Just Tools for Life Revisited
Time is a marvelous means for putting things into perspective. Your most embarrassing moment as a seven-year-old becomes the funniest story of the evening twenty years later. And likewise, those hilarious jokes at two in the morning, produce puzzled looks...
Oh Well
We have not been blogging much lately, because spring is here and we’re on the land. When spring hits, the sparks start flying with action outside. We’re building Sanctuary, aka Factor e Farm. The last week we’ve been drilling our well...
Just Tools for Life
Stan Rhodes recently sent us a couple books in the mail: “Influence: Science and Practice” by Robert Cialdini and “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. I quickly devoured both books as they both proved to be interesting and...
The Value of Jerusalem Artichokes
This “weed” looks like a bumpy potato and is related to the Sunflower (the energy goes to the root more than the seeds in this case). They produce terrific amount of flatulence for most consumers. (They are composed of an indigestible...
A Prickly Journey
A reality check is a bitter sweet pill. The sweetness comes from the truth and the bitterness is in the swallowing. This week I received a letter from an inventor. An inventor who loves the world but sleeps on a couch. When I asked him about collaborating,...
An Open Letter to Lovers of Centralization
I detect a widespread lack of acknowledgement of the critical issue of scale in human orgnanization. E.F. Schumacher’s seminal work on the subject points clearly that human organization simply breaks down after a certain size is reached, as is stated...
Turn Up the Heat
Vinay just informed me today of a great post on our work on BoingBoing, a Directory of Wonderful Things. Sam found another link about us at the Wired magazine blog. A few days ago, Steve Bosserman wrote a great post on how open source products can make...
Solar Cows
A friend of ours stops in from time to time unannounced, often with a technical question on his mind. Before the weather turned so cold, he asked if we had any ideas for keeping his pond open for the winter. We had nothing intriguing to offer; just a...
Turn On the Heat
When I was eight years old or so, my mom took us to the local lake. It was a particularly hot day and I put on sunscreen. After hours of fun in the lake, we came in for a picnic lunch. I was crispy. The swim suit straps had saved only a narrow stripe...
Ubuntu Booted
Yesterday, Ubuntu failed to meet our expectations as an operating system for my Mac iBook. A little research showed that indeed the airport and dimmer capacities, among other features, are rendered useless under Ubuntu. As I use these features frequently,...
