Federico Tobon’s Handcrafted Password Generator

...avorite artist-makers. He was a guest on episode 8 of the Opposable Thumbs podcast, a show which issues a creative challenge for their guests to complete. Federico had to tackle the topic of “crafting security.” His response was to make this beautiful wooden object that, when manipulated, generates strong, multilingual passwords. Federico’s inspiration was an xlcd comic that has some excellent password security advice: On the podcast and his blog,...

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Book Review: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

...The Intelligence of All Kinds of Life. I remember first listening to this podcast while walking around our neighborhood one evening at twilight. As she spoke about the intelligence of all living things and the importance of our relationship with plants, how we are meant to love and live in a respectful, reciprocal relationship with the natural world, tears came to my eyes because the things she was saying were the things I have always believed–al...

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How to craft a New Year’s resolution and why you should keep them to yourself

...ize your New Year’s resolutions. Re-listening to our New Year’s resolution podcast of 2015 was just plain painful. Looking back, the results weren’t pretty. A large body of research going back to the early 20th century explains why it’s a bad idea to let other people know about your goals. When we tell other people what we’re going to do in the coming year, that act of telling deludes us into thinking that we’ve already accomplished the goal. Blog...

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How to Remove Bees from a Wall

...r two months I enlisted the aid of John Zapf (a guest on episode 54 of our podcast) and also recruited the intrepid renter of the apartment, Elizabeth, who was more than happy to jump into a suit and help out. John did the bulk of the work while I sat uselessly on a stool and took pictures. I learned the removal method we used from beekeeper Kirk Anderson, our guest on episode 40 of the podcast. This is not the only way to do it but, I think, one...

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Veggie Trader

Media theorist Douglass Rushkoff has a great new radio show and podcast on WFMU called Media Squat. On the first episode he speaks eloquently of the power of developing local currencies through concepts such as time banking (see our local Echo Park Time Bank for a great example of that) and how these local efforts could be the way out of our current economic morass. Rushkoff is especially interested in the roll the Internet can play in setting up...

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