← Feed

Posts

• View post

  Last year I threw some cattail seed heads into the muddy, marshy area next to the CPX flyover. Looks like some have taken hold! I think the area is intended as a stormwater detention basin, but I'm not sure. Sometimes there's a pipe flooding water into the area even when it's not raining, so maybe it has another purpose. But plants are growing in there in any case, and so I'd rather seed it with native stuff so it doesn't end up full of invasives.

• View post

  Any recommendations for a Boston area sticker printshop? Looking to possibly get a small run of *outdoor* stickers made, ones that can tolerate rain and direct sun for some years.

• View post

  If you have a kid in Somerville public schools, I made a calendar file for all of the 2026-27 holidays (except for winter and spring breaks): https://lab.brainonfire.net/calendars/Somerville-school-holiday-SY26-27.ics (It would be nice to have one with those, plus early-release days, but the tiny tool I wrote only supports full-day events. That's fine, now there's less to manually enter.) #SomervilleMA

• View post

  Ugh, why are the product images not loading? ...oh.

• View post

  Great piece on how vendor capture works in the US government, a process that causes massive overspending: https://www.niskanencenter.org/vendor-capture-and-the-limits-of-fast-government-reform/ (Complete with solutions.) h/t @waldoj for linking this in his blog. #us #policy

• View post

  I've recently seen some people (presumably not from the US) express surprise and confusion that US cities can just... pass laws! Which I found funny at first, but on further consideration, there's an interesting question: What qualifies a local geographic region as being *able* to pass laws? I'm not clear on whether every area in a US state is already in a local-governing body. What does it take for a portion of a state to organize into a place that can have local laws?

• View post

  Looks like The Smog is coming back to the #Boston area tonight. https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/ is a pretty great resource. #smoke

• View post

  Good night to open the windows, I think. Smoke should be clearing away from #SomervilleMA in the next hour according to https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/ and the forecast shows temperatures dipping to a pleasant 17°C, and not too humid.

• View post

  @chadkoh@indieweb.social seems a bit hyperbolic

• View post

  Looking forward to this PorridgeFest tomorrow that people keep talking about. #SomervilleMA

• View post

  Would I happen to know anyone in the Boston area who has a portable XRF analyzer? I'm curious to see how it works for soil lead testing, but *also* to talk to someone about what the care and feeding of these analyzers is like in practice, and how feasible it might be to set up a program for helping people in the area test their soil, including raised beds. (I've been thinking of buying one for this purpose, as prices are down a bit.) #SomervilleMA #CambridgeMA #BostonMA #chemi...

• View post

  If anyone in Somerville wants milkweed seeds, there are still plenty on the plants in my guerilla garden. You can find it by going 1-2 houses west of Cedar St on the Community Path; the garden is on the north side, against the back of someone's garage and opposite the Blue Bikes. The milkweed have been expanding rapidly, and there are maybe 10-15 plants with seedpods. Help yourself to seeds, fluff, and fiber!

• View post

  What's with these vehicle barriers deployed in #Boston at the intersection of Mass Ave and Commonwealth Ave?

• View post

  More idle curiosity: Anyone know what kind of fish this is? Herring? There were three of these fish, dead on the walkways on the Charles River locks. Maybe 20-25 cm long. Two were close to each other, and the third was about 3 meters farther along. (Also, how the heck did they get there? I can think of several stories but none of them seem obviously correct.)

• View post

  I got the FluoroSpec lead testing kit, which is pretty fun to use. First hit is a radiator air vent that I removed recently. Looks like it had lead paint. I should check the other radiator vents and paint. (The way this works is you shine the UV flashlight on the surface to get a baseline, spray/paint the surface with the liquid, then check for green (new) fluorescence.)