tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19974624460696308032024-02-07T11:45:54.293+00:00BeamspunScribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-21063485174829341102022-03-20T22:30:00.000+00:002022-03-20T22:30:05.853+00:00Beamspun 27: March's Worm Moon / Spring Equinox<p><a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a> is an irregular newsletter/mailout about narrative, tech and magic for a old-future world. Published some time around the full moon. Bring your own cup of tea.</p>
<p><a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2197/full-moon-guide-march-april-2022/">Worm Moon</a> Local sunrise: 0602 UTC (-16m)</p>
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<h3 id="solnotes">Solnotes</h3>
<p>Little shoots of springtime. Unearthing the gentle cracks and folds laid into the soil, hidden for months by dead bindweed. Inside, a dust mote is gliding on the thermals above my cup of tea, and the shadows of trees reach out to the nearby road, feeling the break of the kerb.</p>
<p>Hello Beamspinners, sorry it’s been a while. I’ve been thinking about edge-worlds recently. And to be honest, they’re disturbing places. Watching the news in Europe for the last few weeks, I’ve been really struggling to reconcile the two ideas of “borders” and “hope”. In many ways, the state of the world is another reminder of how damned foolish mortals are, and frustatingly I know it’s nothing new.</p>
<p>I almost didn’t post this because … Too Raw Still. But here it is, I think it’s important to write and get things out there, get something positive out of the dark times humans love to conjure up. And because Beamspun is all about that - rediscovering hope, and reconnecting the greater webs. There is doom in the world, but it will always be in the context of love.</p>
<hr />
<p>Everyone knows there are places which never change; historical architecture which enshrines its foundations in stone, and great wildernesses which deny entry through thorns and diverging terrains. Halls of power, time-frozen caves, heirloom sheds, and distant planets.</p>
<p>Places we’re drawn to because they are easy to know. We can learn once, but live many - many days, many lives, many cycles. Stability as a way of life.</p>
<p>And then there are the other places, the places in between, where these areas of stability meet, greet and eat each other. Edge-places. Places of change. Places of turmoil and emergence and conflict and generosity. I am thinking about the edges of Europe, but also the edges of other countries, and how a valley may become a marketplace, a battleground, a bridge and/or a birthplace - all because all those lands of stability flood inwards toward it. I am thinking about minds jumping from one philosophy to the next, the icons of civilisations etched into ancient sandstone walls, filling the souls of the populations thrown from one ruler to the next.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAXZKK2669i6dhsgwiwCfHNLavLhTxVn1Uxe4MO8ZSMEnk3Hehs8TtohYjIzB8YRaFWBJ9nvm5EeWtvX4-DaA2xhjyEB1b1nle24qYu-S9My2p_oBexRRBmzu3QHGoC-cFrlSivbwi5TOC3ebbeO3_BXeV_SrTnyoOO_-tyEEHRg9UdfKc7KSaOw6Gwg=s2895" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="A pair of muddy child's shoes" border="0" data-original-height="2895" data-original-width="2895" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAXZKK2669i6dhsgwiwCfHNLavLhTxVn1Uxe4MO8ZSMEnk3Hehs8TtohYjIzB8YRaFWBJ9nvm5EeWtvX4-DaA2xhjyEB1b1nle24qYu-S9My2p_oBexRRBmzu3QHGoC-cFrlSivbwi5TOC3ebbeO3_BXeV_SrTnyoOO_-tyEEHRg9UdfKc7KSaOw6Gwg=s320" width="320" /></a></div>
<p>I am lucky to live in a relatively stable place. This newsletter comes from a privileged room. The shadows of the trees don’t reach this far.</p>
<p>Yet, older than languages, the same forces of to-and-fro operate just down the road, down where the land meets the sea. A 20-minute walk can take you to the edge-worlds filled by the twice-a-day tides, where the geography exists in a permanent state of unknowing and adaptation, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertidal_ecology">down at the ecological level</a>. Rivers swell and disappear. Opportunistic boats come and go. Rocks and shells dry out, are then submerged, and dry out again. Entire <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide_Mills,_East_Sussex">villages</a> once thrived off that power.</p>
<p>I am fixated by this.</p>
<p>If I started a new photography project, I would anchor a camera to that line and the camera itself would become the subject, its own movements determined by the forces it was there to watch. There would be no difference between the environment and the observer.</p>
<p>If I was serious about adopting a new ritual or religion, I would find it here, among the change. Yin and yang on a timescale I can see with my own eyes. A thin line, forever tangled up between <i>this</i> and <i>that</i>, never quite <i>here</i> or <i>there</i>. Where we know that stability is just a word, and a convenience of thought.</p>
<p>I would sit and watch and study the tides, knowing they spoke the truth to me. I would fill my heart, lungs, and stomach with their momentum, and realise that going somewhere else was not to leave that place behind, but merely to take a temporary trip into an extreme. The left-behind shells and the creatures in hiding would take refuge in my fingernails, ready for when I returned.</p>
<p>And as I sat among the strong stones of stability, I would wait for trees to grow and for planets to pass overhead. And I would be content, knowing that even stones crumble.</p>
<hr />
<p>I’m not going to post any links this time (truth is my link-saving tech had a bit of a wobble recently and needed a bit of a reset), although there is a <a href="https://tricycle.org/buddhism-and-ecology-summit/">Buddhism and Ecology Summit coming up</a> April 18th-22nd. I kind of just wanted to post something as it <i>is</i> the Spring Equinox, and a full moon recently, and because I haven’t written anything in aaaaages. There is a lot going on here, and we’ll see where the future takes us, eh?</p>
<p>Bye for now.</p>
<h3 id="endnotes">Endnotes</h3>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a> | Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss">6loss</a> | Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net</p>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - the official website is at <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a>, and the email sign-up is at <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">https://buttondown.email/beamspun</a>.</p>
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Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-83205869360971364412021-12-19T07:58:00.001+00:002021-12-19T07:58:00.188+00:00Beamspun 26: Long Night's Moon<p>Cold / <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/science/december-2021-full-moon-tonight-when-date-cold-name-meaning-explained-1356298?ito=twitter_share_article-top">Long Night's Moon</a><br>
Local sunrise / publish time: 0758 UTC (weekly +6 minutes)</p>
<p>Greetings from a small desk by a small pond, where the rowan tree across the road is half-and-half red berries and yellowing leaves. My name's Graham and this is <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a>, a regular roundup about narrative, tech and magic for an old-future world. </p>
<p>And a merry solstice to you all - as a reminder, Premium subscribers in <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">Buttondown</a> receive an exclusive photo mailout for each solstice and equinox. And all tips make their way to the local cafe, for their excellent coffee that makes words happen.</p>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuI8lRKsdbUQ15prI7TQmVdF3W_aj_IbcmzfhvBpwU1RCQi3HUGLjsc2_9py6b6AQsu-D3KRQbYNNVgAbvboqNOia97B4s3IbHjQK-FAaa0ZcuOTDll7wDywpZDvIEHJZND_P3gq9QIRNchHyJmeD0kqm1cTAetKqCaVn24XmMmZfmwBR95WyS20OStg=w400-h266" width="350" alt="A row of flames burning against a dark background" /></p>
<h2>The renaming of things</h2>
<p>This story starts many years ago - way before the internet and 3D TV - back when my family drove around in a little red Renault 5 called "Bridget". </p>
<p>I don't quite know if it was common practice for earlier generations, or because my father was a sailor and was used to giving names to boats, but I remember the name being taken from the car's number plate. If you squinted and made your eyes go blurry, the letters and numbers kind of looked like the word "Bridget", like some myopic hacker leet-speek vehicle destined to overheat on the wide-open Roman roads of holidays in France.</p>
<p>Later on, the naming of pets, of motorbikes, of roleplaying characters. And, of course, the naming of computers. Out of the various questions you'll be asked during a fresh install of any operating system, the name of the computer will always be the most important - and most difficult - one to answer.</p>
<p>For me, at least. For many, this isn't true. Life is too short, and it's too easy to just hit enter and accept the default; to become surrounded by a sea of names we don't care about. "Jan's Windows PC" connects to "WIFI-6FB72C8", and syncs with "Nexus Tablet 49". Just defaults.</p>
<p>But, as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1048163-a-name-is-a-powerful-thing-it-sets-one-apart">Jessica Khoury notes</a>, "<em>A name is a powerful thing. It sets one apart and gives significance.</em>" A name in itself is a form of identity, and the relationship between the <em>namer</em> and the <em>named</em> is one of fundamental importance, a power balance set at the heart of our symbols and communication.</p>
<p>With that in mind, I've been re-establishing the identity and presence of my own technical surroundings by renaming my computers and devices. On the surface, that may seem like the activity of a somewhat-delusional idiot with too much time. But if we accept that names have power, and that <em>giving</em> names sets up a power balance that incorporates the continuum between fostering and exploitation, then we cannot help but accept that "<em>the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name</em>", as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/106313-the-beginning-of-wisdom-is-to-call-things-by-their">Confucius said</a>.</p>
<p>Through this process, I have been reminded that naming things is <em>hard</em>. It is a hard choice when you're having a child. It's one of two <a href="https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html">hard problems</a> in computer science. And can be just as hard when it's a small, 6-year old phone. </p>
<p>Why the difficulty? Because - if you're interested in that relationship between the namer and the named - then it is something you take seriously. Because we're not used to thinking in such abstract terms, where language is flexible but meaning is more real than concrete. Because to name something is to give it a gift: of direction, of quintessential life energy and purpose.</p>
<p>My renaming task, timely as the solstice approaches, has helped me rethink why I have these <em>things</em> around me. I've chosen names that attempt to sum up what each device means to me - what I need from it, and what it needs from me. My <a href="https://www.fairphone.com/en/">phone</a> is now <strong>Puck</strong>. I have the twin laptops, <strong>Eve</strong> and <strong>Mab</strong>, and the twin Raspberry Pi's <strong>Hazel</strong> and <strong>Maple</strong>. There are themes there... The tablet for reading is, less thematically, <strong>Reid</strong> - I considered Reed, but the link to "Re-identity" was too strong.</p>
<p>For all of these names, there was a sense of <em>feeling</em> that I could not rationally describe. Some had a more obvious play on words or technical link - (Eve for an Apple device, for instance) whereas sometimes a name <em>just fits</em>. If that ever happens, go with it and pay special attention. Sometimes a name chooses us, not the other way around. Those are the most powerful names of all.</p>
<p>As the dark hours creep in and pass into a new cycle (psychologically as well as seasonally), we will find ourselves more and more dependent on the networks and ecosystems that wrap us up like spiders' webs. If you find yourself staring at defaults and wondering what they mean to you in the long night, then perhaps it is also time to welcome in some change.</p>
<h2>Ritual unsubscription</h2>
<p>2021, that was another year hey? I don't know how yours was, but for me it felt like a lot of change, even as a lot of stuff stood still and waited.</p>
<p>To be honest, the whirlpools of change have been exciting, but also overwhelming a lot of the time. Plates spinning, to-do lists overflowing, dreams among dreams among dreams. Emotionally, the year has been fairly breakneck, and I'm trying as much as I can to take the festive season as a reminder to hibernate where possible.</p>
<p>My email inbox is one area that's been getting on top of me, especially as I've been trying out new <a href="https://6work.exmosis.net/">personal, professional ventures</a> and new services to support it. It's time to take a step back, and to tidy up a bit. And I thought I'd invite others to do the same.</p>
<p>So say hello to <a href="https://buttondown.email/unsubscribe_2021">Unsubscribe 2021</a> - a limited period ritualistic email energy clearout. The idea is to bring together people all committed to unsubscribing to whatever email lists are clogging up their inbox, and to <em>reset</em> just one area of their information lives. (Hey, feel free to go full inbox-zero, nuke your wishlists, and take a hammer to your phone.) And while we're at it, let's put some magic into it too.</p>
<p>The starting point is the <a href="https://buttondown.email/unsubscribe_2021">mailing list</a> (unapologetically ironic) which has a full set of "rules" (all 6 of em - I do like the number 6), which boil down to:</p>
<ul>
<li>from Christmas on, unsubscribe from email lists you can unsubscribe from, until the Twelfth Night (January 5th)</li>
<li>keep a list of the things you've unsubscribed from</li>
<li>resubscribe to lists after that, if you still want them</li>
<li>ritually burn the list of banished emails (or send them to me for a collated burning)</li>
</ul>
<p>After the 5th, I'll send out a photo of the ashes of my burnt list, and delete the mailing list and all subscriber info. (Credit to <a href="https://craigmod.com/">Craig Mod</a> for the idea of short-lived newsletter projects.)</p>
<p>That's it, no sales or pushy Zoom calls. Just a collective sense of stepping back from the world and breathing, readying the ground for the days of spring.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Supporting Beamspun:</strong> If you're enjoying Beamspun and would like to support me a little, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">become a premium subscriber</a> on Buttondown. Tip whatever you like each month, and I'll send you out a little extra digital postcard to mark the equinoxes and solstices. (Maybe something like <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/03/equinox202103200937.html">this one from March</a>.) </p>
<hr>
<h2>Links</h2>
<p>Links are lightweight this month - even reading takes up our energy.</p>
<ul>
<li>promises: <strong><a href="https://reallifemag.com/same-old/">Sun-Ha Hong calls out the lack of real progress in technology</a></strong><br />
While sci-fi and narrative fiction often tries to re-imagine things by looking ahead, this is a great review of where we've come from, and how little technology has changed for us, in terms of the <em>underlying power structures</em> we live in. Everything is faster, but really we've just reinforced the global race for productivity and consumption. How banal.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://reallifemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/France_in_XXI_Century._Electric_scrubbing-e1638197024316-1024x606.jpg" width="350" alt="A drawing from 1899 showing a cleaning robot in the 21st century" /></p>
<ul>
<li>legacies: <strong><a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/earth-is-getting-a-black-box-to-record-events-that-lead-to-the-downfall-of-civilization/">A "Black Box" for the Earth</a></strong><br />
This may or may not be clever marketing, but the idea of the <a href="https://www.earthsblackbox.com/">Earth's Black Box</a> is one that pulls together the idea of data with long-term histories. I'm reminded of the challenge of <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2018/11/16/nuclear-waste-the-conundrum-over-how-to-warn-future-generations">marking nuclear waste sites</a> in a way that lasts 10,000 or even 100,000 years.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-gyg67vcZvaP4JAxhQ4XTjc-MCJlhHWKWdsjGwHVVsMVfYIhRFREjSzqW-6Z22V4tbP9bHh1tog5KabVwtziXBIbZl9mTUE-7S-JxLn8n4kkA-Fc3oRE_y5wt15frRJaKkTFVU5lLHFX3YiDSCD9UfxfxjPWaTlrwNdBs5LP74V--Av0xDbzOKbjrHg=w400-h225" width="350" alt="An angular, rock-like structure sits in the middle of a mountain range" /></p>
<ul>
<li>papertech: <strong><a href="https://daily.tinyprojects.dev/paper_website">A website based on a paper notebook</a></strong><br />
Modern software and hardware give us the opportunities to break free from more traditional usage of technology. While the large companies seem hellbent on getting us to talk to computers, this project shows other approaches are possible, if we stopped to consider what we actually want from it all...</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6pAjVaqSj7UAKQxgHzqhx7Jt4KwRaInFniUT07VoSt39ZIXoZ1p2f0eNmuLMuRnkwnj6VBRrOboSMTtSw4SCIZh1R7SzCJjF_cg0yoA3umWxp1JcL2w72FRSm0WTLK5rYB7Sy3rhyFYDepaMBMIlKbX2BbMZTslMIStzAYJFfh8FYWEY0JP3E_z__qg=w400-h216" width="350" alt="A phone shows the automated text of interpretation of the handwritten version next to it" /></p>
<h2>End zone</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - the official website is at <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a>, and the email sign-up is at <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">https://buttondown.email/beamspun</a>. Subscribe as a premium member to receive a quarterly bonus post. You can also <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/p/support-us.html">support the newsletter more directly</a>.</p>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a> | Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss">@6loss</a> | Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. Albeit slowly. Slow is good though.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-26640254558921160412021-11-21T07:29:00.005+00:002021-11-21T07:29:00.205+00:00☀️🌕🕸️ Beamspun 25: Beaver Moon<p>Welcome to <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a>, a regular roundup about narrative, tech and magic for an old-future world. Published on a Sunday around the full moon. Bring your own tea.</p>
<p>Beaver Moon and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/18/world/partial-lunar-eclipse-full-moon-november-scn/index.html">the longest partial eclipse in over 500 years</a><br />
Local sunrise / publish time: 0729 UTC (+12m)</p>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>It has been the season of seedheads.</p>
<p>They float of their own accord, but are seeds separate to the flower that grows them? Are the flowers separate to the seeds?</p>
<p>The seeds travel on the wind, and we travel past them, carried by our own senses. But at the core of us - pausing to put one hand on my navel while the other rests on the keyboard - this where we were attached before, so many years ago. Generation to generation. A rate, a rationing and a rationale of genes.</p>
<p>Parentage and ideas flow through underground wires, all our symbols hooked up to bellies, our greatest feats fed by the land, nourished by the sea, blessed by the sun.</p>
<p>An email to organise a rocket launch skims through copper, feet away from a predatory shark. A movie about love slides without caution though the gaps between the leaves of a nearby tree. Smiles and tears trickle down into clothing, get sucked into the warm air, find their way back to the rivers.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_mundi"><img alt="Ancient illustration showing all parts of the world interconnected." src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Anima_Mundi_%28by_Robert_Fludd%2C_Utriusque_Cosmi_Historia%2C_1617%29.png/899px-Anima_Mundi_%28by_Robert_Fludd%2C_Utriusque_Cosmi_Historia%2C_1617%29.png" width="400" height="456" /></a></p>
<p>Stopping to think where it comes from, feeling the invisible links, everything becomes overwhelming. The beauty and simplicity of it all is too overwhelming, trained as we are to make a challenge out of everything. Accepting the <em>everythingness</em> of everything feels like cheating. Yet, there it is.</p>
<p>As easy as that. Seeds, floating in the breeze.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Supporting Beamspun:</strong> If you're enjoying Beamspun and would like to support me a little, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">become a premium subscriber</a> on Buttondown. Pay monthly whatever you like and I'll send you out a little extra digital postcard to mark the equinoxes and solstices. (Maybe something like <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/03/equinox202103200937.html">this one from March</a>)</p>
<p>Regular readers may have noticed a lack of letter last month. Sometimes you have to know when not to push things too far.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>narratives: <strong><a href="https://medium.com/moral-imaginations/the-great-unflattening-f29adec8b88">Phoebe Tickell on the "Great Unflattening"</a></strong><br />
"<em>But the important task for the 21st Century is to re-inhabit a full body of feeling, the capacities of intuition, imagination, warmth, creativity and a sense of what is important to us — perhaps even sacred.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>ambience: <strong><a href="https://timberfestival.org.uk/soundsoftheforest-soundmap/">Sounds of the Forest</a></strong><br />
A freely-reusable library of recordings from woodlands and forests all over the world</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMnsc_nTP6dYEdjroZr7s6pkHWQ15mPcW2KXh1BMTIXwq2YWNNoYuVCBvpc-s880ZYEvHfYvi30qUNuqdS334agWpHIc7LesPxoK8SeoY-sgOEJFbbJwO8XKMI-OW5IvywaSRzR1vqfjHbQAc93JZn-u7-Ki3c7wEcnDBnllcbFLSWxPPI5FNE5gu8JA=s16000" width="640" alt="Screenshot showing forest sounds mapped across Europe" /></p>
<ul>
<li>online art: <strong><a href="https://www.ourbiotechplanet.artscience-node.com/">Capture the Future(s): Our Bio-Tech Planet</a></strong><br />
Some rich and varied virtual art here, and a great wander exploring the links between people, technology, and nature through photography and interactive pieces. <a href="https://artscience-node.com/our-bio-tech-planet/">Background to the project</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp1ik-LjtnY">guided tour video</a> in case you can't see it below.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7b66bIvtI10vG4oG-u49WjveqHH2MGqYgt4c7wANtVrpYF__EW0yv1mCzc4fNxLq2XTkeA_1d9J1a1ob8Gnu_1qc27PKTBK2udf0noCnmErXXAQB9-vd4VSiihtek7xbE_SYHzny6LnnbWlAql_xepHvtZF52XVCJgH9Scs-wL0d3CuRxaALdXBFNHg=s16000" width="640" alt="A large photo of stuffed birds in a museum is surrounded by trees inside a large wood" /></p>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEglUfh5oIYqApMiqsTlbPbOecFsrBqnGV_WEot6FYoMOBSiuCCxsa-lOaUClWQ1RrYaMMUtIaX14pJUkvArN3wkts6W4cV08DKq_JAoa6K_vTBcptHXlrc-QqNDpPz6AIFf0uTN6XOpJ_0SCpUFnhdGdFFDYi6Y8MwcEuqWbUdLMLblHGN3-UrzA0dDUA=s16000" width="640" alt="Abstract graphic taken from the Bio-Tech Planet exhibition" /></p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/fp1ik-LjtnY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p>dreaming: <strong><a href="http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/acid-communism-acid-renaissance">Paul Watson on "Acid Communism"</a></strong><br />
Counterculture, goths, The Left, and "<em>the creative freedom to imagine</em>" all in here.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>offline art: <strong><a href="https://mymodernmet.com/daniel-popper-morton-arboretum/">Enormous Sculptures Rooted in Nature Take Over Arboretum</a></strong><br />
