o | |
/\--) | |
/\ under | |
deconstruction.. | |
.:: older Phlog posts ::. | |
phlog-2021-02-21.txt | |
Great Propaganda / Poor Decisions | |
Looking to add some human interaction, however socially distanced, to my | |
mostly cloistered life during the COVID-19 pandemic, I registered for | |
a series of foreign policy focused group discussions (conducted via Zoom) | |
through the local library. The series is titled 'Great Decisions' and | |
.. | |
phlog-2021-01-19.txt | |
Happy New Year? 2021 hasn't really gotten off to a great start but | |
perhaps it will improve, at least for a while. A still-raging pandemic, | |
record levels of debt and the winding down of that 'shale revolution' | |
may dampen an economic recovery for much of the world. | |
Books | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-12-12.txt | |
Review of: Living in the Time of Dying - a 2020 documentary film | |
by Michael Shaw - run-time 53:51 - free on YouTube [0] | |
https://www.livinginthetimeofdying.com | |
Synopsis (from film's homepage): | |
If we accepted the climate science was true, how would we choose to | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-12-06.txt | |
Review of: Transition Engineering: Building a Sustainable Future [0] | |
by Susan Krumdieck - (c) 2020 | |
Routledge / CRC Press ; 254 pages | |
ISBN 9780367341268 | |
I first learned of Susan Krumdieck a few months ago when I came across | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-09-15.txt | |
Review of: LIVING in the LONG EMERGENCY: Global Crisis, the Failure | |
of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing | |
Us the Way Forward [0] | |
James H. Kunstler - (c) 2020 BenBella Books - Dallas, TX | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-09-07.txt | |
Happy Labor Day 2020. The Labor movement is largely dead in the | |
US but everyone still likes to cap off the Summer with the Labor | |
Day weekend. Any Wobblies are most likely due to over-imbibing. | |
Just finished James Kunstler's 'Living in the Long Emergency', a | |
followup of sorts to a previous book of his with a similar title. | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-07-18.txt | |
Business As Usual (BAU) Porn - or Why We Need a New Porn Story | |
The heading is a play on Chris Smaje's recent essay posted on his blog | |
Small Farm Futures [0] which creatively weaves together some of the | |
vibes wafting about in the COVID-tainted summer breeze. Smaje is | |
a 50-something hobby(?) farmer in the UK with what sounds like a | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-06-11.txt | |
Book review: The Collapse of 2020 - Kirkpatrick Sale - (c) 2020 [0] | |
Gonna blame the drop-off in postings on "summertime lull" which is | |
at least partially true as I've been busy with the usual house | |
maintenance tasks and trying to find places to hike that aren't | |
teaming with stressed out Denver urbanites; regional parks are | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-04-24.txt | |
Review: Planet of the Humans (film), dir. Jeff Gibbs - (c) 2019 [0] | |
Seems I haven't posted in a while. Was taking a break from the Doom, | |
reading things like Chris Ryan's "Civilized to Death"[1], rather upbeat | |
despite the title. Then COVID-19 happened and the world collectively | |
lost its shit. The response coupled with the Russian-Saudi oil price | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-02-13.txt | |
Review: The words and works of historian/novelist Ronald Wright | |
Ronald Wright [0] is a particularly gifted writer and historian who | |
happens to have a background in archaeology, something he has amply | |
put to use. Perhaps best known for his 2004 Massey lecture "A Short | |
History of Progress" [1] (was delivered as 5 separate lectures at various | |
.. | |
phlog-2020-01-31.txt | |
Just finished reading Ronald Wright's 1997 novel 'A Scientific Romance' | |
which I picked up after listening to his 2004 Massey lecture 'A Short | |
History of Progress'. Will post something about Wright sometime soon. | |
Got a somewhat belated reply from the National Renewable Energy Lab | |
tour guide today. I'd pretty much written off hearing anything from | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-12-30.txt | |
film review: Living in the Future's Past / Vision Films - 2018 | |
directed by Susan Kucera | |
https://www.livinginthefuturespastfilm.com | |
I've forgotten how I came upon reference to this film. Also I'm | |
pretty sure I've come across it previously on Kanopy [0] and, seeing | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-12-01.txt | |
Of Gopherspace and Spacemen | |
Since starting this phlog a bit over a year ago I've been wondering just | |
how much attention it might be garnering. Gopherspace has certainly grown | |
in recent years, itself a minor miracle, but it's still kind of nerdy | |
niche. Since this phlog is hosted on servers run by others I generally | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-11-23.txt | |
Tour of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO | |
We currently live near Golden Colorado, home to the National | |
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) [0]. They have some other | |
facilities, the National Wind Technology Center near Boulder Colorado | |
for example, but their main campus is in Golden on the south slope | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-10-20.txt | |
Book review: Humans: A Brief History Of How We F*cked It All Up | |
by Tom Phillips, (c) 2018 | |
This was an amusing read I came across at the local library's New | |
Releases section (new in the US; 2018 in the UK). Phillips [0] is | |
a journalist and the editor of Full Fact [1] , an independent | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-10-15.txt | |
Book review: Can Science Fix Climate Change? | |
by Mike Hulme, (c) 2014; Polity Press | |
This was a rather thin volume come across at a local thrift shop | |
that I frequent, largely for its book section. I'd not heard of | |
