what if
the angel came
as a mushroom
or divorce
a disease or a despair
what if it kissed your head
so impossibly pale
you forget how to breathe
for a moment
for the lifetime of an empire
and then remember again

Today we visited the local town hall and asked who to speak with about the initial fundraising and people-raising event. I quickly threw together a paper with the basic data and a wish list to try and get their support. Took only a few minutes and someone came to talk to us, said as we are on private grounds we need no licenses other than an insurance, and to email a formal request for support to the president.

Can't say that I really thought the town hall people would downright stop our event, but talking to politicians and public servants can be a little 'ew' (it wasn't in this case and many local people had advised us to go there and that they would be friendly, but we were nervous before). I'm glad to be able to present our important points about project and event in an email, anyways, which I find a lot easier than talking to people.

So it looks like this event is going to happen! Next step is crafting a beautiful email (currently in work) for the presidente!

Parallel to this work we have started contacting artists, possible collaborators, insurance company (266€ for the event, ouch!). Our date isn't really fixed yet, we plan for 2 months from here. I've started setting up a website, designed a crappy logo and wrote up some descriptions.

I'll document our steps, maybe it can be of use to you if you would like to build a similar thing, or you have good advice for us, because frankly we are making this up as we go. And also, it might help sort my own mind.

So I and my boyfriend get bored easily, and in our local industrial estate stands a huge, empty factory - for rent or sale, with a phone number.

We made a quick list of all the things that could and should exist in a community center and contacted the owner hoping to get him to visit the place with us and agree to allow us to hold a first event in the location.

Apparently he owns another factory, so I first spoke to his secretary, then waited a few days for him to make time for a visit. In the meantime we set up a rudimentary website with a first presentation and crafted sort of a presentation email. Not handling things in my native language, so it can take some effort to come up with sth acceptable.

Then the owner called back and wanted to meet same day, so we went there, three wonderfully unprepared odd people, and since I forgot my phone and the man was late I sent bf for the phone and kid for cake and stood there alone when he and his wife drove up in a big fancy car. I was probably about as clumsy and unbusinesslike as possible presenting our project - because let's be honest, there isn't much of a project yet. I remember some 'in person activism' advice I saw recently that started with 'gather your friends' and the thing is, I don't really have any friends?

The place is huge. On 2500m2 indoor area there's huge rooms, cooling chamber, probably around 150m2 stores of office spaces, another two separate large sheds .... plus 10.000m2 outdoor area. While visiting the place I ended up talking to the woman more and she was kind enough to ask me the right questions to make our idea understandable to her and she warmed up to the whole thing, and so did he. Bf and kid arrived eventually and did another tour through the factory while I stayed talking to the owners outside.

They did agree to the event, skeptically but then they don't have much to lose really. They suggested we should speak to the local council, and get back to them with the event plans.

So, we've basically started with the location because it's just soooo neat, and are now hoping to find people by organizing this event. If we get a large enough group of people wanting to use part of the space we might be able to raise enough money for rent or purchase. We are planning to create an association once we find collaborators.

It's stupidly ambitious, we are enjoying ourselves. If this place or approach doesn't work we'll move on to the next.

Rather relevant. I had no idea 'Monopoly' had an anti-capitalist predecessor.

Web 3, nature conservacy, crypto-somthing, blockchain? So this organization appears to be buying land to then put in the hands of stewardship organizations. One of the places being bought under this scheme is Traditional Dream Factory.

Their plans and ideas seem sound, I just don't understand the crypto part and tokens and what these are supposed to accomplish as opposed to something like traditional shares or just write everything down on a piece of paper?

Is crypto ultimately just an ultra complex way of record keeping here?

I would really appreciate your opinions. In terms of activities and spaces, a lot of the TDF setup is very close to what we would like to build, so I try to study and understand different ways people organize such projects.

Preference of community hosting instead of self hosting has recently come up in a permacomputing chat, and in this sense I am trying to set up a tiny yunohost server that can serve my local alternative community - a series of mostly rural living people spread throughout the landscape around a small towns. I want to support local barter and trade, local tool sharing and connections between people.

I am trying to feel my way towards what functions could be useful for a mostly non-tech community, and what is out there to self-host? And what is especially useful and makes sense for local communities? Event calendar, small ads and some sort of map functions come to mind, what else? I guess a lot of what Facebook does.