"<em>Here, a woman's face is split into two pieces as leaves fluttering across her body. People are encouraged to pass through the middle, where one side shows a human fingerprint and the other side a tree's heartwood.</em>"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8Z3S2S2L7BswXL9yKzkNJR3GDcET5WGnIUQQJ4oM-cLZPUijiiInS6-9gC7Z9Rt3oPh9FcP8DgCMDwHpE3kVUGCjX8Sme8wK4kRr9o4tJ3EaceXbcumAbDd-2AfRVxRu5a895kppkNuyEeIGU_ZgB-QoaLvlyGRRC53_QCec_YpmSy_LR45ktNRxIuw=s16000" width="640" alt="A large wooden sculpture of a lady's head and shoulders looks out across a park full of trees" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>alternatives: <strong><a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/the-spirituality-of-africa/">Jacob Olupona on the Spirituality of Africa</a></strong><br />
A reminder that we don't need to all believe the same thing. "<em>this type of binary thinking is simplistic. Again, it doesn’t reflect the multiplicity of ways that traditional African spirituality has conceived of deities, gods, and spirit beings. While some African cosmologies have a clear idea of a supreme being, other cosmologies do not.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>books: <strong><a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/tom-etherington-penguin-green-ideas-series-book-graphic-design-121021">Penguin's "Green Ideas" series has some beautifully simple cover designs</a></strong><br />
Something specially sacred about a book cover - on the one hand it invites you in and promises you ideas. On the other, it binds and hides the concepts inside, preventing them from escaping when nobody is looking.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5yTK-aWN3mkFnVuWaAK7MKBnOD-bYDEq5iB4dUhtolmOD2R2Lxi9wpfaTLIleeKpKEux5VhqD3a_3YisqDfYWTtMd3MT8VRtMjVcDJHBlW2jbgWVimbb_l8_t6EQWYQtMDmPYeGKJtgkiCiSDShwAw6ayylzpZd6loNfRqcaz1eE7aSlEmcb6SJj66g=s16000" width="640" alt="Cover of the book 'The World We Once Lived In' showing a simple outline of a branch against a green background" /></p>
<h2>Footer</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - the official website is at <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a>, and the email sign-up is at <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">https://buttondown.email/beamspun</a>. Subscribe as a premium member to receive a quarterly bonus post. You can also <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/p/support-us.html">support the newsletter more directly</a>.</p>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a> | Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss">@6loss</a> | Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. Albeit slowly. Slow is good though.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-54433647039522886552021-09-26T06:52:00.001+01:002021-09-26T06:52:00.202+01:00☀️🌕🕸️ Beamspun 24: Harvest Moon <p><a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a> is a regular newsletter/mailout about narrative, tech and magic for a old-future world. Published on a Sunday around the full moon. Bring your own cup of tea.</p>
<p><a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2005/full-moon-guide-september-october-2021/">Harvest Moon</a><br>
Local sunrise / publish time: 0552 UTC (weekly +11m)<br>
Happy autumn equinox</p>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Currently I'm reading "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780141996738">What White People Can Do Next</a>" by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Dabiri">Emma Dabiri</a>. The title makes it sound like some sort of How-To guide, but in reality it's also a heady argument against any viewpoint that starts with a basic division into "black" and "white". Historically, it delves into the origins of this distinction over the last few hundred years, a timescale that I'm increasingly convinced we can't ignore as part of any discussion on future change.</p>
<p>The movement to divide and conquer is picked up along so many lines and fields that it's not funny. For example, Michel Foucault's investigations into biopower in "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish">Discipline and Punish</a>" plot out a timeline for the individualisation of humanity, and the forces of control that result from being able to study a person as a unit. (Bentham's Panopticon is a natural result, but in our own modern lives, surveillance is much more subtle, and the idea of constraining it to a prison seems surreal.)</p>
<p>In both cases, we can see a general arrangement that informs the context of pretty much all of the conflict we see today, and the context within which Beamspun tries to establish itself: That fundamentally everything is connected, that "we" - profit-making civilisation - have developed ways to separate out parts and to make them amenable to control, and that we (same/different "we") find ourselves trying to fight back while still within that system of separation.</p>
<p>I'm interested in reversing this trend towards isolation. While there is much talk of the joy of reconnecting as we come out of long periods of isolation (here in the UK, at least), there is still a genreal lack of any interest in any greater, wider interconnectedness. We still think in terms of country vs country, or tribe vs tribe - and a lot of the time, this is still deliberately encouraged. Even our good fights battle between themselves for fame and funding, one form of separation pitted against another, despite being born of the same causes.</p>
<p>I'm calling for a revolution to break through the barrier of barriers, to tear into the mental wall that constructs even more walls that define "us" and "them". I want to work towards something else, something I'm going to call "The Great Rebinding" for now.</p>
<p>Rebinding requires symbols. Existing symbols to rebind us to the past. New symbols to disrupt fake barriers. Temporary mind tools to disrupt accepted boundaries, to the point where infiltration of the organic re-emerges. Symbols as muster points as we jump from the sinking ship, ready to be abandoned to the sharks when we want to move on and hide our trails.</p>
<p>We need the chaos inherent in rewilding a landscape to also take root in our own minds, in our language, in our behaviour and the way we see the whole world - plants, soil, sun, creatures, migration patterns ... all the way through to our own selves, from our individual bodies and their myriad cells and organsm to our collective community selves wandering the urban mazes with greeting nods.</p>
<p>We need the plethora of philosophies that focus on rebinding to explode outwards and upwards. Wicca, chaos magick, systems theory, permaculture, meditation, automatic writing, hypnosis, complexity theory, tai chi, punk music, stories, art, love. More more more. Anything that takes re-connection as its basis, that tasks itself with exploring and questioning the artificial edges we rub up against constantly. They are techniques for escape.</p>
<p>Individually, none is "better" than any other. They are all parts of the greater push, this desperate need for us to return to understanding - <em>experiencing</em> - the world "as it is". Not some historical definition, academic exercise, or techno-utopian genre scene, but a pure sense as of when we emerged into the world, when light and dark and sound and hot and cold were all one collective rollercoaster.</p>
<p>We need this army of toolsets to keep pushing and pushing. We need to believe in them <em>all</em> to the point where they are no longer bound by webshops and expert accreditation, but where we tap into their fundamental beginnings, and they explode into our subconsciousnesses like extraterrestrial fireworks.</p>
<p>A rally against division, a third way beyond "me" and "not me", "them" and "not them". I, we, all this, one web.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Supporting Beamspun:</strong> If you're enjoying Beamspun and would like to support me a little, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">become a premium subscriber</a> on Buttondown. Pay monthly whatever you like and I'll send you out a little extra digital postcard to mark the equinoxes and solstices. (Maybe something like <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/03/equinox202103200937.html">this one from March</a>)</p>
<hr>
<h2>Links</h2>
<p><strong>Miscellaneous</strong></p>
<p>Nora Bateson (who talked of 'submerging', featured in <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/05/beamspun-17-pink-2nd-may-2021.html">Beamspun 1.7</a>) has a 2017 post on <a href="https://hackernoon.com/warm-data-9f0fcd2a828c">something called Warm Data</a>, which needs careful reading, but points to a way of seeing the world beyond the hard data of the 21st century (and, I think, separate to the realms of qualitative analysis). She says, for instance: "<em>Beyond the cynicism that the postmodern dilemma delivers is the practical need for better questions, and more rigorous inquiry into complexity.</em>" For me, how we form evidence is intrinsically linked to how we reason <em>collectively</em>, and the forms of discussion - and participants - that emerge from this.</p>
<p>The term "Rain garden" is not one I'd come across before, but they're <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_garden">a way of reducing water run-off through bio- and landscape-design</a>. Gardeners and urban planners take note.</p>
<p>The BBC digs into <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20171204-the-ancient-symbol-that-spanned-millennia">the history of ouroboros</a>, the snake eating its own tail forever. Going back to Egypt in the 13th Century BCE, the tail-eating loop reflected the cycle of renewal brought about from our orbit of the sun. (One may also see links to the taoist yin-yang cycle, and the original Hindu/Buddhist swastika.)</p>
<p><img src="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p05q2dlr.webp" width="500" alt="Hindu illustration showing ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, with the dome of the world inside atop elephants and a giant turtle." /></p>
<p><strong>Zines</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://two.compost.digital/">Issue 2 of Compost</a> is also out, "probing how we shape digital networks and how they shape us back". Stories, games and articles well-worth reading, including <a href="https://two.compost.digital/uncivilizing-digital-territories/">Uncivilizing digital territories</a> and Liaizon Wakest coming from the same place as Beamspun in <a href="https://two.compost.digital/growth-through-replication/">Growth through replication</a>: "<em>I don't think the web that we make digitally is really all that different from the webs of nature. We are the spiders. If only we could take the time to formulate our own webs...</em>"</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.blackcatmagazine.com/issues">Black Cat have released issue 2</a> of its radical, revolutionary literary magazine. It's free to download, and presents writing, poetry and artwork on the theme of "Apocalypse".</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.peculiarparish.com/shop">Peculiar Parish bookshop</a> is now stocking the 100-page <a href="https://www.femmeocculte.com/en/magazine/">Femme Occulte magazine</a>, although I'd recommend using the direct link if you're in Europe, and Peculiar Parish's for the US. The magazine covers alchemy, witchcraft, tarot and a lot more.</p>
<p><strong>Visuals</strong></p>
<p>Erin Davis has produced an entrancing animation showing the <a href="https://erdavis.com/2021/09/07/average-seasonal-colors-of-the-usa/">average colours of the USA</a> over the year, along with in-depth steps on how to recreate it elsewhere, if you fancy giving it a go:</p>
<p><img src="https://erdaviscom.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/all.gif?w=714&zoom=2" width="500" alt="Animated image showing average colour across the USA over a year" /></p>
<p>Look, rocks are just <em>awesome</em>, ok? Send me a link with an amazing rock in it and I will gladly post it here... Lens Culture highlights <a href="https://www.lensculture.com/articles/the-most-fantastic-the-most-fantastic-rocks">five artists exploring the magic of rocks</a>, including petrified (fossilized) forests and work by Feiyi Wen:</p>
<p><img src="https://photos.lensculture.com/original/e318e6f8-ffef-4d74-8e94-fc6aa8d605ae.jpg" width="500" alt="Untitled image, from the series “Under the Yuzu Tree” by Feiyi Wen, showing a grey mountainous landscape, with a single photo of a tree overlaid." /></p>
<p><strong>Tweets</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/HumaneTech_">Center for Humane Technology</a> gave [a great run down of the effect that modern social media has on us], that neatly summarises the prevalent business model of individualising us, and then extratcing "attention" from the individualisation. While online discussion can be useful, we must remember that the overriding approach to profit-making is to understand the maximum number of people, categorise them into targetable boxes, and link eyeballs to advertisers.</p>
<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSx5uK6XGGoAQmBEJ9bj-uV8AQMjf60WLLQRibQXxN4V_khsVlSEgGzfrhPmn93UOAagGeBiv7Kh96EthpJ5GmxMW20p0mCp3zIHiGNW2YyfEFGuB438KX80EKvVw3dJEMYySLy4c-THmK/s1200/humane_center_fior_tech.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSx5uK6XGGoAQmBEJ9bj-uV8AQMjf60WLLQRibQXxN4V_khsVlSEgGzfrhPmn93UOAagGeBiv7Kh96EthpJ5GmxMW20p0mCp3zIHiGNW2YyfEFGuB438KX80EKvVw3dJEMYySLy4c-THmK/s200/humane_center_fior_tech.png" width="500" alt="An infographic showing why social media wants your attention" /></a></p>
<p>...and Vox digs into the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22585287/technology-smartphones-gmail-attention-morality">de-ethicalising effect of social media</a> in more depth too, highlighting the trend to spend more time creating your own identity, and dividing time into micro-attention-spans. More "me", less "us".</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/leashless">Vinay Gupta</a> posted a Twitter thread about <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1429446320100679689.html">the tricky division between world religions and nuclear war</a> which is hard-hitting, but down-to-earth and raises a good challenge for anyone (me?) hoping that meditation and spirituality offers some way out of the state we're in. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I'm delighted to have discovered the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/folklorethursday">"folklorethursday" hashtag on Twitter</a> - I could browse this all week...</p>
<h2>Footer</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - the official website is at <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a>, and the email sign-up is at <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">https://buttondown.email/beamspun</a>. Subscribe as a premium member to receive a quarterly bonus post. You can also <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/p/support-us.html">support the newsletter more directly</a>.</p>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a> | Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss">@6loss</a> | Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. Albeit slowly. Slow is good though.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-50838266580067685852021-08-22T05:58:00.007+01:002021-08-22T05:58:00.204+01:00Beamspun 1.10: Sturgeon Blue<p><a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a> is a regular newsletter about narrative, tech and magic for a better world. Published on a Sunday around the full moon, it contains thoughts and links on anything from renewable power to ritual energy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2021/08/21/august-sturgeon-full-moon-2021-when-uk-where-visible-time/">Sturgeon</a> and <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/now/rare-august-blue-moon-illuminate-182300404.html">alternative Blue Moon</a><br>
Local sunrise / publish time: 0458 UTC (weekly +11m)</p>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEgDQHsXRxapq55SxnyDslFP_mZL0BOOHcSIi7nCn8vyR78hVOv1RErDh8fkOkruhpb5EE9uDaT4nlAE2sq-T8zJ6LGX7Y9sqFbGCkVovDAIJm8snmQF42X-PEwLwGMHz8JxOlXaf9hrSnux5ybtc3LE0ls1mYe3wYvpAlYNF_X0NMG6o8DV4MQf1kLA=s320" width="500" alt="Spine of the book 'The Glass Bead Game' by Herman Hesse" /></p>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Where does bravery come from?</p>
<p>Not the knightly bravery of old, all wrapped up in metal armour and flowing pennants, with the courage of muscle to tear apart vicious beasts. No, that's not the bravery I'm talking about.</p>
<p>I'm not brave, not in the way that I'm thinking. My head is still reckless and my actions are still guided by disposable desires. </p>
<p>Case in point: Earlier today, after the rain had cleared from the hills and we hadn't found any four-leaf clovers, I found myself in a charity shop. I do love charity shops (or "thrift stores" in the US, I believe) and will happily spend a few hours traipsing up and down a high street perusing the books and knick-knacks.</p>
<p>I wasn't looking for much in particular. I have bought <a href="https://describe.blogspot.com/2021/08/finds-from-topsham-bookshop.html">too many books</a> recently. I had planned to simply look around and head out.</p>
<p>And <em>then</em> my eyes saw a book. I don't know, something about the spine and font marked it out for special attention in my mind. It was a red-backed copy of Herman Hesse's <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game">The Glass Bead Game</a></em>. I don't know much about it, except that it's been on my to-read list for ages. It was larger than I expected, and this copy was in good condition, for a measly sum.</p>
<p>I ummed and arred inside my brain, <em>knowing</em> that I didn't need it, that I'd already run out of precious bookshelf space. I went to put it back, and then ... paid the money, popped it in my bag, and dashed back out onto the street.</p>
<p>My will lost out. Something drove me to bring that book home: routine, muscle memory, or perhaps the voice of a ghost. Who knows? But it was a simple moment in which I could have said "no", and didn't. The easier decision won out.</p>
<p>Sitting here, mulling it over, I keep coming back to a sense of fear, and to a quote from issue 1 of <a href="https://www.cunning-folk.com/">Cunning Folk magazine</a>. In response to the question "Are we going through a period of re-enchantment?", English Literature professor Diane Purkiss responds: "<strong><em>Re-enchantment is not doing its job if it doesn't come with a shiver.</em></strong>" I love this thought, this realisation that to bring change is not an <em>easy</em> thing - not for any practical reason, but because a different world is a strange one. But also that it recognises that the alternative path can be one of wonder and of happiness, should we let it.</p>
<p>The future is made up of an infinite series of tiny moments, each one dangling in front of us and presenting a chance to do something differently. And yet the momentum of our subconscious presents itself as a fear of the unknown. We cling to patterns of familiarity like raindrops hanging beneath a leaf. We could fall at any moment, if only we wanted to.</p>
<p>That's the kind of bravery I'm thinking about. Not big demons or monsters, but the ongoing rush of tiny bugs and shadows. Shades so subtle that they slip through our net without notice. Pinpricks of opportunity that are there for the taking, and how much easier it is if we're comfortable with just the sheer possibility of <em>something else</em>.</p>
<p>We can re-enchant our own selves through practice, ritual, storytelling, and (my favourite) just not-taking-ourselves-so-damn-seriously in the first place. Find joy, and the battle becomes a game, a dance. Poppins was right. Find intrigue, and a challenge becomes an exploration rather than a chore. <em>Poppins was right.</em> We can use technology and communities to weave safety nets. We can draw on artistic endeavors to alter our mindset. </p>
<p>We can welcome that <em>something else</em> as a part of life, not just as a gift of hindsight.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Supporting Beamspun:</strong> If you're enjoying Beamspun and would like to support me a little, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">become a premium subscriber</a> on Buttondown. Pay monthly whatever you like and (I've just decided) if you donate, I'll send you a little extra photo to mark the equinoxes and solstices. (Maybe something like <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/03/equinox202103200937.html">this one from March</a>?)</p>
<hr>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>art:</strong> Digital minimalism and the disruption of more addictive, surveilled social systems is the subject of Ben Grosser's exhibition, <a href="https://www.arebyte.com/software-for-less">Software for Less</a> at the arebyte Gallery in London. The show "presents functional applications and media-based artworks that produce less profit, less data, and less users" in contrast to the apparent urge to "be liked". (Via <a href="https://posiwid.blogspot.com/2021/08/metrication-and-demetrication.html">Richard Veryard's coverage</a>.)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>rewilding:</strong> What happens if you leave an arable field alone for 60 years? <a href="https://theconversation.com/amp/monks-wood-wilderness-60-years-ago-scientists-let-a-farm-field-rewild-heres-what-happened-163406">Here's what happened at Monks Wood</a>, providing a valuable insight into how a local, complex ecosystem can develop.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>e-wilding:</strong> Remember when websites were messier, handcoded, and <em>unique</em>? <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/amp/">Digital "gardens" aim to re-capture that sense of <em>tending</em> to content more personally.</a> If we're to reclaim the idea of wilderness, then perhaps that mindset needs to infiltrate everything we do these days. Perhaps we can have faith in our own weirdness again.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>relaxing:</strong> Yahoo(!) news covers <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/chinese-shun-grueling-careers-low-023041128.html">a movement among people in China to "lie flat"</a> - that is, to adopt a slower, non-materialistic lifestyle against the encouragement of the state to be "productive". It touches on how this is spun as "shameful", but thinking about labels such as "slacker", would many in the West consider such approaches similarly? The <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ea13fed5-5994-4b82-9001-980d1f1ecc48">Financial Times also covers it</a> (but paywalled). Perhaps "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on,_tune_in,_drop_out">Turn on, tune in, drop out</a>" can be revisited globally now.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>mainstream?:</strong> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57761297.amp">Solarpunk finally gets some coverage on BBC news</a>. A <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=solarpunk">quick search</a> shows this might even be the very first mention over there. I'm not sure what that means though. Is it just a hashtag trending to a certain point? Does anything "punk" lose its power when it goes mainstream? Or are we beginning to see some change, some curiosity at large?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>zines:</strong> And <a href="https://twitter.com/blackcatlitmag">Black Cat Community Press</a> have announced a forthcoming <a href="https://solarpunkmagazine.com/">Solarpunk Magazine</a>, due in 2022 and taking submissions soon. I'm slightly surprised the name hasn't been taken yet, TBH.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>water:</strong> Henry Glogau has won this year's Lexus Design Award for <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2021/06/27/henry-glogau-solar-water-distiller-lexus-design-award/">a simple structure that purifies water using solar energy</a>. It can be assembled in 30 minutes, and can generate 18 litres of purified water a day using a basic condensation approach, leading to a tap.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2021/06/portable-solar-distiller-lexus-design-award_dezeen_2364_col_5-852x1060.jpg" width="500" alt="A cross-section of Henry Glogau's water purifier, showing the various parts involved" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>furniture:</strong> Another newsletter, this time <a href="https://www.climatepioneers.net/">Climate Pioneers</a> which, a couple of months ago, covered <a href="https://www.climatepioneers.net/p/benchmarking-materials-how-can-we">what sustainable furniture might look like</a>. It's amazing how much research - materials, sourcing, energy usage, etc - goes into any particular <em>item</em> these days. Each "thing", even when mass-produced, is unique in terms of its origins. As a tangent, I'm curious how this sort of knowledge can be embedded into a <em>community</em> - is it feasible to bring together a local group of 'field experts' that can both produce something specific, as well as understand the complexities behind it?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>urbanism:</strong> <a href="https://wrathofgnon.substack.com/">Wrath of Gnon's newsletter</a> covers long term looks at sustainable, local infrastructure and is worth a look. I particularly enjoyed <a href="https://wrathofgnon.substack.com/p/sustainable-infrastructure">a description of Japanese canals</a>, venturing into how our systems are intrisically tied to our <em>wants</em>, and how far ahead we consider as part of those desires. "<em>What cannot last, will fall, and when that happens it will be too late to regret all the things we did not build, while we had the chance.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>communities:</strong> <a href="https://www.notechmagazine.com/2021/07/rebuilding-suburbia.html">No Tech magazine points to</a> a paper called <a href="https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/2104/galley/2363/view/">Remaking settlements for sustainability: the Simpler Way</a>, by Ted Trainer. The paper looks at the possibilities for de-growth and land use in an urban space in Australia. I have't looked into it enough to comment on the <em>political</em> aspects of governing such a scheme, but it looks at least like a good list of all the ways in which <em>community space</em> can be leveraged better, such as rooftop space through to wasteland.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>robotics:</strong> And finishing off this week with solarpunks.net covering <a href="https://solarpunks.net/post/659391355514126336/meet-delta-the-good-samaritan-robot-in-an">Delta, the good samaritan robot</a> in Indonesia, made out of upcycled household goods. Because the future is <em>so</em> lilac...</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/377f5e9e22101aecb7d047232792fe04/63f6582826739709-6f/s2048x3072/e8c4b28a65bff326d12bb9debb41bac663ad18f1.jpg" width="500" alt="A cream and purple robot made from upcycled parts passing a couple on a scooter in a paved lane" /></p>
