Live Like a Stoic for a Week

November 25, 2013

...g questionnaires before and after the week and the data from these will be used to assess the effectiveness of the Stoic ideas when they are put into practice today. Dr John Sellars of Birkbeck’s Philosophy Department and a member of the Stoicism Today project, said: “The ancient Stoic authors offer a wide range of practical advice that many people have drawn on in their daily lives. Stoic Week is an opportunity for people to put Stoicism to the t...

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Does Sourdough Offer Hope for the Gluten Intolerant?

Mr. Homegrown

December 2, 2013

Bread, Fermentation, Food

9 Comments

...es cerevisiae, to make bread rise quickly. But even before Pasteur, bakers used the yeast remaining from beer making (also a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to make doughs rise. Sourdough cultures are not as powerful and predictable, so it’s understandable that commercial bakers would want a more dependable alternative. What is in a sourdough culture? There are many strains of yeast in sourdough cultures, but the main one is Candida milleri. C...

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Extreme Low-Tech Communication

Mr. Homegrown

December 10, 2013

Appropriate Technology, Preparedness, Water and Power

5 Comments

...o this primitive home-made transmitter, nicknamed “El Silbo.” No power was used other than that generated by his own voice vibrating the microphone (which was a re-purposed speaker). If you want to build your own here’s the circuit schematic and more details. And here’s Rainey, back in 2009, using El Silbo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6G_yGDbgEY#t=0 On a side note, can we please apply Ham radio’s level of detail and open source spirit to the...

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Composting the Deceased/ My DIY Funeral Fantasies

Mrs. Homegrown

December 9, 2013

Composting

47 Comments

...is life, and it is what I’d most like my body to become when I die. But I used to imagine that the only way to successfully compost a human body would be to first break it down into a manageable pile of nitrogen by sending it through a chipper/shredder (the head! I know!)– which would be very distressing to the bereaved –though no skin off my deceased nose. So to speak. In my imaginings of an enlightened future in which we’d all be composted, the...

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Ask Lowes and Home Depot to Stop Killing Bees

Mrs. Homegrown

January 24, 2014

Animals, Bees

9 Comments

...ides, like Imidacloprid (which is a neonictinoid) should preferably not be used at all, and certainly should not be sold casually to uninformed consumers in big box stores. If you want to read more about the relationship between these poisons and bees, check out this Wikipedia article: Imidacloprid Effects on Bees The Valentine’s Day stunt is just that, a stunt, but a cute one, and a worthwhile one, too. We’re going to send our Valentines off this...

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