Testing conditions

Been non-stop sunshine recently. So guess which day the cable arrives to charge up the new battery, of course... 

🙄

New separate site for link round-ups

ICYMI, I'm now sending out a weekly link round-up over at new site Beamspun, to keep it separate from my general ongoing experiments.

Email and RSS options available. Link suggestions welcome.

Reading material

Absorbing some helpful information courtesy of a recent charity bookshop find, while waiting for some cables to arrive. 

Seems good so far, at the right level I want, with early chapters going into traditional heating / cooling techniques, basic physics, and moving onto more passive approaches. It's from 2007 and mostly US-centric, but I figure things won't change toooo much across time and space, at the scales I'm thinking about 😀

It has, though, got me thinking about what the thermal inertia is like of Max's room in "Where The Wild Things Are"... 

Check out those trees. 

Sunday Sol Set

As mentioned previously, I've been wanting to bring together some solarpunk links somehow, so I figured I'd just start out and see what happens. Right now, every time I wake up, it feels there is some sort of layer-on-layer parallax-scrolling-style weight of doom running past the window. Everyone seems to be waiting for the world to either sort itself out, or end us in the next few years. And honestly, I gave up that sort of pessimism years ago, back when I realised that if you look into the abyss, you'll end up there in pretty short time.

So let's turn this around and get on with whatever the fyck needs doing. We live in a time of massive change and upheaval, and if this isn't a solarpunk opportunity handed to us on a plate, then what is? And on a yang-pagan-christian-ritual note, Easter Sunday just felt like a perfect day to bring new energy into the world. Take your symbols seriously.

Some quick house rules: Format may change drastically in future. Timing may be weekly, fortnightly or monthly, TBD. Feedback and chatter welcome! - scroll down for contact deets, but I also get final say over what links make it in. Subscribe via RSS or email on the original blogger page, but a proper newsletter might turn up one day.

As this is a first, experimental, effort, the links below are a mix of my own bookmarks, things which have inspired me, and posts on Twitter and Reddit which piqued my curiosity.

Otherwise, enjoy...

Updates

• #gov: UK Government Digital Service looking at how to help gov sites reduce carbon emissions through simpler webpages. “We should all be asking ourselves could we use and waste less,” she said.
• #scale: World's largest floating solar farm in China

 

Ideas

• #change: Self-sufficiency Defies Common Sense - looking at reactions to self-sufficiency via article comments.
• #emptytech: A Mindful Approach to Technology - an old article, but there you go. Decide what you want to do first, then find the tools to do it. Use a dumb notebook to avoid using a smart phone.
• #change: Why Bodhisattvas Need to Disrupt the Status Quo. "We are so used to systems of oppression that we have forgotten how to live in a way that is not separate."

 

Sol food

• #music: H Takahashi - Sonne und Wasser. "Tokyo-based artist H.Takahashi links [sun and water] these two essential elements for plant growth across four extended works of pulse minimalism."
• #stories: And lately, the sun accepting short story submissions for a future anthology, deadline 30th June 2020.
• #art: Riitta Päiväläinen - River Notes:

Research

• #trees: The BBC looks into the realities of mass tree planting
• #homegrid: Wired: The Power Plant of the Future Is Right in Your Home
• #battery: Research into an "all-organic proton battery that can be charged in a matter of seconds using a solar cell"

 

Resources

• #books: Retrosuburbia: Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future via solarpunks.net - hard copy available to buy, online copy pay-what-you-feel. UK hard copy store

 

Get in touch

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

• Mastodon: @scribe@mastodon.sdf.org
• Gnu/social: @6gain@loadaverage.org
• Twitter: @6loss
• XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone

More options, including email are over at my contact page.

Fun fact: This post should auto-publish the minute the sun comes up over my home town.

1 year later...

Badoom. The sun is reminding us it's the Lord of Easter right now. 20 degrees C outside like something out of early June, even though April fools' day has only just passed, and the equinox is in recent memory despite the world going into shutdown. Solarpunk is about more than just battery technology - it's a reminder that we are intrinsically tied to the our weather, that we come from sunshine, that the gradual tick of the year is the difference between life and death. Solarpunk is about gaia, wu wei, paganism, animism, wicca, and everything else that ties us to the sky, to the roots in the ground, to the green of the leaves.

It's too warm out there for this time of the year, but the bumblebees are fat, and the apple blossom has revealed its pink. My seedlings have turned from whispers to voices over the last few days, and the ants are back.

With the rising of life comes a fresh renewal. The current experiment in running of solar power has now come full circle, one whole year. I feel like celebrating! And yet, the world does seem like a time or place for celebration at the moment. Nevertheless, this means we should celebrate our own victories and successes all the more, to maintain our sense of thriving humanity. Hurrah! Huzzah!

The more permanent home has proven its worth, even now that I'm confined to the house, and can more easily swap over batteries. I've been running at full capacity for the last few weeks, and the only slight issues have been some ants in my DC port, oo-er, and my phone playing up with charging a little bit. Hopefully they'll both just fix themselves...

I'm turning to the future now, as the current setup seems pretty stable. There are some things I want to do next:

1. Power something new. OK, I'm going to admit it - I celebrated by indulging investing in a rather large 372Wh power tank. I figured, rather than just add more 'little' battery capacity, it was time to take it up a notch. I have enough running off straight USB power for my little life (see my current kit), and there are things I do which don't fit in yet. I"m not quite decided - maybe power a laptop, or try to power my photography, or even try to transfer the Raspberry Pi that hosts my tt-rss and wallabag efforts, to tie in with some ongoing thoughts on intermittent networks.

I'm going to spend time testing the new gizmo, and need an adapter cable to charge it, so I'll come back to that in due course. Expect a quick review soon though, once I have it running properly. Here's a sneakly peek though:

HELLO indeed.

2. Do more around solarpunk.  Start posting more links. Maybe start a newsletter. I think the world is ready, and while there's some good stuff out there, I'd like to share it with people, keep the movement alive, inspire ideas and discussion, etc etc etc. Expect more links here to start with, maybe a weekly round-up. Then we'll see where it goes - life has too many plans and too much uncertainty at the moment.

So plans plans plans. This is doable. We can do this. The Sun's out, and even now, it's hard not to smile.