<h2>Thanks for reading</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - the official website is at <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a>, and the email sign-up is at <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">https://buttondown.email/beamspun</a>. Subscribe as a premium member to receive a quarterly bonus post. You can also <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/p/support-us.html">support the newsletter more directly</a>.</p>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a> | Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss">@6loss</a> | Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. Albeit slowly. Slow is good though.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-53317377446654021022021-07-25T05:16:00.013+01:002021-07-25T05:16:00.185+01:00Beamspun 1.9: Mead<p><a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a> is a regular newsletter/mailout about narrative, tech and magic for a better world. Published on a Sunday around the full moon, expect thoughts and links on anything from renewable power to ritual energy.</p>
<p><a href="https://witchesofthecraft.com/2015/07/01/the-witches-magick-for-the-1st-day-of-the-mead-moon-mead-moon-ritual/">Mead Moon</a>
Local sunrise / publish time: 0416 UTC (weekly +9m)</p>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>
<img alt="Screenshot from Sky, showing a caped avatar in a forest" width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghtgiFIhxNsxNocwVirDlNtFQCj7TcWkAImHFRSt1uq13TyJzoDXZU2qsNpbSoq-HafWZPWzrfoOrC6ER6vIa5znOoiXBlgSOpHbdAdOy0yd_gBBiOMY937v86jsOqTMymV_qmBW5OI75Y/s320/sky_forest.jpg"/>
</p>
<p>64 squares, black and white, nothing outside the boundary. Bring the knight into a sidelong sweep, advance a fearless pawn, or pull back and castle like a spiralling wind? Fingers drumming on temples, twiddling with hair, eyes squinting to help the mind focus better. The clock ticks and nothing else matters.</p>
<p>Lately, I'm fascinated by the role that games play in teaching us about the world. I mean, I've always loved playing games of all kinds, but over the last few years I've started to see links between those games and my life outside of them. Working with team mates, thinking through strategy, finding methods to inspire myself. Were all those board games and card games I played growing up really just for entertainment?</p>
<p>This week I've been absorbed into the world of <em><a href="https://www.thatskygame.com/">Sky: Children of the Light</a></em>, a relaxed pseudo-social game world in which exploration is celebrated over conquest, and mutual support is fostered between random strangers. Flight, light, and hearts take the place of guns and victory dances as you retrace the steps of a lost civilisation. As you progress, you unlock new poses and musical instruments that seem more joyous than the benches that allow player-to-player chat. Our own discovery of the world leads to an unlocking of all the different ways in which we can interact, and I'm reminded of how travel - <em>real</em> travel - broadens the mind and transforms our attitudes.</p>
<p>In a similar vein, the browser-based game <em><a href="https://www.nfb.ca/interactive/wayfinder/">Wayfinder</a></em> also uses the concept of recapturing lost memories, only this time it is haiku-like poems which are woven into the fabric of the land as you float around. Our character acts as the medium by which nature re-finds itself through art and symbols: the generative poetry is not some extractive exercise to convert a landscape into personal gain, but a way for the avatar - us, the player - to re-realise the links which already exist in the web that surrounds us.</p>
<p>In both <em>Sky</em> and <em>Wayfinder</em>, there is an overwhelming sense that the environment is alive, not just with life as we normally think about it, but with old stories and a sense of history, and the threat comes from the feeling that this history has been lost. Beamspun parallels this in many ways - exploring what we've lost and need to rediscover in the external world, but also within our own being. </p>
<p>Games are a fascinating, fertile playground for those of us looking to come to terms with a challenge. When we enter into a game, we choose to be presented with difficulty, and we will work overtime to resolve it as neatly as we can. Deliberately or unknowingly, we sign a pact with the game designer - or the game itself - to play within certain rules, to learn them, and to be <em>taught</em> how to respond. Depending on the game, we may pick up new social skills, imagination, strategic thought, and other fields we don't even have names for.</p>
<p>As a society, we can escape the boundaries of the board to think more broadly about the role of games in reaching our future. How can mystery and challenge get us to engage with problems more creatively? How can we use them to rediscover the network of connections around us. And - vitally - how do we take the big leap of faith from the game world (or board) into the real world?</p>
<p>There are so many good games coming out these days that I can't keep track of them. Let me know what your favourite or most-anticipated mind-changing games are, whatever the medium, and I'll try to link to them in future editions.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>gaming:</strong> <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fromcarrotcake/the-garden-path-a-hand-illustrated-slice-of-life-sim-game">The Garden Path</a> is currently in funding, and offers a slower, seasonal experience for those interested in growing things. It also has a <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1638500/The_Garden_Path/">Steam page</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>poetics:</strong> For more philosophical thoughts on how gaming and poetry can - should - interact more, this talk by Xuan Nguyen on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT3_lz1g5Wo">Mad Poetics in Indie Games</a> is worth 30 minutes of your time. To be all social constructive about it, I think there is a lot to learn from drawing together 'madness' and 'non-rationalism'. Often we find ourselves caught in a limbo zone between the walls of the prison and the laboratory like a coin being flipped, and perhaps there are ways to blur those lines...</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>wilding:</strong> Devine Lu Linvega of Hundred Rabbits summarises <a href="https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/solarpunk.html">some thoughts on solarpunk and longevity</a>. In particular, he notes that our stereotypical understanding of "the wild" is central to our relationship with the world. Rather than the wild being a dangerous place, we have a long way to go to reclaim an alternative perspective, one in which we also accept and embrace "the tranquility of the wild", as Devine puts it.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>architecture:</strong> <a href="https://www.urbangreenbluegrids.com/measures/green-facades/">Green facades</a>, a good look at ways to grow plants on the sides of buildings, the benefits it offers, and species to use. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://www.urbangreenbluegrids.com/uploads/IMGP1683-947x630.jpg" width="640" alt="Potted plants cover all sides of a multistorey building" /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>art:</strong> <a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/claudi-fuggetti-hot-zone-photography-250621">Claudia Fuggetti's Hot Zone</a>, a project which brings together nature, neural networks, dreaming and uncertainty into surreal images. </li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://media.itsnicethat.com/images/Hot_Zone_Claudia_Fuggetti_05.format-webp.width-2880_Ki0WPPEJNM1BzWy6.webp" width="640" alt="Surreal shapes that look like trees and fauna, in dark tones with purple and blue highlights" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>repurposing:</strong> Teens in argentina <a href="https://restofworld.org/2021/argentina-netbooks-music/">hacked and repurposed state-supplied school netbooks</a> to make music and produce videos. The story isn't just about reusing old tech, but about how an influx of new technology can highlight social situations, and produce new groups, scenes and movements, all set within the confines of what the hardware and software allows.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>hydro:</strong> This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fiqXGkaomw">video on micro-hydropower</a> is a fascinating look at how small installations of intensive whirlpools can generate local energy efficiently.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>energy:</strong> And in California, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/california-lifestyle-power-outages-environment-and-nature-government-and-politics-80e3044da4163d6963c4035f402cdf62">local solar power is replacing long-distance power lines</a> in an effort to become more resilient, and less exposed to the extreme weather.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>windpower:</strong> Vertical windfarming (or windmining?) continues to evolve, this time in the form of <a href="https://returntonow.net/2021/07/01/windcatchers-generate-2-5-times-as-much-electricity-as-wind-turbines-per-square-foot/">Norwegian produced "Windcatcher" systems</a>, which are apparently at least twice as efficient as traditional wind farms (per square foot).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6047717a9b130129ec7786a1/1619766627248-IKD27M0YMAD0OQ0S0XAC/open+ocean+with+3+wind+catching+rigs?format=750w" width="320" alt="Three large, square-shaped structures standing in the sea" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>supplychain:</strong> Forced labour in Chinese solar panel production has been an ongoing topic recently, with <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-administration-bars-imports-of-solar-panels-linked-to-forced-labor-in-china-e2-80-99s-xinjiang-region/ar-AALoMvg">the US banning imports of panels</a> made by Hoshine Silicon. Fortune follows up by <a href="https://fortune.com/2021/07/20/china-climate-change-tech-solar-panels-silicon-forced-labor/">considering how the West could encourage supply chain standards</a>. It's a big challenge given the state of global politics, but hugely important we don't just gloss over broader impacts in our move to new infrastructures.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>passive:</strong> This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj1E7o7J3qc">solar-powered sun tracker</a> is so simple that I can't believe I haven't seen or thought of it before. Reminds me of those robot that follow a line, using a basic yin/yang approach. (<em>Via <a href="https://mastodon.green/@vattuvarg">@vattuvarg</a></em>)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Oj1E7o7J3qc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>indieshops:</strong> It was great to discover the <a href="https://iglootree.com/">Iglootree store</a>, a bookshop full of strange and curated oddities - zines, books, art and games, such as <a href="https://iglootree.com/wyrd-issue-two-1077-p.asp">Wyrd zine</a>, <a href="https://iglootree.com/fungi-of-the-far-realms-5-p.asp">Fungi of the Far Realms</a> and <a href="https://iglootree.com/lost-futures-vol-2-471-p.asp">Lost Futures</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>art:</strong> <a href="https://www.cambridgemosscow.org/">Cambridge has a Moss Cow</a>, a street installation containing an air quality sensor.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/60c4bf0810556de24cded6f2/60eb44b1446e3d4b59864626_cow-on-stand.jpg" width="640" alt="A statue of a cow, covered in moss, with a solar panel on its back" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>rocks:</strong> Trees are natural historians with their rings recording seasonal data, but scientists have recently found that <a href="https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/06/27/0051235/isotopes-in-stalactites-may-link-intensifying-thunderstorms-to-global-climate-variability">stalactites and stalagmites can provide very long-term information about weather</a>, and are using them to compare current weather events to what happened in the ice age.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>chimes:</strong> And to bring everything back to the sky, research has found <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/our-atmosphere-chimes-in-time-with-astronomical-forces-and-something-else">atmospheric vibrations that ripple around the planet</a>, much like a bell ringing.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Footer</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - the official website is at <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a>, and the email sign-up is at <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">https://buttondown.email/beamspun</a>.</p>
<p>You can also <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/p/support-us.html">support the newsletter more directly</a>.</p>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a> | Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a> | Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. Albeit slowly. Slow is good though.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-28630815709762942042021-06-27T04:46:00.001+01:002021-06-27T04:46:00.198+01:00Beamspun 1.8: Strawberry<p><a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">Beamspun</a> is a regular newsletter/mailout about narrative, tech and magic for a better world. Published on a Sunday around the full moon, expect thoughts and links on anything from renewable power to ritual energy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2021/06/24/june-strawberry-full-moon-2021-when-uk-where-visible-date/">Strawberry Moon</a> / Solstice edition.<br />
Local sunrise / publish time: 0346 UTC (+2m)</p>
<p><b>Announcement:</b> For e-mail subscribers, Beamspun has now been migrated to <a href="https://buttondown.email/">Buttondown</a>'s newsletter service. (Feedburner was a little legacy, and is due to close next month.) Things you might like to know: </p>
<ol>
<li>I'll be reviewing it in more depth personally, but here's <a href="https://buttondown.email/privacy">Buttondown's data privacy policy</a>. Do let me know if you're not happy with the switch and we can work it out. </li>
<li>If you're <i>extra</i> happy, then you can now choose to support the newsletter with a monthly donation, <a href="https://buttondown.email/beamspun">by going to the sign-up page</a>. Nothing will be different for such premium subscribers currently, but maybe there's scope for 'bonus content' in future?</li>
<li>I've only just migrated across and there are a lot of options to go through. Something somewhere will probably break, so hold on to your hats... (With luck, replying to the newsletter will work now, though.)</li>
</ol>
<p>I future I'm hoping to look at migrating the archives and the RSS feed somewhere, but all in good time. There's magic to be done still.</p>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Last month I rested, as life was a whirlwind around me. To keep things ticking, <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/05/beamspun-nothing-moon-for-reflection.html">I wondered</a> what humanity's greatest strength was. I have this increasing awareness that if things are going to change, like <i>seriously</i> Change-with-an-adult-C, then it's not a new technical paradigm that we need, but an inward one which re-asserts our own view of our very self. </p>
<p>A re-appraisal, honing in on that idea of <i>praise</i>, for we spend so much time <i>worrying</i> about ourselves and our future that we forget what inner resources we have. Which, in turn, cuts us off from our own resources, like when we really need to write something down and ask around for a pen, forgetting we had a pen in our pocket all along. </p>
<p>When we collectively realise just what strengths are innate and accessible to us, then maybe we'll have that 'ohhhh yeahhh' moment we're all waiting for.</p>
<p>Over on Twitter, I rephrased it as <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss/status/1401927881605980161">a request</a> to complete the sentence "Humans are...". Responses were as varied as people, of course. </p>
<p>"Doomed."</p>
<p>"Squishy."</p>
<p>"An amazing creative force enabling science, technology and our spiritual destiny to be ultimately fulfilled."</p>
<p>"Humans."</p>
<p>The last of these was mirrored by a reply via email: <i>Maybe humanity's greatest strength is "being human".</i></p>
<p>This might seem like a useless tautology at first. But after a period of letting it sit with me, it brought back a section of the Tao Te Ching:</p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><i>"Tao is great, and heaven, and earth, and humans.<br />
Four great things in the world. Aren't humans one of them?"</i><br />
(<i>tr. Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo</i>)<br /></div><blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The translation goes on to say: "<b>Humans follow earth</b>, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the tao."</p>
<p>This idea has stuck with me - this idea that humans are unique and special in our relationship with the world around us. That we emerge from, and are tied to, the environment in a distinctly magical, <i>human</i> way. And with it, the idea that we are each messy and complex, just as the soil and forests and deserts and waters are chaotic and thriving. Our own emotions, and all the scary and difficult and experiential things that make humans <i>human</i> - aren't these all an ecosystem in themselves?</p>
<p>And if our own sense of being human is not just one thing but many, what does that say about our current situation? Which bits of us are engaged when we go into 'work' mode, or when we take time out, or set out aims and dreams? Which parts of our emotional ecosystem makes us 'productive', and are we ever at risk from some sort of personal monoculture? Can we accept our own mess?</p>
<p>Til next time.</p>
<h3>Links</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>permacomputing:</b> I was really pleased to find viznut's collection of <a href="http://viznut.fi/texts-en/permacomputing.html">random thoughts about "permacomputing"</a> wich sum up and set out a lot of what I'm thinking about these days. It's wide-ranging, but I was particularly taken with the notion of yin and yang hacking, and the difference between how maintenance in a technical systems, compared to maintenance in a more dynamic, generative environment such as a garden.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>narratives:</b> I went along to 'Black, Gifted, and Represented', a session on Afro and African Futurism given by <a href="https://twitter.com/ekoner">Edafe Onerhime</a> for <a href="https://manchesterfuturists.home.blog/">Manchester Futurists</a>. You can <a href="https://ekoner.medium.com/black-gifted-and-represented-africanfuturism-afrofuturism-bc5a9dab996d">watch the video and read Edafe's overview here</a> - for me, it opened up another fantastic rabbit hole of <i>where stories come from</i>, why people want to tell them, and how we use labels like "solarpunk" and "africanfuturism" to draw those stories, and their tellers, together. We also live in an age where those labels are shifting all the time, and yet it can be so easy to do a search for them, find people discussing it, and learn more: as those conversations are written down, archived, and indexed, we can do in a few hours what used to take decades.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>africanfuturism:</b> And just to highlight it, Edafe linked to <a href="https://brittlepaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Africanfuturism-An-Anthology-edited-by-Wole-Talabi.pdf">Africanfuturism: An Anthology</a> (PDF) containing <a href="https://nnedi.com/">Nnedi Okorafor</a>'s essay defining the term 'Africanfuturism'. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>stories:</b> One for the stories-are-power crowd out there - here's <a href="https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/what-we-learned-at-the-stories-for-life-virtual-gathering">a rundown of the Stories For Life gathering recently</a>, covering reconnection and communities, and the links between stories and life. In many ways, they are like code libraries and modules in that they can be re-used and built on: "<i>A story is a unit of narrative, like a tile to a mosaic or threads to a tapestry; together, several stories weave a broader narrative, a narrative that forms the fabric of our reality.</i>" (Via <a href="https://twitter.com/dansolo">Dan Burgess</a>)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>zine:</b> <a href="https://climateaction.tech/">ClimateAction.tech</a> has launched <a href="https://branch.climateaction.tech/">issue 2 of Branch magazine</a>, covering solarpunk fiction, sustainable web design, AI, and change. Enough articles to keep you hooked for days, even weeks.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>re-art:</b> The BBC looks at <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57513965">Dan Rawling's artwork</a>, transforming metal vehicles and signs into ethereal outlines and shadows of trees and nature. As the article notes, the artwork is part of a show called Future Returns, at the 20-21 arts centre in Scunthorpe until 25 September.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="An old petrol tanker lorry has been carved up so that its sides and tank now take on the ethereal shapes of trees." src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/15942/production/_118968388_7e5ee8a7-5e78-452e-8fd8-82b7d92f1deb.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<ul>
