Andrew (SolarPunk) @solarbug@sunbeam.city
I live in a tiny house up in the mountains. We're trying to be fully self sustaining re:food and power. Slow journey//work in progress.
(alt of ajroach42)
Do any of you #solarpunks make your own soda?
I know that sounds silly, but it has always stuck me as the sign of a hopeful dystopia when I read about people creating their own takes on the creature comforts of previous generations.
Yo!
How is everyone?
What are you doing to build a better future?
So plastics, yeah?
I know we've had a small amount of luck with potato based plastics.
What else?
how much money do you spend on cloud software/storage subscriptions for services that could be #selfhosted instead? stuff like g suite, netflix, dropbox, office365, aws, etc.
probably costs more than you thought, right? it sucks, I know.
how much would it cost per month to power a computer capable of selfhosting all of those free replacements?
if the cost of the electricity to run that computer for a month is less than the amount you'd save in cancelled subscriptions, you should #selfhost.
For decades Microsoft was known for its centralizing culture: everything was in-house.
Then they started to use Github heavily.
And now Github is "in-house".
I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something incredibly satisfying about a toggle switch. Especially if it’s mounted on a metal plate
Boingboing is talking about Rite in the Rain notebooks again.
They do this every few months.
They seem neat! Waterproof paper that takes a pencil well seems like a really useful thing.
Do you know much about the product? Is it sustainable? If not, is there a more sustainable alternative?
We'll be in our woodland house again, and for good before the end of the weekend.
If everything goes well, we'll be there sometime last Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
Once we've arrived, we'll start moving towards that #solarpunk ideal.
What are your favorite #solarpunk tips?
How do you live the solarpunk life?
What are your favorite #solarpunk media?
@solarpunk @solarbug In the US, at least, it seems like the biggest incentive problem with mining is not directly the profit motive but that mining rights are set up in such a way that the only way to extract any value from them is to actually mine, the same as for grandfathered water rights in California. Often the mining companies don't even own the land itself but just the right to mine on the land, which means any other use for the land *can't* have any value to them.
@solarbug
20+ year lifetime, longer if you can tolerate reduced output, and lithium is not a heavy metal. It's also one of the most common elements on the planet. Maybe there are heavy metals in there too? Production of at least the solar cells requires some toxic stuff, like with all semiconductors, but with adequate controls it doesn't end up in the environment. Smartphones are far worse since they get thrown out every year or two.
I've been away from this account for ~24 hours. In that time, I got a few dozen notifications.
I'll read through and respond to them eventually.
Thanks for the discussion everyone.
One thing that concerns me, that I don't think gets talked about all that often, is the ecological impact of creating solar cells, and their long term sustainability.
These things are hard to make, and have a somewhat short shelf life, right?
And they require batteries in order to function correctly, which means mining heavy metals, yeah?
I guess, more than anything, what I'm upset about is the cycle of planned obsolescence.
We use materials that, with care, can last 100 or more years to build devices that we are expected to use for less than 10.
What can we do about it? How can we responsibly re-purpose old TVs? Will the end result be more ecologically responsible than producing new flatscreens?
One of the things I want to do, one of the things that feels important to me, is to recycle, repair, and re-use old electronics.
I don't just mean computers and computer adjacent appliances (although I probably talk about this aspect of things a lot.
But we make a lot of eWaste. TVs specifically are very difficult to recycle and were designed to last (in most cases) far longer than the industry will allow them to.
All those old CRTs, gathering dusts in warehouses that can't recycle them.
Goodmorning Sunbeam City!
or afternoon, I guess it's afternoon.
Goodafternoon sunbeam city!
The #solarpunk lifestyle means walking a fine line.
For example: Digital books are probably more ecologically responsible, right?
But paper can be really useful and powerful, and it will almost certainly out live ebooks.