As I don't see myself in the position to replace Facebook anytime soon but would like to pave the way towards having Facebook and the like replaced by many small scale solutions like the server I am building, I would like the server to have other useful stuff. Currently using CryptPad for collaborative editing, got a SearXNG instance and a digital book shelf with stuff related to gardening, foraging, homesteading, renewables, but none of this is really local. Maybe offering people a small portfolio website where they can put their offerings, skills?

I currently have an Epicyon instance installed that does all of this, it has skill sharing, item sharing, even a calendar, and I really like what it does - but I'm afraid it might be a little tough on the non-tech users.

Please dump your suggestions and ideas about what could live on such a server. As I am still a baby admin I'm not too far in to notice that people's eyes glaze over when I mention things like 'server' or 'search engine'. Trying to keep it intuitive enough for a big enough group might be a challenge, especially when keeping it all clean and FOSS. Probably needs to work really well on mobile phone as well.

The abundance of digital storage and processing power has caused an explosion in wastefulness, which shows in things like ridiculous hardware requirements for computing even the most trivial tasks. Permacomputing is about using computation only when it has a strengthening effect on ecosystems.

Looking for perspectives about the above. On my meanderings around the web I've found cybersecurity is all the rage now, cybersecurity experts are desperately needed. Looks a bit like a protection scheme to me - first have everyone save their data in the cloud and buy a smart fridge, then flood everything with ethical hacking courses and cybersecurity certifications.

Reminds me of my marketing translation days working on copy where you always were supposed to outpace your competitors by using some [insert software here]-as-a-service solution to 'compete in an increasingly fast-paced business environment'. Yay rat race.

On the other hand, as to cybersecurity experts, we will need smart people who can re-stupidify our smart appliances when they go rogue.

What would you consider ethical work within IT? Now and in a brighter future?

I have finally contracted my electricity with them. I didn't even know much about their story, but it's a nice example of cooperative success and EU-wide support among cooperatives.

Also, it looks like PT is fully renewable now anyways, no more coal!

I think what needs to be done now is evaluate the impact that each of these technologies have on the landscape.

Some people seem to have problems with the wind turbine noise and vibration, but as the turbines are placed on top of the hills not many people are affected. All turbines are placed by large corporations, as far as I know. This seems to be a little different in Germany if I remember well, anyone knows any details?

Hydro power has a large impact on the landscape, whole villages have been flooded an the people relocated, ancient common lands expropriated. But the remaining villages all have electricity now. There's irrigation water to grow many crops. Built by the state (nowadays, half-private state-adjacent corporations).

Solar panels can be used for smaller citizen investments like the above mentioned coopernico cooperative. But solar is not necessarily the best technology for everywhere - solar panels are high tech devices for a start, that I cannot produce or repair at home.

Whereas a hydro or wind generator will be based on simpler technology. I have, for example, a stream running through my land that could provide power during 9 month of the year. I'd have to go back into a lot of DIY, engineering, experimenting with no guarantee for success if I wanted to tap into it.

I'd say Portugal in general is on a good way, with a lot of room for improvement. I would want to see more microgeneration, and more citizen initiatives, I'm sure we can work on that!

I was just getting into deep hibernation mood as my landscape demands, getting slower, doing only the necessary. The modern world, however, demands of me that I continue work, file taxes, run errands and consume excitement.

I'd want to excuse myself from that bullshit on account of "Can't do anything during the Rauhnächte, mother Hulda is gonna get me!" but in the current state of things that's not really something a person can just say in most places. It would not be accepted to miss work on spiritual accounts during certain times to have enough time to do the much needed travelling inwards and connecting back to the depth.

Late stage capitalism calls this state 'seasonal affective disorder'. Fuck you too, capitalism, guess what, it's you who is disordered.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/5033332

Comes the holiday whose name i avoid,
with its fake lights
shining with social injustice
and its hollow bells
ringing of consumerism.

Sickly sweet music plays on the streets
Some war rages far away as always
The golden trumpet blowing angels are so tired
And the Santas drown in a sticky sea of coke

I turn my face and retreat
and wish in some forgotten corner of my heart
that the festive season
was real

I send a rare message to a friend
just to check in.
And then the child returns home
just because he wants to.
And another old friend, long ignored,
calls anyway.

And on some thin and fragile plane
almost invisible under the
frantic wallpaper of business
the true spirit whispers
I'm alive