<li><b>photography:</b> And <a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/tommaso-protti-amazonia-photography-170621">Tommaso Protti’s work, <i>Amazônia</i></a>, is featured in <a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/">It's Nice That</a>. As Tommaso notes, there is often a big difference between how we get raised to think about something, and the reality and detail of it, and monochrome photography always gets to the heart of a subject, with all of its moments of culture and crucifixes.</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="Photo by Tommaso Protti: A chopped tree inside a cemetery near Novo Progresso, Pará state." src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEqgoSThUzsmKkOGd1qGXssR2n9zqxU53cZxgB6JszBhDKdJZT-ek2ofOslwQRmVix0NcEedUvqA5neqNKNL2eZ9aOVBJQGmUpmHIO0cdC8wVjy0QBJJiCVutzR-Zjw_8Sfx9QaFBN7iyK/s320/Protti-Amazonia.png" width="640" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>hivemind:</b> Stumbled across the <a href="https://www.naturesave.co.uk/naturesave-trust/solar-bee-project/">Solar Bee project</a>, an interesting overlap between (community-owned, in this case) solar farming, and using solar power to remove the varroa mite by a special hive.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>cities:</b> And in Berlin, there are efforts to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/20/bee-friendly-urban-wildflower-meadows-prove-a-hit-with-german-city-dwellers">integrate wildflowers and bees with urban areas</a> more, including flower beds on top of bus shelters. Over the years, I've found it bemusing how companies will find ways of turning any space into a place for advertising and sponsorship, but maybe that same mindset can be used for re-wilding too?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>stats:</b> I don't often link back to the data and context behind climate change, but Dr Jonathan Foley's breakdown, <a href="https://globalecoguy.org/the-three-most-important-graphs-in-climate-change-e64d3f4ed76">The Three Most Important Graphs in Climate Change</a>, is a pretty sensible and clear overview of where different greenhouse gases come from. It looks at the balance between sectors and of CO2 sinks, including the importance of land use. And it notes sensibly that there can and should be a short-term strategy <i>as well as</i> a longer term plan, as different gases have different lifetimes and effects. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="Pie chart showing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, from Dr Foley" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/3840/1*H2_ng3v9AjmgZzQrNr_6HA.jpeg" width="640" /></p>
<h2>Footer</h2>
<p>Links to share? Got a mistake to point out? Or just want to say hi? Leave a comment <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">on the blog</a>, or drop a line through any of the following intertubes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might like it - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. Albeit slowly. Slow is good though.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-11087094506736817862021-05-30T08:59:00.001+01:002021-05-30T08:59:41.656+01:00Beamspun Nothing: A Moon for Reflection<p>Beamspun is a regular newsletter/mailout about things cosmic, magical, alternative and technical... except for this month.</p><p>I hoped to publish something, but life has taken over a bit - the last few weeks have been full-on with changing job, and I've not had the time or energy for the newsletter.</p><p>Thursday was my last proper day of employment. The day before, May's flower moon was the closest of the year, an orange mirror holding sway over the whole earth, coinciding with a total lunar eclipse. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/gallery/2021/may/26/mays-super-flower-moon-lights-up-the-night-skies-in-pictures" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Some people took photos of it</a>. For me, it was mostly cloudy. </p><p>But I knew it was there, and that unlike a rainbow, it was there for everyone at the same time. Light and shadow lining up, orbits and circles falling into a split-second of order. The same angles acting across millions of miles of space, true for everyone on earth.</p><p>Illumination. Reflection. Obscurity. We're all caught between the extremes. And that's ok. Nothing to worry about.<br /></p><p>Sometimes it's ok for things to come together, and to take the time to pause, to gaze on without thought. That moment the tide changes, or the fleeting apex of a bird's flight path. Taking stock of a new direction.</p><p>So instead of links this week, I'd like to put out an invitation instead. My inbox is open and I'm curious about what comes next. Dear readers, become writers, and get in touch. Feeling philosophical? I am, so here's a question for you:</p><p><i>What do you think humanity's greatest strength is?</i><br /></p><p><a href="mailto:beamspun@exmosis.net" rel="nofollow">Click here to email me</a>, or <a href="https://twitter.com/6loss" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here for Twitter</a>, or even <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here for Mastodon</a>.</p><p>(NB. I'll be sorting out newsletter services this month, so expect some admin updates.) <br /></p><p>As always, if you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and pass the link on: <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net">beamspun.exmosis.net</a></p>
<p>Until soon.</p><p>- Graham</p><p><br /></p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-62808513893523902342021-05-02T05:31:00.003+01:002021-05-02T05:31:00.222+01:00Beamspun 1.7 "Pink": 2nd May 2021<p>Beamspun is a regularish newsletter/mailout about narrative, tech and magic for a better world. Published on a Sunday around the full moon, expect thoughts and links on anything from renewable power to ritual energy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/pink.html">Pink Moon</a> edition<br>
Local sunrise / publish time: 0431 UTC (-13m)</p>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>"<em>...and the sky's the limit.</em>" </p>
<p>With these simple words, Jean-Luc Picard wrapped up the final episode of <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>. For followers like me, it was - as with the culmination of any long-arced narrative - a moment of sadness. They ushered in the last ever fadeout, leaving me suddenly free from all the characters and stories which had held our hands for years. At the end of a good tale, it is hard to tell if the fictional world's inhabitants are any more or less important than the spectators, when it comes to the sheer <em>existence</em> of the story's power. The watched and the watcher are bound up in the same illusion.</p>
<p>Staring up at the pale, bright blue sky today, the closing line comes back to me. I gently wonder to myself if the sky has a limit, or where I would stop if I found myself floating up and up. What would the sky be the limit <em>of</em> - some sense of presence and grounding? The oxygen that feeds us and the plants it help grow? Time itself? Does it make sense to end a Star Trek - set largely and deeply away from gravitational globes - with such a paradox as 'the sky', or does it, in fact, make the ultimate fourth-wall nod to the viewer who inherently ties the entire show's premise back down to earth, just by sitting there?</p>
<p>I was thinking about this because whenever I look around these days, stories are the most important and ubiquitous thing I see. Visions of the future, explanations of the present, and forensic archaeology acting to rediscover and reinterpret where we've come from. The technology and the patterns we employ every day - from the apps we install to the hours we go shopping - are woven around us, coccooning us in their default desires. We <em>know</em> them off by heart, to the point that we no longer think about them, and we <em>dream</em> of something different just because we are human. Our routines started out as someone else's dream, once upon a time.</p>
<p>Beamspun is just another of these dreams. There are links here to tech, but it's not about the efficiency of solar panels or a set of protected trees, not really. Most of all, it's a wayfinder, a pebble thrown into the far reaches of wherever.</p>
<p>We forget that we're wrapped up in so many stories already, and we lose track of who the scriptwriters are. We suffer the same fate of any fan of a long-running narrative - a fear that by ending the current story and our familiar routines, we will no longer have anywhere to go, or anyone to tell us how to <em>feel</em>. And yet, for change to happen, something must always be coming to an end, all the time.</p>
<p>Beamspun and solarpunk are not, I would argue, about hammering out practical solutions. They exist because we know the sky is an illusion, and that something <em>beyond</em> the sky is ready and waiting for us, even if the gravity of the stories we're already in makes it difficult to leave them.</p>
<p>They are unknown paths to unknown places, but we can still follow them.</p>
<p>Happy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane">Beltane</a>.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>futures:</strong> Attempting to re-structure the stories which we embed into our own cores, the Moral Imaginations project is a fantastic endeavour, and the <a href="https://medium.com/moral-imaginations/a-manifesto-for-moral-imagination-dbf62f0cb7aa">summary of the first year</a> hits home so powerfully. "...<em>we have stopped perceiving the full spectrum of who we are, what a good human life is made up of, and the magic and possibility of a human life and the world that surrounds us.</em>" Go read it now.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>lost:</strong> I've also dug out Paul Watson's post <a href="http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/post-apocalyptic-pastoral-and-post-industrial">on the "post-apocalyptic pastoral"</a> from last year, which has some important ideas and links in it. Perhaps he is right, and we have reached a point where imagining something different is <em>hard</em> - maybe even <em>impossible</em> among the capitalist ability to infiltrate and capture change. Or perhaps we are riding an intensely strong capitalist paradigm which is waiting to burn out (literally) before we're able to re-invigorate our <em>need</em> to dream again. I get this sense that the true creatives will be the ones who have managed to successfuly detach themselves from the comfort of modern living first.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>perspective:</strong> Space10's run-down of going '<a href="https://space10.com/beyond-human-centered-design/">beyond human-centred design</a>' is also really resonating with me at the moment. "<em>We know we’re on the right track if our design has the potential to last us a long time</em>." What if objects were designed not to <em>sell</em>, but to exist <em>appropriately</em> and in line with all the squidgy, fleshy, messy bits of the world. To carry out a job, but be as temporary as life and as sustainable as a forest. To embody <a href="https://www.globaldashboard.org/2020/03/31/covid19-and-the-intergenerational-covenant/">intergenerational contracts</a>. To recognise humility and silence in people?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>underneath:</strong> A long-read it's going to take me a few run-throughs to get the most from, Nora Bateson asks <a href="https://norabateson.medium.com/what-is-submerging-ad12df016cde">What is 'Submerging'?</a> Or, what comes before where we are now? What were the conditions that led to something emerging? "...<em>in a meadow each organism is wrapped into life in many ways, not just one, many. Some of which are in the songs of love in meadows, or the fertile youth of blooming flowers. It is tempting to separate the ecology of meadows from the ecology of ideas… but that again is just a perception.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>architecture:</strong> This is an incredible <a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/tecla-house-mario-cucinella-wasp-architecture-270421">house 3D-printed from earth</a>, from Mario Cucinella Architects, and 3D-printing company Wasp. I find it fascinating how alternative materials and processes end up looking as only they can, and am fascinated by what our mass-produced structures encapsulate.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVAtWKXcBhKq3nOBTYa0hJ6WC1Osu1stv1xcywYv-pom1bDbg4Ykmitn4RoVXcTF_HWRkPOeEUT8ORa9-DD4k_8UAiwW-03rDk3jdcIFSKooJB5awua3thITt-MetYU-bBRbkFe8-niRn/s320/earth_house.png" width="400" alt="The curved inside of a house printed from earth" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>energy:</strong> Return to Now covers a scheme to bring the "<a href="https://billionsinchange.in/en/solutions/free-electric-2/">Hans-Free</a>" <a href="https://returntonow.net/2021/03/04/would-you-cycle-an-hour-a-day-to-power-your-home-for-24-hours/">cycle-powered electricity to rural areas</a>. Dynamos feel more 'punk' than solar panels to me - a bit of wire and magnetic field, and you're <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19439128">good to go</a>. Sources of rotation are pretty generic and in that sense, there's not much difference (ha) between a bike, a waterfall, and a nuclear power station - something spins round. As lockdowns continue around the world, wouldn't it be great to see a demand for exercise turn into a supply of cheap, localised power?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>connection:</strong> I have this theory that the internet encourages us to increasingly live in the world of symbols - including words and language. So <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/scientists-plan-to-use-ai-to-try-to-decode-the-language-of-whales">could AI help humans to understand whales?</a> And if so, would humans be more likely to sympathise with them? Or control them? Is it a good thing to 'hook into' other species' symbols in that way? </p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://www.whoaisnotme.net/pictures/johnny_dolphin.jpg" width="400" alt="Johnny Mnemonic talking to a dolphin" /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>data:</strong> For the data geeks - No Tech Magazine have published a <a href="https://www.notechmagazine.com/2021/04/solar-powered-website-uptime-for-2020.html">quick chart showing uptime for their solar-powered website</a>. Data is feedback is good.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://www.notechmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/uptime2020.jpg" width="400" alt="Chart showing uptime and weather of No Tech Magazine's server" /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>gaming:</strong> Find seeds, water them, and grow flowers to move through a tower in <a href="https://arkicade.itch.io/flowers-for-time">Flowers for Time</a>, an 8-bit retro game you can play right in your browser.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvODUyOTEyLzQ3ODczOTQuZ2lm/original/ptHU7B.gif" width="400" alt="Animated image showing gameplay of Flowers For Time" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>gaming_2:</strong> And more generally, PC Gamer looks at <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/au/enough-cyberpunkits-solarpunks-time-to-shine/">whether games can bring a more solarpunk sense of positivism</a> to the world, and talks to Phoebe Shalloway. I haven't played Shalloway’s <a href="https://girldebord.itch.io/arcadia">Even in Arcadia</a> yet but it's definitely on the up-next list. There are some really interesting other games linked to in the article as well.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>resources:</strong> And finally, this is the largest <a href="https://opensustain.tech/">list of open-source sustainable tech</a> I've seen yet. Everything from energy generation, to storage, efficiency, and datasets. Well worth a bookmark.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYI96XQ6gNecXfweqBgpXMA-2QeIdqm6GJcPecN3-qIqQA980XxNoOITVsalOuljMQacKelhvLZ6m9kj4RUAusuDLq9qpBzWC-XHdxgHlisLg9VxdfIaR0M37pbePd8UrezTYhZuvYmV3W/s320/lost_and_found.png" width="400" alt="Screenshot from the game Solare showing pixellated landscape with person watching out of window" /></p>
<p><em>Image from <a href="https://lostfoundgames.itch.io/solare">Solare</a></em></p>
<h2>Footer</h2>
<p>It looks like the so-old-it's-retro service offered by Feedburner is being closed down, or at least tidied up, in July. This means I'll have to find a new service for delivering Beamspun via email - which is probably a good thing, to be fair.</p>
<p>I've started some initial digging into possible replacements, but any further options for sensible, sustainable mailing list services are welcome - especially if they play nicely with blogging services.</p>
<p>Links to share? Got a mistake to point out? Or just want to say hi? Leave a comment <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">on the blog</a>, or drop a line through any of the following intertubes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-68296036503176998112021-03-28T06:44:00.003+01:002021-03-28T06:44:01.558+01:00Beamspun 1.6 "Worm": 28th March 2021<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0544 UTC (weekly -15m)</pre>
<p><em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunfen">Chunfen</a>, Thunder sounds</em> and <em>cherry blossoms open for the first time. It's a full moon, and it's time for another edition of Beamspun.</em></p>
<p>Over here in my corner of the world (your local mileage may vary), the short days of winter have become legends, and the pale yellow lines of morning that Spring brings are scything through darkness, sounding cornets to rally forth the flower heads.</p>
<p>I stroll round, taking it all in. The garden and hedgerows are proudly boasting their potential - fresh tree blossoms make whispered promises, congregations of tiny flowers jingle in the wind, and bumblebees dart round, dizzy on the sudden buffet choices.</p>
<p>And not just the bees. As I wander, I wonder what each plant is. Some I'm familiar with now - snowdrops, cow parsley, daffodils, the basics. Some even have several names, like stickyweed and cleavers. </p>
<p>Others I have seen before, but I can't identify. I have a pattern for these - I take a photo and a mental note, and try to look them up in one of the few identification books I have, or on the net. Most often, I flounder and scratch my head between all the plants that look alike, and give up. </p>
<p>Traditionally, I get slightly annoyed at that point - <em>why do they have to look so similar?</em> <em>Why are there so many plants in the world?</em> My desire to name the things takes over and I feel like I've failed in my studies.</p>
<p>This year, though, I'm more relaxed. What's in a name, after all? Or rather - what <em>isn't</em> in a name? What gets left behind by a photo in a book and an entry in an index? Can even the greatest tome tell us what signs to look for year-on-year around our own corner, or how a particular plant sways in the wind? Are the pages scented with crushed leaves, or decay so specifically?</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/foraging-as-a-mindfulness-practice-to-restore-vital-connection">Robin Harford says</a>, "<em>Little by little as you engage with a plant, pay attention to it, and love it for who it is.</em>"</p>
<p>Happy <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/worm.html">worm moon</a> by the way.</p>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwfRRo2DUsLGssGerSAy3073fFGLLJ01v5Ddojilk4BVQhUT64AUcUwFjLoMcOokETL319ONMXbSrd20fZlLdJr92o4ozXtxuhTn-jCALKU0raTZfsknKHlH06eCY7xtBXKRkF3yvZuv8i/s320/IMG_20210325_130541-01.jpeg" width="500" alt="A single white flower growing on concrete" /></p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>food:</strong> <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/vertical-farms">Vertical farming is getting serious</a>: "<em>Here, in a former Siemens washing machine factory, stand four white, 18-metre-high “grow chambers”, controlled by software and served by robots. These are the company’s next generation of vertical farms: fully-automated, modular high-rises... According to Infarm, each one of these new units uses 95 per cent less water, 99 per cent less space and 75 per cent less fertilizer than conventional land-based farming.</em>" Do cities offer more flexible, well resourced spaces to experiment with fundamentally different farming approaches?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>narratives:</strong> And from real-world urban tales, to more fictional future-gazing: World Weaver Press are releasing "<a href="https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p176/Multispecies_Cities.html">Multispecies Cities</a>" on April 13th, a collection of short stories looking at what cities might look like if they integrated humans with nature more.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://www.worldweaverpress.com/uploads/2/3/6/5/23652778/s852059612874479876_p176_i2_w1800.jpeg?width=500" alt="Cover image of Multispecies Cities book with illustation and title" width="300" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>books:</strong> Back in <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2021/01/beamspun-14-31st-january-2021.html">Beamspun 1.4</a>, I mentioned an article looking at the book "A Good Home Forever" by Rosemary Morrow. I was pleased to find it in <a href="https://store.holmgren.com.au/product/good-home-forever-rosemary-morrow/">ebook format for 10 AUD over at Holmgren Design's on-line store</a>. It's a decently short guide, and will be familiar to anyone interested in permaculture, but I enjoyed its down-to-earthness and its very practical approach, that made me want to just Get On With It.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>flowers:</strong> "<em>The moonflower cactus ... produces a stunning, snowy bloom once a year for only 12 hours.</em>" Cambridge University Botanic Garden managed to capture it on film, and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-moonflower-cactus-blossom-first-ever-time-lapse-footage-180977139/">here's a timelapse</a> in case you can't wait for next year... (<em>via <a href="https://rage.love/@QueenMollyBones/105864762347240092">QueenMollyBones</a></em>)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Lrztot0XQEg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li><strong>trees:</strong> <a href="https://returntonow.net/2021/01/27/trees-are-aware-of-their-neighbors-and-give-them-space/">Return to Now covers "crown shyness"</a>, or the way in which some species of trees avoid overlapping their leaves, resulting in some beautifully patterned views.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://www.treehugger.com/thmb/815YP6TyX4xBPMfvP-d-rPF2y54=/1020x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__mnn__images__2017__08__Dryobalanops_Aromatica_canopy-8e1ac06550964032aebde11350d77b2b.jpg" width="500" alt="Looking up at trees with their canopy neatly separated by thin lines of sky" /></p>
<p>(<em>photo by Patrice78500/Wikimedia Commons, via <a href="https://www.treehugger.com/what-is-crown-shyness-4869713">Treehugger</a></em>)</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>africa:</strong> Via the new and unofficial <a href="https://todon.eu/@GreatGreenWall">@GreatGreenWall mastodon account</a>, I'm learning about the <a href="https://www.greatgreenwall.org/">Great Green Wall project</a>, "<em>an African-led movement with an epic ambition to grow an 8,000km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of Africa.</em>" It's clear (and yet still seems to be a minority viewpoint) that trees and soil quality are one and the same, a system that generates and cycles in the direction that brought us here. We're foolish to separate the two.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>architecture:</strong> New term to me - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilic_design">Biophilic Design</a> aims to directly integrate nature into the built environment, including plants (of course) but also natural rhythms - light, airflow, water, etc. I'm a big fan of the way Japanese garden aesthetics try to recreate some idealised image of nature, to the point where we stop thinking about whether something has been "designed",and placing less emphasis on whether humanity has "achieved" creation, or "matched" nature in some way. (<em>via <a href="https://mastodon.technology/@Argus/105863609910603137">Derek Caelin</a></em>)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>windtech:</strong> The Guardian covers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/good-vibrations-bladeless-turbines-could-bring-wind-power-to-your-home">Vortex's bladeless wind turbines</a> that use vibration to generate power. Having also seen <a href="https://www.sbmoffshore.com/news/sbm-offshore-s3-wave-energy-converter-watch-the-video/">SBM's "wobbly" wave energy converters</a>, I'm intrigued by whether technology that doesn't rely on sheer torque can have the potential to scale up to something significant.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>solarpunk:</strong> This is awesome - <a href="http://solarprotocol.net/index.html">Solar Protocol is a network of solar-powered servers</a> mirroring web content, and page views are automatically redirected to the server with most sunshine. Like the <a href="https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/">soalr-powered lowtech mag site</a>, the underlying platform completely changes the design of the site, how its used, and what user behaviour gets encouraged and reinforced as a result.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>rewilding:</strong> "Regain the swamp!" The BBC looks at a team who have <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-56151304">restored Walker Swamp in Australia</a> after 150 years of being artificially drained for blue gum tree farming.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" src="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av-embeds/56151304/vpid/p0976sjt"></iframe>
