What Equipment do I Need to Keep Bees?

...the safety bicycle or the fork, that reached its design apotheosis a long time ago and doesn’t need to be subject to the whims of fashion. I own the cheapest model and have found it perfectly adequate. The more expensive models have a kind of cage around them to prevent you from burning yourself but I’ve never found this feature necessary. Hive tool This is a small and deliberately dull crowbar. Bees stick everything together with propolis, so yo...

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Defeating Squirrels With Tech

...d, turning that technical know-how towards the most important issue of our time: squirrel deterrence. As it turns out I’m not alone. At a Python programming conference, back in 2012, software engineer Kurt Grandis presented a research project he entitled, “Militarizing Your Backyard with Python: Computer Vision and the Squirrel Hordes.” Grandis’ motivation was a squirrel attack on his peach tree and, worse, his kid’s pumpkin patch. The full lectur...

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Three Important Points to Remember When “Kondo-ing”

...ally spilled out during her lifetime. These possessions became a burden, a time-sucking sorting task that claimed many hours of the last years of my mom’s life. This has sparked a, perhaps, overly emotional reaction to quickly get rid of stuff at our own house. We’ve had aborted “Kondo-ing” attempts before but this time I’ve decided to more carefully re-read Kondo’s directions. It’s easy to think that Kondo-ing is just about de-junking. This compl...

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The Kit Houses of the Pacific Ready-Cut Home Company

...lly think we need a small house movement rather than a tiny house one. Why not just start building these perfectly good early 20th century houses again? A big thanks to Colin for the tip on the catalog and on a article in the LA Times about the Pacific Ready-Cut Company. Which, before its demise switched to manufacturing surfboards! The Times article notes that there are thousands of Pacific Ready-Cut Designs not shown in the 1925 catalog I linked...

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Team Human

...here will be no podcast this week due to the fact that I’ve spent too much time glazing windows and too little time booking guests. Rest assured that you can look forward to future Root Simple Podcast episodes involving topics as varied as climate science, lard and rum. If you are glazing windows today and want a podcast to listen to, let me suggest Douglas Rushkoff’s Team Human. While you struggle with the putty, Rushkoff struggles with our troub...

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