My New Thoughtstyling Throne

...he BarcaLounger which shows you how far this American Empire has declined. Making Stickley’s #336 involved an nerve racking steam bending process. The wood went in a makeshift box fed with steam from a wallpaper steamer. After an hour in the steamer the wood was quickly rushed to a form made with plywood. I had to actually sit on the arm to get it to bend. On the first attempt the arm broke and I had to do it all over again. When I was done with t...

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Earth Building Classes!

...nterested in presenting? A call for papers is out… submissions due on April 10th. Elsewhere in California: Buying Adobes in California: As a reminder, San Tan Adobe and New Mexico Earth are both shipping bricks to California. If you need adobe bricks and can’t make your own, both adobe yards will be happy to help! San Tan’s adobe are also available in some San Diego area masonry yards. We are also hearing tell of a new possible source near Joshua...

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On Living in Los Angeles Without a Car: A Debate

...ay with the issue at hand, which is whether or not we buy a new car. Erik: Making cities safe for walking and biking is exactly the kind of issue where individuals, working with city officials, can make a difference. In short, we need more moms to show up with their kids at meetings and demand safer streets. Kelly: Great. I’ll just live my Grey Gardens existence until the moms of LA mobilize and make this city into the Amsterdam of the West. Credi...

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Everything Must Go: Tidying Up at the Root Simple Compound

...oint we remembered a book one of our readers mentioned, and which has been making the publicity rounds of late, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by the tidying consultant Marie Kondo (aka KonMari–her method is called the KonMari Method). She’s from Japan, where people have the same hearty consumerist impulses as we do here in the U.S., but considerably less space for storage. When I first read about the book, I understood the gist of it, but...

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Grub

...(Hermetia illucens) grubs as poultry and fish feed. “If we offer the grubs 100 pounds of food wastes, for example, they will reduce it to 5 pounds of residue usable as a superior soil amendment, in the process generating 10 and possibly up to 20 pounds of live grubs that can be fed to livestock; in addition to liquid effluent (how much depends on the moisture content of the feeding materials) which can be used to feed crops. Hey, wait a minute–wh...

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