I’m planning some fermentation projects and I’m delighted to say that the GEM Cultures website is still the most web 1.0 site ever, where the biggest concession to modernity that if you don’t want to mail a check you can email their juno dot com address for their paypal info
![Requests to deforest are common in heavily policed areas, where shade is perceived as a magnet for drug dealing and prostitution. In the early 2000s, the L.A. Police Department began installing security cameras in high-crime areas of the city, and it asked city crews to cut back trees that obscured sightlines. Eventually, street cops submitted so many requests that the overwhelmed forestry department started recommending tree removal in places where "regular maintenance" was not feasible.
Officially, the city has no policy about removing shade for surveillance purposes, but it happens: public housing courtyards, including Jordan Downs's, are bare of trees, and when a new pole camera goes up in a public park, the mature canopy around it vanishes. On private property, the approach is more informal. "It's not that the police have the authority to say, you can't plant trees here," explained Michael Pinto, a principal at NAC Architecture who specializes in community design-build projects. "It's that they have convinced community leaders that, if you want to save your community, you can't have too many trees, because it restricts [the police's] ability to do their jobs."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:njpuvpanzqfgynglwf62uogh/bafkreiawz4jjt2sypx63izkat234j43rhnicdobs4iohyxi7h6jyss7c3q)
