my saving-the-world bullshit

$750,000/2 br/1 ba

800 sq ft

Alpine, CA

Built in 1979

"The Davidson Residence designed by architect Robert Thiele and artist James Hubbell, and hand-built by the homeowners, is one of only a handful of structures to see the designers' (as Earth Form Builder) visions fully realized. Singular in its vision and execution, the home is as much a respite from urbanity as a chapel to the surrounding native flora and seasonal stream."

Dumpster diving is something that tons of people do for one reason for another. It is a great way to get a lot of stuff for free, even expensive things, and even be able to resell them in order to make money.

I make some money by doing this. I have heard of a couple of people who have even done this full time, making enough money to pay all of their bills. So this is a great way to be sustainable, and also to make money, which is becoming harder and harder in this crap Capitalism-dominated world. 

So what are some things that you can do to help to look through the dumpster safely?

1. If you do not have to go inside the dumpster, don’t!

I have been dumpster diving since I was 13 years old, and I am almost 30 now. I have never in my life climbed into a dumpster, and it will make solid gold bricks to get me in one. 

Instead, get a grabbing tool. For me, this tool is a bent hanger. This works for about 95% of everything I have found of value thus far. Then again, I mainly deal in clothing. So consider buying a specific tool for this called a grabber. I recommend purchasing one on Ebay, or on a site like Poshmark. Just make sure you buy it used for the most sustainability. 

2. Hit before you look

Animals love dumpsters. They often have free food for them. So if you are afraid to confront an animal, who may not retaliate out of fear, hit the side of the dumpster softy to scare them out first. The last you want is to look through a dumpster only to be confronted with a stray cat or a squirrel. 

3. Do not trespass

This should go without saying. If a dumpster has a fence around it, it is off limits. Do not trespass just to get some stuff out of the trash. Jail is never worth whatever you are going to find in there. 

4. Wash up

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

Hello SolarPunks, for a university project I'm working together with a government agency to build a new forest next to, and integrated into, a new city that's being built (I legally can't say where, but somewhere in the Netherlands). The site was previously farm land and production forest.

The goal is to have this new city live in synergy with nature. I'm planning on making this place as biodiverse as possible with relief and natural ponds using indigenous plants to promote insects and amphibians. There's plenty of trees for birds and bats. Wood piles for other critters and fungi to find shelter and food.

To integrate humans into this environment I was thinking about making a food forest where all the plant layers have some edible or medicinal indigenous plants with fruit/nut trees. Decking boards and stepping stones in ponds and marshy areas. As a community space I like the idea of a willow gazebo and a natural playground.

I'd like to keep some pieces of land restricted from humans by placing "fencing" made up of dead trees and branches and blackberry bushes so birds and other critters have some undisturbed nesting places.

Drawing on the conservation status system used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Watchlist, Heritage Crafts uses a system of four categories of risk to assess the viability of heritage crafts. A heritage craft is considered to be viable if there are sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation.

Extinct in the UK

Crafts classified as ‘extirpated’ or ‘locally extinct’ are those which are no longer practised in the UK. For the purposes of this research, this category only includes crafts which have become extinct in the past generation.

Cricket ball making (hand stitched)

Gold beating

Lacrosse stick making

Mould and deckle making

Mouth blown sheet glass making

Critically Endangered

Crafts classified as ‘critically endangered’ are those at serious risk of no longer being practised in the UK. They may include crafts with a shrinking base of craftspeople, crafts with limited training opportunities, crafts with low financial viability, or crafts where there is no mechanism to pass on the skills and knowledge.

Arrowsmithing

Basketwork furniture making

Bell founding

Bow making (musical)

Bowed felt hat making

Chain making

Clay pipe making

Clog making

Coiled straw basket making

Copper wheel glass engraving

Coppersmithing (objects)

Currach making

Damask weaving (linen)

Devon stave basket making

Diamond cutting

Encaustic tile making

Engine turned engraving

Fabric pleating

Fair Isle straw back chair making

Fan making

Flute making (concert)

Fore edge painting

Frame knitting

Glass eye making

Hat block making

Hat plaiting

Hazel basket making

Highlands and Islands thatching

Horse collar making

Horsehair weaving

Industrial pottery

Maille making

Metal thread making

Millwrighting

Northern Isles basket making

Orrery making

Paper making (commercial handmade)

Parchment and vellum making

Piano making

Plane making

Plume making

Pointe shoe making

Saw making

Scientific & optical instrument making

Scissor making

Sieve and riddle making

Silk ribbon making

Silver spinning

Spade making (forged heads)

Spinning wheel making

Sporran making

Straw hat making

Sussex trug making

Swill basket making

Tanning (oak bark)

Tinsmithing

Wainwrighting

Watch dial enamelling

Watch making

Whip making (horse)

Withy pot making

Hopefully this is helpful to someone out there 🌸

You can find the Prompts podcast here, I drew some of the covers :D Also check out this digital library full of Creative Commons Solarpunk art (neither of these are sponsored).

🦗Somewhat shameful plug🦗

Wösten is part of a team of researchers from Belgium, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK who are exploring a radical idea: what if the materials we build with could grow, repair themselves, and even sense their environment?

This EU-funded research initiative, called Fungateria, is developing engineered living materials (ELMs) by fusing fungal mycelia with bacteria — creating adaptable, self-healing materials that do what conventional products cannot.

Unlike traditional materials like concrete or plastic, ELMs can grow, repair themselves, sense changes in their environment, and sometimes even adapt over time.

The researchers aim to design these materials so that they combine the strength of natural growth with the functionality of engineering. For example, walls that fix their own cracks, building blocks that absorb CO2, or surfaces that can clean the air.

The goal is to create sustainable, low-waste materials that work with nature instead of against it, opening the door to smarter, greener architecture and products.

This is not a feel-good post. This is also a long post. Scroll on if you need to for your mental health.

I'm pretty fucked up by this migraine but I gotta interrupt the queue by talking about something awful. I try to keep this blog as a gentle, thoughtful, inspirational little island with plants and gardens and kitties and art and interesting little bits.

But there is horrifying shit going on in America right now, and it is primarily impacting anyone who is not white.

I am terrified for all of them, from friends to to strangers. It's never been easy (or fully safe) to be a racial minority in America, but the current administration is actively, violently, targeting them.