I updated my list of essential books on Urbanism and living, architecture (v.2022/2). Where you start on this depends on your interests, but Kohr, Schumacher, Sale, might be fundamental works suitable for everyone.
Maybe one of the oddest professions in Japan is that of the bokka (歩荷). Porters who carry supplies to remote mountain guesthouses inaccessible to vehicles. A bokka uses customized wooden ladder frames to carry 100-165kg of supplies on day long marches (walk up, run down).
“It is literally against the law almost everywhere in the United States to build the kind of places that Americans themselves consider authentic and traditional.” — James Howard Kunstler
In Japan there is now a minor boom in falconry: crows are attacking solar power plants with stones, and the only effective way to keep crows away is to deploy falcons. One trained falcon making 60 attack sorties a day can protect 100,000 solar panels from vengeful crows.
Sustainable forestry: lumber without cutting down trees. Daisugi is a Japanese forestry technique where specially planted cedar trees are pruned heavily (think of it as giant bonsai) to produce "shoots" that become perfectly uniform, straight and completely knot free lumber.
Yes, Florida has snowplows. But we also have well trained and dedicated FDOT snowplow crews who have been working around the clock to get essential segments of the state highway system cleared and safe for travel.
The French Foreign Legion runs their own 40 acre vineyard where veteran and invalid soldiers can live and work and the profits go to the veterans, their widows and orphans.
Sur le domaine du capitaine Danjou, où est implanté son Institution des invalides, la #LégionEtrangere produit un #CôtesDeProvence
➡️ Les bénéfices de la vente du vin sont versés au profit des blessés et des vétérans de la Légion, de ses veuves et orphelins.
Five feet of palisade a day keeps livestock robbers at bay!
The locals probably think we're a bit crazy (more so than they already do) when they pass by our farm and see that we're fortifying it like a medieval military encampment. Well, they can think whatever they want — we're
The city of Ghadames on the edge of the Saharan desert in Libya is maybe one of the finest examples of desert urbanism still in existence. Inhabited since the 4th millennia B.C., many of its 1300 houses have been continually inhabited, improved, expanded, for over 3000 years.
The strangest story in literature right now might be that of Tettyo Saito, a Japanese man born 1992 who basically never leaves his suburb outside of Tokyo, taught himself Romanian on Facebook and is now a published author of Romanian language novels and poetry. Respect.