<ul>
<li><strong>reconnecting:</strong> Steady now. In tai chi, we learn to ground ourselves, rooting from our body down into the earth beneath us. We gain power and suppleness from the planet. In that context, the nature of the ground and our connection to it forms the basis for our movements, so this video of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQ9fpazMDw">Master Wu Nanfang's form sitting on a rock</a> takes on a subtle new perspective.</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EpQ9fpazMDw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>mentalhealth:</strong> Over on Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/silverpebble">Emma Mitchell</a> has some amazing photos of collated plants and items from nature, and encourages simple activities to avoid depression and improve mental health. Here's a lovely collection of <a href="https://twitter.com/silverpebble/status/1356159916428447745">fractals in nature</a>, for example. I've also really enjoyed everyone's photos of things growing and things they've found on walks over the last year. I need to get back into that habit.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>surviving:</strong> Bit of a tangent, but I figure this whole newsletter is about us surviving together, and I just found this book, <a href="https://aheadoffear.com/en/">The Art of Survival</a>, a very powerful and moving thing. Put together from thoughts, memories and actions of people going through the 1992 siege of Sarajevo. In the face of a remote or unseen dnger, among all the fear, how do we stay together, stay positive and keep looking to a day when things are different?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>roots:</strong> What an amazing <a href="https://images.wur.nl/digital/collection/coll13/search">collection of root system drawings</a> over at Wageningen University (<em>via someone on Mastodon, but sorry, I lost the link</em>). Here's <em>Adenostyles glabra</em> but they're all spellbounding in their own way:</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://images.wur.nl/digital/api/singleitem/image/coll13/937/default.jpg" alt="Drawing of the root system of Adenostyles glabra" width="500" /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>music:</strong> Shout out to <a href="https://globalpattern.bandcamp.com/album/solarpunk-a-possible-future">Global Pattern's album, Solarpunk: A Possible Future</a> for the delectable background tones while putting this Beamspun together.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>Links to share? Got a mistake to point out? Or just want to say hi? Leave a comment <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">on the blog</a>, or drop a line through any of the following intertubes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>And if you're interested, I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-51623502352023196022021-03-20T09:37:00.012+00:002021-03-20T09:37:01.056+00:00EQUINOX202103200937<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9VLUn-ruBR7PmqV7YkrbH7aben5XMvBrFyhAQ9_Ay6y1CtsUGSEoJhjydBVJNTvN_OBJ0SNyCAafOG0IsWuf9U05jG9mi5974I6K4iArMEuxj8X2AXx3W043g0cdxbVFXmLRVTbqgBzw/s1600/R1-01220-0028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="3 silhouetted figures walking into sunlight" border="0" data-original-height="1070" data-original-width="1600" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9VLUn-ruBR7PmqV7YkrbH7aben5XMvBrFyhAQ9_Ay6y1CtsUGSEoJhjydBVJNTvN_OBJ0SNyCAafOG0IsWuf9U05jG9mi5974I6K4iArMEuxj8X2AXx3W043g0cdxbVFXmLRVTbqgBzw/w400-h268/R1-01220-0028.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">Things hold in the balance.<br />Neither one nor the other.<br />Know the extremes,<br />walk the middle.<br /><br /></p>Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-77544127468010650912021-02-28T06:45:00.002+00:002021-02-28T06:45:02.669+00:00Beamspun 1.5: 28th February 2021<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0645 UTC (-14m)</pre>
<p>As I sat out in the garden the other day, the clouds rolled in casually from the sea. Small fluffy cotton things, <i>stratocumulus</i> if I remember right. While I stared up at them, my eyes and my mind conspired to convert them into a flat plane, like an optimised rendering out of a videogame - something about their uniform movement and their gentle shading made it all feel so unreal. </p>
<p>I remembered back to when I was a child, bored but happy gazing out of a bedroom window, browsing the sky like a book. I didn't wonder where the forms had come from, or even what a cloud <i>was</i>. I just reveled in their continual drift through my frame of view, their constant shifting of tails and wisps. </p>
<p>Among all the screens, have I really forgotten how to see the world?</p>
<p>Thinking further, I realised just how complex our relationship with the planet really is. Every day, within a single minute, we encounter diverse - often jarring or contradictory - sources and senses. We may take in the sight of a bird seeking out worms, and at the same time the radio informs us of the latest climate change news, and in the moment we are caught between our immediate awareness, and a global network of perspectives. </p>
<p>I find myself working more and more across all of these layers, trying to find new tools and techniques to bring them together in some coherent way inside myself. Perhaps we can identify or discern some order here, to help us navigate the chaos. Something like...</p>
<ol>
<li>What we experience for ourselves, our own direct knowledge</li>
<li>What we pick up and <i>how</i> we think, learned from immediate others we trust - our friends, our family, our community groups</li>
<li>What we take in from the wider sources that we trust - news outlets, scientific results, broader global conversations</li>
<li>Re-creations and simulations, the mirrors that play aspects of the world back to us - media, computer games, stories and narratives</li>
<li>What we <i>don't</i> know, but feel inside us - the subconscious, and the areas that magic, divination and spirituality help us to feel</li>
</ol>
<p>All of these are equally useful and dangerous, depending on the powers involved and our own biases. But we can aim to gain an <i>understanding</i> of all of this, in order to make well-rounded decisions, and to find routes through to those new modes we're going to need to survive. Each of these areas provides different sets of opportunity - chances to discover new things about the world, abut others, and about ourselves. We can't sit back and assume we know everything.</p>
<p>Last weekend, the family and I went for a walk in the nearby countryside. We visited one of the many white horses cut into the hard chalk of the earth: lost steeds haunting the landscape, searching for their gigantic riders. </p>
<p>At the horse's head, on the prow of the hill, all of those layers seemed to wrap together. I took in the view out over the valley. Other local walkers nodded as we passed them. A metallic disc on a round, brickwork stump listed out compass points and distances for nearby towns. The horse, trotting through history, sang thoughts of the surrounding hills. </p>
<p>And all around, wreaths and ashes scattered the path and the wooden fences. In among all that weather, a place to rest. Silver metal plates adorned a nearby bench, linking identities with <a href="https://openbenches.org/">longitude and latitude</a>, visitors with views. I wonder which of us has the most accurate picture of the scene.</p>
<p>What's your favourite place to go to where you can just sit and see the world as it is?</p><p></p>
<img alt="A wreath attached to a wooden fence in front of the drop down into a valley" border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VbmdWhK7IUljS8AQVDQnFTna87mwLwhJE5liKK-HYCI2wgZjUIYWq5J2kXfOrsmXLff8_I1kHnn5p9PoEOl0CpRFD2HbjUGsX0cJmzhs9obs6RqTrTnaNvUWDvy_ISZKgyHeFcdXkTbo/w320-h213/IMG_20210220_145256-01.jpeg" width="500" />
<br /><br /><p></p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>Solarpunk?:</b> Wired covers the <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ecuador-ai-logging-cellphones">Forest Guardians project</a>, using recycled phones, cheaply-designed devices and solar power to automate sound surveillance and listen out for illegal tree-cutting in Indonesia. (<i>via <a href="https://twitter.com/NOSTUDIO">Espen</a></i>)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Art:</b> Stumbled randomly across <a href="https://szymonkaliski.com/projects/fabfungus/">FabFungus</a>, a project from 2019 by Szymon Kaliski, Marek Straszak and Arek Zub. It grows digital forms using cellular growth techniques, ending up with shapes that look like frenzied natural designs:</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="A selection of 3D-printed shapes on pedestals, resembling natural patterns mixed with geometric designs." src="https://szymonkaliski.com/static/5563bf59c65046f02b35c1b0c3705ada/0d4f8/fabfungus.png" width="500" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>Writing:</b> Over on Mastodon, <a href="https://mograph.social/@ephemeral">Shane Finan</a> gives a <a href="https://mograph.social/@ephemeral/105718020800943551">gorgeously poetic rundown</a> of an aging tree: "<i>...The whole tree is so densely surrounded that it is near impossible to photograph, always obscured as if it had planned for its own privacy.</i>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Writing:</b> <a href="https://grist.org/fix/">Grist's Fix lab</a> is running a <a href="https://grist.submittable.com/submit">climate short story competition</a> - looking ahead 180 years, deadline April 12th, free to enter.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Narratives:</b> Daniel Christian Wahl writes about moving <a href="https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/towards-a-regenerative-cosmology-re-inhabitation-re-enchantment-re-indigenisation-1f9a4caf14b5">towards a regenerative cosmology</a> and a more interconnected worldview. A perspective of "Universe" culminating in our world today gives a much grander sense of story, perhaps one we can reconnect to in order to re-oin ancient past with distant future, and our own place within that.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Events:</b> Moar futures. March 1st sees <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/world-futures-day-decolonizing-futures-tickets-142264130845?aff=ebdsoporgprofile">Decolonizing Futures</a>, a talk on "science fiction subgenres that are decolonizing mainstream futures by broadening our views on ancestrality, utopia, afrofuturism, indigenous and LGBTQI+ perspectives." I don't think we can take climate change seriously without looking at the separation and power imbalances going on in the world, so discourse like this needs to be embedded in everything we do.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Gaming:</b> <a href="https://sleeper-games.itch.io/hyperspace-harvest">Hyperspace Harvest</a> is in very pre-alpha but worth a look with this description: "<i>Oh no, you died when the planet blew up! But you've been reincarnated by a giant space mammal and now you run a farm on its back.</i>" It's a free download in its early days, and a <a href="https://sleeper-games.itch.io/hyperspace-harvest/devlog/208281/welcome-to-the-hyperspace-harvest-pre-alpha">devlog</a> sets out limits and future ideas.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Seaweed:</b> The <a href="https://www.ft.com/">FT</a> ran a series on changes in food recently, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Y3zlloRFC8g">a video on seaweed farming in Norway</a>:</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<ul>
<li>Do you have links to things you think would fit well here? You might be working on an interesting project, have published an online gallery you're proud of, or just seen something magical. Drop me a note at any of the details below, and I'll start linking back to people.</li>
<li>I've been thinking about use of images, and whether it's possible to tip people if I use their content. I'm thinking about some sort of Patreon or tipjar thing that readers could contribute to, to help pass on appreciation - let me know if you think that's a good idea, or if you have any recommendations on how to go about such a thing.</li>
<li>I'd also be interested if anyone has any reviews of relevant books or magazines - nothing lengthy, just a small paragraph will do!</li>
<li>I have a new aim of posting Beamspun after each full moon - hopefully changes to personal life will make this easier, but we'll see how it goes. General busyness makes this one a bit thin, too. Think of it as winter hibernation.</li>
<li>Also, loadaverage.org has finally bitten the bullet, it seems - use the Mastodon link below to contact via the Fediverse now.</li>
<li>Go fair. Tread the Earth. Wield love like a sword.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<img alt="Close-up of a metal plaque on a bench that reads "Smile"" border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WuSLyBieGVN2P3V33TvCLqw2IsaA9EPfJQhcvPTMBFxo1Wvmdxl5RCgHjXJj8_yOdf3l5JBlkD3GNDgY0JIKAJowNadUNnkCxOrDid68_ybsXa49xMBZp1jTdo5c7ku4D4OYclSILLlt/w320-h214/IMG_20210220_145036-01.jpeg" width="500" />
<br /> <p></p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-39034676459503456832021-01-03T08:01:00.003+00:002021-01-03T08:20:13.028+00:00Beamspun 1.3: 3rd January 2021<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0801 UTC
(+0m - sunset is changing rapidly though)</pre>
<p>Twentytwentytwentytwentytwenty... twenty-one! Well, we made it here. Here, to this future land overgrown with teeming life, where the sun comes up and goes down and we re-discover the corners of our houses and the world is brought together by invisible forms and the Great Human Network experiment turns into an infrastructure of its own. We have been on the road so long that we forget that where we came from was just as strange as what we encounter now. We stare out of the window as we bounce along unknown dusty tracks, and somewhere inside us, as deep as the soul, we hum to ourselves to comfort us and conjure up memories of better days and exciting places.</p>
<p>Happy New Year.</p>
<h3>Nomadic Decoupling</h3>
<p>To be quite honest, I don't think I ever really knew what "normal" was to begin with. Politics and materialism, TV and war - none of these ever truly spoke to my belly or my heart. I have a fleeting memory of being a child, and thinking this might all be a dream, a concoction in the sleeping head of a giant alien slug, I think it was. Being on the move - walking, on a boat, in a cross-country train staring out at twisted steeples - reminds me how much we are <em>on</em> the world more than in it, passengers privy to observing the changes while we ourselves grow more slowly than trees.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://100r.co/site/north_pacific_logbook.html">Hundred Rabbits' account of crossing the North Pacific by boat</a> comes back to me a lot at the moment. How does one bring together the imagery of the open sea, the constant threat of being overturned by storm winds, and the contrast involved in reading such remote accounts via instantaneous electronic comms? What is this strange modern nomadicism that is sitting in wait for us these days?</p>
<p>On the other hand, where does our sense of static narrative come from, back in the "real world"? What form of continuity and connection keeps us sane? </p>
<p>I think back to the children's TV shows I watched growing up - and that sense of everything returning to normal after whatever adventures had occurred. Did that return make you feel relaxed and satisfied that the world was put to rights, or frustrated that television time seemed trapped in loops, that the characters never seemed to learn from their experiences, like their memories got wiped by the end credits?</p>
<p>Over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a> I am thinking about alternatives, exploration and curiosity. <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/2020/11/journal-2020-11-29-experiments.html">My battery power is running out</a>, and I feel dangerously close to those end credits, of having to plug back into the mains after 18 months. "Is that it?" I think. Did anything really change from running up and down the garden and keeping an eye on all that power usage? Do we just tell a bad joke and return everything back to normal?</p>
<p>This is also a trend I see in a lot of 'progressive' narrative - that we can just carry on what we're doing, but get our electricity and food in different ways. Change the source, but preserve the lifestyle. Ha ha ha, aren't we glad we all survived that episode, the onslaught of evil climate change, or the nefarioius intentions of a new global virus.</p>
<p>And yet, that narrative is probably the weakest one we could think up if we were writing this as fiction. Are we so afraid to give up what we have that our thoughts can only extend to changing our carbon emissions? Isn't this the opportunity to do something <em>different</em>, to form a life we actually <em>want</em> to live?</p>
<p>Yes, this is dangerously close to the uk government's "Build Back Better" slogan, which manages to alliteratively allude to Bojo, Britain, and Beer in its sweeping rhythmics. Does anyone really believe - or even understand - what it says? And yet, it says a great deal more than a lot of the other narrative out there, which wants to insist you can keep doing what you're doing now, just by switching electricity provider or checking labels.</p>
<p>People don't want to change their behaviour just to save the world. They want something better for themselves, for their family, for their community (and stop there - all national pride is an extension of community). The narratives need to do better than 'planet saving', they need to spin a vision of personal happiness, of empowerment, of something so tempting it lures you in with the glamour of faeries. (Hello again, <a href="http://viridiandesign.org/">Viridian Design</a>.]</p>
<p>When the challenge gets real, it's too tempting to fall back on the old ways, to laugh and wait for the screen to fade out and the next programme to come along and wash it all away. The next news cycle, the next meme - distraction has the glamour and it knows it.</p>
<p>But I'm not waiting. 2020 was a year of waiting. Each day blurred into the next. Refreshing the news headlines became more important than eating. But not 2021. 2021 is the year to find new ways. To study the map, find a new path, and see who's up for following it. To finally decouple. To be inconvenient. And to laugh while doing so.</p>
<p>Seatbelts on.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://scitechdaily.com/solar-cycle-25-the-sun-wakes-up/">Solar Cycle 25 is upon us</a>, and <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/sunspot-cycle-25-starts-with-a-bang-could-be-one-of-the-strongest-since-record-keeping-began/">it might be a big one</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Low-Tech Magazine looks at the potential for coppicing and better tree management to <a href="https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again.html">make biomass energy sustainable</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>NASA's <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-uses-powerful-supercomputers-and-ai-to-map-earths-trees-discovers-billions-of-trees-in-west-african-drylands/">big computing is being used to map trees better</a> - how many teraflops of computing power do you need to change someone's perspective on nature, though?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Battery and storage tech has had a bit of coverage recently, including <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/self-taught-inventor-sees-liquid-air-storage-idea-make-the-big-time.html">50MW of liquid air energy storage in England</a>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>And the FT take a really good look at <a href="https://6wall.exmosis.net/share/5ff0e2dc754200.57605147">the challenges of storing energy and electricity</a> in a green future.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I'm very happy to have discovered the <a href="https://earthstar.blog/">Earthstar blog</a> this year, with its daily snippings of nature. Here's a great pic of <a href="https://earthstar.blog/2020/11/05/310-366-geography-in-a-leaf/">an oak leaf up close</a>...</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="Close up image of an oak leaf, with green and yellow veins spread through red patches like a satellite image" src="https://earthstarblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/201105-oak-leaf.jpg?w=1250&h="></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://mondestuff.com/world-news/amazon-tribes-are-excited-to-use-drones-to-detect-illegal-deforestation-in-brazilian-rainforest/">Greenpeace are working with indingenous tribes in the Amazon</a> to bring drone tech to the local population, to monitor deforestation.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Over on Twitter, Janet Hughes has put together a <a href="https://twitter.com/i/lists/1341475664671727617">list of Regenerative Agriculture tweeters</a>. She also has the best job title at Defra: "<em>Programme director for future farming & countryside</em>" - or Chief Solarpunk, in short. (Bonus link: <a href="https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/">they have a blog</a>)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Infrastructure built from wood? The BBC cover a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201117-clean-shipping-the-carbon-negative-cargo-boats-made-of-wood">wooden/electric cargo ship with sail, solar, and regenerative propellers</a>, as well as (more curiously) a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55463366">Japanese wooden satellite</a> to help cut down on space junk.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://scitechdaily.com/genomic-study-reveals-evolutionary-secrets-of-banyan-tree-and-a-wasp-that-coevolved-with-it/">Evidence to show fig trees co-evolved with wasps</a>. Also, I love that "<em>The body shapes and sizes of the wasps correspond exactly to those of the fig fruits</em>".</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://returntonow.net/2020/11/01/michigan-is-so-cold-the-trees-grow-frozen-ghost-apples/">Icy ghost apples spotted</a>. Reminds me of Neil Gaiman's story, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow,_Glass,_Apples">Snow, Glass, Apples</a> for some reason.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>And here's <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rainbowwasabi_m/50636142967/">an incredible image from Masako Metz</a> on Flickr to finish off:</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rainbowwasabi_m/50636142967/" title="conversation..."><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50636142967_722fb7d894_b.jpg" width="1024" height="683" alt="conversation..."></a></p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-58557567493683809972020-11-01T06:51:00.002+00:002020-11-01T10:19:10.548+00:00Beamspun 1.2: 1st November 2020<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0651 UTC (+12m)
Good morning from the South Coast.
