Good post from DC: our energy “needs” are skyrocketing due to the demands of cloud computing, AI, EVs, and bitcoin mining. All this at a time of rolling environmental crises. Yet the growth-obsessed powers-that-be never talk about reducing our energy usage.


EFF: “Congress Should Give Up on Unconstitutional TikTok Bans.” This bit is particularly worrying to me:

[The bill] would also give the President the power to designate other applications under the control of a country considered adversarial to the U.S. to be a national security threat.

And the following seems obviously true. If they’re worried about our data being misused, why not ban the collection of such data altogether? Because such data collection profits those who really matter to the politicians.

The only solution to this pervasive ecosystem is prohibiting the collection of our data in the first place. Ultimately, foreign adversaries will still be able to obtain our data from social media companies unless those companies are forbidden from collecting, retaining, and selling it, full stop. And to be clear, under our current data privacy laws, there are many domestic adversaries engaged in manipulative and invasive data collection as well.


I’m hoping to finish the screen door today. This morning I’ve been planing it to size. Maybe I’m sorta kinda almost maybe figuring out how to use planes? Also smoking pork spare ribs on the grill for the first time. And listening to a red-shouldered hawk make its way around the neighborhood.


One of the highlights of early spring for me is seeing the Italian coast while watching the Milan-Sanremo bike race. Definitely the most beautiful race route of the year.


David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology:

against policy (a tiny manifesto):

The notion of “policy” presumes a state or governing apparatus which imposes its will on others. “Policy” is the negation of politics; policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite, which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted. By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage, since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs.


If you ever take a notion to listen to some cowboy music, Don Edwards' album Saddle Songs is worth your time. I found it a few weeks ago at Half Price Books.


OFA has an article on what to add to your soil in the spring. Here’s what we do. Three of our five raised beds have no contact with the soil so they need a bit more help. For those, we:

  • use a garden mix from our local landscape company to fill them almost back to the top;
  • bring them all the way to the top with purchased compost;
  • fill in around plants with castings from our little worm farm.

For the areas where we plant directly in the ground, we first:

  • put down cardboard to kill the grass and weeds, and
  • cover that with mulch.

Once those areas are established, we simply add a fresh layer of compost every year. It seems to be working–there are worms active all over those areas, just beneath the surface.


I seem to have found myself in a terminological drift. Green Man’s Grotto originally referred to the notch behind the garage, bounded by the fence. This was the first area we planted outside the two original raised beds. While it’s not literally cave-like, the name made a certain sense. But now I find myself referring to the whole backyard as Green Man’s Grotto, which is nothing at all like a cave. This will have to be corrected.


New video: March 2024 in the Grotto. Two videos in one day! Will he keep up this breakneck pace? Assuredly, he will not.


New video: Nessie lives!. Wherein our killer bullfrog appears for the first time this season.