neil @neil@social.coop
Sheeeittt. org-trello is pretty rad. I basically thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could sync work Trello boards with my org files at work, and lo and behold .. some badass has already written a package for it. Vive la FLOSS! Vive la APIs!
It's pretty remarkably full featured two-way sync. Doesn't do everything exactly as I want, but still will be really helpful for me at work I think.
leafletjs is lovely. Find it very powerful but also very easy to use.
Never thought I'd find myself wishing I had access to Crystal Reports...
"I regard cooperatives as a kind of commons, a mode of commoning that has made itself legible to the industrial-era state and market. [...] But I wouldn’t claim cooperatives are sufficient. They’re a starting point, a gateway to more diverse and widespread commoning."
Nathan Schneider interview by Michel Bauwens.
http://commonstransition.org/everything-for-everyone-michel-bauwens-interviews-nathan-schneider/
"we decided to build a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered version of Low-tech Magazine"
I respect a website that's prepared to go offline when it gets too cloudy.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech-website/
neil
boosted
@neil its even more short sighted as a return to sustainable manufacturing within Europe if done well could bring *together* native young adults who have practical skills but aren't as academic who currently struggle to get employment, as well as the various migrant communities. This has all been done before, and it worked fairly well!
neil
boosted
@neil I suspect theres a worse reason for the opposition from UK, DE and IT than just Euroscepticism (ofc bad in itself!)
All 3 countries have remnants of a once thriving manufacturing industry that has let itself become dependent on producing cheap disposable crap (basically final assembly of items sourced from lower labour cost countries) and there is no will from profit driven companies and neoliberal governments to (re)invest in training and support economies based on repair/reuse..
The EU may throw out 2+ years' work on creating better product standards for longer-lasting products, specifically appliances and electronics.
"A massive opportunity to transform our throw-away economy is about to be lost."
Don't let it happen - if you're in the UK or Germany (countries that are block), please sign and share one of these petitions!
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/give-us-the-longer-lasting-products-we-want
Talks about the problem with Amazon not only cornering markets, but actually *becoming* the marketplace. $1 of every $2 dollars spent online is through Amazon. It's anti-trust and should be broken up into retail and marketplace. Amazon also starting to move into local government procurement.
https://soundcloud.com/user-26002169/ep-24-the-antidote-to-the
Thoughts on pros of local vs national/global businesses. Not too fond of the argument that more small businesses means more competition means better services. Good argument that local business have a more nuanced take on local issues. Also that nationalising big businesses doesn't automatically make them better for society - it's the scale that is wrong.
Stacy Mitchell, co-director of Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
https://soundcloud.com/user-26002169/ep-24-the-antidote-to-the
An Italian friend told me that there is some bad blood from some towards the co-ops in Emilia Romagna, and that the sentiment in Trentino area is more sanguine.
Don't know about that. But this is a nice little video about Trentino and the pros and cons of the coop movement there:
http://stories.coop/stories/the-cooperative-movement-in-trentino/
CW: cheesy production values
"If the cost of gas from a West Siberian giant goes up, so too does the cost of electricity from a lone wind turbine on an independent West Yorkshire farm. It’s how the energy market works, or doesn’t work, depending on your point of view."
👎
I'm impressed by latest newsletter from Good Energy (UK energy provider). A lot of talk about decentralisation of energy.
"We're enslaved to a centralised system that has a bias towards big. Big countries. Big governments. Big industries."
"we continue to lead the dramatic shift towards decentralised energy. Our role will evolve, moving from power supply to help customers [...] sell - or give - surplus energy to others."
Good stuff.
neil
boosted
neil
boosted
@neil isnt that called...
the internet? 😂
(Actually possibly somewhat seriously - I never really did academia, instead the internet is, in a somewhat haphazard fashion where i've done most of my studying & teaching)
Any radical, international, distributed/federated free online universities exist?
If not, why not?
I'd much rather you set up a blog category with an RSS feed and I control my subscription to your updates, than you set up an email newsletter, ask for my email, and you control my subscription.
I'm a fan of libertarian municipalism. The construction of isolated pockets of revolutionary efforts at city/town/village level that eventually join up. But isn't a municipal-level revolution just as prone to being snuffed out as a country level revolution? Maybe more so? Or maybe it's less so, as it flies under the radar a bit more.
Also isn't municipal revolution actually really just reform? It's very unlikely that a city will 'collapse' under capitalism and transform into socialism.
Also from the Russian revolution it seems one of the ways it went wrong was lack of contemporary revolutions that were expected in other countries.
Obviously a descent into authoritarianism is where it went most grievously wrong. But seems posited that the shift towards national communism came somewhat from being isolated and turning inwards.
Hard to imagine revolutions bubbling out around countries now though, any rumblings get quickly quashed from outside. (Burkina Faso, Chile, etc etc)
