Scooters? Not a New Idea

Sun, Oct 8, 1916 – Page 58 · New York Herald (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com It turns out the urban scooter craze isn’t a new idea. From a story in an October 8, 1916 newspaper, “Skidding Through Fact and Fancy on an Autoped: Solo Devil Wagon Taken Up in a Serious Way Might Add New Terrors to City Life” is a description of motorized scooter not all that different than the ones we see today: You stand on the cute platform and get your feet n...

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Vegetable Garden Note Taking

A page from Thomas Jefferson’s garden diary. My worst mistake in the fifteen years we have been gardening here in Los Angeles has been my shoddy note taking. Even though we don’t have frosts to contend with, it still can be tricky to figure out when to plant vegetables. In a lecture I attnded at the National Heirloom Exoposition, Sonoma County gardening guru Wendy Krupnick had a simple suggestion for what to take notes on in your vegetable garden...

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Make Magazine: Online and Free

...co-founder Palmer Luckey’s interest in funding the company, and a GoFundMe page started for it.] I wrote an article on drip irrigation for Issue 18 and have to say that it was a pleasure to work with the Make editorial team. Unlike other publications I’ve written for, the editors at Make knew a lot about the technical details of the subject matter and worked hard to ensure accuracy. Speaking of technical details, the only thing I’d change if I wro...

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Fermentology: Mini Seminars About Cultured Food

...d will be recorded and available afterwards on the Applied Ecology Youtube page. Registration here! Follow us on twitter or facebook for updates. A closing note: I’m fortunate to be able to stay at home, with plenty of food, and watch fermentation seminars. Many are not so lucky. I have a friend and neighbor who runs several farmers’ markets through a non-profit called SEE-LA. They are soliciting donations to support families sheltering in place i...

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The Practical Side of Philosophy

How did I get through my entire education without studying so much as a page of philosophy? It is, after all, the foundation of all human knowledge. In desperate act of catch-up, I’ve attempted in the past few years an often difficult program of philosophical and theological self-study. Now, before you think I’ve gone way off topic on a homesteading blog, let me counter with a few examples of how philosophy can help navigate thorny DIY questions:...

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