</pre>
<p><em>"We need to act, behave, and build as if we are in the dawn light of an emerging new thriving, collective, regenerative new set of systems, not the dying days of a crumbling, divided broken one."</em></p>
<p>... <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/jennilloyd/status/1310973224348454912">via NESTA/Twitter</a></p>
<p><em>"Belief is a kind of rocket fuel"</em></p>
<p>... <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b05qzmgd/louis-theroux">Louis Theroux</a>, after exploring faith and extremism</p>
<p>It's a full and blue moon, crossed with seasons. The dead and the otherworlds are leaking into our own subconscious reality. Move fast, leave offerings, and stay silent.</p>
<h3>Samhain: A Time for Listening to Ghosts</h3>
<p>Under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_calendar">celtic calendar</a>, we've reached the period of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain">Samhain</a> ("<em>Sow-in</em>").</p>
<p>"<em>As at Beltaine, special bonfires were lit. These were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers, and there were rituals involving them. Like Beltaine, Samhain was a liminal or threshold festival, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned, meaning the Aos Sí (the 'spirits' or 'fairies') could more easily come into our world.</em>"</p>
<p><a href="https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain">Ancient Samhain rituals</a> involved communication with the dead - including leaving out meals, opening windows and updating the deceased on news, while sprites and other entities were abroad.</p>
<p>Today we collect sweets instead of harvesting the land, and carve pumpkins instead of turnips. Scary sells, but is there something more comforting about these liminal spooks than we appreciate?</p>
<p>As we hide away from ethereal creatures and unseen viruses running amok, what difference is there between ghosts at the edge of our vision, and our fascination with the strangeness of nature? Is the thrill of spotting a fox, or of birdwatching from a distant window, the same as leaving food out for fairies? When we spot a badger lying at the side of the road, do we not wish we had known it when it was fully alive? Perhaps the otherworldness of Halloween matches up neatly with the other-ness of nature in general: a binding between the world we want to run from, and the world we've walled ourselves away from.</p>
<p>Similarly, are the dead to be feared, or should we take the opportunity to reflect on where we've come from as a species - our own bones built on top of the efforts and genes of our ancestors. This land we walk on, do we really understand the histories folded into it, and the past lives that layer beneath our own continuing existence?</p>
<p>What can we learn by listening out for the strange ones, and by talking to those-who-came-before-us?</p>
<h3>Intermission</h3>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/128971394@N08/50401241843/in/dateposted/" title="from the series "lightmares""><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50401241843_92926b7dd7_c.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="from the series "lightmares""></a></p>
<p>... <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/128971394@N08/">Mindaugas Buivydas on Flickr</a>, from the series "lightmares"</p>
<h3>A Generation's Generation</h3>
<p>On the other hand, what do we leave to our own children as our legacy? I find it hard to imagine a world in which our national borders are clearly delineated on virtual maps, and yet the flows of energy - trade, ideas, migratory animals - cartwheel through the world around us. There is a pressing narrative, it seems, that says we must keep hold of the strictest definition of "sovereignty", even while the definition itself is nothing but a bleached carcass scattered across a desert.</p>
<p>The <em>daisugi</em> style of growing bonsai tree wood in Kitayama, Japan, <a href="https://solarpunks.net/post/626967010351464448">uses an inter-generational approach to tree planting</a> - as a tree takes two generations to grow before it can be used, a farmer will use the trees their grandparent planted, and will in turn plant trees for their grandchildren to use.</p>
<p>(On a more extended timescale, and for more general purposes, the Iroquois perspective is to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_generation_sustainability">look ahead seven generations</a>. This is also useful, but as a society, we seem so far removed from this idea that looking ahead even six months feels like a taboo sometimes. Thinking through trees for grandchildren gives us a timescale and a <em>locality</em> - our own bloodline - that we can relate to easily, one hopes, as an exercise for noobs.)</p>
<p>Naturally, there aren't many family forests where I live. (There <em>are</em> communal rural lands, and community-driven green spaces. These places exist, and are liminal to the extent that they survive somewhere between the individual and the state.) So how can I take the same mindset of daisugi agriculture, and apply that to where in my life I am right now?</p>
<p>What can I do <em>now</em> to set something up for two generations' time? What are the <em>fundamental</em> things that could and should form a thread of time between <em>this</em> day and <em>that</em> one? Clearly, one cannot assume what the future brings - I don't intend to set aside anything in the mild hope that something may be useful. Nor can one try to influence generations too much - something set aside for future use should not be dictatorial, should not come with strings attached. <strong>We should gift things to the future.</strong></p>
<p>There is a core aspect then, that what we pass down should be <em>respectful</em>, <em>timeless</em> and <em>considered</em>. How about a starter for three?</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>Ideas</em> as a record of knowledge and experience, as every generation feels like it is starting from scratch, but really it is set against a never-ending backdrop of experimentation and realisation, dating back thousands of years.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Connections</em> as a resource for resilience - people as a pool to draw on. Our network forms us, informs us, and acts as a safety net.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Physical belonging</em> as the body's claim to existence in the world. So many stories are around displacement, migration, culture, and history - our way of understanding ourselves is bound to how our bloodline has traveled, where we think of as 'home'. That can be actual land, or it can equally be the <em>idea</em> of 'a land'.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps these three are just a personal preference: If that makes it easier for me to be practical about it, so be it. A philosophical time capsule for my kin.</p>
<p>Would others cherish other values more? Would they/you/us see and interact with the world through different eyes and a different ethos? Quite certainly.</p>
<p>So I don't want to set this as an absolute - perhaps you have your own values and ideas? This is just a starting point. Where could it go next?</p>
<h3>Death as a Portal</h3>
<p>...all of which points at something that's been gnawing away at me for a while: Instead of thinking of death as an end, can we think of it as a <em>link</em>, through which reflection and change are channeled? Within death - not an individual ceasing, but the concept of death as the yin to birth's yang - can we find the miniscule hole through which one time can pass a baton to another?</p>
<p>To follow the thread further, if we were to see the world through death as this series of "infinite filters", can we escape the immediacy of everyday life, and all the stagnation that builds up when we forget that things came before and things will come after?</p>
<p>In short, once you have faith in the past and hope for the future, what do you no longer need to worry about? What do you lose the desire to own, or achieve?</p>
<h3>Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>books:</strong> <a href="http://www.puidenkansa.net/TREE_PEOPLE_BOOK.html">Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo - Tree People</a></li>
</ul>
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidjuZXFAO27YMcvUyU26UgVn4I_U4LUOahQmCAWboG2HB2ZXb25UpM6ktg87V1hyphenhyphend_zPJpSUoHXUoxvgrOCv43big0pk1qxfCw_m3vLvfT005S9HmgU1M3ngHUZ-KFPHsqCVXavm3w95t0/s611/Cabines+on+trees-filtered.jpg" width="800" />
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>culture:</strong> FT's Tim Harford: <a href="https://6wall.exmosis.net/share/5f9d1cbf050100.69534049">Why tech isn’t always the answer — the perils of bionic duckweed</a> - a rough typology of bad technology promises</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>systems:</strong> For those who like academic papers, here's one <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8j53u/">on moving from reductionism to a multi-species approach to sustainability</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>cities:</strong> <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90392020/how-copenhagen-plans-to-reach-carbon-neutral-status-in-just-six-years">How Copenhagen plans to go carbon-neutral in six years</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>architecture:</strong> Tired of heating systems? Why not just <a href="https://returntonow.net/2019/03/04/swedish-couple-builds-greenhouse-around-home-to-stay-warm-and-grow-food-all-year-long/">build a greenhouse round your whole building?</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>economics 1:</strong> The IEA says that <a href="https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/10/23/0022228/its-official-solar-is-the-cheapest-electricity-in-history">solar is the cheapest electricity ever</a>: "<em>The IEA's main scenario has 43% more solar output by 2040 than it expected in 2018, partly due to detailed new analysis showing that solar power is 20-50% cheaper than thought.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>economics 2:</strong> And the FT picks up on <a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/u/0/sh/6c362747-dbc6-4928-8320-7163b9f55415/46defd90c7d45f55a0d370cdac3d1063">wind power's ability to scale</a> in the same report: "<em>The IEA report says that offshore wind has the potential to meet the world’s electricity demand 11 times over by 2040.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>diy:</strong> It looks fairly simple to <a href="https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Solar-Oven-1/">make your own solar oven</a> out of cardboard and bits of picture frame. See also <a href="https://www.popsci.com/build-diy-solar-oven/">Popular Science's version</a>, <a href="https://www.thecrafttrain.com/diy-solar-oven/">The Craft Train</a> and <a href="https://www.instructables.com/Best-Solar-Oven/">another instructable</a> for more ideas.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>batterytech 1:</strong> Wired: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ai-is-throwing-battery-development-into-overdrive/">AI Is Throwing Battery Development Into Overdrive</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>batterytech 2:</strong> <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/fuel-cells/spinach-gives-fuel-cells-a-power-up">Or is it fine just to use spinach instead?</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>schemes:</strong> <a href="https://vrlps.co/Rvjm5Bu/cp">Treecard</a>, a wooden debit card that funds tree planting.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>companies:</strong> Sinn Power's <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/news-from-around-ieee/the-institute/ieee-member-news/worlds-first-ocean-hybrid-platform-converts-tidal-waves-into-energy">solar, wind and tidal power platform</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>books:</strong> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30006896-zen-in-the-art-of-permaculture-design">Zen in the Art of Permaculture Design</a>, by Stefan Geyer, looks into the principles of zen and taoism, and how they can filter practically into real-world organisation.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>End matter</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Gnu/social/: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>. This week I have mostly been <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/2020/10/journal-2020-10-24-reviving-past.html">working out how not to solder batteries</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-55239507621909992852020-09-13T06:32:00.001+01:002020-09-13T06:32:00.248+01:00Beamspun 1.1: 13th September 2020<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0532 UTC (+11m)</pre>
<p>Welcome back. Thanks for sticking with me. It's been a while and I've forgotten how to format everything, but <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2020/07/2020-07-26-chapter-one.html">as posted before</a> Beamspun will be less regular, and more focused on aspects of change. While we all want things to change as fast as possible, I'm currently thinking about disruption, and how our current normal (despite what people would have you believe about a new one) can be interrupted. There are still links, and I'm sure the mix of those with thoughts will change with each newsletter, but as always, feedback welcome.</p>
<p>OK, time to shine.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJ4Mfm4-FLq0kjTBxF_Kwa7V_GV_nSJrQT2wMKSTOXaDjmVMybkOLLBVDZBnY1Dsm5F8-ffOQ1pZct3EhoOcMjJyH-VojXig6K6vfH95S7U7bOgUL0Zm9yq9hgLCtNLZSy2LBWdxp48HQ/s2048/IMG_20200812_120133-01.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJ4Mfm4-FLq0kjTBxF_Kwa7V_GV_nSJrQT2wMKSTOXaDjmVMybkOLLBVDZBnY1Dsm5F8-ffOQ1pZct3EhoOcMjJyH-VojXig6K6vfH95S7U7bOgUL0Zm9yq9hgLCtNLZSy2LBWdxp48HQ/s320/IMG_20200812_120133-01.jpeg"/></a></div>
<h2>Blocking and Disruption</h2>
<p>The world has see a lot of disruption in <em>forever</em> years, and I'm never quite sure if the rate of disruption is increasing, or if the current generation - and our fad of never-ending news cycles - has an increased awareness of it. I think what <em>is</em> certain is that the powers which have wielded disruption (politics, propaganda, warfare, etc) are working out how old techniques adapt to new technologies, and the new societies forming around those tools. In one sense, swaying a national election from afar is not as important as sowing distrust in a country's democratic system - disrupting the <em>rules</em> a country runs on is way more chaotic and damaging than installing a (temporary) leader favourable to your own whims.</p>
<p>As I think about disruption more, I've started to see it in more places, with a variety of effects. For instance, as we see <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53849695">Greenland melting even more than expected</a>, we can discern major system effects acting to marshall hot and cold: "<em>Both last year and 2012 were marked by "blocking" events, the researchers say, where disturbances in the jet stream saw high pressure systems become stuck over Greenland, resulting in enhanced melting.</em>"</p>
<p>Now think about how activists and police use blocking techniques during city-based protests. On one hand, disrupting traffic by sitting in a busy road may act as a simple barrier to existing, expected flows, in the same way high pressure weather was unable to move on from Greenland. Is the aim with traffic protests to,force a build up of pollution in one area, to prevent pollution and activity in another area, or to occupy the "attention space" normally filled by the noise of vehicles? In contrast, what is the intended outcome of police containing protestors or rioters through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling">kettling tactics</a> - is it to concentrate the energy of those being kettled, to the point where the energy runs out? Or is it to allow the non-contained space to continue to flow as normal?</p>
<p>By seeing disruptive activities as a way of interjecting into a larger, active or unfolding system, we can use it more wisely and more productively. Placing a rock in a river will have little effect if the river can divert left and right straight away. Meanwhile, the engineering that goes into building dams can create the power to generate vast amounts of energy, and displace huge numbers of people.</p>
<h2>From Global to Local</h2>
<p>My local town council have recently declared a climate emergency, bringing it in line with the higher district council, and many other organisations. That feels momentous - agreeing a problem is a big step in moving it on. But what does it mean for me? And where do my Beamspun and Taopunk 'projects' fit into it? What's the link between agreeing a problem, to imagining solutions, to then going out and building new ways forward and learning from the changes and then doing it all again?</p>
<p>And to bring it back to the current focus on disruption, does this agreement make certain forms of disruption more 'socially palatable'? Are we (whoever 'we' is) in a better position to say yes and no to certain existing routines?</p>
<p>I would argue that, having agreed there is a problem, we are - as a society -still in our infancy of learning how to collaborate on solutions that benefit everyone, but 'subtract' in the short term. That'sa huge ask of even a small group, let alone a town or a country or a world. I have to admit, I got rather down recently, after reading about various issues and problems in Brazil. Something about it just made me realise - and baulk at - the <em>scale</em> of populations within countries. It's weird that I can live in a single country and be 'comfortable' with the idea of 68 million people living just there. <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population/">SIXTY EIGHT MILLION</a>. And that's small.</p>
<p>A lot was made a few decades ago of the term 'glocal' - that notion that we're all connected globally now, but that our systems are both simultaneously under our feet <em>and</em> around the whole planet. I think we never quite got our head around that concept though: our understanding of a planetary-scale system just for human activity doesn't come easily. Not everyone is Chief Exec of a global logistics company. ANd even then, it is another mental leap again to try to understand how those systems fully interact with the world on our own doorstep, or again on <em>other people's</em> doorsteps.</p>
<h2>From Rationality to Wisdom</h2>
<p>There are, then, things that we can spend energy <em>trying</em> to understand, but that we can never quite be sure that we <em>can ever</em> understand. The world is inherently complex and unknowable, and figuring out all the linkage is like trying to make a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science">1:1 scale map</a>. If you're waiting for this map to exist before working out where to go and how to get there, then you'llbe waiting forever.</p>
<p>There is a lot of rationality around - data, models, research and evidence, and all the charts you could want. There are attempts to document and open up how the world runs, and investigative journalism into all the binds that tie. All this is good, necessary, but at what point is this knowledge enough to decide action? How long are we willing to wait before we turn ideas into action?</p>
<p>In "<a href="https://onestrawrevolution.net/">The One-Straw Revolution"</a>, Masanobu Fukuoka talks of 4 different diets, but in particular distinguishes between 1) a "nutritional" diet based on a materialist, scientific approach of what bodies in general need, 2) a "natural" diet which follows the guidelines of a spiritual or philosophical system such as the I Ching, and 3) a diet of "non-discrimination", which follows the way in which a body and an environment naturally co-exist, without thought or further rationalisation.</p>
<p>As I say, rationality and a scientific approach are good to have. But I suspect that if we let our own thoughts, opinions and actions be <em>dependent</em> on these rational approaches, rather than <em>guided</em> by them, then we risk our actions following suit - we end up in a cycle of having to measure and prove everything constantly, and of making sure all action is "rational". But in the process, we forget that the rational approach is only what we are <em>able</em> to measure, firstly, and secondly, it is then what we are able to <em>communicate</em> to each other. If we <em>depend</em> on rationality, then it feels we must inherently <em>exclude</em> our own irrational and subconscious nature - we prevent ourselves from taking the "non-discriminating" route. We block out our instinct.</p>
<p>Which is a shame, because <em>wisdom</em> emerges from that sense of instinct, and the layers and layers of experience and boolean learning and smelling the cut fields and experiencing how water flows. That experience of the world is what speaks to us most as individuals. It is what is 'closest' to us, even closer than the 'local' in 'glocal'. <em>It is at the point where we meet the world as a person</em> and you can no longer tell the difference between the two.</p>
<h2>Choose Your Own Change</h2>
<p>We contiune to live in a strange world, one in which 'normal' activities like getting a bus become filled with uncertainty. The disruptive effects of Covid-19 are still revealing themselves - the <em>true</em> effects of everything being turned upside down, the effects which go beyond novelty and surprise, the effects of sustained and unexpected change. It's a dream we're strugglign to wake up from, and now we're not even sure that what we had before was when we were awake or asleep either. That sense of disorientation, now coalescing from the elongated summer into the acceptance of autumn, is gradually putching notches into our shells. Temporary changes are starting to set into permanent ones.</p>
<p>The opportunity here is to go through these changes consciously. We can accompany this uncanny, dreamlike state with a choice to engage with the changes. Stop andstare when you least expect it - disrupt whatever your normal routine is. Pick something new to experience when out food shopping, and take 60 seconds to really taste it. Wake up and move your body in a way you never usually move it. All these things are just a way of becoming familiar with the unknown, with the bit of your brain responsible for learning. </p>
<p>If you can practice that when it doesn't matter, you'll be so much more ready when it does.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>#must-read:</strong> This <a href="https://pinupmagazine.org/articles/interview-yussef-agbo-ola-ecological-systems">interview with Yussef Agbo-Ola</a> on the architecture of ecological systems. "<em>I make it a priority to allow the people, plants, buildings, textiles, mountains, landscapes, etc. to educate me through the duration of the journey</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#reading:</strong> Masanobu Fukuoka's <a href="https://onestrawrevolution.net/">One-Straw Revolution</a> book also comes down to the nature of the world - of us and the place we inhabit. Excellent read exploring the tao/permaculture area.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#materia:</strong> <a href="http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/">United Diversity's free PDF library</a> - lots of good resources here, including the above.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#urban:</strong> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-53853788">A huge rooftop community farm in Paris</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#solartech:</strong> <a href="https://news.umich.edu/transparent-solar-panels-for-windows-hit-record-8-efficiency/">Transparent solar panels for windows hit record 8% efficiency</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#cats:</strong> <a href="https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/38319">Cats vs Panel Heater: Which is Better?</a> - this reminds me of the LowTech Magazine article <a href="https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/02/heating-people-not-spaces.html">on heating people rather than homes</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#gaming:</strong> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53838645">Could streaming games take more energy?</a> - nobody really knows, but as a gamer, I'm getting interested in solar-powered, more sustainable gaming.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#gaming:</strong> <a href="https://vfqd.itch.io/terra-nil">Terra Nil</a>: "Turn a barren wasteland into an ecological paradise complete with different flora and fauna, then clean up after yourself"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
<p>☀🕸 </p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-15622394806318697652020-07-26T05:18:00.001+01:002020-07-26T05:18:00.913+01:002020-07-26 - Chapter One<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0418 UTC (+10m)</pre>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Hey, how are you? It's slightly mad I can type out some words and have no idea what you're doing when you pick them up. Maybe you're on a bus, a sofa, or beach. Maybe this is the day after I wrote it, freah as dew, or maybe I've worked out my archives and this is part of some strange collection a year, 5 years, 50 years down the line. Maybe I'm myself reading this back, wondering what I started or what I forgot all those years ago. Writing is weird like this. But however it happens, one thing is certain - writing is about a connection. Through time and space. From one culture to another. Injected into minds I can never obtain a true idea of the authenticity of. But here we are, here to conect.</p>
<p><strong>A few things have happened recently.</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>I set up a notebook for Beamspun. It should probably be called PROJECT BEAMSPUN or somesuch now - once you write a name on a notebook, that's it - it's Official. Its part of your life. I've been collecting thoughts in my notebook, freeform among the unlined, ungridded pages to allow me to map out links and scribble out changes in my mood. I keep it in my pocket so it can assimilate my thoughts like dust, and so that my own movements get captured as physical curves and wrinkles. Thought, movement and memory colliding under buttonholes. Here it is, I couldn't resist one of the amazing ones from the wonderful Hare and Tabor shop showing the <a href="https://www.hareandtabor.co.uk/store/c27/..html">Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel</a>.</li>
</ol>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsxRYeYCU7CkanE2J_lEXtlzdELpcjb7BR33gCNU4M_Hnf1BWPdXL6hXvf8906fr5PWS9CUpYbomdUTQpe-MhDoA7Uog29hRCZ1FWec0B6_w-8RGqTgYtNew_BE_CB5-V5hLzgY83s5aS5/s2048/IMG_20200725_210840-01.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsxRYeYCU7CkanE2J_lEXtlzdELpcjb7BR33gCNU4M_Hnf1BWPdXL6hXvf8906fr5PWS9CUpYbomdUTQpe-MhDoA7Uog29hRCZ1FWec0B6_w-8RGqTgYtNew_BE_CB5-V5hLzgY83s5aS5/s320/IMG_20200725_210840-01.jpeg" /></a></div>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Brucie, one of the family guinea pigs, <a href="https://tinyletter.com/disposable_evidence/letters/goodbye-friend">passed back to other energies</a>. It's funny being around death again. I wasn't ready for the closeness of it all, but was fortunate to have the time to process it, and was lucky enough that Maria Popova's article on
<a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/10/17/elizabeth-gilbert-ted-podcast-love-loss/">Elizabeth Gilbert's description of being accepting of grief</a> hit my RSS feeds. For some time I've been realising that to celebrate life and growth, and to understand <em>cycles</em>, necessarily implies doing the same for endings as well, but in a generally 'conscious' way. Seeing the soil has shunted something in me a little - the notion that though we have limbs and move around, we are never separated from the earth and the sun.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I've been very, very busy. <em>Intense</em>, even. Lots of thought, many fingers in various conversational pies, decisions being made and futures being spun. But - yin and yang - that busyness also left me somewhat drained a few times, or feeling like I'd done <em>enough</em>. And so more than once, <a href="https://describe.blogspot.com/2020/07/doing-nothing.html">I've actually done nothing</a> - or rather, nothing distracting. Just enjoyed time, reclaimed the space to just <em>be</em>. And around that I've finished off reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24243558-7-ways-to-think-differently?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=6e864gu8YV&rank=1">Looby Macnamara's book on thinking differently</a> and permaculture values, as <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2020/06/beamspun-10-21st-june-2020.html">mentioned before</a>. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Here comes Chapter 1.</strong></p>
