A Three Step Strategy for Curing Internet/Smart Phone Addiction

...Silicon Valley elite who profit from our distraction. Still, there will be times that problem #1 gets the best of us. We won’t always succeed in avoiding the interweb hole and we might, as Newport suggests, even schedule some time to mindlessly surf just to get it out of our system. But the more we get out and just do stuff the less we’ll end up internet surfing and the better we’ll feel. In short, schedule a time to surf a real wave rather than a...

Read…

Why I’m Growing Vegetables in a Straw Bale

...ough to feed all the inhabitants of a generously sized cult compound. This time around I’m trying an inorganic approach, substituting the blood meal I used last time for urea. I’m curious to see if I notice any difference other than price (urea is a lot cheaper). Should I try it again, I’m thinking of building some simple wooden boxes to hold the bales and keep them moist in our hot and dry summer season. My previous success with straw bale garden...

Read…

Our new front yard, part 5: Constructing a meadow community

...w more about spreadsheets, because more functionality would have helped at times–like, being able to arrange the list by bloom time or color or whatnot. But I was content enough just to have it all in one place in standardized columns. Anyway, for the seasonal interest plants, I was keeping my eye out for any native plant which had strong insect or bird appeal, and which was relatively small. My slope is not big, so if I wanted a diversity of spec...

Read…

Acedia, iPhone Addiction and the Noonday Devil

...ditation, manual work, contemplating of the shortness of our lives, taking time for work and time for leisure uninterrupted by work (something developed in Josef Pieper’s book Leisure the Basis of Culture which also mentions acedia specifically). Philosophy professor Brandon Dahm has a detailed explication of acedia and some practical solutions in an article Correcting Acedia through Wonder and Gratitude that’s well worth reading. In short, wonder...

Read…

Weekend Linkages: Time for a Change in LA

...In leaked audio, LA City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo, and Kevin de León discuss redistricting, are extremely racist Make a metric clock William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’ Yet another gender reveal party disaster Denver destroyed by cars A fight over worms and moats San Francisco’s crosstown trail What the year 2000 was really like...

Read…