Solarpunk Scientist

FARMBOT GENESIS: This robot is changing farming as we know it

And the best part about this technology is that it’s open source, meaning you can build one yourself from the blueprints that are available for anyone to download. 

Let’s say you need an outdated queer theory textbook that uses biphobic and cissexist rhetoric for your gender studies thesis, but you don’t particularly want to own that book.

Let’s say you need a primary source to strengthen your argument to your college as to why a certain political figure does not deserve to be a speaker at your graduation because they perpetuate hate speech.

Let’s say you and your friends want to hateread a book by your least favorite author but you don’t want to give him your money.

And I found one in the college library.  An original slave-owner’s apologia from eighteen hundred or so.

Nasty stuff.  But studying the mechanics of evil is a useful pursuit.  One that has relevance in today’s world, certainly.

(My African-American Studies professor thought so too; he gave me an A.)

The point being, no matter how bad a book is, there is value in preserving it—if only to demonstrate, “This, this right here, this is a bad thing.“  Mein Kampf?  Worth picking through to note the psychology of a depraved leader.  (Did you know that Hitler framed every damn thing as a war, including farming, which he characterized as wrestling food from an unwilling land, or some such bullshit?  Might be a characteristic worth paying attention to.  Be cautious about leaders who use “war” rhetoric for things that aren’t actually wars, such as … oh, to pull an example out of a hat, how about “drugs.”)  Slavery apologia?  Leans heavily into Biblical justification, from the one I read, so maybe, just maybe, we should examine Biblical justifications very carefully.  Even the worst stuff teaches us things.

Blender is an excellent freeware 3D renderer,possibly better than After Effects

Lightzone to replace Lightroom

Inkscape to replace Illustratr

Audacity to replace Audition (I also received a free version of Pro Tools with my Scarlett Solo audio interface)

Oh my god this is so evil. 

1. Never cross a picket line of striking workers.

2. Never purchase or take free goods from a company who’s workers are striking

3. Honk to support strikers if you drive by a picket line.

4. Join strikers on the picket line even if it’s not your strike, but follow their directions and defer to them while there.

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

Cailbre d/l:

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

How to use cailbre to remove DRM:

Since wifi is just a standard for sending data through radio waves, and radio waves can go a pretty long way if you use ‘em right, it’s not that difficult to connect two computers by wifi from across town. Then you just keep adding more computers to the network and you’ve got internet!

Small antennae, like for connecting across the neighborhood, can literally be built out of trash

And a larger, more accurate one can be built pretty cheap too

(You can also reuse an old satellite TV dish, or really anything else that’s roughly parabolic)

There are LoRa meshnets in places like New York, India, and all over Europe: Spain (pictured below), Greece, Austria, Germany, etc

As for sharing fresh mëmês, the network to go to is Scuttlebutt. Unlike most social media, Scuttlebutt posts are stored on your computer and sent directly to your friends’ computers (rather than being stored on the cloud and sent to a central server). It works just fine over traditional internet, but you can also view and interact with it offline, and it has protocols for connecting over any means that two computers can share information - that includes LoRa, as well as hardwired connections, sneakernet (basically mailing a USB stick back and forth), etc

What that means is you always know that your info is just as safe as the network it’s sent on and the computer that receives it - no one even theoretically has the ability to collect and sell it all. And, since it’s all run on your computer, there’s no servers to go down or companies to go out of business that could destroy the whole thing

Aquaponics  Introduction

Aqua-what? 

Aquaponics is the combined practice of raising fish (called Aquaculture) and growing plants in water (called Hydroponics)! 

How Does it Work?

Fish or other aquatic animals are raised in a tank

Plants are grown in another tank or container, suspended in water

Waste water is pumped from the fish tank to the plant roots

Helpful germs in the roots of the plants break down fish waste into vitamins and nutrients

Newly purified water is drained back into fish tank

Aquaponic System Repeats

Take A Closer Look: Coming Soon

Fish Types

Fish Tanks

Types of Plants

Growing Containers

#GrowItGreener

Snopes says the cops in the photo here claim it was a hot day, and they were trying to prevent the cars overheating, but 1) Cops can lie and 2) Even if these cops DID have a good reason, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others out there with less honest intentions.

Last year, California was one of several states to introduce right to repair legislation that would force companies to end practices that discourage the independent repair sector, creating a requirement to sell replacement parts, provide documentation, and supply codes to bypass DRM systems that locked new parts out of devices until the company activated them.

The bills were mostly defeated, thanks to coalitions led by Apple – which subsequently warned its investors that its profits were threatened by customers’ unwillingness to abandon their old devices and buy new ones.

In California, the farm lobby did a deal with the devil, selling out to the ag-tech sector and throwing its weight behind Apple’s push to kill the bill.

But the California right-to-repair legislation is back in play, thanks to California State Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman [D-Stockton], whose Assembly Bill 1163 is substantively similar to last year’s r-to-r bill.

Depending on how you count, the repair sector is worth 1-4% of total US GDP, and most repair businesses are neighborhood-based small firms whose profits stay in your community. By contrast, Apple (and other Big Tech firms) are notorious tax avoiders who funnel their profits offshore and then direct them to their distant shareholders in the form of massive stock buybacks and other forms of financial engineering.