Reviving an Ancient iMac

...rs ago I tackled the arduous process of installing a solid state drive in a 2010 iMac, thus giving it a new lease on life. Unfortunately, it could only run a very old operating system making many of the applications I use unavailable. Just last week I discovered OpenCore Legacy Patcher, a free means of loading more recent operating systems on old Macs and other hardware devices. There’s a helpful YouTube tutorial if you want to give this a try: ht...

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Sad foot sign, the end is comin’

...o Park, “Happy Foot Sad Foot” or “HaFoSaFo” for short. Kelly detailed, in a 2010 blog post, the many cultural references to the sign including a novel by Jonathan Lethem. A reader pointed to a song by the Eels. Later we found out that David Foster Wallace used the sign in his posthumously published novel, The Pale King. Allow me to digress for a moment to note that the longest half hour of my life was the time I was part of a film crew interviewin...

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A Report from the 2014 Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa

...ght grip on my wallet. Santa Rosa was the home of horticulturalist Luther Burbank and the local chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers is particularly fervent and knowledgeable. I used the opportunity to chat up a CRFG operative and get all my quince and pineapple guava questions answered. You’ll be hearing a number of Expo speakers on our podcast and I’ll do some blog posts inspired by what I learned. If you didn’t make it this year, I hope...

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Tracking the Mood of the Gardener

Swiss chard from the winter of 2010 A Root Simple reader I ran into this weekend took issue with my assertion that fall is the best time to start a vegetable garden in Southern California. Thinking about it some more I think she may have a point. Some of you may have noticed that we have a new feature on the blog–if you click on an individual blog post you’ll see a list of related posts at the bottom. Looking at some of those older posts showed t...

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111 Cardoons, Medlars and Hipster Toilets

...Angeles Bread Bakers (sign up for an invite to the monthly pizza party) Our 2010 post on cardoons. Our original post on medlars and a follow up post. All you need to know about Toto’s Eco Promenade toilet (with elongated bowl–round bowl version is here). If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to rootsimple@gmail.com. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitc...

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