Mike Hulme [0] before; he is currently a professor of Geography at | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-09-18.txt | |
I've had the Grist.org RSS feed in my news reader for some years. | |
Grist does a pretty good job of presenting a range of perspectives | |
on the unfolding ecological globe-spanning crisis, though they | |
largely focused on climate change. Occasionally I try to provide | |
feedback in the Comments section. Like so many sites these days, | |
Grist has opted to farm out managing the ocean of reader comments | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-09-15.txt | |
Seems I've not posted in a while. Partly it's that I've been doing more | |
stuff outside in the Summer. But there's another reason; it seems the | |
taboo of discussing the dire yet increasingly more probable outcomes of | |
humanity's failure to address our planetary overshoot has been lifted. | |
More and more articles are appearing in major media outlets exploring | |
the myriad of ways things could go sideways. They still for the most | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-08-12.txt | |
Review of: Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? | |
by Alan Weisman -- (c) 2013 | |
Actually heard about this book on the Collapse Chronicles [0] Youtube | |
channel. At 513 pages it was a bit of a brick and took several library | |
renewals to get through. But what a great, well-researched book Alan | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-07-03.txt | |
Finished up reading my latest review book a week ago but a recent round | |
with the dentist has left me with a distracting amount of pain such that | |
I've barely wanted to do anything that requires even moderate attention. | |
Conversations on Collapse [0] is a selection of transcripts from | |
the C-realm [1] podcast, the brain child of one KMO, real name Keven | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-06-23.txt | |
It's Summer so I'm reading less and spending more time out of doors | |
hiking, biking, and trying to grow okra. Probably I've picked the wrong | |
year for okra here in Colorado where it snowed on the first day of Summer | |
at various locales above 7,000 feet. The okra will be in containers so I | |
may get lucky if I find ways to keep it warm and in the sun. Given the | |
that parts of India and Pakistan have recently experienced sustained | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-06-02.txt | |
Review of Losing Earth: A Recent History | |
by Nathaniel Rich (c) 2019 | |
This was another book I happened across at the public library. I | |
think I was drawn to it in part by how it looks, which is very much | |
like a 1970s book, complete with two-color cover design and vertically | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-05-26.txt | |
It's looking likely I'll be abandoning the notion of hosting this phlog | |
at devio.us ; shell access has been unavailable - again - for more than | |
a week and the system administrators are apparently too busy with other | |
things to keep things running properly. I've created yet another mirror | |
on tilde.institute, a free Unix shell server which hopefully will prove | |
more reliable: | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-05-08.txt | |
The Moneyless Man - the works and writing of Mark Boyle | |
Wanting something a bit more forward-looking I recently stumbled across | |
the work of an Irish fellow named Mark Boyle [0]. Boyle is essentially | |
a modern day Thoreau but unlike his predecessor his time in the woods | |
is ongoing and has taken several turns, starting with a year without | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-04-18.txt | |
Something that's not all gloom and doom: Low-Tech Magazine [0] is | |
publishing selections of their back catalog of articles in two volumes | |
via Lulu.com, a print-on-demand service that caters to self-publishers. | |
Volume I is currently available and arrived in the mailbox a few days ago, | |
approximately 10 days after placing the order. It's a hefty paperback, | |
clocking in at 710 pages. Article one outlines how they went %100 solar | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-03-27.txt | |
Right after the previous post devio.us suffered a hardware failure -- | |
NIC went bad -- and was off-line until yesterday. To thwart future | |
unscheduled downtime I've created a mirror on SDF.org: | |
gopher://sdf.org/users/mmeta4 - m(irror)meta4 | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-03-16.txt | |
Book review: The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming | |
by David Wallace-Wells, (c) 2019. | |
Finally finished this very engaging not-too-long book (300 pages, | |
including notes and index). As previously mentioned, the book is an | |
expansion on the author's 2017 New York Magazine article [1] by the | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-03-08.txt | |
Just some randomness while I finish reading 'The Uninhabitable Earth', | |
David Wallace-Wells recent book, an expansion on his 2017 New York | |
Magazine article [1]. Quite an engaging read so far. Alex Smith of | |
EcoShock radio interviewed Wallace-Wells [2] recently. | |
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uninhabitable_Earth | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-02-22.txt | |
Book review: A Bright Future by J. Goldstein and S. Qvist, (c) 2019 | |
Came across this book at our public library and, despite the overly | |
optimist title, figured I'd give it a chance and checked it out. | |
A Bright Future [0] is basically a nuclear industry sales pitch | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-02-21.txt | |
I recently watched a 2018 presentation by Nate Hagens [0] at the | |
King Abdulla University of Science and Technology titled "Energy, | |
Money and Technology - From the Lens of the Superorganism" [1]. It | |
contained quite a lot of information and, though a bit rushed at | |
