Vi går til en ny sommer og late sommerdager, muliggjort gjennom de rundt regnet 200 energislavene hver og en av oss har til disposisjon. Så mens vi nyter vårt optimum, for de mer opplyste muligens med en tanke dårlig samvittighet, da ingen form for slaveri er uten konsekvenser, kan vi nytte muligheten til litt sjelelig oppbyggelse.
Forhåpentligvis kan et påfyll av sårt tiltrengte nye tanker for en verden som sakte men sikkert kollapser for øynene våre, dessverre så sakte at de fleste knapt reagerer, med tiden spre seg og fylle oss med en ny bevissthet. For selv om vårt ubegrensede sinnelag grunnleggende sett stammer fra Riftdalen i Øst-Afrika, har vi også en tung ideologisk ballast å dra på.

Det var med stor glede jeg kom over det nyeste essayet av Dr. Andreas Weber, med tittelen "Enlivenment", en videreføring av "Enlightenment", eller opplysningstiden. Foreslå gjerne en norsk oversettelse for dette nye begrepet i kommentarfeltet. Her følger et utdrag fra David Bo…

Sweden doesn't have wild mountains and fjords, but they have Stockholm Old Town (Gamla Stan), which is just as much nature and as refreshing as any natural landscape. This is because of it's fractal properties and its unfolding through Alexander's 15 transformations of wholeness. Even it only constitutes of a small island in central Stockholm, it feels large because of its organic street pattern.
Click on any image for a magnification or to start a slideshow.

I choose to republish my other images from "Gamla Stan" here as well, so they can all be gathered. Publishing the above photos I found that some of them are quite good too, and may need their own postings as well. Hope my pictures here, made during two small afternoon walks, can inspire you to visit "Gamla Stan" if you go to Scandinavia.

Les artikkelen her.

19682010•for 3 timer siden− Meget positivt med satsingen på tre! Trist at Holz100 som produserte massivtre med tredybler og Moelven som produserte massivtre med lim, begge har måttet trekke inn årene. Ironisk at massivtreprodusentene i mellomeuropa samtidig produserer alt hva remmer og tøy kan klare, og enda ikke klarer å møte etterspørselen. En utfordring for trelandet Norge. Designerne tenker nytt med materialbruk, men dette er ikke nok for å kunne utnytte de fulle biofile effektene til naturmaterialer. De henger fast i gamle dogmer, som Le Corbusiers "the plan is the generator": http://www.permaculture.org.au... Dette er en absurd designide som truer med å ødelegge ethvert trehøyhus. Den går på tvers av den universelle skaleringsloven, som var gyldig for all arkitektur gjennom alle tider og for alle sivilisasjoner, fram til modernismen fikk gjennomslag på begynnelsen/midten av forrige århundre:http://www.permaculture.org.au... I tillegg er det stadig me…

Affordability Locked In

WWW.BIOMAN.NO

Fra P2P-Foundation:

- Terje Bongard’s Democratic Ingroup Model as specific form of p2p democracy?

Meget aktuelt i denne sammenhengen er Lester Browns essay:

- Our Global Ponzi Scheme

Sakset fra forsida til Bioman:

Velkommen, and welcome! (This website links the science of human behavior, innate feelings and drivers, politics, critique of capitalism and environmental problems, and focuses on a research project that suggests a concrete solution. An English version will come, there are some English documents under "Dokumenter")

VELKOMMEN!

Vi er i gang.

Denne portalen har svært store ambisjoner: Vi skal vise at det finnes andre måter å organisere økonomi og samfunn på enn bare to:

1. Dagens hodeløse pyramidespilløkonomi, som tømmer ressurser og omdanner dem til pengesymboler. En udemokratisk økonomi som lever et eget liv, fra konkurranse til konkurser og sammenbrudd, og som folkevalgte nå har minimal innflytelse over. Bortsett fra å legge til rette for «verdiskaping …

Watersheds can be considered a type of real-world network that is characterized by self-repeating or fractal-like patterns. Fractals are geometric patterns that possess the same proportions on different scales. Rivers and glaciers cut through the planet’s surface, leaving behind landscapes that may appear random or haphazard, but are actually quite precise. Whereas such patterns have been frequently ignored in designing or altering man-made landscapes, there is now interest in emulating them to create more sustainable and eco-compatible designs. - D.L. Marrin, Ph.D

Like William Morris, Léon Krier is dedicated to the cause of beauty: that gives his work an edge and an individuality which many people would rather be without. If his polemic seems at times simplistic, it is I believe his concern for the loss of beauty that has reached a level close to despair, and if his words at times sound shrill it is because his ideas have been met so often by indifference or complacency. -- Robert Maxwell, from the introduction to Léon Krier's talk. This essay is even more important today than when it was written in 1982:

- How Industrial Society Destroys Culture

Later, Katalin Bende, also working on the project in our office, asked me to explain what I meant by this true liking and about people's fear of it, and why anyone could be afraid of true beauty. "What kind of beauty could go so deep that a person would be afraid of creating it?" she asked.

