A Three Step Strategy for Curing Internet/Smart Phone Addiction

...g in the morning. Pick up a book first. Build something. Garden, pull some weeds and plant some vegetables. Go to concerts, plays, lectures etc. Seek out a spiritual practice that involves both private time and scheduled group engagement. Read and apply some of the “deep work” anti-distraction strategies found in Cal Newport’s blogs and books. I think the common thread with these activities is redirection and physical separation from our computers...

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Saturday Linkages: The Kirghiz Light’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

...A Winged Figure, Abbott Handerson Thayer, 1904-1911. Comet NEOWISE Dazzles at Dusk What to do With Blackberries Poll: Who always wears a mask in public—and who doesn’t? CoronaShock and Socialism ‘Not just weeds’: how rebel botanists are using graffiti to name forgotten flora Extreme atmospheric rivers: what will California’s strongest storms look like in a warming climate? The Sacro Bosco of Bomarzo...

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Garden Update Part II: The Good the Bad and a Lot of Ugly

...ps me clear the hardscaping. There’s actually a nice brick patio under the weeds and clutter here. Ugh, more junk. Here’s the nice new patio the Haynes landscaping folks built. The adobe oven is under a blue tarp. Blue tarps are the architectural equivalent of a comb over. The oven needs a little roof which, to extend the metaphor would be the architectural equivalent of a decent wig, if such a thing exists. And, man, do we need some outdoor furni...

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Maggots!

...bin, keep it moist but not wet, and wait a year. Also remember not to put weeds in the pile as the seeds can spread to wherever you use the compost. To speed up the decomposition process in a single pile composter, you can remove the compost contents, mix them up with a pitchfork, and put them back in the pile. Our composter is bottomless, so the soil underneath the bin gets fertilized as the compost decomposes, so when we move the pile the previ...

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Saturday Tweets: Too Many Tweets!

...by a plant to reduce competition–can be used as a design tool to suppress weeds. Wonderful groundcovers like Antennaria plantaginifolia planted underneath established perennials can help to reduce weed pressure. https://t.co/PG56m0hpdU — Thomas Rainer (@ThomasRainerDC) March 4, 2019 Alias: a smart-speaker "parasite" that blocks your speaker's sensors until you activate it https://t.co/uvSQXWz9kK — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 4, 2019 Goodb...

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