Beamspun 9: 14th June 2020

Local sunrise / publish time: 0345 UTC (-2m)

Well it's one of those weeks when the flies are buzzing and the links are jumping out the walls. Not long until we hit maximum daylight here in the summer hemisphere, and the bindweed is having a party. Today the clouds looked like feathers dropped by the great god of birds for seagulls to play in. There's a clue somewhere in that. Get out and spread your wings.

It's Sunday, here's the Beamspun.

Returning

• integrate: I've been fascinated by foraging for a few years, so was looking up cow parsley which also looks like hemlock it turns out. Anyway, the first half of this video on cow parsley and hemlock is all about not just foraging, but about getting away from books and screens, and getting to know plants up close and personal, out and about, in the wild. Embrace the wild, learn from each other, take a journey.

• healing: We're not happy, and we don't know what comes next. Here's a long read where humanity goes through counseling with capitalism, delving into our own needs, and four tenets for what could help us from this point on.

• cities: Future cities need to be designed systemically, and on a global basis, not (just?) the 'smart cities' that many large companies would like us to invest in. Via this article on adding accessible green space.

• cities: And a nice little video looking at a few cities and their relationships (or not) with trees. Willbe showing this one to the kids.

• stories: The NARWHAL project to "detonate narratives" has caught my attention but I'm still processing it :) If you're interested in some serious discussion and action around society's narrative and policy, then definitely look into it. Regular mailouts and meetups.

• music: Just discovering Warp Records' Bibio this week. For that space between folk and electronic music, check out new album Sleep on the Wing and older release Ribbons...

• trees; Trees as both mirrors and shapers of their environment to the point where you can't really tell the difference any more, between whether trees are alive and their own thing, or just an extension of the world they exist as a part of. "... a more apt metaphor would be that animals are the decorations or props on the Earth’s complex vegetal life system"

Tech

• transport: More on doing up and ripping up cars, here's part 2 of an interview with a community that converts cars to electric. I particularly like the emphasis on starting with something rubbish just to test the theory, and then never looking back: "My first electric car project went 12.5 miles with lead acid batteries, the batteries weighed 600kg." Also, open source hardware.

• architecture: Take an automobile robot and 3D print a small eco house with it? Oh, and it floats and is obviously boat-shaped. Sign me up, I love houseboats.

• symbiosis: Why not use the heat from a PC to germinate seeds? Maybe combine that with some water-cooling systems?

• energy: The UK has just gone 2 months without coal power. I'm not quite sure what that means in a global economy, but it's in the right direction. And if you want a more global view, this live electricity map is a great view (for where data is available, ho hum).

Get in touch

If you emjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - https://beamspun.exmosis.net/ is the address to spread!

For any feedback, suggestions, broken links, comments, or general 'hi there' type stuff, leave a comment, or you can find me hanging out in any of these places:

• Mastodon: @scribe@mastodon.sdf.org
• Gnu/social: @6gain@loadaverage.org
• Twitter: @6loss
• XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone
• Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me

I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the 6suns blog.