…

Spaceship Earth

Mr. Homegrown

July 17, 2020

Reviews

6 Comments

...and (this might trigger some folks but I just gotta say it) deeply flawed thoughtstylings of huckster Buckminster Fuller (1, 2,) made popular by the Whole Earth Catalog utopians of the 1970s. The Biospherians/Synergians thought that they could create a complex, self-guiding model of the Earth and use that idea to escape our very real and material problems down here on dusty old Earth. Spaceship Earth doesn’t really explore this ideology. Maybe it...

Read…

Sensuous Space: How to Create Romantic, Seductive and Sensuous Settings

Mr. Homegrown

April 21, 2023

Design

1 Comment

...ific color, form texture, musical and even scent suggestions over the many pages of charts, spreadsheets and graphs. We’re 30 pages in by the time we see our first hot tub. The power nexus of the erotic panopticons in this book are, naturally, your disco control centers because your house must have its own private discotheque. I don’t know how you keep the blow from gumming up the electronics. Of course, such idiosyncratic spaces are the domain of...

Read…

Incandescent, Compact Fluorescent or LED?

Mr. Homegrown

July 31, 2013

Water and Power

24 Comments

...sealed, enclosed or recessed lighting fixtures. You also have to check the label and perhaps even call the manufacturer to figure out if a CFL will work in a horizontal, base-up or base-down fixture. CFLs perform poorly if turned on and off without at least 15 to 30 minutes to warm up. CFLs contain mercury and other toxins and must be disposed of responsibly. Stick to major brands. Avoid non-UL-listed cheap import bulbs. A trip to the light bulb a...

Read…

Stickers for the Organic Gardener

Mr. Homegrown

May 8, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

6 Comments

...Boing a clever re-purposing: “Evil Mad Scientist Labs wants you to proudly label your organic garden with these handsome “Now Slower and with More Bugs!” stickers, originally produced to adorn software products. The influence of the Slow Food movement is increasing, and gardening is getting ever more popular. Even the tech bloggers are posting about local pollinators and getting beehives. In this environment, it is fitting that a new use has been...

Read…