I am slowly re-acclimating with a bit of the surface web.
I've even added a few links to some of the groups
and organisations I think are worth the time to
discover. There is definitely not a lot, but I'll
continue to grow the list as I go. I'm also
re-subscribing to a few mailling list / newsletter,
and that feels good. I feel like I've been on a fast
and now choosing what I eat with more care.
Live coding, pure data, permacomputing, some of the
subject and community I'd like to bring back to my
reality.
I am charging my Nintendo DS planning to run UXN on it
you can read more about UXN at 100r.co (another surface
dwelling I should link to). I wouldn't consider that
goal permacomputing really but to a certain extent it's in
the same vein. It's so easy to just want yet another
device, but with the NDS I could create some music.
My goal would be to load ORCA and a synth on there
so I could make music on the road. When I drive to
town I have to take a 35 minute boat ride (both ways)
which gives me time for such activity. I often
bring my Model:Samples but it's not as practical.
The NDS can be used like a music player, a video player
(if I take the time to transfer to a version playable
from the NDS player) of course a game console which can
emulate every console until the nintendo 64, which
covers thousands of games. There is still a decent
amount of homebrew tools for it, and now with UXN, there
is a decent amount of tools that could be used on there.
UXN has a lovely drawing app, ORCA, a synth, text editor
and more. Devin is also porting one of his game to it,
which should be really enjoyable on the NDS.
My first gameboy was a gameboy color, in yellow, a very nice
device. I traded it with some cash to the gameboy sp, I
think it was the name, it was a clamshell version. I had
that gameboy for a long time, and finally traded it for
the NDS many years ago.
I then got a cartridge I could load my own tools with
a micro sd card which is so lovely!
So in a way this has been the spiritual successor to my
handheld device over so many years! And I would still
like to use it as much as I can. In a sense this is a
part of permacomputing. I could really easily go buy
whatever device out there, open source, or a Switch
which seems to be an awesome device too. Or the tablet
from Steam, which freaking runs Arch linux! How cool
is that.
But no, I'd rather keep what I have and work with that.
It's closer to calm technology. This incessant desire
to have more. Why? Because then I could play a million
more games? Do I even care about playing a million
more games?
A big part of permaculture is about changing your habits.
I was in a group discussion last month about this and
about the challenges to grow everything you need to eat
and how to make salt, oil, spices, sugar etc. My point
was that we don't need a lot to survive. Reducing our
needs is a first step in being more part of our environment .
Decreasing the amount of food you eat, the amount of toys
you need, sharing, borrowing, re-purposing, hacking, are
all part of the permaculture in its wider expression.
For me this has a huge implication on my mental health and
general well being. I've stop buying stuff in 2022. It was
a challenge on the Elektron forum. It was only about synth
but for me it expanded to everything. In the whole year
I only bought 1 mechanical keyboard, a network switch and
a sound card, all to replace what was broken.
Using less and re-purposing, using calmer technology,
and also adapting to what I have, make a huge difference
in my day to day happiness. Now I'm excited to do more
with my NDS, who would have though!
