Skyglow Raises Awareness of Light Pollution

...is is one of those problems that would be relatively easy to fix simply by making sure that lighting is not directed upwards and by using bulbs that emit light on a limited portion of the spectrum. And we’ll save energy in the process. Unfortunately, as the Los Angeles Weekly recently reported, the City of Los Angeles has not done a good job with light pollution. If you’d like to contribute to Mehmedinovic and Heffernan’s project, their website is...

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Tools for Conquering Internet Addiction

...as Carr observed in his prescient 2008 article in the Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” I’ve noticed that my attention span seems to be shrinking and that I’m less able to sit down and read books without the temptation to jump on the Internet and look stuff up. I’ve also noticed that I’m having a harder time initiating and completing the sort of gardening, cooking, food preservation and general DIY projects that provide fodder for this blog...

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How to make hot sauce

...In theory I’m big on all sorts of DIY, especially in the kitchen, because making staples at home can really help save packaging, money and food–and condiments, like mustard, mayo and hot sauce, are easy to make. However, it’s also really easy to fall to temptation and just buy a bottle of something at the store. So here’s a confession: we’ve fallen into sin around here, and haven’t made our own hot sauce in a good while. We dodge the homemade whe...

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055 Guerilla Furniture Design

...zines and web sites. During the podcast we discuss: Arcosonti Rural Studio Making furniture out of cardboard Frank Gehry’s cardboard furniture and Shigeru Ban’s cardboard architecture Holman’s Instructables projects Guerilla Design principles: Honesty, utility, economy and beauty Ikea hacking Open Works – the makerspace Will is helping build in Baltimore Opendesk Will’s website Objectguerilla.com If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple...

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Cob Oven Workshop with Ben Loescher

...unity Garden at Holy Nativity: 6700 W. 83rd Street Register at: www.change-making.com/cob-oven-workshop/ Ben Loescher is a licensed architect, principal of Loescher Meachem Architects, and founder of AdobeIsNotSoftware, an organization which was founded in 2009 to inform, enable and advance adobe construction in California, and educate the public in the building and conservation of adobe structures. This will be a hands-on, get-dirty workshop. Ple...

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