Every now and then, I get a sublime moment, a flash of how things could be. Another world; a better place for us all to live. A little taste, if only in my head, and all too fleeting. Intoxicating, though. Thanks to all the peeps out there making those moments happen a bit more regularly.
Also on:The Loneliest Enuretic
byOh man. My brother had this album on vinyl. Listened to it all the time in my teens. Math rock at its noisiest and finest.
Wow, I never played Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, but I wish I had. It sounds absolutely epic.
Also on:Each faction excels at one or two important aspects of the game and follows a distinct philosophical belief, such as technological utopianism, Conclave Christianity, “free-market” capitalism, militarist survivalism, Chinese Legalism, U.N. Charter humanitarianism, or Environmentalist Gaia philosophy.
My website fully migrated now to the new server at @mayel’s cloudvault hosting. Whoop! Been working on a few of the indieweb elements of it today, and giving it a bit of a lick of paint. Still a ways to go, but progress is good.
Also on:Alex Vitale - The End of Policing (In Conversation)
byDidn’t know much about this, but there’s a pretty dark history to the origins of policing – intertwined with colonialism, slavery, and industrial capitalism. And plenty of present issues, like the militarisation of the police force. Like, for example, does the local police really need grenade launchers?
Also on:Factors that influence consumers’ buying behaviour
byExperimental electronic. Algorithmically-assisted music. Livecoded in TidalCycles. I always like a bit of scattered percussion. Here it goes well with the ominous, brooding bass.
Our Consumption Model Is Broken. Here’s How To Build A New One.
by (NewCo Shift)On August 2, 2017, we started using more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year. Every natural resource we used from that day onward resulted in “ecological overspending.”
Summary
- Our consumption patterns have huge environmental, social and health impacts.
- Consumption is a corporate strategy.
- We need a systemic change, not just tweaks to consumerism.
Thoughts
Good article, backed up by plenty of stats. But it’s stronger on the “our consumption model is broken” part, a bit weak on “here’s how to build a new one.” The plan for system change doesn’t feel very fleshed out, with some loose suggestions, and not much as to how we actually achieve the suggestions. Maybe that’s explored further elsewhere.
If money is the end, anything is game for the means. “Don’t be evil” evidently not compatible with “unending pursuit of profit”. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/19/google-facebook-anti-refugee-campaign-secure-america-now
Also on:
simple last.fm scrobbler is really handy – send listens to multiple services at once.
Or make use of some of the ideas here: https://indieweb.org/scrobble
What I would like to do is post my listens to my own site. I’m guessing this will probably involve going through libre.fm or listenbrainz.
So there I was thinking, I wonder how I can get all my listening history out of last.fm? Quick duckgo, and here we are: https://benjaminbenben.com/lastfm-to-csv/ . Kudos to companies with open data APIs and the hackers who hack on them.
So there I was thinking, I wonder how I can get all my listening history out of last.fm? Quick duckgo, and here we are: https://benjaminbenben.com/lastfm-to-csv/ . Kudos to companies with open data APIs and the hackers who hack on them.
Also on:Coming towards the end of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. Thoroughly enjoying it. It does a great job of presenting an alternative to our present, dominant system. From an outsider’s perspective. It shows how inconceivable some of its characteristics and excesses would seem if you hadn’t grown up immersed in them. Fantastically written, too.
Also on:Great Homebrew Website Club London this eve, with a great turnout and lots of interesting discussion.
Thinking I should document my website setup a little. (Mainly as I can’t remember/don’t know how some of the indieweb parts of it work…)
Can make this one!
#MozFest 2017 is going to be totally rad – even has a whole space dedicated to #decentralization this year https://mozillafestival.org/
Also on:This weekend we hosted the first international gathering of community repair – http://fixfest.org/ . It was absolutely brilliant, so enthused after speaking to repair activists from around the world.
Ep 7.2: Universal Basic Income - A Bridge Towards Post-Capitalism?
by“We have to open source everything so the potential for the accumulation of capital no longer exists.”
Also on:Ep 7.1: Universal Basic Income - An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
byUpstream make good podcasts, and this is a good podcast on the idea of a basic income guarantee. It’s not going to end any debates on the topic, but still an enjoyable listen.
Also on:Innovation is overrated. "Maintenance and repair, the building of infrastructures, the mundane labour that goes into sustaining functioning and efficient infrastructures, simply has more impact on people’s daily lives than the vast majority of technological innovations." https://aeon.co/essays/innovation-is-overvalued-maintenance-often-matters-more