Set in the northernmost reaches of the Taklimakan Desert, this oasis-village is an often hostile place to inhabit. Yet despite the harsh environment, a culture rich with fascinating architecture and agriculture continues to thrive https://t.co/zkU5pt18WJ
— Atlas Obscura (@atlasobscura) March 31, 2018
"Bicycles [unlike cars] let people become masters of their own movements without blocking those of their fellows." —Ivan Illich pic.twitter.com/TZOfWqoDy0
— Taras Grescoe (@grescoe) March 30, 2018
Great piece. Mandatory reading for journalists, editors, all media. Next time you’re reporting a car/pedestrian or car/bike injury or fatality, don’t just write what the cops tell you. Ask questions. Lots of them. https://t.co/J67wZhRmko
— Martyn Schmoll (@martynschmoll) March 30, 2018
China Is Using Facial Recognition Technology to Send Jaywalkers Fines Through Text Messages https://t.co/MViG9cY3Uy via @motherboard
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 29, 2018
New Leadership Has Not Changed Uber https://t.co/LRYSQa7sED
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 28, 2018
One Response to the Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Block Facebook's Tracking With Privacy Badger https://t.co/a23EUON8Sk via @eff
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 27, 2018
The Best Alternative For Every Facebook Feature https://t.co/4MRpqnZ1cn via @WIRED
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 27, 2018
How to delete Facebook https://t.co/mKzU0RdoJj via @Verge
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 27, 2018
Africa is littered with abandoned poorly-planned aid projects https://t.co/3S3MK8Ucam
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 27, 2018
I ditched Facebook in 2013, and it's been fine (Opinion) https://t.co/ICOjnBmWNw
— Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 27, 2018
Good urbanism. Kamakura, Japan. Continually inhabited since 8000 B.C. pic.twitter.com/bokyhj8wY3
— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) March 31, 2018
The best climbers for shade | Alys Fowler https://t.co/mSGg4x4zCD pic.twitter.com/37z1Qx4zDW
— Guardian gardening (@guardiangardens) March 31, 2018
Virginia opossums are the only marsupials native to North America. Just like the offspring of kangaroos and wallabies, baby opossums are called joeys. pic.twitter.com/pKOwZbbzz3
— NHMLA (@NHMLA) March 30, 2018
An advertising scheme launched in the 1930s is the reason so many American families‘ Seder tables include a Haggadah made by Maxwell House—yes, the coffee company. This is so interesting! https://t.co/0q9vMAR1de
— Laura J. Nelson (@laura_nelson) March 31, 2018
The Balls pic.twitter.com/b9InqHr0A4
— Evan Kleiman (@evankleiman) March 31, 2018
"I kissed silver birches and held long conversations with hawthorn trees, until we reached a philosophical impasse and parted ways…." from NETTLE-EATER, out with @thehedgepress. Only a handful of the 1st green edition left now!https://t.co/N9r3eoXgjT#NettleEater #Dartmoor pic.twitter.com/YvDAn1U6CX
— Tom Hirons (@hironstom) March 31, 2018
The sun and the moon hide their face during the Crucifixion, from a Gospel-book made in the 11th-century at Echternach https://t.co/bsVogcmNso pic.twitter.com/P8H2KyjTbA
— A Hudson (@wyrdwritere) March 31, 2018
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The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle Between Two World-Systems. The purpose of all architecture, writes Christopher Alexander, is to encourage and support life-giving activity, dreams, and playfulness. But in recent decades, while our buildings are technically better–more sturdy, more waterproof, more energy efficient– they have also became progressively more sterile, rarely providing the kind of environment in which people are emotionally nourished, genuinely happy, and deeply contented. Using the example of his building of the Eishin Campus in Japan, Christopher Alexander and his collaborators reveal an ongoing dispute between two fundamentally different ways of shaping our world.
The article about failed aid projects in Africa was especially interesting. We see all kinds of articles about green projects and experiments, like biogas bags, various kinds of water collectors and cleaner-burning ovens, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen much in the way of follow up.
a pannier bag full of love for sending me the way of @wrathofgnon
Africa isn’t the only place where aid projects go to die. Peter van Buren was involved in our rebuilding of Iraq and wrote a book about the whole sorry experience, “We Meant Well”.
From the Amazon blurb:
“Charged with rebuilding Iraq, would you spend taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhood to promote reconciliation through art? How about an isolated milk factory that cannot get its milk to market? Or a pastry class training women to open cafés on bombed-out streets that lack water and electricity?
As Peter Van Buren shows, we bought all these projects and more in the most expensive hearts-and-minds campaign since the Marshall Plan. “We Meant Well” is his eyewitness account of the civilian side of the surge ― that surreal and bollixed attempt to defeat terrorism and win over Iraqis by reconstructing the world we had just destroyed. Leading a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team on its quixotic mission, Van Buren details, with laser-like irony, his yearlong encounter with pointless projects, bureaucratic fumbling, overwhelmed soldiers, and oblivious administrators secluded in the world’s largest embassy, who fail to realize that you can’t rebuild a country without first picking up the trash.”