I could go on a rant about these crap junction boxes, which we tried to work on at my mom’s house today. Suffice it to say that it’s yet another example of building with no regard to future repairability. It’s mind boggling, especially when a simple 2x4 instead of that metal bar would be far better.
Worth your time: An hourlong documentary covering four seasons in the life of a 76 year old horse logger. That channel has several good videos on traditional skills, if you have an interest in that.
There’s nothing like having your preferred candidate unexpectedly trounced for making you re-evaluate your news sources. Some recent posts from people doing such a re-evaluation:
- Patrick Rhone (lots of good comments on this one)
- Jason Heppler
- The third point of this Adam Kotsko post
- This from Alan Jacobs, which is from a year ago but has sparked some of the reflection above. And speaking of Jacobs, I see that I wrote a post in response to another of his discussions of this issue a couple of years ago.
I already don’t consume a lot of news and I don’t plan to start now. It’s tempting to have my employer pay for an Economist subscription under the guise of keeping up to date on financial news–but I doubt I would read it. But if you’re looking to take the periodicity route, don’t forget your local library. I stopped in at mine this morning to see what newspapers and magazines they have available. Of the ones I have any interest in, they only had The Atlantic. Still, it’s a small town library; yours may have more options.
Don’t miss @dwalbert’s woodcarving sale from now until November 17. Some truly beautiful work available.
Worth your time: “The Abandoned Americans” by Peter Savodnik.
A few folks have been talking about Dougald Hine’s book here recently so I looked back to see what I had posted while reading it. Of continuing interest:
thumbs up

I don’t know what mailing list I got put on, but I’ve now received several free issues of Architectural Digest and Bassmaster.
Cool story of how Paul Sellers was commissioned in 2008 to make credenzas for the White House cabinet room with only a month lead time. As you’d expect from him, the result was beautiful.
Really good TED talk on humanity’s relationship with fire and how (as an animist might say) we have fallen out of right relationship with it. Pyne also has written a related book that looks interesting.