I Deleted my Facebook Account

...n-target information. Facebook knows that I’m an epee fencer who practices urban homesteading, reads Rowan Williams and goes to Nick Cave concerts (damn, that’s all pretentious!). But it also seems to think that I’m an African-American who grows with hydroponics, rocks out to the Queens of the Stone Age and loves Honey Baked Ham. I suspect much of the data Cambridge Analytica gathered was, similarly, off-target and useless. How to #DeleteFacebook...

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Saturday Tweets: Screens, Model Villages and Walkable Cities

...nterested in the @ucce_la Master Gardener Program? Come out to @OpenSilo‘s Urban Ag Happy Hour next Tuesday, 10/30, from 6-9 to talk gardening and learn about the program! Join us at the Highland Park Brewery, 1220 North Spring Street, Chinatown. pic.twitter.com/HcFwyn8J2F — Rachel Surls (@RachelSurls) October 22, 2018 In the walkable city, people gather in a piazza, square, or plaza. In the automobile city, it’s called an intersection. (And nobod...

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Chicken of the Woods

...calyptus. The very same mushroom pundits suggest thoroughly cooking all Laetiporus. I can report having consumed a lot of the mushroom we foraged with no ill effects. It was, in fact, one of the most delicious mushrooms I’ve ever consumed. But one should not trust the musings of an aging urban homesteading blogger when foraging for mushrooms. Find yourself a local mushroom nerd or run it past your cats. That said, don’t be too fearful either or yo...

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Hey New York Times Let’s Dump the Wheels Column

...f communities, thanks to the insatiable hunger for space cars claim in our urban spaces. Failing to point out these objective facts makes your auto columns little more propaganda. Where is your bike column? Where is your transit advice column? Where is your walk-ability coverage? Sure, you touch on these issues elsewhere but these subjects have no dedicated column like “Wheels.” Perhaps it’s time to start treating cars the way you might treat ciga...

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Spaceship Earth

...what could be more non-essential than hippie avant-garde thespians? For us urban homesteader types, it’s also good to have a reminder that hubris in the face of complexity is an occupational hazard of anyone who attempts to garden, keep animals, cook from scratch or otherwise interact with things other than laptops and iPhones. You can stream Spaceship Earth via the YouTubes for here. If you haven’t seen Adam Curtis’ All Watched Over by Machines o...

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