The Agony and the Ecstasy of iPhone6s Repair

...their use they are supported by server farms that require vast amounts of energy and human toil. To make sure the adhesive seals you stack a bunch of books on the phone. The video tutorial I watched used a copy of Steve Job’s biography. I substituted Marx’s hefty Grundrisse. As I think Marx would say, our iPhones are embedded in a web of social relations and physical conditions. If you want to understand this device, you might start with disassem...

Read…

Yet Another Lawn Rant

...117,000 folks in the United States made trips to the emergency room in 2007 because of lawn mowers. We’ve witnessed first hand the power of lawn mowers. A neighbor of ours had his windshield shattered by a rock propelled by a mower blade. As the Orthopedic Surgeons note, “The energy transferred by a typical lawn mower blade is equivalent to being shot in the hand with a .357 Magnum pistol. A lawn mower can eject a piece of metal or wood up to 100...

Read…

Essential System #8 – Nutrition (Extra Food)

...was what you’d expect – a cross between balsa wood and salt. The chocolate energy bar was much more substantial with a thick, waxy chocolate-like-ness, almost completely masking a surprisingly malty undertone. I’d use the word cloying, but I hate that word.” Should you require another opinion on MREs, someone calling themselves “Badtux the Snarky Penguin” has a review of the chicken tetrazini MRE. We prefer the more upscale freeze dried backpackin...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Lyme Disease, Unuselessness and a Plum Mystery

...on this forlorn strip of concrete wedged between Commercial Street and the 101 Freeway. The sycamore tree was over sixty feet tall and visible for miles around: https://t.co/IfXI9vWlV7 pic.twitter.com/sfItVwmpZU — L.A. Public Library (@LAPublicLibrary) May 2, 2018 Apparently taping a rock on a beg button creates a similar effect to having a city that thinks about pedestrians. #banbegbuttons #tacticalurbanism pic.twitter.com/B8aJunv2Lm — Ollie #ca...

Read…

The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors

...a Dean’s new book The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors in this month’s issue of Yes Magazine. As we say in the review, don’t expect to be able to run your plasma screen with a bicycle (a lot of our favorite appliances take a hell of a lot more energy than pedal power can provide), but you will be able to grind grain, press apples, operate a sewing machine, and shell nuts. Dean’s book tells you how to harness human power in clear st...

Read…