How much time do you spend cycling in the city?

...tize walking and cycling over driving. This involves slowing down traffic, making parking expensive and difficult, installing bike and bus only lanes and heavily penalizing anyone who texts and drives. Unfortunately, these are unpalatable and career ending policies for our council members and mayor. But we can’t give up hope. I was a small part of the push, ten years ago, to make things better for cycling in Los Angeles. I feel like contributing t...

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A Low-Tech Experiment in Growing Oyster Mushrooms

My furniture making hobby produces a mountain of sawdust and wood chips. Some of it I give to neighbors who have cabins with composting toilets. A lot of it I have to throw out. A few months ago a light bulb went off. I mostly produce oak sawdust which just happens to be one of the ideal substrates for growing mushrooms. While I love looking at mushrooms and attending lectures about mushrooms via the Los Angeles Mycological Society, I don’t know...

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Timing Sourdough Feeding

...ecent sourdough bread: the amount of time between feeding your starter and making your dough. I keep a small amount of starter on hand since I bake, at most, twice a week under normal circumstances (Under quarantine I’m baking a lot more but the reasons for that would be the subject of another blog post). Just before I go to bed, the night before I’m going to make bread, I take a tablespoon of starer and add it to 50 grams of whole wheat flour and...

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Saturday Linkages: Juneteenth

...Oakland mural by Elaine Chu and Marina Perez-Wong. A Juneteenth of Joy and Resistance Joe Lamp’l Rants about Mosquito Spraying Services, and 9 More Things Here’s All the Free Online Stuff You Get With Your L.A. Library Card How to Bribe a Los Angeles Lawmaker Making Jam from Frozen Fruit Ancient receipts I’m Not Wearing a Mask Arizona Public Media: Behind the Mask A Brief History of Listening In on Police Radios...

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Saturday Linkages: Quarantine Movie Suggestions

...he Jacobin (behind a paywall but worth the price of admission). We’ve been making our way through Kilpatrick’s golden-age of Hollywood sub-list. So far we’ve watched: Scarface (the 1932 version) The Big Sleep (Don’t worry about the plot it makes no sense at all–just enjoy the scenery) His Girl Friday (You can watch this one for free on the YouTubes) The Sea Wolf (This one is kinda like a relentless, brutal film noir at sea and, remember, the sea i...

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