Maintaining a Worm Bin

...ss than an hour. You could go through a plastic tote-type bin much faster. Making a New Working Side After harvest you’ll have empty space–and that space will become the new working side, which means you need fresh bedding for the worms. I usually start by robbing some of that from the other side of the bin. Anything that’s big enough to notice, like a corn husk or a coffee filter or a handful of straw, I’ll grab. Today, I scraped the top layer of...

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Los Angeles Permaculture Design Course Certificate Series

...ure. Permaculture Design touches on all aspects of life, offering decision-making protocols based on nature, for problem-solving, critical thinking and design. THE CURRICULUM Our text book, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, by Bill Mollison, was once reviewed by Whole Earth saying “If information had density… this book would be a black hole!…” The learning focus of the course will be in the design team exercises and extracurricular hands-on oppor...

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What the Internet Will Look Like After the Zombie Apocalypse

...of off the shelf wireless routers overlaps with amateur radio frequencies making it legal for Hams to boost the range of these devices. That and the fact that several models of ubiquitous Linksys routers are cheap and easy to hack. Photo: Texas Ham Radio All you do is take your Linksys router, screw in a better antenna (note the one above made with a tin can), load some open source software on to it, scatter them around town and you’ve got a wire...

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2013 in Review Part I

...it should rain. It didn’t. The year was the driest on record: 3.6 inches, making it a desert not the Mediterranean climate it should be. It seems to be a dry winter again this year and I’m worried. March A texting music video producer totaled our car and thus began a six month experiment in living without a car in Los Angeles. That experiment ended in September when we bought a car. Living in LA without a car was easier than I thought it would be...

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My Brand New Homebrew Soda Carbonator

...husband award this Valentine’s Day. He surprised me with my very own soda making machine. This is not a SodaStream–it’s better. It’s an industrial strength CO2 tank topped with sturdy dials and valves and whatnot, all sourced from the local homebrew shop. He’s going to do a how-to post soon (tomorrow maybe?) on how to put together the parts, and how to use it. So hold on for those details! Right now, I’m just going to gush. I’ve been wanting some...

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