I told her that, in my view, a difficulty we modern people encounter can sometimes go something like this: When centers are properly distributed in a truly beautiful structure, one cannot avoid seeing the I (what a religious person might also call God). In the 20th century there has been something almost like a taboo, against seeing the I, or true beauty, or God. Hence the discomfort. This discomfort that modern people feel with real beauty – especially that architects and designers feel – is almost legendary. Working with architects, I have experienced it again and again. Many traditional shapes, especially the most profound shapes with deep and serious centers in them, for some rea…

Indeed, the breakdown of style and form most clearly marks the transition from culture to civilization.

WE PAUSE over this thinking to ponder its implications. Recall that Spengler wrote nearly a century ago, when the Western avant-garde movement was merely a tiny knot of artists bent on assaulting the conventional sensibilities of the prevailing culture. As author and critic Lionel Trilling once explained, in Spengler’s time these people weren’t interested in talking to the masses. Their art was rarefied and special, designed exclusively for the avant-garde itself, those inclined to look down on the masses and on conventional thought and culture. Few at that time predicted that this avant-garde cynicism and cultural nihilism eventually would be absorbed into the popular culture itself and be accepted, even embraced, by large numbers of people within the so-called masses—the same masses under assault by the avant-garde. But Spengler saw it coming, as merely the inevitable consequence…

- Spengler's Ominous Prophecy

I'm sorry to tell that yesterday it was set that Lambda will become the new Munch Museum.

In principle, more often than not, a group will develop a great solution to the wrong problem. Before proceeding with a solution we need to see that it is aimed at the problem, and to do that we need to bring the problem into focus. Taking time to define the problem may seem annoying and unnecessary in the short term, but can save huge amounts of time and energy over the long run.

Defining the problem as a group also checks our shared expectations. It helps me decide, "Is this something that I want to participate in?"
Practical Tip: Before discussing solutions, discuss the problem. What are we trying to fix? What is the specific scope of the problem that we are willing to take on? How would we know if the problem were fixed? Are we the right group to fix it?
On paper, write something like, "The problem is that _____________." It could be a sentence or it could be a paragraph. Refrain from discussing solutions until you have agreement on the problem statement. Make s…

From PCN:

Get Apocalyptic: Why Radical is the New Normal Feeling anxious about life in a broken economy on a strained planet? Turn despair into action. In December 2008, Tim DeChristopher attended a protest at a federal auction of drilling rights to Utah wilderness lands. He found a better way to disrupt the auction when he picked up a paddle and began bidding on the leases as “Bidder 70.” He won $1.8 million worth of parcels and inflated the price of many others. When it was discovered that he had no money to back his bids, the auction had to be shut down. Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison for his actions, but his boldness stopped the sale of 22,000 acres of scenic wilderness and highlighted government misconduct. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar scrapped a rescheduled auction because the Bureau of Land Management had skimped on its environmental analysis and inadequately consulted with the National Park Service. In January 2013, a federal court denied an en…

Excerpted from a recommended article by Dave Pollard: “What If Everything Ran Like the Internet?”

“It is because business and government systems are wedded to the orthodoxy of hierarchy that as they become larger and larger (which such systems tend to do) they become more and more dysfunctional. Simply put, complicated hierarchical systems don’t scale. That is why we have runaway bureaucracy, governments that everyone hates, and the massive, bloated and inept Department of Homeland Security.

But, you say, what about “economies of scale”? Why are we constantly merging municipalities and countries and corporations together into larger and ever-more-efficient megaliths? Why is the mantra of business “bigger is better”?

The simple answer is that there are no economies of scale. In fact, there are inherent diseconomies of scale in complicated systems. When you double the number of nodes (people, departments, companies, locations or whatever) in a complicated system you quadruple the number of…

Tenker å skrive litt mer om denne saken etter hvert, men her er foreløpig en artikkel i Aftenposten:

- Her blir det bilfrie tun og drivhus i hver hage

The practical result of government promotion of monoculture development is that for most of us there are two communities: a community in which we work and shop, and a bedroom community in which we are stored. – Kevin Carson