William Morris is the Marie Kondo We Need

...slogan reminds me of David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs which shows in sometimes funny, sometimes gut wrenching detail how much of the work done in our time is meaningless, unnecessary and destructive of the planet and the mental health of so many people. A common misunderstanding of Morris message is that he thought that we should all go back to hand work. It’s clear from reading him that it isn’t a matter of machine vs. hand work but rather what...

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Busting Open an iPod Touch

...years we must crack, hack, split open and reprogram our tools so that they serve us. Special thanks to friend of the blog Michael W. who offered to help me with Linux and got me thinking about spending more time making these electronic tools work for me rather than me working for them. Micheal also tipped me off to a great post from Low Tech Magazine “How and why I stopped buying new laptops.”...

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Our Phoebe is gone

...think, even possible for four years. She went to the hospital a couple of times, and bounced back like a champ, even though we were sure each time that it had to be the end. We suspected she’d been given three times nine lives, or perhaps she’d stolen a bunch of extra lives from kitty heaven. Her quality of life was very good until the the last couple of weeks, despite the severity of her condition. For most of her life, to look at her you’d have...

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Age of Apocalypse

...c of an apocalypse meme should be noted: the insistence that this point in time, this convergence of signs, portents and factors is unique in all of human history. That while sure, other apocalypses haven’t worked out, this time it’s different. One of the apocalypse memes at the conference varied from the classic “chosen survivors” variant, and it is reflect in the writings of Guy McPherson, the speaker who caused the most buzz. In his worldview,...

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2022 in Review: Cats, Mushrooms and Politics

...nt even in the middle of summer. Plane spotting has become a boring new pastime. Kelly and I have hundreds of photos of our cats snuggling together. Our friend Daniel used my shop to make frames for a show about his desert lighthouse project. It was one of the best art shows I’ve ever seen and another friend, Doug Harvey, wrote about it. Someone please stop the house flippers. This is one of the worst flips in the neighborhood–ugly windows and che...

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