Off-grid Housing

This article explores housing that needs little or no infrastructure.  It's generally known as off-grid housing, and a lot of alternative building methods suit this approach very well. 

You really have to think about what you want and need from a house.  Straw bale is probably the most insulating thing you can build other than those houses made from spray insulation itself.  Adobe and rammed earth are about as close to fireproof as it's possible to get.  Earthberms ignore tornadoes and hurricanes.  Monolithic domes not only ignore violent storms but also earthquakes.  But if you're off the grid, YOU are responsible for your own ... everything.  You want a toilet?  You dig a pit or plumb a composting toilet.  You want light?  Oil lamps or solar panels are options.  You want heat?  A woodstove or similar is a popular choice, but see above, several alternative styles need little or no supplemental heat and may also provide a modest amount of cooling.

There are also traditional home styles such as yurts, tipis, log cabins, caves, etc.  Many of these are still in play as they have certain advantages over standard housing.  You can't pick up a regular house and carry it off, but you can any of the tent-type homes.  A cave is unparalleled for people who want to be left alone, and in fact, there are entire cliff cities originally built into windcaves that have no stairs, so if anyone came to bother them, people just pulled up the ladders and waited for the assholes to leave.

These things are completely possible.  People are using them.  I know people who have used many of those.  Hell, we have a woodstove and oil lamps precisely because civilization is unreliable and the power conks out several times a year.  Using infrastructure is overwhelmingly the most popular choice, but it is not the only choice.  You have other options if you hate infrastructure.  Or people.  Or civilization.

Gizmology in Woodwork

I am impressed.

Fandom Snowflake: Challenge 15 Experience

Challenge 15?!? How are we at the end already?!?! Whether you’ve been here posting every other day, or every other week, or going good there in the beginning and then petered out with dreams of finishing one day *raises hand* we hope you got something from the experience. We’d love to hear about it.

Challenge #15

In your own space, Talk about Your Snowflake Experience. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

What did you come into it thinking or wanting? Did you get that? Did you get something else? Did you learn anything new about fandom, others, yourself? Are you glad you did it or thought it a waste of time and energy? You can tell us. We’re all here to learn and grow. What did you learn? How did you grow?



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Monthly Resolutions

New Year's resolutions, or other goals, can be set on a monthly scale. A one-month goal gives a clear target and a sense of accomplishment that balances between short and long term. It's a great way to manage medium-size projects that take a while to complete but don't necessarily need to remain ongoing goals, or at least not at the same level of intensity.

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Birdfeeding

Today is cold and clear.  Some of the snow is melting.  What's left is full of tracks, rabbits and squirrels and birds.  Here are more animal tracks you can see in snow.

I fed the birds.  Today I saw a flock of sparrows, a few cardinals, a Bewick's wren, and a downy woodpecker.

Clipping the Hedge Fund

Here is a rare story about rich people losing. :D Now for the important points...

1) Hedge funds do a lot of harm. We would be better off without them, because it is a gambling problem that hurts everyone, not just the people with a gambling problem.

2) This backlash happened because a bunch of ordinary people objected to a few rich fucks artificially manipulating the system in ways that hurt companies they cared about. So they did something about it. This touches on the original reason why investment was invented: it allows people to pool resources so they can have things nobody could afford individually. Build a marketplace. Buy shares in a trading ship. That sort of thing. Today it can be used to salvage businesses that sell stuff we want or need.  This is related to Community Supported Enterprise, just discontiguous rather than local, which is apt for far-flung businesses.

3) We are many, they are few. The inherent flaw of inequality is that it's unstable and vulnerable to attack. By definition, the lower layers must be much larger than the upper layers. Previously, it was difficult to mobilize this mass of potential outside of, say, a revolution. But now we have social media: that makes it much easier.

Congratulations, r/WallStreetBets.  You put a new tool in the box. Now it's up to everyone else to notice this and use it again, to block rich fucks from jerking the economy around like an abused dog, so we can defend the businesses that we use.

The economy is just a thing that some people made up.  It is what we make of it.  As a construct, it has no life of its own.  So if you don't like it, do something about that.  You have a shiny new tool to stick in it, and gods know there are struggling businesses everywhere.  Go tell your friends.  This tool only works if enough people apply it together.  Kind of like democracy.

Baby Planet!

Astronomers have discovered a planet forming.  Aww, da kyoot!  :D 

New Year's Resolutions Check In

We have reached the end of January! \o/ By now, most New Year's resolutions that are going to hit roadblocks or fail completely have already done so. About 95% crash and burn before the end of January. If you're still going, you've passed the roughest part. If you're having trouble or you've given up, there are options.

These are the previous check in posts:
* January 8
* January 15
* January 22

These are some previous posts on other aspects of New Year's resolutions:
* New Year's Resolutions
* Fun New Year's Resolutions
* Monthly Resolutions
* One-Day Resolutions

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