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We are thinking about getting a Little Free Library. I wrote to a neighbor with one about their experience and got a really great response. If you’re thinking of getting one, read on:

I wrote, “Hi, we saw that you have a Little Free Library. We live just down the road and were wondering how it has worked out for you. Any tips? We’re thinking of getting one for our front yard. :-)”

Their response:

Do you want a power rack or other home gym equipment? (and COVID making it both nessesary and hard to get?) A good friend and professional fabricator will be building and selling a set of about 10 power racks and other equipment in the Bay Area. He’s aiming for it to be competitively priced and (of course) local pickup/delivery.

Message me if interested!

If you need to download a video on Youtube or Vimeo or wherever, this process will often do it for you, fer free and without downloading some likely-spammy-scammy software.

The key is: most video online is HTML5. VLC can play any HTML5 video… and get you the link to download it. (via)

The KT-88 is an electronic keyboard made by Ensoniq. I found the manual graciously left on TheSoniq.com. Hurray!

Here is This is a very good article about how not to get the ‘rona, The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them. He talks about many actual cases as examples. All of the posts by Erin Bromage are good Covid reading.

Bread baking friends, celebrate with me the videos made by the Proof Bread company in Phoenix! I’m linking to the video that got me hooked but the whole channel is a wonderment.

I took some hints from the videos and came up with this:

1 1/2 cups of white flour, 1/8 cup whole wheat, 475 for 30 minutes covered, 12 minutes uncovered. Made a nice sandwich bread with a crackling crust :-)

I replaced the battery on my Ensoniq KT-88 electronic keyboard piano today. It wasn’t hard. Took about 45 minutes of unscrewing, fiddling with connectors, and soldering. (actually, the keyboard is on long-term loan from a good friend :-) )

I bought the battery from Syntaur. Maybe I could have found it for a few dollars cheaper but it wasn’t expensive and I wanted to make sure it was a good battery and had the right tabs on it! These guys rock.

After I was done replacing the battery, none of the controls worked! Argh! I did a factory reset thanks to the internet (local archive), to reset the Ensoniq KT-88 “PRESS EDIT/SEQUENCES (PRESETS). PRESS AND HOLD THE UPPER 9 BUTTON AND THEN PRESS THE LOWER 9.RELEASE BOTH AND PRESS YES AT THE PROMPT.”. That didn’t actually fix it. But I now find that if I turn it on and power cycle it once quickly (off for about 1/2 second) controls respond perfectly until I turn it off for a length of time. It’s finicky but it works! Hurray!

One of my oldest friends is writing a homesteading book. He’s literally an award-winning author which is pretty awesome. I ordered a copy :-)

“Seven years ago I moved from the city to a farm where I taught myself to garden, raise animals & cook “farm to table”. I show you how”

Find out more about the book and pre-order it.

Summary: If you want to win friends and influence people, treat them with Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

I use a lot of psychological models and theories to conceptualize my world. The ones I refer to most often are Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, and Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development. Look them up, memorize them, use them. They are useful!

I just heard about the SCARF Model and I’m pretty excited about it (a model isn’t as generalized as a theory but can be useful nonetheless!)

The SCARF Model was developed in 2008 by David Rock, in his paper “SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating With and Influencing Others.” SCARF stands for the five key “domains” that influence our behavior in social situations. These are:

• Status — our relative importance to others.
• Certainty — our ability to predict the future.
• Autonomy — our sense of control over events.
• Relatedness — how safe we feel with others.
• Fairness — how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be.

The model is based on neuroscience research that implies that these five social domains activate the same threat and reward responses in our brain that we rely on for physical survival. So, in brief, look at each of the domains above and think. For example, if a person places you in a lower status than you, that stress can easily trigger your fight-or-flight response (imagine a boss talking down to you). If they put you in a higher status, that can trigger your reward system (imagine getting an award). This works in more situations than you’d initially consider. And there’s lots to consider. If you want to win friends and influence people, treat them with status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness.

Here is the original paper about the SCARF Model by David Rock

There’s many sites that talk about the SCARF Model in more depth, here’s a pretty good one.

update 7-29-20, I came across a random “How to influence people” post on Imgur and about 3/4 of the items are applied versions of the SCARF model, nice. (though admittedly, some of the tactics in this image are ethically questionable!)

I just heard about this service. It’s totally brand spanking new so don’t fret if there’s not many people on it yet. This could be helpful for building your “pod” for the school year! We’re trying it.

Podmatch