Life

Interesting article in The Magazine - Heavy Breathing .

I blogged previously about my own experiences with this disorder - fortunately, my case is less severe than the authors'.

I had missed the interesting social experiments Ruskofff describes, the local media is adopting its usual superficial view.

CNN: Occupy Wall Street is not a Protest but a Prototype

“Occupy” is anything but a protest movement. That’s why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the “demands” of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the nation, and even the world. Just like pretty much everyone else on the planet, occupiers may want many things to happen and other things to stop, but the occupation is not about making demands. They don’t want anything from you, and there is nothing you can do to make them stop. That’s what makes Occupy so very scary and so very promising. It is not a protest, but a prototype for a new way of living. (Via Douglas Rushkoff.)

This inspirational talk by Nick White at the Wellington Ignite Conference gives an insight into what its like for an avid public speaker to overcome head and neck cancer and the loss of his voice.

via Presentation Zen

I noticed this post recommending the movie "Off The Map" recently.

We watched it last night and really enjoyed it. We have been talking about it on and off all day today which is the sign of a movie that has gotten under our skin. I particularly liked the understated direction that let the landscape and the story unfold without joining all the dots for the viewer. Fascinating also to see the homesteading life depicted. I was scanning each frame for those small details that give authenticity and was not disappointed. We already had the Taos region on our destination list as we love native american jewellery, so now we have another motive to visit.
(Via Cage Free Family)

Reviews
Tina Ferguson
Some notes from the director Campbell Scott

This post was inspired by a rendition Shane Howard gave of his song Let the Franklin Flow at the Blue Mountains Blues Festival a few months ago.

25 years since the Franklin River Campaign
In July 1983 the Australian High Court ruled the Franklin Dam could be stopped by the new Federal Labour Government against the wishes of the Tasmanian State government.
Prior to this over 1000 people from all over Australia and the world had travelled down to the river site camps and been arrested in a mass act of civil disobedience.
I was there with a number of friends and it was one of the defining experiences of my life.

We camped in the rainforest near Strahan for a week or two and among the many wonderful experiences I remember meeting Bob Brown who so impressed me with his integrity that I have voted for him and the Greens ever since.
In the action where I took part we walked down a logging track (“the Crotty Road”) which had been ruled Hydro Electric Commission land, meaning we were trespassing. There was some media interest as the novelist James McQueen was part of our group and the TV cameras were there. This caused some consternation at my grandparents house when their nephew appeared briefly on the Channel 7 news for his 15 seconds of fame.

Bob Brown getting ready to address the Crotty Road protest in 1983. Photo from the National Gallery Collection - Bob Brown Collection 1.

The action was well planned and we were duly arrested and bundled off to Risdon jail. Expecting to be held in the remand block we were surprised to find that it was full of “greenies” so we were put into the maximum security wing with some unsavoury characters. Those few days in a cell and an enclosed exercise area confirmed for me the wisdom of staying on the “straight and narrow”. Our arrest was eventually ruled illegal and we were free to go.
The Wilderness Society has some videos on YouTube that will transport anyone who was there back 25 years to another world.

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Great post over at MyMicroISV from Jarie Bolander. Very timely for me as I in the process to creating a day off a week to allow time to grow a new venture.

The Innovator’s Secret Weapon

• Keep an idea journal: An idea journal is an invaluable tool to find trends and cluster ideas. Just reading through a journal can give you all sorts of inspiration.
  • Have a hobby: Hobbies are great to spark creativity and innovation. I once had a friend who created an entire remote control toy business because he was sick and tired of not having enough frequencies to use.
• Be well read: Reading a wide variety of topics and styles creates opportunities for cross over innovation. Great ideas will come from looking at a problem from a different perspective.
• Take long walks: Wander, stroll, skip or run. Anything to get you out of a building and thinking. Many of my best ideas come when I’m working out.
• Volunteer: Volunteering is not only tremendously rewarding but a great place for inspiration. You would be amazed at how much you can help an organization and yourself by just giving a few hours a week.
• Help others innovate: Get out there and help someone else create. This is just like the recruiting others above and it’s for the same reason – the more brains, the better the idea flow.

