When Mushrooms Attack

September 7, 2023

...ngerous, AI generated mushroom foraging books, this seems like the perfect time for this blog to point towards the Japanese kid’s show Ultraman Taro, specifically episode 31, “Danger! The Poisonous Mushroom of Lies”. The episode opens with a giant, ambulatory mushroom, named Mushra, destroying a Japanese city. Ultraman Taro, a sort of size-shifting superhero, defeats the monster but not without a release of spores. After the battle the main protag...

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I Made a Bee Vacuum

Mr. Homegrown

June 2, 2023

Animals, Bees

2 Comments

...to some out of the way spot. This last part, scooping up the bees, can be time consuming, frustrating and potentially dangerous if the bees are in a cranky mood. For years I’ve resisted making a bee vacuum with the idea that it’s a crutch, somehow an excuse for bad technique. You can use a smoker to herd bees off the comb and, if you’re careful, once the queen is in the bee box the workers will follow. But if a tool makes things go more smoothly,...

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Reject Modernity Embrace Post-Capitalism

Mr. Homegrown

July 4, 2022

Thoughtstylings

10 Comments

...o be believed, there are always opportunities to be chased or created; any time not spent hustling and hassling is time wasted. The whole city is forced into a gigantic simulation of activity, a fanaticism of productivism in which nothing much is actually produced, an economy made out of hot air and bland delirium. Capital demands that we rip out a perfectly good 1920s bathroom and replace it with the latest stream of vomit from Home Depot. And wh...

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Who Needs Windows?

Mr. Homegrown

November 23, 2021

Design

5 Comments

...tories tall, depending on how you count the floors, and so it takes a long time to go up and down and grab records and bring them down. When people come to use the original records, they sit in our search room and we bring them the records they want, and they sit there waiting.” There are issues with climate control, exacerbated by the building’s shape. (Monoliths are great for catching the sunlight.) Temperature and humidity fluctuations are bad...

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Let’s Win This

Mr. Homegrown

March 2, 2020

Thoughtstylings

11 Comments

...iest February on record. In some places there was no rain at all. The last time I phone banked (reaching out to other supporters and volunteers around the country) I became overwhelmed, choked up with emotion and had to stop. What got me was the level of commitment of working people and students to this campaign–people with a lot fewer resources and time than I have. No other candidate has a ground force as committed as Senator Sanders. No other c...

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