Nice. I gotta wonder why a flying schoolbus which lands in meadows needs a pop-out "kids loading/unloading; do not pass" stop sign on the side, though. LOL. 😉
Only thing I'm going to (have to, unfortunately) buy today is a round in a couple dryers at the laundromat, because I've put it off too long already and the clothes line is currently a no-go due to weather. sigh
May take a look at the material later, though probably not going to participate in the game.
TBH my initial thought is that it would make more sense to produce source material for an existing genre-neutral system like the Hero System than to create a whole new system unto itself. Still, I guess if the system is going to be FOSG (Free and Open-Source Gaming 😉) then it would still make sense to do the extra work.
Yes. My company decided to shut down the local office to save money (kept by the bosses rather than being distributed to us, of course). So some of us became remote indefinitely.
Generally, I love it. I can "commute" in my PJs, and avoid spewing a lot of carbon into the climate just to ship around my sack of flesh. I can take breaks throughout the day to tend my garden, and play music to help myself think. I don't have to worry about packing a lunch, or wasting time and money and social energy eating out in the middle of the day. Hell, I can go take a nap when I don't have any meetings scheduled and feel the need.
However, it does take its toll. Not having a direct, face-to-face, human connection with folks throughout the day harms the associations that build solidarity. And finding ways to do one-on-ones and continue organizing the workplace is proving next to impossible. So I'm honestly not sure it is worth it at this stage of labor struggle. In a more ideal world—once we've won a few crucial victories over capital (and perhaps state)—I see no reason why many of us couldn't work from home, and even move those jobs that require more direct, physical labor closer to those homes.
"One man's wild dream." Bleh. Flowery words for yet another bunk propertarian sea-steading project. I mean, he was literally planning to mine the shit out of the ocean floor and sell away more of the ecosystem to the capitalist market in order to create his Utopia. At least there was some acknowledgment of that at the very end.
Very glad the opportunistic scientific exploration happened along with it, though.
In IDK like the 2015-2017 timeframe some really edgy people started taking over in /r/metanarchism (the private sub where moderation decisions are made for /r/Anarchism). They formed a clique—a cult, really—and managed to force out anyone else who weren't part of it, totally ignoring even the rules they'd setup themselves for how people were to be banned. Their notion was basically that you had to subscribe to and promote the most violent possible solutions to every situation, and if you didn't jump on board enthusiastically, you weren't a "real anarchist". It was basically the most dark aesthetics of anarchism without any of the actual philosophy.
There were whole drama wars about it, where the people they banned congregated in /r/LeftWithoutEdge, /r/AnarchismOnline, and other subs, and in response the edge cult setup /r/LeftWithSharpEdge, trolled those subs their victims fled to, and harassed people with things like bloody cannibalism fantasies about their victims. Those are the folks still moderating in /r/Anarchism, and they have at least a couple moderators in subs like /r/LateStageCapitalism as well.
One of the most prolific and obsessed trolls is the guy who setup Raddit. He was caught having whole conversation trees with himself in order to fake participation on the site and set its tone. A number of times he declared he was "stepping back" from moderating it and would just run the server...and then didn't.
Given the horrendous history of /r/Anarchism's moderation and the fact that Raddle is a direct continuation of that garbage, I'd say it's both no surprise and no loss. Let them go honeypot and jackboot themselves into oblivion. The unfortunate thing, of course, is that they've controlled a forum with a very obvious name for half a decade, and can shepherd a lot of unknowing users into their cesspit with them. But there's probably not a lot that can be done about that.
Correct. The ground is a MASSIVE heat sink, but can only absorb and transmit heat so quickly (how much thermal conductivity it has; just the mathematical reciprocal of insulation/resistance). Having a large contact area and/or water helps a lot. If you can get down to the ground's natural/ambient water table, it'll conduct a lot better than dry dirt and rock (not to mention that evaporation can help with sufficient air flow).
If you make use of flowing water, probably it's just going to be a matter of the temperature of the source of water, as it'll likely eclipse (depending on rate and volume of flow) what gets absorbed by the ground. Unless it's a closed loop, in which case you're essentially just increasing the surface area of ground you're transmitting to (and you'll need to take advantage of convective flows like with the air, or you'll have to actively pump to keep the flow going).
All technology, by definition, is artificial.
Probably passive (taking advantage of energy and natural laws already present in the environment, like wind and convection) vs. active (making use of secondary forms of power like electricity, burning fuels, etc.) is a better distinction. If all you gotta do is e.g. at most open some vents at one time of day and close them at another, and not rely on the delivery of external power sources from human industry, calling it "passive" is pretty fair.
Absolutely. Lots of societies have used passive heating and cooling systems, well-suited to local climates. And we could learn a lot from them to help decrease our energy use.
There's a lot of places you can build (partially) underground to take advantage of relatively stable ground temperature and natural insulation, too. Ain't just fictional hobbits that lived in holes in the ground.
...harvests reflected sunlight hitting the back of the device, offering an unconventional route to producing higher energy yields for less space and cost.
Less cost seems probable. Less space really does not. Gonna probably need some mirrors to reflect onto that back surface, and it's still going to require the same amount of incident area of solar radiation.
Mirrors are pretty cheap, though. So seems like a win.
Generally you should do what:
Just because we have systemic critiques doesn't mean we should go live in a cave and eat bugs. To the degree possible we should prefigure the society we want to build, but torturing ourselves individually to do it is both unproductive and likely takes away from our focus on more important things like organizing and taking direct action that impacts the system. We do tend to make personal sacrifices to further our ideological goals, but there's both a practical limit and one where we shouldn't be cruel to each other in our expectations.
Many of us are vegans. Most of us probably avoid buying shares in oil companies. But all of our circumstances are different. Perhaps people salting Chevron to radicalize union organizing there will wind up with its stocks in their retirement accounts that are difficult to divest from without harming their ability to retire, due to their particular circumstances. It seems pretty shitty to expect someone to just get rid of them without us having some kind of dependable (e.g. mutual aid) infrastructure in place to take care of each other in our old age.
TL;Dr: Yet you participate in society. Curious!