Jarie Bolander (Via MyMicroISV)

A video of a US policeman calmly capsicum spraying unarmed sitting protestors has created an international storm. James Fallows has exhaustive coverage and Mark Bernstein summarises the story with key links and adds his own view in this excellent post Shame

The walk of shame, as UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car before rows of silent students, was extraordinary. James Fallows wrote of the affectless sadism of the campus police, captured forever in film. If the euro collapse does usher in the second great depression, that video is going to become an icon and this behind-the-scenes account will someday be treasured the way we cherish stories of riding in the car with Martin.Bob Ostertag wrote a terrific piece on the shameful militarization of campus police. He doesn’t go far enough. Chancellor Katehi claimed that the quad was cleared because of “the encampment raised serious health and safety concerns.” Ostertag argues treats this as an error, a stupid failure of understanding and planning. But it’s not just a mistake.It was a lie. (Via Mark Bernstein)

Perhaps all law enforcement officers should be trained in the fundamentals of non violent action to enable them to more appropriately respond to these situations. Thoreau's essay) is a good starting place (full text here), Ghandis' biography is another valuable source.

Excellent writing as usual from Monbiot, pointing to the underlying causes of the unfolding Eco crisis http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/03/forbidden-planet

Macdrifter is a straight shooter, in this post "Man Up" he calls for direct action against SOPA. I like the style and support the cause

Man Up.

Banners and Cartoons are not going to create the change most internet users want. I know it’s not something I care to waste time on. Instead, I’m gathering links and writing this post. (Via Macdrifter)

Thought provoking post by Adam Richardson at Harvard Business Review on the levels of abstraction implicit in the financial system and the trust that is required from all participants for it to continue to operate.

Crisis of Faith in the Financial System

From Bernie Madoff to derivatives to the housing bubble to dubious AAA credit ratings, we continue to find new ways to encourage people to make financial leaps of faith. Have we reached a breaking point where the abstraction has gone too far, and is too complicated for 99% of people to understand what they're signing up for, that we must backtrack to more conventional methods? And has the level of trust in private and state financial institutions sunk so low that most people now feel there is no accountability or responsibility for the promises made, or that sound decisions will be made to guarantee "circulation forever"? (Via HBR.org)

This is right on the money - so to speak.

Facebook and Ads

ReadWriteWeb

If you pay for a product, you’re a customer. If you don’t, you’re the product. On Facebook, you are the product. The difference between content and advertising continues to slip.

(Via inessential.com)

Sophisticated campaign orchestrated by Greenpeace using the same Star Wars theme that feature in the latest VW adds. The aim is to raise pressure on Volkswagen to put more effort into bringing its green technology to bear across its fleet. Worth checking the video’s out and sign up..

There is good in Volkswagen. We feel it -

Volkswagen is a big part of many of our lives – indeed many rebel vehicles are VWs. But it seems the bosses at Volkswagen have been seduced by the dark side of the Force and left us with little choice but to challenge them. But it’s not too late. There’s a chance that together we can turn Volkswagen away from the dark side and into a Force for good, leading to a brighter future for us all. via vwdarkside.com

Douglass Rushkoff is always worth reading, here is a rousing speech he gave to Occupy Wallstreet
Occupy Reality - Transcript

You are not fighting against people, but against a machine.It was put in place over 500 years ago.
By a wealthy elite - trying to repress a booming peer to peer economy.
Those people are all dead, but their program lives on.
(Via Douglas Rushkoff)

As he says in the opening lines this speech covers the material that is exhaustively documented in his book Life Inc which is a fascinating read.

Tim Bray on Occupying Wall Street:

• A large number of people in the finance business enriched themselves to the tune of billions in a manner that feels essentially like bald-faced theft. Nobody has been punished. Very few of these people even experienced much in the way of financial setbacks, because they were bailed out with other people’s money. As in, yours & mine.
• The general degree of inequality, whether measured in money or power, seems unreasonable.
• The political system seems structurally unable to take any action which runs counter to the interests of the finance-industry elite.
I think those perceptions are broadly correct, and I think it’s reasonable to be angry about them, and to engage in political action: This is what politics is for. (Via ongoing by Tim Bray.)

Right on - a succinct summary of why many people are emphasising with this movement.

Chris Andersons' email charter is well worth checking out and following. I especially like rule 2 - Short and Slow is not Rude.

emailcharter

The May/June issue of Resurgence has arrived and it looks very interesting.

Its a special focus issue titled “The money delusion: In search of true wealth”. It kicks off with an excellent editorial from Satish Kumar which introduces the topic.

Here are a few quotes to give you a flavour of the article:

“Let us be clear. Money is not wealth. It is a delusion to think that money is wealth. True wealth is good land, healthy animals, flourishing forests, clean water, honest work, abundant creativity and human imagination”

and

“For example, there is never a shortage of money for wars and weapons, but it is always in short supply for arts and education”

Its worth a read and can be found here

Matt Gemmell is such a good writer, his post Dear TextMate is a beauty and must reflect the thoughts of many former Textmate fans.

