098 Kelly’s Aortic Dissection Adventure

...nt so many kind notes and prayers. Some important links: The Mayo Clinic’s page on aortic dissection. John Ritter died of a aortic dissection. A foundation was set, in his name, that helps educate medical personnel on how to better recognize the symptoms. Kelly did not have a heart attack, but it’s always good to review the subtle symptoms of heart attacks experienced by women. If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please c...

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The Museum of the American Cocktail

...ou do a tasting of 20 bottles or the next day won’t be all that productive. If you’re interested in MOTAC’s Los Angeles events you can sign up at the bottom of their page here. As a generalist (to a fault) I have really enjoyed meeting MOTAC’s expert cocktail enthusiasts....

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By Hand and Eye

...lden section, for instance, and the shelf spacing came from an exercise on page 131 of the book. Far from being restrictive, I found the principles in Walker and Tolpin’s book liberating. I now had a starting point for any design project. For modern folks it’s difficult to imagine working without a ruler. Walker and Toplin explain, Instead of asking, “How high is this base dimension in inches?” pre-industrial artisans would have asked, “How tall i...

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Bird’s Nest

...grape skins onto our patio every night, as we steadily lose our war with the nocturnal creatures for our grapes. But that is the subject of another post. Anyone have any guesses about what kind of bird made this nest? The bowl is about 3 inches (7.5 cm) across. ETA: I’ve been looking at this great page of bird nests–it’s heaven for the bird nest enthusiast. So many types of nests! Wee little eggs! Baby birds! One bird even made its nest in a swea...

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I Deleted my Facebook Account

...ce: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection. It’s a sobering 429 page nightmarish list of social media’s many sins. Then there’s Jeremy Ashkenas who, in a series of tweets, dug up some of Facebook’s patent applications. As others have pointed out these patents read like Black Mirror episode summaries. If that isn’t enough, there’s Facebook’s attempt to exploit depressed teenagers for advertising revenue. Ironically, much of the privacy i...

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