Saturday Linkages: Water Shaming, Scotts and Robot Houses

Smarter urban water: how Denver turned to ridiculing waste http://gu.com/p/4va3t/tw Grid-It: Knoll your everyday carry http://boingboing.net/2014/08/20/grid-it-knoll-your-edc.html … In Our Garden: Four Surprising Fruits http://thehorticult.com/in-our-garden-four-surprising-fruits-that-are-now-in-full-swing/ … Sneak peak of a LIGHT-UP ROBOT-FACE Tree House http://relaxshacks.blogspot.com/2014/08/sneak-peak-of-light-up-robot-face-tree.html?spref=tw...

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Every Day Carry Revisited

...es and sketches performative rather than useful. There is way too much notebook/sketchbook porn, especially on Instagram, my principle social media addiction these days. In my case I use mine, mainly, for three things: Note taking about books I’m reading, things that happened, stuff I need to remember to do, public transit times and general ideas. To practice doing quick sketches. To improve my cursive writing (more on that in another post). Every...

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Lead in Backyard Eggs: Don’t Freak Out But Don’t Ignore the Issue

...elevated lead levels in our soil when we did a series of soil tests back in 2011. Thankfully our egg results came in at 1.02 ug, just under the average level in the study. You’d have to eat a lot of eggs as an adult to go beyond the Federal Drug Administration’s maximum recommended lead intake level, though you could bump up against it if a child ate more than three eggs a day. I’d suggest that if you live in an older urban location, next to a gas...

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What’s Your Everyday Carry?

...ebsite. Consider this blog post as an update of the pocket dump I posted in 2011. Since that time my EDC has changed, mostly via subtractions. Here’s my current EDC: 1. Leatherman Rebar This is the central and, unquestionably, most useful cornerstone of my EDC. Not a day goes by when I don’t pull out the Rebar to fix something or slice off a piece of cheese with the dull (my fault) pocket knife. The Leatherman folks have tried to anticipate every...

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Kickstart the North Memphis Farmers Collective

...o, a high school math teacher in Memphis whose garden got him in trouble in 2011 (and whose cat allegedly damaged a neighbor’s 1991 Cadillac Seville–the horrors!). As often is the case in these stories, there’s a happy ending. What began in one yard has grown into an urban farming movement transforming vacant lots into sources of food and jobs. There’s a Kickstarter: The City of Memphis faces many challenges. Among them are blighted vacant lots, f...

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