Saturday Linkages: Raccoon Robber, Facebook Phreaks and T-Bricks

...ayak https://t.co/8x4BbM0eaA — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 2, 2017 Facebook Phreaks and the Fight to Reclaim Time and Attention: https://t.co/jGCHLphKJu — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 4, 2017 California Assembly bill would extend tax break to turn urban lots into farms https://t.co/jbXQ3KMVyW — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 4, 2017 T-bricks, the easy way to make an #adobe home https://t.co/2pqQOb93Hp #naturalbuilding — Root Simple (@roots...

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I Made a Mallet

...razy how-to projects but, occasionally, in the service of this blog or our books. Lately, I’ve been thinking of paring down our disparate activities to only the most useful. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the skill I need most would be carpentry/woodworking. We live in a small, nearly 100 year old house that needs constant work and I’m the incompetent building supervisor. Any tradesperson who knows what they are doing will not take small job...

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Saturday Tweets: Rats, DIY Plastic Recycling and Old Flatbread

...unity gardens. https://t.co/ODWFffKZ8v pic.twitter.com/7Q54UUYa8y — UC IPM Urban Program (@ucipmurban) July 19, 2018 This sums up my problems with Steven Pinker: https://t.co/IGYey5ks2i — Root Simple (@rootsimple) July 18, 2018 Found: 14,400-Year-Old Flatbread Remains That Predate Agriculture. #carbup #carbsovercars #gathererdiet via @atlasobscura https://t.co/PVA8Z4zW7K — Matt Ruscigno (@MattRuscigno) July 17, 2018 Philip K. Dick and the fake hum...

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For the Locals . . .

On that foot sign Alissa Walker, one of my favorite journalists, covers urban design here in Los Angeles. She wrote a great piece on our nieghborhood’s iconic podiatrist sign. Walker agrees with me that we need much more than kitschy signs to mark our neighborhoods. She concludes, We need more reminders of what history predates our presence. We need more streets that are designed to connect us instead of being fast-forwarded through in cars. We n...

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Scooters? Not a New Idea

...8 · New York Herald (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com It turns out the urban scooter craze isn’t a new idea. From a story in an October 8, 1916 newspaper, “Skidding Through Fact and Fancy on an Autoped: Solo Devil Wagon Taken Up in a Serious Way Might Add New Terrors to City Life” is a description of motorized scooter not all that different than the ones we see today: You stand on the cute platform and get your feet neatly fitted on the rubber...

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