<p>In among all these hours and pages, I've still been thinking. <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/2020/07/2020-07-19-pause.html">Last week's thoughts on how Beamspun as a portal for change</a> have got a little clearer. Deep down, writing this newsletter and seeking out all the links have been not just an information dump, but a gathering of force - a gathering of <em>permission</em> to change. A validation, in some ways, that this path is ok, whether it's needed or not. Because right now, despite all the great conversations society is realising are needed, our approach to change is still driven by a very imbalanced narrative.</p>
<p>Change is happening all the time - no instance is the same as the one before. Yet we are badly adapted to Change. We are torn between wanting the same thing to happen over-and-over-again (day after day, or decade after decade), <em>or</em> we surrender our vision of change to others - novelty and progress handed down from companies we think we trust.</p>
<p>This, now, feels a bit insane. Seasons are an inherent and natural change, yet no year is like any other, and we cannot go back and live our lives according to what we did a year ago. We check today's forecast to decide what to wear, not yesterday's. Such memories are there to contrast, compare and to inform us, but that's it. And that's vital - we can adjust ourselves according to what we've learned, have some prediction within limits from what we experience.</p>
<p>Yet we have replaced the rotation of seasons with a singular idea of one-directional progress, onwards and upwards, better always better. Currently, this is in the hands of a global techno-capitalist regime and paradigm, embodied through gadgetry and silicon, branding and surveillance. But it is not unique to that setup - it is simply the latest manifestation of the illusion that we can <em>always</em> be better - <strong>superior</strong>, a single path to ascension rather than cyclical coming-and-going, aging-and-rebirth.</p>
<p>Beamspun is my own antidote to this. We can shift our approach to Change, despite all the funds going in the other direction. I'd like a few things to come out of where this goes next.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Work in stages. Change comes in steps, and not all steps are relevant all the time. But we can break it down, explore each step in more depth rather than fumbling around. Step one I think is about <strong>DISRUPTION</strong>. And so this will be my main focus for a while. Until I've catalogued, understood, and started applying it. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Work with people. Simple collaboration. All this stuff exists, but we have the tools and the abilities to make it larger. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Work for the long term. I'd like to turn each stage into a chapter of some sort of book, or collection, to lay the breadcrumbs for anyone else interested. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Work at the right pace. Honestly, I've got to admit that weekly newsletters is also pretty tiring - and not necessarily productive or focused. Too much pressure to just 'post something' instead of necessarily the right thing. I'm going to try switching to more irregular updates, but more coherent ones. </p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I don't like to leave things in fours, since hearing it's an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_superstitions#Unlucky_Numbers">oriental unlucky number</a>. 5 and 6 are featured a lot more in taoist lists - 5 has a more beautiful assymetry to it, which encourages change, whereas 4 is ... stable. Static.</p>
<p>So I'll keep thinking on the 5th element over the week, as my own challenge to keep things moving. But I'd love to hear from people out there - what do you think the world needs right now? What are the important - no, <em>fundamental</em> - steps we need to take to get this thing moving? Let me know, contact details below, and open up. </p>
<p>Perhaps we're all looking for permission.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread!</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-50903593249010595372020-07-19T20:23:00.001+01:002020-07-19T20:23:51.798+01:002020-07-19 - Pause
<p>What, was that two weeks? Never. It felt like a month and a breath all in one. Lots of things happened - comings and goings, reconnections and endings and re-birth. A happy time and a sad time. A busy time, and a relaxing one. It was a good time to have a break from writing, to be honest.</p>
<p>I've been watching though. The world around us is into its difficult stage now - the initial urgency of the Covid pandemic is giving way into second waves, gradual rippling around the world, and more chances opening up to ask - <em>what next?</em> and <em>what are we supposed to be doing?</em> And so far, I'm not sure anyone has any real answers. </p>
<p>There's a depressing lack of imagination floating around. The most imaginative we can get is to tell ourselves that there's some sort of "new normal" coming. But we daren't imagine what that look like, and so we seek out any return to the old normal. Sales are seen as a bridge to the old economies. Slogans help us put a veneer on old habits. Our cupboards and drawers remind us of all the plans and holidays we had lined up, put on pause and waiting to be resumed.</p>
<p>And the floods come and the sea ice melts and the sea creatures move their hunting grounds and the Way Of Things knows there has never been a way back, only forwards and yet round in huge, vast circles that envelop entire species and mountains. Circles beyond the grasp of most humans looking for return in the small print of newspaper headlines.</p>
<hr>
<p>What is the Beamspun newsletter, what is it I've started?</p>
<p>On the one hand, it's an experiment mostly. But an experiment in what? Not simply the fastest way to collate a set of handful of links together and scatter them like salt around the world. No.</p>
<p>An experiment in enthusing myself, perhaps. A spell to bind my own imagination. A routine become a ritual. You see, when you write and when you publish, Things <em>Crystallise</em>. The things out there become things in my head, and the way in which these are wrapped up in pretty words and pictures and bows? These are the giving-of-life and of form to the Things. The output - what <em>you</em> see - is entirely adrift from the process - the change and the acts that I, as curator and author, must go through. What is interesting for you is something else for me.</p>
<p>For me, Beamspun is a <em>portal</em>. The ideas I've come into contact with over the last few months have had their effect. Only I'm not quite sure what that effect is, yet. But it's real.</p>
<hr>
<p>More than an experiment, Beamspun is a gathering point - for ideas and for people, but also for <em>change</em>. A shift, towards <em>webs</em>. From the interwebs to the webs of life - there can be no distiction between what is change for me and what is change for you and what is change for the world as a whole. Always, but even more so in the 21st century, everything is linked together, and yet all that lack of imagination comes from seeing things as being <em>disconnected</em>. Once you can see that that isn't true - that every action comes from somewhere and goes somewhere else - then we are moved as we are, and we have a choice to amplify our own reactions.</p>
<p>And yet we also see how small we are, how we must work with small changes even though we are screaming out for big ones. That nothing changes overnight - if it did, then we were just sleeping for several months already. We have to work on things day by day, and rest night by night. Then we get somewhere.</p>
<p>I want to set Beamspun into a background of change - disruption and doubt, curiosity and learning, doing and reviewing, resting and breathing. It should be inspiring and yet natural. Plain, and yet magical. Stage 1 was just the start of that, a rapid attempt at doing <strong>something</strong>. Stage 2 will be rough, still, but with an inkling more of grimly satisfied direction.</p>
<p>But it's only been two weeks. And it's been a long two weeks. So I'll still be back, but not quite this week. Does this post count? There's a koan for you.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-46692263916945565022020-07-05T10:23:00.001+01:002020-07-05T10:23:37.876+01:00Beamspun 12: 5th July 2020<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0353 UTC (+4m)</pre>
<p>Hello. Before we go any further, let's all just take a break. Pause this for a minute, five minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever suits. It's ok. Take some breaths, look around to the corners of your vision, listen to the wind or the night or whatever else surrounds you. Just, you know, it's fine to stop. You don't have to feel guilty or excited or even curious about stopping. It's just a Thing that you can Do. Trust me, it'll be the best thing you do all day.</p>
<p>Now you're back, I'll be stopping too. Just for a week, mind. I've written more at the bottom, but we have work to do, and gathering yourself first is the only way to know if you're doing that work sensibly.</p>
<p><em>P.S. The ether went weird and this post was originally blank. Apologies if you get this twice, or never, or anything other than once...</em></p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>cities:</strong> Anne Hildago has been re-elected mayor of Paris, and will be continuing <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/06/28/anne-hidalgo-reelected-as-mayor-of-paris-vowing-to-remove-cars-and-boost-bicycling-and-walking/#4742b10b1c85">the push towards a city for people, rather than cars</a>: '<em>As part of her manifesto Hidalgo plans to turn the French capital into a myriad of neighborhoods where “you can find everything you need within 15 minutes from home.”</em>'</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivuoEAiPYNq0zOAa1iY3FgdxZOfl9g-_VKDV9sjt4YPLJKn88XHWdNynB_siHL2UDA3VkiyaJ5VEjToV1KEnqzbjY9DOVoh0nVay76LDTtRrdTEZUcn77fYMobV3Ht2-scS6lFWX2E1wdS/s320/paris.png" alt="An overview illustration of what paris might look like, focusing on walking and cycling, with trees, street art, and a climbing wall." width="400" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>tao-culture:</strong> This week I've been returning to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Treasures_(Taoism)">Three Treasures of the Tao Te Ching</a> - along the lines of compassion, simplicity and "not-being-in-front". I'm particularly struck by some of the similarities with the <a href="https://permacultureprinciples.com/ethics/">permaculture ethics</a>: do they relate to people care, earth care and fair share respectively?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>tech:</strong> As a developer, it's intriguing to really stop and think about <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/sustainable-software-design-climate-change/">the effect our lines of code have on CPU cycles, and on global energy usage</a> when we scale up what we do. "<em>We can lower our carbon output if we'd just take the headphones off for a minute and stop behaving like a bunch of morlocks.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>academia:</strong> Videos from the recent <a href="https://2020.ict4s.org/Program.html">ICT4S conference</a> (ICT for Sustainability) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2cP5-LMapnkX03rbewLtEg/videos">are now online</a> and my to-watch list, especially the keynote speech <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMYbL_HcMs8">on pushing for a responsible innovation</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>meta-links:</strong> <a href="https://www.notechmagazine.com/">No Tech magazine</a> has been posting some good links this week, with the following two links grabbing my attention:</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/environment/not-so-simple">Mark Boyle on living without money</a>: "<em>over time I found my reasons slowly change. They now have less to do with saving the world, and much more to do with savoring the world. The world needs savoring.</em>" There is a key point in here that detaching from industrialism is not about severing ties from society, but just engaging with it on one's own terms, at one's own pace.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Imagining the <a href="https://www.humanpowerplant.be/2020/06/the-fire.html">Communal Kitchen of 2030</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiGWkJxSAx9EeFUa3F6xqmS70VKc9cHTcHcSPr3vB9XzVhzDtaS6GHYX7Qwv24IYeX5-VG1vFm8OAAItSKO5d8_iwR-nQfxrdEXKMfRVhNL-9uxtfr3Qb9a36fXChlb11irLxZQNkjof_VL7O0Gw0QmZGL34MT6J4cRgFI5EmJveKPBaXSlqfF_Ntw1ww=s320" alt="An imagined kitchen tower for communal cooking, built in a marketplace." width="400" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>ritual:</strong> Some thoughts to really ponder in this read on <a href="https://humanisticpaganism.com/2019/02/27/ritual-technologies-part-1-by-mark-green-naturalistic-pagan-toolbox/">Ritual "technologies" of smell, singing, and light.</a> We get so used to the idea that we can 'design' houses, computer games, and so forth. What about little steps to 'design' our own mindset ona daily basis?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>music:</strong> Enjoying the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF67FE62B86F5CF84">ANNO 2070 soundtrack</a> as I write this. Good mix of ambience and flying-sailing-fish image.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cBhzBe9gKrY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Solstice has changed something. I'm not sure what, just something nearby. The hard work of spring has given way to growth, given the world its own momentum. The berries are growing as they will, now.</p>
<p>I think I'm going to take a break from the newsletter next week. A fallow week, if you will. It's been agood few months and a lot of ideas and thoughts are spiralling out of them, I need some time to let them sink in and find some deep, dark earth to take root in.</p>
<p>If all goes well, the newsletter will <em>shift</em> after that. It will take what it's learned, and spin a thread out in new, subtley different direction. Perhaps. Or it may just stay the same while I carry on figuring out where to go. We'll see.</p>
<p>So catch you in two weeks. I hope whatever you're growing bears fruit.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread!</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-10346920043815556812020-06-28T03:49:00.000+01:002020-06-28T03:49:01.087+01:00Beamspun 11: 28th June 2020
<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0349 UTC (+3m)</pre>
<p>Hello world. Can you believe we've made it to this side of the apex? The long nights and frost are drawing in and .. well, not quite yet. But summer solstice always reminds me a little of where I was 6 months ago, and a lot more about where I'll be in another 6 months. This week the thunder was loud and even the ants are flying.</p>
<blockquote>
<i>“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day.</i>" - Anthon St. Maarten
</blockquote>
<p>I've been falling into a permaculture rabbit hole recently, on the back of reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24243558-7-ways-to-think-differently">Looby Macnamara's book</a> mentioned last week. So this week's links might have more of a garden and farming feel than usual. </p>
<p>Enjoy.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>principles:</b> Thinking a lot about <i>principles</i> as a way of guiding our actions this week. Some links on my radar are the <a href="https://permacultureprinciples.com/ethics/">three ethics of permaculture</a> which I like because three is a good number, a <a href="https://github.com/solarpunk-community/solarpunk-principles">new solarpunk manifesto</a>, and <a href="https://www.dhakatribune.com/feature/2020/06/08/the-call-of-solarpunk-piercing-through-this-silent-spring">six core elements of solarpunk</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>futures:</b> <a href="https://medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/eight-emerging-lessons-from-coronavirus-to-climate-action-683c39c10e8b">Otto Scharmer on Coronavirus, humanity's response, and lessons for responding to climate change</a>. "<i>That choice between acting from ego or acting from ecosystem awareness is one that we face every day, every hour, every moment.</i>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>mapping:</b> <a href="http://resiliencemaps.org/">Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps</a> are a framework for "evaluating personal and social resilience" - by thinking through and plotting out all the stuff you depend on, you can get an idea of how connected and inter-reliant you are.</p></li></ul>
<p><img alt="A radar chart showing personal dependencies based on how local or global they are." src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnXTIE4Qp31FoS6ZSd6LGFSyAxIQEtPWGJ3MBEf1vyn2FBpZvThberEL3Fk1U9Pka8S_zhSbEJJSnt7sRrC5ebpeKRC04FJvwQMm961CLIsvUEHE7unQ8XnETG4y1zrkAaIvPsjXP9snP/s320/simple_critical_infrastructure_maps.png" width="400" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>re-use:</b> Get bottles, get a stick, and ram waste plastic into the bottles... Then <a href="https://www.ecobricks.org/what/">build what you want with an Ecobrick</a>. So simple, I may have to try it out. The project also encourages you to <a href="https://www.ecobricks.org/ptr/">track your plastic in/out ratio</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>permaculture:</b> Having access to some spare logs recently, I'm very interested in trying out a <a href="https://morningchores.com/hugelkultur/">Hugelkultur raised bed</a> which is effectively self-composting and water-retaining. <a href="https://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/">Here's another page all about them</a>, with even more practical advice, including a video of them being built:</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Sso4UWObxXg" width="560"></iframe>
<p>(I like the way each aspect of a mound bears particular flavours and qualities - <i>yin</i> and <i>yang</i> refer to the shady and sunny side of a mountain in the same way.)</p>
<ul>
<li><b>gardening:</b> The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_garden">keyhole garden</a> is a raised, easy-to access bed which also allows you to easily 'drop in' compost, and was designed in Lesotho to help people suffering from AIDS to garden. This is <a href="https://insteading.com/blog/keyhole-garden/">another good page on keyhole gardens</a>, including lots of examples:</li></ul>
<p><img alt="A girl in Rwanda sits in front of crops growing in a keyhole garden." src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCUERVlIYNGYPvwS2M2KSGluUDBV8t7ugppeU85roqIPk6lXpSqqAwbhq0nlS-aP-J-D1GFAVtIiusK-sgmidfG7_KdQpxoLruUB1skaukUkoRHMNXV4Ce499N6ER1vvLfY6Muwes47I4/s320/African_Gardens_Rwanda_keyhole_garden_Rose.JPG" width="400" /></p>
<ul>
<li><b>architecture:</b> Layered gardens, education centres, marketplace, office, and a drone docking point. Oh, and it's movable? The <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/this-incredible-skyscraper-is-also-a-farm-that-can/?linkId=86376657">Mashambas Skyscraper could be incredible</a>: "<i>It can be built in one place, stay there for a matter of months or years ... and then be rebuilt in a new location. After the structure is moved, a base layer remains, which can serve as a marketplace for villagers.</i>"</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="Artist's design of the inside of the Mashambas Skyscraper, with a fruit and veg market on the floor, and spiralled layers rising up above." src="https://media.globalcitizen.org/thumbnails/23/12/231212c0-d2d7-4cba-b9dc-38f60a8a5dc9/skyscraper-sub-saharan-africa.jpg__960x835_q85_crop_subject_location-480%2C418_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg" width="400" /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>architecture:</b> The <a href="https://rethinking-architecture.com/wikkelhouse-modular-cardboard-house/">Wikkelhouse is a modular-design house made out of cardboard</a>, rolled on to a template and then popped into place wherever you want. Nice.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>solstice:</b> And I didnt' really put much solstice into last week's links. To make up for it, here's some <a href="https://www.learnreligions.com/history-of-summer-solstice-holiday-litha-2562244">info on Litha, the summer solstice</a> as a festival. The Sun is on the move again and the days are getting shorted again, but there's still time to celebrate "<i>by setting large wheels on fire and then rolling them down a hill into a body of water.</i>"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread!</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-79576647657199067442020-06-21T03:46:00.001+01:002020-06-21T03:46:00.400+01:00Beamspun 10: 21st June 2020
<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0346 UTC (+1m, ☰)</pre>
<p>Well, my calendars say it's summer solstice on Saturday, and my sunrise checker says Saturday and Sunday have the same number of seconds of daylight, so I figure somewhere out there, some major computations have decided that Saturday was a <em>teensieth quanta</em> of a grasshopper's leg shorter than Sunday. Either way, it's solstice weekend and a time to celebrate, take a pause, look straight up and see the clouds and that ring around the sun which you can't always see but you know it's there and you can feel it in your heart warming you when you wake up until you go to sleep. Bang the drums, blow the flutes, salute the flowers and spin in circles - fill yourself with light!</p>
<p>And because there are too many words and not enough silences in this world, here is a void to fill with the songs of birds:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ofndEwnSWkTpSlMVPO4uSx3x-0ZqK7OWbjJ7i10-3tsJ4miIBdzbYmAEWrgPfJEP5FL5OPIMerNh8af4JzZPeGmVnzfh-vmvhUNkr8_uGQ4ptV7lABk1rIkEhyphenhyphenFC_ima3RnaIS3dPn5Y/s320/IMG_20200620_135436-01.jpeg" width="400" alt="Straight on shot of the sun with a ringed aura circling it." /></p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>communities:</strong> Could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/13/fast-growing-mini-forests-spring-up-in-europe-to-aid-climate">mini-forests help establish networks and corridors of biodiversity</a> in urban (and, indeed, rural areas crowded out by agriculture)? "<em>Often sited in schoolyards or alongside roads, the forests can be as small as a tennis court.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>infrastructure:</strong> When we think of 'utilities' we so often think of them as just the platform for allowing society - often an economically defined one - to function. But what if we were to <a href="https://www.mottmac.com/views/whats-the-point-of-infrastructure">re-consider infrastructure's main goal as one to make us happy</a>? By "happy", we can mean resilient, comfortable, even <em>jocular</em>. And that <em>emotional</em> tie to the pipes and wires beneath our feet could mean <em>appreciating</em> it more, maybe?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>religions:</strong> Genuinely intrigued to see <a href="http://www.biblicalgeek.com/blog/2020/6/18/the-case-for-solarpunk">solarpunk getting picked up by a Christian blog</a> - for me, my solarpunk leanings are part of a wider tapestry of interests, and overlap heavily with <a href="https://www.taopunk.uk/">my tao non-efforts elsewhere</a>. The link between nature, god/tao/brahman/dharma, and our inherent question of sustainability as a symbol-binding, tool-producing species, is at the heart of this newsletter in many ways. Major religions bring an interesting mix to the table, to say the least.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>tech:</strong> Here's an interesting <a href="https://invidio.us/watch?v=XwFB22r9zRo">SciShow video on future solar technology</a> - I found the long-term heat battery idea at #5 intriguing, but also loved the idea of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaic">agrivoltaics</a> which has actually been around for ages (particularly in Japan), and reminds me of the benefits of companion planting for fruit and veg. That 'whole system' and mutually beneficient approach feels very natural to me.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XwFB22r9zRo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>books:</strong> Currently reading Looby Macnamara's "<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24243558-7-ways-to-think-differently?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=6e864gu8YV&rank=1">7 Ways To Think Differently</a>". If you're starting to realise there are <em>other ways</em>, then this is a good starter on shifting your mindset and re-assessing your own thinking.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>politics?:</strong> "<em>Start building dual power where you’re at.</em>" - get organised, get federated, take it from there. <a href="https://twitter.com/BlackSocialists/status/1269072449351618562">Thought-provoking Twitter thread</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Bit of a quieter week this week - the days have been filled with energy elsewhere, and the light evening skies speak to me of breathing. You should not be reading this, you should be out, tramping the paths. Hum in line with the rustling of the trees. Once you're done, don't forget you can <a href="https://archive.org/details/The.Wicker.Man.1973.720p.BluRay.x264.YIFY">always watch The Wicker Man</a> online.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you enjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread!</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-4480002217319887622020-06-14T04:45:00.000+01:002020-06-14T04:45:03.142+01:00Beamspun 9: 14th June 2020<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0345 UTC (-2m)</pre>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It's Sunday, here's the Beamspun.</p>