times, was quite good, well worth the hour and 20 minutes (includes | |
a Q&A at the end). | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-02-12.txt | |
Review of Retrotopia by John Michael Greer | |
(c) 2016 ; Founders House Publishing, LLC | |
After reading James Kunstler's very enjoyable 'World Made by Hand' | |
quadrilogy I was curious how other might spin a post-collapse American | |
tale of life after fossil fuels and climate change. | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-01-31.txt | |
A review of two non-fiction books by James Howard Kunstler: | |
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other | |
Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century | |
(c) 2005 Grove Press, New York | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-01-26.txt | |
I'm still working on a review of two of James Kunstler's non-fiction | |
books, The Long Emergency and Too Much Magic. I read them back to | |
back as the latter was written as a follow up to the former. | |
Speaking of Kunstler, I discovered he does a regular podcast, | |
generally hour long interviews with various people in various fields | |
.. | |
phlog-2019-01-03.txt | |
A review of James Kunstler's 'World Made by Hand' [1] novels | |
I don't read a whole lot of fiction anymore but I was curious about | |
Kunstler's 'World Made by Hand' novels after listening to some of | |
his podcasts [2] and managed to borrow all four from the public | |
library which I read straight through. | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-12-28.txt | |
DoomCity: will you save the world - or end it? | |
I was chatting with some folks online recently when the topic turned to | |
"gaming", aka video games. While I dabbled some with video games back in | |
the days of Zork and SimCity I never really took to gaming, could never | |
seem to muster the commitment necessary to learn all the rules and master | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-12-22.txt | |
Why Climate Mobilization as Currently Envisioned will Fail. | |
"If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a | |
capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the | |
process or business won't work." | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-12-09.txt | |
Recently came across a post by Albert Bates on his The Great Change[1] | |
blog referencing a 2018 Climate Emergency Plan[2] put out by the Club | |
of Rome. This paper is a good example of the drastic measures that need | |
to be taken and why humanity is more of less fucked. One only needs | |
to briefly scan the 10 point plan at the beginning of the paper to see | |
the degree of deviation from our current reality and consider just how | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-12-01.txt | |
Seems there is a growing list of "greens" coming out in favor of nuclear | |
energy these days. People are looking at Germany's experience with trying | |
to replace fossil fuels and nuclear in favor of wind and photovoltaics, | |
which has been rather costly, hasn't actually reduced their CO2 emissions | |
all that much, and has bumped up electric utility bills, now the highest | |
in the EU [0]. Over in France something like 70% [1] of the electricity | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-11-14.txt | |
Another book review. Recently finished reading Morris Berman's | |
2006 book 'Dark Ages America: Final Phase Empire'[1] which, although | |
it stands well enough alone, apparently was written as part of a | |
trilogy. Berman[2] is an American historian and social critic, | |
currently residing in Mexico. Unlike most of the stuff I've been | |
reading pertaining to civilizational decline Berman's book does not | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-11-11.txt | |
No book review this time.. It's snowing hard so a good day for | |
indoor endeavors. I've added a Resources section to the site, | |
mostly WWW links to various bloggers, news sites and radio/video | |
channels that I find informative. All are HTTP resources as there | |
seems scant offerings (that I'm aware of) on Gopher of similar | |
materials. Links to Gopher materials on the subjects of climate | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-10-31.txt | |
Recently finished 'America's Most Sustainable Cities and Regions: | |
Surviving the 21st Century Megatrends'[1] by John W. Day and Charles | |
Hall. Day is with the Department of Oceanography and Coastal | |
Sciences at Louisiana State University; Hall is a Systems Ecologist | |
with the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State | |
University of New York, and is best known for his development of | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-10-26.txt | |
Recently got through 'When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the | |
Future of Transportation'[1] by Alice Friedemann. Friedemann was | |
a systems analyst for a large global shipping corporation and has | |
a thorough understanding of the inner working of the freight industry | |
and it's critical support for today's Just-in-Time economy. She | |
also regularly writes about peak oil and related topics on her blog | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-10-21.txt | |
Recently finished reading 'Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral | |
Wealth Is Plundering the Planet'[1] by Ugo Bardi. Bardi is an | |
Italian chemistry professor and one of the original 'Limits of | |
Growth'[2] researchers. He also blogs regularly about many of the | |
issues revolving around humanity's current predicament at Cassandra | |
Legacy[3]. | |
.. | |
phlog-2018-10-15.txt | |
Well - here we are, again. | |
Thought I was pretty much done with Gopher and phlogging after my home | |
server gave up the ghost some time back and I just let it be. I had been | |
reading about these waning days of the Age of Oil and finding it hard to | |
justify the vanity of a home server running 24/7/365 just so a handful | |
.. | |