Just putting it out there that if you loved my #solarpunk novella ANOTHER LIFE, you could nominate it for the Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction. Last year's winner was a @StelliformPress book!
Nominated books should:
"Reflect the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work, including but not limited to: hope, equity, and freedom; non-violence and alternatives to conflict; and a holistic view of humanity’s place in the natural world.
Does sci-fi shape the future? Tech billionaires from Bill Gates to Elon Musk have often talked about the impact of novels they read as teens, from Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" to Iain M. Banks' "Culture" series. Big Think's Namir Khaliq spoke to authors including Andy Weir, Lois McMaster Bujold, @cstross and @pluralistic about how much impact they think science fiction has had, or can have.
Yesterday, I gave a video tour of our current mulch / garden situation and uploaded it to the @solarpunkpresents YouTube. We lay down a bunch of cardboard to smother the unwanted plants in the places we wanted to make gardens, then re-used wood chips that have been sitting out all winter from the old tree in the backyard. If you're interested, check it out!
@mattferrell Yeah I caught a lot of this shit online from my blog post series on getting panels and batteries. Assuming the annual cost of electricity is the same as 2017 when I got the first "wave" done, with wave two and three done in 2019 and 2022 respectively, it will all be paid for in electric bill savings in about 2030. However since rates have slowly increased, that will be actually 2026.
Works fine on cloudy and winter days, can charge my EV for free, and my neighbors in this working class neighborhood are getting solar, despite the "cost".
Plus if the zombie apocalypse happens and the zombies attack the grid itself, I'll still be up and op, probably bitching online about zombies.
waist deep in "lowww-impact", "green web", low-tech, "low-code", humane tech, and solarpunk design philosophy and praxis lately and it's got me kinda optimistic—excited even—about the future of the web
HAPPY EARTH DAY! 🌎🌍🌏
It's Release Day for my solarpunk short story collection! These hopeful climate-fiction stories take you from the bottom of the sea to the towers of a bot-filled city, all imagining futures halfway to a better world.
BONUS: we made a music video of my REWILDING INDIANA: Sky Shanty! (like #seashanty but in the sky).
After over 11cm (about 4.34 inches) of rain yesterday, area flooding in lower parts of the city, causing a few isolated and hard-to-repair-quickly power outages to small pockets of residents and businesses. There were a few "glitches" as power was re-routed to help restore things. Long story short, three power outages since yesterday afternoon, two of them overnight, and I only know this because my #smarthome told me so via alerts. Fortunately with the batteries only the non-critical-load circuits were down briefly. Weird seeing all the neighbors' lights go off on the outside cameras, then come back on.
So glad to have #solar and #batteries to keep things up and op as the #weather gets increasingly intense each season.
Spending Earth Day weekend (Monday is the Official Day) publishing #solarpunk stories, and that feels extra appropriate this year. And I have a surprise project for you on Earth Day!
But I also hope to pry away some time to watch A Brief History of the Future while crossing my fingers extra hard that it's good.
If we can transform excess solar-power into hydrogen or methanol at the building or neighborhood level, we avoid overloading the electrical grid by storing the sun locally, without adding CO2 to our atmosphere or building expensive gird battery systems. The tech needs to be shrunk and made rugged. But then there could be a shed on the corner where fuel is created and used locally.
For #FollowFriday I warmly recommend @susankayequinn AND her #books.
I appreciate the author's posts very much. And she writes #HopePunk, #CliFi, and #SolarPunk. I had not really an idea what is hidden behind these labels. I've been tiptoeing around the genres for months, worried that it might be too pedagogical, not literary enough.
Then I discovered her #shortStories. Now I'm hooked. Try it, you won't regret it! I want more now. 😊 @reading
My favorite #boots: jika tabi popular with construction workers in #Japan that I modified with tanker boot straps and rechargeable LED lights on the heels. Keeps me visible walking or biking around traffic.
I'm looking into cargo bikes for urban areas so I can reduce my footprint.
Any suggestions?
Priority is ability to transport a few groceries, ease of lockup, and lack of ridiculous cost. I don't need electric or anything, but I do need it to be there when I get out of the store...
My two latest (very short) #solarpunk stories are FREE!
THE DAY WE STOPPED BURNING
A sister in the far future, when we no longer burn things for fuel, finds a forbidden thing that would make the perfect gift.
I CAME HOME FROM SAVING THE RAINFOREST
A very short story about the cost of cutting down a tree.
Don't forget to preorder the collection — it releases this Monday, April 22nd, Earth Day!
As far as I can see, Perma Computing community is too focused on the artistic aspect of computing. Which hardly covers the most energy intensive, ubiquitous parts of the computing world.
Unless the conversation is taken to tackle higher impact fields, the output of the community is more like the conceptual fashion shows:
a vanity demonstration. A limited proof of concept.