His recent Simplicity post has me looking into Octopress.

Another great piece by Matt, Accessibility for iPhone and iPad apps is must read for anyone designing a User Interface. I sent this to a friend who suffers the condition Matt was referring to and he was blown away by the insight shown.

An article in the New York Times here tells of a couple who are shedding their possessions prior to starting a new life as organic farmers. What I found interesting was that they have had some hostile reactions on the blog they are keeping to document the journey. I suspect that many people find the idea of others who are stepping outside the norm and “letting it all go by” to be threatening.

As a Subaru owner and former city escapee currently back in corporate life, the cover of this book appealed to me instantly. It was brought to my attention by this review at Cool Tools. It seems an increasing number of people are setting up alternative lives and documenting their efforts in blogs and books. No complaints from me as I enjoy this genre, as long as the accounts retain an authentic feeling. Some of my favourites include Urban Dreams, Rural Realities and the Nearings classic The Good Life. More on these another time.

Tom Malone on collective intelligence and the “genetic” structure of groups

The average intelligence of the people in the group and the maximum intelligence of the people in the group doesn’t predict group intelligence.

and

So how do you engineer groups that can problem-solve effectively? First of all, seed them with, basically, caring people. Group intelligence is correlated … with the average social sensitivity — the openness, and receptiveness, to others — of a group’s constituents. The emotional intelligence of group members, in other words, serves the cognitive intelligence of the group overall. And this means that — wait for it — groups with more women tend to be smarter than groups with more men.

Stirring writing “After Rio, we know. Governments have given up on the planet” by George Monbiot in reaction to the collapse of the Rio Summit. He still finds reasons to continue to make efforts towards preserving the biosphere. Its clear however that we cannot look to governments and international agreements to do anything significant.

Was it too much to have asked of the world’s governments, which performed such miracles in developing stealth bombers .. global markets and trillion-dollar bailouts, that they might spend a tenth of the energy and resources they devoted to these projects on defending our living planet? It seems, sadly, that it was.

Monbiot pledges to focus on “rewilding” which I am also keen to work on.
Another thinker in this area is Paul Kingsnorth who discusses in this article why he started the Dark Mountain project. Dark Mountain is in the last throws of raising money for its third anthology of writing, illustration and prose. I bought the first book and have ordered the third, its good reading and thought provoking. Check it out here

After years of exposure to Permaculture and having spent several years a decade ago implementing a disparate set of its common patterns at our previous property in Northern NSW, I am now taking a much deeper dive into it after enrolling in Geoff Lawton’s Online Permaculture Design Course. Its been running a few weeks now and my partner and I are both finding it a revelation. So many concepts and themes that we had previously read about but not really understood are suddenly making sense. Geoff’s an excellent teacher and the online format works perfectly for a couple of introverted types. We can take our time and review material as we go.

There were elements of classic internet marketing1 wrapped around the promotion of the course that had me a little worried, those concerns have proven groundless and I can understand that using the marketing approaches that work makes sense when your goal is to get this material out to the widest audience and in a sustainable way.

As a taster, check out this video Absolute in Abundance, they will want your email address however if you are at all interested in this stuff you will get a steady stream of really good links and content as a result.

I would highly recommend that anyone who has been interested in doing a PDC but not found the time or the right teacher consider taking one of Geoff’s courses.

Meanwhile, check out the many videos and resources that are freely available at the Permaculture Research Institute. The links to several excellent related documentaries can also be found here. The site is an aggregator of several of my favourite authors including George Monbiot who has a new book - Feral - A manifesto for rewilding the world.

Surfers interested in Permaculture should enjoy this chat with Geoff about the links between surfing and permaculture.

There has been a continuous stream of media about finding your passion and reviewing your working life against higher goals. This post from workawesome is a nice summary, and once it referred to the Eightfold Path and Right Livelihood I had to link it.

Is it a Job, Career or Your True Calling?:

What is it that you love doing the most? What are you passionate about and what brings you alive? What work would you engage in if you had no other considerations? How could you use your talents to make a difference to society? Stepping back and deliberating on these thoughts can provide you the stimulus towards discovering your deeper purpose and true calling. (Via workawesome.com)

Still very much an ongoing challenge for me.

Great infographic post at infowetrust via the Huffington Post and macademic that shows the daily ritual of interesting historical figures. Smoking, coffee and beer appear frequently.