Tippy Tap, Beta Version

...unted. I’ve seen people burn a hole in the plastic with a hot nail. I just used a sharp screw to make the hole. You’ll have to experiment with the size of the hole to get the ideal flow. The exact placement of the hole is a compromise. The higher it is, the more the bottle has to be tipped to get the water out. But if it’s too low, you can’t fill the bottle completely. In a jug shaped like mine, I’d place it fairly high, not far below the cap. The...

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What’s Your Everyday Carry?

...last documented my EDC, I’ve eliminated a few items: Fire starting tools I used to carry a second pill container with a small match and a ball of wax soaked cotton as well as a magnesium fire starting tool. Unfortunately, part of the magnesium tool came unscrewed in my pocket and got lost (perhaps the fluid dynamicists in our audience can explain this common pocket phenomenon). But also, how often do I need to start a fire in Los Angeles? While ar...

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What’s Buried in Your Backyard?

...e’s a handy page for dating bottles, scans of antique bottle catalogs, and page after page of bottle types. My unintended archaeological efforts have yielded no Spanish doubloons, viking graves or Anasazi ruins, but I have found lots of glassware, mostly broken milk bottles. I’ve also discovered what I think are cheap perfume bottles like the one above. If you know what this bottle contained please leave a comment. I suspect perfume, because this...

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The Virtues of Gerard’s Herbal

...rard uses. Where a modern plant guide would have a section devoted to the “uses” of a particular plant, Gerard uses the word “virtue” instead. I propose a revival of this word when we speak of plants. “Use,” like so many other things in our culture, is far too utilitarian. Speaking of the “uses” of plants reminds me of a professor in my music department who, when arriving at a party, asked the department secretary, “who’s the most powerful person...

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Is Facebook Useful?

...sh me and shunt them to the bottom of my friend’s feeds. I have a Facebook page for Root Simple but Facebook wants me to pay to promote posts. So instead I mostly use my personal page to promote stuff with limited success. But, worst of all, Facebook has distracted me from responding to comments on this blog and, instead, focusing on comment threads on Facebook. It may be futile, but it’s time to fight back. What I’ve resolved to do I’m not going...

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