A Not So Close Shave

...licit in the curation of an idealized alternate self via this blog and our books? How many times have I presented some neatly tied up homemaking/gardening tip when the actual results were more ambiguous? Or, to go deeper with this, how often have I presented a “failure” as a kind of false modesty? At the risk of doing the latter, and via a long winded media theory laden introduction, permit me update my ongoing struggle with shaving. Most folks do...

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I Built a Harvey Ellis Dresser and it Almost Killed Me

...fitting drawers, finishing surfaces). Late 19th and 20th century furniture making involves not just one task all day but a mix of responsibilities as well as aesthetic decisions such as deciding which way to run the grain. The Ikea dresser is made on a post-Henry Ford assembly line where workers either monitor machines and/or do the same repetitive task all day. This makes for a much cheaper product but an unhappy worker. I made many mistakes buil...

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Counterintelligence

...ing down on that cheese. Few things in nature are as deliberative as a cat making a call on jumping. The assault on our kitchen counters actually came in two parts, somewhat like finding an alternate route up Mt. Everest. The first step came two weeks ago when the cats figured out they could jump on the counter adjacent to the stove. From there they must have spotted the other counter and a week later made the dinner party assault on cheese summit...

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Saturday Tweets: Yuri Gagarin Pesach KonMari, Stick Shifting and a Procedurally Generated Infinite CVS Receipt

...ar with a stick shift and clutch pedal requires the use of all four limbs, making it difficult to use a cellphone or eat while driving. Lapses in attention are therefore rare, especially in city driving.” https://t.co/sbnOiaRhNp — Alissa Walker (@awalkerinLA) March 26, 2019 “The 66-year-old had Googled directions to her neighborhood and found that the app had changed the name of her community from the ‘Fruit Belt’ to something called ‘Medical Park...

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