Great tip about finishing with acids like lemon or vinegar before adding more salt. I like to be sure to mix up a good variety of salt-free spice blends to have handy for easily adding flavor for each cuisine I cook regularly.

Every February and March, something like 170 million almond trees unite in one of Earth’s great synchronized acts of sexual reproduction — made possible by the migration of the bees.

a fun fact :D

Always appreciate some bee updates!

Excellently outlined. I hope many read this!!

Excellent! A lot seems to come down to connecting genuinely, kindly with someone first so that defense mechanisms can be lowered and more honesty and clarity shared. The test scores example was really interesting. Relates to some of the ideas shared years ago in The Righteous Mind from Jonathan Haidt.

I get to be part of a community where I sometimes help and I am sometimes helped.

Beautiful… learning that receiving is as much a gift as giving, so everyone has opportunities to give and this balance forms.

I’ve also found the enneagram a very helpful inner exploration.

Go go go Beyond Plastics and extended producer responsibility! 🤩

Brilliant! I generally find Peter Hagen's projects delightful & constructive. This is a great way to make the small, personal web easier to explore.

Disappointing. I understand cars are a huge part of peoples lives in the US and there are great fears around that changing, but at the end of the day we are all walkers (and two-wheelers) so the idea of ever-increasing areas where walking (and breathing!!) is dangerous due to cars is a bad outcome for all of us. Constantly brainstorming more ways to bring people to the same table here…

Excellent! I would love social tools to better support the fluidity of communities.

And need this reminder everywhere every day:

Your experience is not representative of anything but your own. And it’s fine.

Love this as a unified theory :)

Give all your fucks to the living. Give a fuck about the people you work with, and the people who receive your work—the people who use the tools and products and systems or, more often than not, are used by them.

The irony is too much for me.

On a serious note, part of me agrees about trust-building in-person, but part of me thinks there's a lot more to building trust at companies than the in/out of office question. In-person does often organically offer more opportunities for bonding that boosts trust.

I love this! 🐀🍕

I’m deeply fascinated by life below the midnight zone and the fantastical creatures that live in the dark depths.

Especially interesting to learn more about what purposes animals use the rarity of their light making abilities for.

“The deep-sea isn’t an amazing collection of light,” Johnsen says. “It’s an amazing collection of potential light.”

I loved everything in this article: hearing about Dr. McDaniels’ immersive course offerings, and Dr. Peña-Guzmán’s approach to opening up about difficulties before diving into the long stretches of reading together. Very inspiring methods of shaking things up and creating more focused and engaged periods for students.

This article briefly clarifies the misconceptions about anarchism and illustrates an example of anarchism in practice. Excellent material for reclaiming a vilified term!

I catch myself often in the role of impatient human with bagels to offer (not literally) and yet I adore the nitty gritty of these seemingly minor debates. They feel essential, and the process feels essential, even as it can feel extraordinarily grueling. It's an ongoing practice for me to continually return to these settings, these conversations, and not give up on the process, amidst frustration and a feeling of time scarcity. For me personally, the only way through the challenges has been with the aid of spiritual/religious practice. I often wonder how others find their way through the frustration, tedium, and conflict that can arise in direct democratic processes like these.

Another conversation on anarchism that I’ve found excellent is the Everyday Anarchism podcast with Graham Culbertson (everydayanarchism.com).

Great overview of the challenges and hopes for the fediverse!