The Year We Gave Up Our Smart Phones

September 3, 2018

...was sitting in front of me. Or the fact that I lacked the patience to read books. I came to see my smart phone addiction as not just a personal vice but also as the invisible hand of the tech billionaires who were personally interrupting my work for their own commercial gain. They had made our lives their marketplace and it was well past time to drive them out. The tech bros had used smart phones to change our relationship to the world. Even activ...

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Grub

Mr. Homegrown

October 2, 2009

Animals, Chickens, Composting

11 Comments

...rning you empty a bucket full of grubs for your grateful chickens or fish, making sure to reserve a few to ensure future black soldier fly generations. Adult black soldier flies don’t bite and are only interested in flying around looking for sex and, in the case of the females, to find a good place to lay eggs. At $179, the BioPod™ is above our humble slacker budget level, but you can make your own out of the ubiquitous five gallon bucket. While I...

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Hoshigaki Season!

Mr. Homegrown

November 7, 2023

Food, Food Preservation

1 Comment

...of red and yellow leaves that comes elsewhere. In our house we believe in making hoshigaki in the fall with persimmons from either the market or, better yet, a neighbor or friend rather than chugging those pumpkin spice lattes. We’ve got a row of seven store bought persimmons hanging in a south facing window and plans to start more. Here’s what they look like when completed. If you’ve never tried making hoshigaki, a kind of transcendent dried fru...

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Saturday Tweets: Don’t Fear the Green Reaper

Mr. Homegrown

February 2, 2019

Saturday Linkages

...n Los Angeles—be warned. The anti-road-diet wackos have formally rebranded as a national advocacy group. https://t.co/Yy3Vh52gNV pic.twitter.com/OR28t0Wjuc — Peter Flax (@Pflax1) January 27, 2019 Arthur drawing the sword from the stone @BLMedieval Add 38117 f. 73v pic.twitter.com/6ndhCUvOMO — Melibeus (@melibeus1) January 27, 2019...

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Busting Open an iPod Touch

Mr. Homegrown

December 29, 2020

Design, Tools

7 Comments

...worry and exasperation is real. Apple’s minimalist design aesthetic, while making devices that are visually appealing, gets in the way of their use and function. This iPod is so sleek and slim that it just wants to slide out of your hand and break, which is how I came to this repair, of course. The funny thing is that in order to keep the thing from getting broken you have to buy a third party case. From a design perspective (not a capitalist one,...

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