<h2>Returning</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>integrate:</strong> 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 <a href="https://invidio.us/watch?v=ZmmQyx4U7-U">this video on cow parsley and hemlock</a> 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.</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ZmmQyx4U7-U" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>healing:</strong> We're not happy, and we don't know what comes next. Here's a long read where <a href="https://www.rhyslindmark.com/marriage-counseling-with-capitalism/">humanity goes through counseling with capitalism</a>, delving into our own needs, and four tenets for what could help us from this point on.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>cities:</strong> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05607-x">Future cities need to be designed systemically</a>, and on a global basis, not (just?) the 'smart cities' that many large companies would like us to invest in. Via <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cities-can-add-accessible-green-space-in-a-post-coronavirus-world-139194">this article on adding accessible green space</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>cities:</strong> And a <a href="https://invidio.us/watch?v=zarll9bx6FI">nice little video looking at a few cities</a> and their relationships (or not) with trees. Willbe showing this one to the kids.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zarll9bx6FI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>stories:</strong> The <a href="https://narwhal.substack.com/">NARWHAL project to "detonate narratives"</a> 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.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>music:</strong> Just discovering Warp Records' <a href="https://bleep.com/artist/699-bibio">Bibio</a> this week. For that space between folk and electronic music, check out new album <a href="https://bleep.com/release/188968-bibio-sleep-on-the-wing">Sleep on the Wing</a> and older release <a href="https://bleep.com/release/123827-bibio-ribbons">Ribbons</a>...</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>trees;</strong> Trees as both <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-an-embodied-history-of-trees-teach-us-about-life">mirrors and shapers of their environment</a> 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. "<em>... a more apt metaphor would be that animals are the decorations or props on the Earth’s complex vegetal life system</em>"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Tech</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>transport:</strong> More on doing up and ripping up cars, here's part 2 of an interview with <a href="http://coders4climatestrike.com/2020/06/a-community-that-converts-cars-to-electric-part-2-damien-maguire-interview.html">a community that converts cars to electric</a>. I particularly like the emphasis on starting with something rubbish just to test the theory, and then never looking back: "<em>My first electric car project went 12.5 miles with lead acid batteries, the batteries weighed 600kg.</em>" Also, open source hardware.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>architecture:</strong> Take an automobile robot and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/floating-tiny-home-is-3d-printed-with-self-sustaining-technology-2020-6?r=US&IR=T">3D print a small eco house</a> with it? Oh, and it floats and is obviously boat-shaped. Sign me up, I love houseboats.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://i.insider.com/5eda5a581918245f9d5b9644?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp" alt="A small room like a cubby hole inside a printed, floating house, withcosy bed and lighting." /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>symbiosis:</strong> Why not <a href="https://inhabitat.com/this-desktop-computer-grows-plants-inside-of-it-while-computing/">use the heat from a PC to germinate seeds</a>? Maybe combine that with some water-cooling systems?</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/05/Grass-Computer-e1337787344185.jpg" alt="A desktop PC case with grass growing on top of it." /></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>energy:</strong> The UK has just gone <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/uk-month-without-coal-electricity-renewables-climate/">2 months without coal power</a>. 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 <a href="https://www.electricitymap.org/">live electricity map</a> is a great view (for where data is available, ho hum).</li>
</ul>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>If you emjoyed this, then please spread the word and tell someone else that you think might be interested - <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> is the address to spread!</p>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-42580633264651994962020-06-07T04:47:00.001+01:002020-06-07T04:47:08.108+01:00Beamspun 8: 7th June 2020
<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0347 UTC (-5m)</pre>
<p>Feels like a strange week to be writing about the future. The recent past seems like lifetimes ago, and the bitter histories people worked so hard to cover up carry on blowing into the present. Bait and switch between <em>then</em> and <em>now</em>, buried spirits becoming the shoots of something new, and yet so familiar. The summer weeds returning to the pavements and the undeveloped land, WE KNOW ALL THIS yet we <em>want</em> to be distracted by the future. </p>
<p>Let's face it, the world has been driven by a longing for sci-fi since before I -probably you too - was born. Our sense of control and connection was always a myth from the before-days, yet here we stand, able to do anything we want, if we really want it. Or is that just an illusion too? Like the eyes on a moth's wings telling you that you're beautiful. Believe the wings, trust in the wings.</p>
<p>And yet among the confusion, we find togetherness. We thread our strings through voices and ideas and "yeah well hang on now"s and "what about"s. The questions bubble up, freed from their usual routines of being cast aside in favour of old wallets. The future, like the past, was never about tech or about brands or curvy things, but always stories, communities, and "hey it was ok all along".</p>
<p>We'll get there.</p>
<h2>New Ways</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>communities:</strong> If you read one thing this week, read <a href="https://medium.com/age-of-emergence/the-power-of-communities-in-uncertain-times-part-1-2aa29d2ba6bf">Sahana Chattopadhyay on The Power of Communities in Uncertain Times (Part 1)</a>, in which she digs into the common narrative of heroism, the inherent, forever war that goes with it, and the <em>something else</em>: "<em>Our forgotten humanity — submerged in the false busyness of our days — is rising to the surface.</em>"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>talking:</strong> ... And at the risk of convenience, there are some great links in there, such as this video jumping through an intro to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4FU-9iBoLg">control over nature, and separation from each other, and the answer of who and what you are</a>. Lightweight stuff then. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>democracy:</strong> Which also reminds me to shout out to <a href="http://www.tomatleeblog.com/">Tom Atlee's work</a> and <a href="http://www.taoofdemocracy.com/">book on on wiser democracy</a>, which has guided me a lot over the last few years. It's refreshing to know that people have been working on not just new tools for discusson and disagreement for years, but also the skills and mindset to wield them.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>solarpunk++:</strong> Andrew Dana Hudson writes <a href="https://medium.com/solarpunks/rendering-the-mess-778a36a5d544">Rendering The Mess</a>, looking at why we need more than just pretty buildings with trees. "<em>I feel I now need to amend that formula. Brutalism plus plants <strong>graffiti</strong> is solarpunk.</em>" This is also why I on't put a lot of 'classic solarpunk' images in this newsletter. I'm looking for something fundamentally different, that goes beyond pure tech and trees.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Pretty</h2>
<ul>
<li>Always great to see new work from <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Q1R0Z">Q1R0Z</a>, making me want a headdress: </li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://i.redd.it/gcgfw62xk0251.jpg" width="400" alt="Stylishly designed print of a native american-style elder wearing a golden cape made up of techno-style shapes and patterns." /></p>
<ul>
<li>And this pic has been doing the rounds on the medias - I'm not sure on the source, but I think it might be German based on the police car in the background?: </li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://i.redd.it/5uf7ctcaiv151.jpg" width="400" alt="A man looks on at the back of a policeman. The man's head is completely covered in a transparent box filled with plants." /> - </p>
<ul>
<li>I'm really into people sharing their photos of flowers, stuff growing, and the little details at the moment. So I totally loved this photo of an old watermill from user Pempri over on my XMPP streams:</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://upload.trashserver.net/upload/329f1bf4fbc2c7c20d6c80b69e548143a0632602/btUZnl17uK2SaXFW8RM2r2a6gszxSV8NfG0K0Sc7/YQVIcNCxTyOtWyspXV6HGg.jpg" width="400" alt="The crumbling walls of an old stone builing are overgrown with trees and moss." /></p>
<h2>Make It</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>starting:</strong> Looking for an intro to setting up a simple solar system? This <a href="https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-OFF-GRID-SOLAR-SYSTEM/">Instructables guide is a good starting point</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>growing:</strong> And then when you get really serious, the <a href="https://www.renewables.ninja/">Renewables.ninja</a> site can give you detailed run-downs of expected solar and wind generation in your area. One for the data geeks out there.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>I'm not really sure if I prefer section headers or not. I think, maybe, I'll just keep things fresh and make up the format on a week-by-week basis. Creativity is good for me. Randomness is good for you.</p>
<p>If you're liking the links, then please do pass a link to the newsletter on to someone that you think might appreciate it. The link thing to use is <a href="https://beamspun.exmosis.net/">https://beamspun.exmosis.net/</a> in case you missed it.</p>
<p>And if you're not liking it? Let me know what you're interested in, and what you were hoping for when you subscribed or clicked through!</p>
<p>Tillllllll next time, may the snails keep off your patch.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-75284306575829262882020-05-31T04:52:00.003+01:002020-05-31T10:07:03.118+01:00Beamspun 7: 31st May 2020<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0352 UTC (-6m)</pre>
<p>Hey Sunday folks, or whatever epoch it is where you are, and welcome new readers. Not going to lie to you, I am <i>tired</i> at the time of writing this. There will probably be typos, missing and incorrect links, grammatical crimes, hidden crocodiles, discarded sweet wrappers and all the other sins of humanity. All errors are my own, of course. Unless someone else made them.</p>
<p>But that's no excuse. These things come and go, and we're in it for the long haul. We push on and do what we have to do, because nobody else is going to do it for us. And then we relax when we're done, kick back, smile, sleep, dream some more, snore, mutter strange paragraphs and then do it all again the next time the sun comes up. Because that's how stuff gets done and how the world changes.</p>
<p>This week my energy is being sustained by photos of the little things from people I talk to. Flowers, skies, whatever takes their interest. So here's one for you from my walk today.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKyoK_L7XhzwBKtitnNxlt9_k3iucWXC_eIieFxTBuk5Rt2NIr0LCkB56DLfBhWmHgUeG1B3WFxRk8oFGoti9IBt4niZw7W0QcFjiWaOgvP01lBJzExm57DZAKr82nsH-PH-rXNulCJGL1/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4096" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKyoK_L7XhzwBKtitnNxlt9_k3iucWXC_eIieFxTBuk5Rt2NIr0LCkB56DLfBhWmHgUeG1B3WFxRk8oFGoti9IBt4niZw7W0QcFjiWaOgvP01lBJzExm57DZAKr82nsH-PH-rXNulCJGL1/w400-h300/IMG_20200530_094041.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<p><br /></p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>news:</b> The UK's <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52841223">largest solar farm has been approved</a> - worth a read to see the details of such schemes and the opposition. Will the massive battery explode?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>change:</b> <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13052020/agriculture-small-farming-coronavirus-california">Deliberately farming for climate change</a>: "'But young farmers may be resilient to the virus ... since they have been laboring with uncertainties, perhaps their entire careers... "They're becoming acclimated to not being acclimated," Lemos said._' </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>data:</b> I've really noticed the lack of rain here in the UK this year. When should we start to get concerned? OK, <i>more</i> concerned? Turns out the UK government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-situation-national-monthly-reports-for-england-2020">some very detailed monthly water reports</a> which I probably spent far too much time looking into. That sits right alongside the <a href="https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight">energy mix dashboard</a> in my book.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>architecture:</b> Following on from Earthships a few weeks ago, here the Guardian look at a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/17/ahead-of-the-curve-an-eco-home-by-the-sea-in-new-zealand">very stylish house</a> in New Zealand, complete with river stones for thermal inertia, condensation drainage, and indoor swimming pool...</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>taichi:</b> Breathe in heaven, root down into the earth. <a href="https://invidio.us/watch?v=ljck8xTdEb8">Sam Masich demonstrates the 'pouring qi' exercise</a> out among Berlin's trees. (Skip to 3:18 to get to the nitty gritty.)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ljck8xTdEb8?start=198" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>zines:</b> One from last year, but <a href="https://issuu.com/optopia">Optopia issue 1</a> is free to read and worth a look. They're also <a href="https://optopia-zine.tumblr.com/">on tumblr</a> and are <a href="https://optopia-zine.tumblr.com/submit-to-optopia">open to submissions</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>books:</b> From 'smart cities' to seeing cities as ecosystems? The <a href="https://www.worldweaverpress.com/blog/table-of-contents-reveal-multispecies-cities">"Multispecies Cities" book has been announced</a> by World Weaver Press.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>books:</b> ...oh, and hopefully the <a href="https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p148/Glass_and_Gardens%3A_Solarpunk_Summers_%28ebook%29.html">Glass and Gardens e-book collection</a> will still be on sale by the time you read this.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>batteries:</b> Could it be economical to <a href="https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/used-ev-batteries-recycled-to-solar-farms/">re-use batteries from electric cars on solar farms</a>?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>batteries:</b> Meanwhile, some people are already <a href="https://twitter.com/kvnweb/status/1219416898741456898">ripping bits out of Tesla cars for re-use</a>. I love this - we need more communities centred around reverse engineering.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>plug:</b> A quick post from yours truly, about <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/2020/05/the-slow-path-of-learning.html">solar power connectors, feeling stupid, and long-term learning</a>, because if you can't link to your own content, what <i>can</i> you link to?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>tech:</b> Finally, not so Earth-based, but the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/a-secret-space-plane-is-carrying-a-solar-experiment-to-orbit/">US Air Force is playing with beaming solar power from space to Earth</a>, whatttt?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Wow, the bright lights. I'd forgotten what long days feel like, and the days they feel oh so long at the moment. There's a great growth out there, emanating from the soil, and while the fruits may still be growing or ripening, we can still harvest that <i>feeling</i> into ourselves, ready for the months ahead. Slow it all down, take it all in, and I'll see you back here next week.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-71962275089471920322020-05-24T03:58:00.001+01:002020-05-24T03:58:19.735+01:00Beamspun 6: 24th May 2020<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0358 UTC (-9m)</pre>
<p>Hello world, you <em>humans</em> you. How are you? May always confuses me - one moment it's the start of the summer, and a month later the equinox is looming and I'm already thinking about autumn time. </p>
<p>Not to complain though. This week, I've been tending. Tending to the seedlings to make sure they don't get eaten or shrivelled up. And tending to my broken self-hosted RSS feeds and feed reader, which means I've inundated myself with links to catch up on from the last few weeks. Weeding and reading go together, huh? Anyway, a special shout out to <a href="https://twitter.com/puntofisso">Giuseppe</a> this week for his <a href="https://puntofisso.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=77ecabbd32e97a6caa9d7d40b&id=f06739fb93">data visualisations newsletter</a>, which has fed in at least a few of the links below.</p>
<p>New moon, bank holiday, let's go let's go.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>#photos:</strong> <a href="https://blog.flickr.net/en/2020/05/18/flickr-feature-sapna-reddy">Spana Reddy's featured Flickr images</a>: "<em>...we tend to forget that long before these places of worship were built there have existed natural cathedrals where the pillars rose from the depths of the soil and reached towards the stars.</em>"</li>
</ul>
<p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sapna_reddy/49071776813/in/dateposted/" title="Wabi-Sabi"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49071776813_69f4ee7912.jpg" width="500" height="342" alt="Wabi-Sabi"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>#books:</strong> I tore through <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19439128/book/183777384">The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind</a> this week, the true story of William Kamkwamba who survived famine in Malawi, and salvaged a scrapheap to build a windmill to generate electricity. The sheer sense of <em>resourcefulness</em> stood out for me, alongside the reality of an improverished world that many solarpunk writers seem to think is in the future.</li>
</ul>
<p>"<em>A windmill meant more than just [electrical] power. It was freedom.</em>"</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>"<em>I threw my hands into the air and shouted with joy, laughing so hard that I became dizzy. I held the bulb in triumph and addressed the unbelievers. 'Electric wind!' I shouted. 'I told you I wasn't mad!'</em>"</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>#stories:</strong> For a much shorter read, check out <a href="https://www.starandcrescent.org.uk/2019/11/15/pens-of-the-earth-a-year-of-lilys-sunflowers/">A Year of Lily's Sunflowers</a> from Portsmouth's <a href="http://pensoftheearth.co.uk/">Pens of the Earth</a> collective.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#news:</strong> <a href="https://apnews.com/3182e2ca95d3f2cbfff23ebec3c36f55">A massive solar farm has been approved in Nevada</a> - but the trade-off is that the existing habitat will be severely impacted. I have no ideas on how to tie together the needs of renewable energy with the needs of the rest of our ecosystem, to be quite honest, but it reminds me of the <a href="https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-modern-society-on-solar-and-wind-powe.html">scalability issues raised by Low-Tech Magazine</a> that I linked to a few editions ago.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#lifestyle:</strong> I've been following the <a href="https://100r.co/site/home.html">100 rabbits</a> couple and their boat for a few months. Here, they <a href="https://www.noonsite.com/report/insights-living-off-grid/">set out some helpful advice for off-grid living</a> and "<em>learning to live according to the sun and the wind</em>".</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#economics:</strong> I'm fascinated by <a href="https://humanprogress.org/simonproject">data-viz of the Simon Project</a> over at humanprogress.org - this is a statsy look at how 'abundant' the Earth is, defined by the <em>time</em> you need to spend to earn money to buy things, scaled up to global population level. On one hand, it can be used to keep some perspective on how things have changed over time, and remind us just how lucky we are. On another hand, we can inspect the change of specific resources - metals, cereals, etc - which is really important when considering supply chains and what you - as an individual, a community, a country - depend on.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#tech:</strong> <a href="https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/05/01/sweden-launches-its-first-wooden-wind-power-tower/">Sweden is looking at building wind turbine towers out of wood</a>. Details are light - I wonder if this could apply to other structures too, like vertical farms.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#photos:</strong> And here's another tree tower in India's "silk city", Berahampur, <a href="https://twitter.com/Vijaykulange/status/1257593181790564354">courtesy of @Vijaykulange</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="https://www.exmosis.net/beamspun/2020-05-24/img/banian_tree.jpg" width="400" alt="An old brick chimney, dozens of metres high, has been taken over by a large banian tree." /></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>#lifestyle:</strong> The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAmDcpA4Uqo">Mossy Earth podcast on living slowly</a>, taking time, and taking small steps to appreciate the world more.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#dataviz:</strong> A massive <a href="https://medium.com/nightingale/a-dashboard-for-planet-earth-9abafdbd2749">circular alert chart</a> is one way to try to grapple with the challenges lying ahead of us. I don't know if it's useful, but if it encourages discussion, it feels like it has merit. To be perfectly honest, I yearn for the days when charts are sprayed and chalked across the streets, feedback embedded into our pavements like traffic directions. Make it so.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>#rewilding:</strong> And closing up, here's something I've noticed outside my own door: <a href="https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/about-us/news/will-covid-19-lockdown-benefit-wild-flowers-on-our-road-verges">Will Covid-19 lockdown benefit wild flowers on our road verges?</a> "<em>We need to rewild ourselves and accept nature's wonderful 'messiness’.</em>"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>Death has been on my mind a lot recently, for obvious global reasons. Death happens all the time, but we think about it a lot more when the news covers it. But, conversely, it's also quite a taboo subject. We still cover up our grief, and struggle through times of passing like a traveller in a sandstorm. </p>
<p>The question for me is: How do we deal with death in a re-imagined society? I find myself particularly, almost guiltily, <em>British</em> on this - "celebration" and flamboyance are not something that come naturally to these isles, and so exotic death rituals and rites often seem to be other-worldly, or the stuff of tourismal legends. Either way, we invent ways to parcel such rituals off as 'otherness', and carry on with our own struggle.</p>
<p>A quote from the <a href="https://tinyletter.com/Technoccult/letters/technoccult-news-what-even-is-time">latest Technoccult newsletter</a> sums this up, possibly unintentionally: "<em>We have to make a better world than this. We have to be able to grieve.</em>" </p>
<p>To be clear, I think a lot about <em>life</em> too - what a time of year, when everything is growing and blossoming! But with all things, the yins and the yangs mean everything has a flipside - every May has its November, and we can't separate out "sustainability" into just one without the other - to do so just cuts us off from the bigger picture: <em>Cycles</em>.</p>
<p>The weeks are long at the moment, but the cycles are longer. Enjoy the path that curves.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mastodon: <a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a></li>
<li>Gnu/social: <a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the <a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.</p>Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997462446069630803.post-26240365296572751182020-05-17T05:07:00.001+01:002020-05-17T05:07:08.610+01:00Beamspun 5: 17th May 2020<h2>Intro</h2>
<pre>Local sunrise / publish time: 0407 UTC (-10m)</pre>
<img alt="Two poppies by the roadside" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49896716546_d318971d17_c_d.jpg" width="500" />
<p>
(<i><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/scribe/49896716546/in/dateposted-public/">via my Flickr</a></i>)
</p>
<p>
Drawn out time. <i>Long</i> time. It's a thing. Our days are stretching out
ahead of us, devoid of the novelty value we've become used to in our
techno-middle-class lives. Repetitive days, sun up / make tea / sun down /
dream / sun up / tea down / dream up / down down / etc.
</p>
<p>
This is how the great trees live, how the bees spend their days. No Netflix
for cacti. No world concerts that the ants can tune into.
</p>
<p>Enjoy the passage of time.</p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<b>#arts:</b> Oh my, what is this
<a href="https://www.botanicalmind.online/">Botanical Mind online gallery thing</a>
with its sections on things like
<a href="https://www.botanicalmind.online/chapter-indigenous-cosmologies">Indigenous Cosmologies</a>
and some
<a href="https://www.botanicalmind.online/podcasts">intriguing podcasts</a>?
In another world, I would have taken the name "Happy roots" for this
newsletter from
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=enEv3XIUhfM">Adam Chodzko's piece</a>:
</li>
</ul>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/enEv3XIUhfM" width="560"></iframe>
<ul>
<li>
<p>
<b>#videos:</b> Hey, can we replace the term "ecosystem" with "living,
green infrastructure"? From
<a href="https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/12311">Nebraska Forest Service's Community Forest</a>
video. Like, <i>living infrastructure</i> for physical and mental health -
whoaaaaaaa. Crazy, right?
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>#narratives:</b> This is a most excellent
<a href="https://www.ingmaralbizu.com/will-we-ever-see-the-promises-of-solarpunk/">critical look over 'solarpunk'</a>
as a genre, and covers a lot of the stuff in my head. Like many things, I
love the fact that 'solarpunk' exists, but don't trust utopian visions to
actually deliver. It's too easy to go from a hashtag to a TM, or for
vision to turn into aesthetic (RIP, steampunk, sniff). Stay practical,
punks.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>#solarpower:</b> Like this article on
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200219-the-solar-farms-fighting-climate-change-in-alaska">unlikely solar farms</a>
for instance. Get out there and make energy in unlikely places. Figure out
your specifics: "<i>45 degrees is the preferred angle for optimum energy production at the
Willow farm, which is also a steep enough slope to help snow slide off
the panels.</i>" Know your economics.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>#narratives:</b> But then again,
<a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/how-dystopian-narratives-can-incite-real-world-radicalism">perhaps the world we make <i>is</i> decided by the stories we read</a>, even more than the news we see...
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>#urban:</b> Here's a cool thought - will
<a href="https://solarpunkstation.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/more-on-malls/">communities take back control over abandoned urban spaces</a>
if our dire economic forecasts mean businesses shut down?
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>#retro:</b> I'll leave you with this image,
<a href="https://merveilles.town/@neauoire/104176765911992606">via Devine</a>:
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<img alt="News clipping showing three men in 1984 around a solar-augmented reclining cycle" src="https://assets.merveilles.town/media_attachments/files/000/816/730/original/486c4233beeb10ee.png" width="500" />
<h2>Solnotes</h2>
<p>
OK, I've been fair distracted this week so this one's a little rushed - my
seedlings have got to that point in my year where I probably need to do
something with them, and then forget, so my fingernails are covered in either
compost or tears. Both of these are bad for keyboards.
</p>
<p>
The newsletter format is starting to get easier though, which hopefully means
I'll have some time this week to go through some of the stories I'm seeing out
there. To the solar-kindle, fast!
</p>
<p>OK, time to hit 'Schedule'. Get out there and make things happen.</p>
<h2>Get in touch</h2>
<p>
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:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Mastodon:
<a href="https://mastodon.sdf.org/@scribe">@scribe@mastodon.sdf.org</a>
</li>
<li>
Gnu/social:
<a href="https://loadaverage.org/6gain">@6gain@loadaverage.org</a>
</li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/">@6loss</a></li>
<li>XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone</li>
<li>Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me</li>
</ul>
<p>
I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the
<a href="https://6suns.exmosis.net/">6suns blog</a>.
</p>
Scribehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757616056135886893noreply@blogger.com0