Cofounder of Greenpeace and writer of the Deep Green column Rex Weyler helps us transcend the idea that we can fix the environment – or anything else – so we can finally learn to participate as members of a living world.
An excellent discussion between Rex Weyler and Douglass Rushkoff on the current episode of the Team Human Podcast.
From the Guardian podcast: The Cop15 conference brings together representatives from all over the world with an urgent mission: preventing the breakdown of Earth’s natural habitats and mass extinction.
The age of extinction: can we prevent an ecological collapse? | The Guardian
Tim Chaten invited me to join him on his podcast iPad Pros to talk about the new Affinity 2.0 creative suite. Affinity previously set a high bar for design apps on the iPad and Publisher raises it even higher. It was a fun conversation and my thanks to Tim for inviting me on!
The Lawfare Podcast has an excellent episode in which three well informed people have a coherent discussion contrasting centralized social media (Twitter) to the decentralized model that is Mastodon, Fediverse and ActivityPub.
On the other hand, The Context Machine offers Holy Crap Twittergeddon, yet another embarrassing example of a couple of tech guys who have obviously not taken the time to learn how Mastodon and the Fediverse actually work. Instead complain and offer numerous bits of misinformation.
Confused by @username@instancename? Confused by the idea that there are different instances? And yet, they’ve been using email for years? It’s really NOT that difficult to understand.
They come off as entitled old guys shaking their fists at the sky because they don’t want to learn something new. You’re embarrassing yourselves and doing your listeners a disservice.
Talia Stroud from the University of Texas joins us to talk about her project Civic Signals, a project reimagining the Internet as a public space.
Talia Stroud, Civic Signals - Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure
The most recent episode of the Climavores podcast centers on soy beans. Very informative.
Heartbreaking. I don’t know how to process the scope of this kind of suffering. Climate emergency future.
An interesting episode featuring a discussion on what a “truly public Internet would look like, from the fiber optic cables to the social media platforms.”
Ben Tarnoff Wants an Internet for the People - Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure
Nate Hagens' podcast, The Great Simplification is always a deep, but very understandable and enjoyable dive into current, near and long term implications of how we’re living on the planet.
An excellent episode of one of my favorite podcasts, The Great Simplification: Kris De Decker: “Low Tech: What, Why and How”
How does low tech differ from high tech and what does it feel like to live a low tech lifestyle? Why do we assume high tech will always be the solution, and could low tech be a feasible path for a sustainable and fulfilling future?
An excellent and frightening episode of The Climavores Podcast: Today’s food crisis is a postcard from our warming future
I’m looking forward to exploring their other podcasts: Podcasts for a changing planet
A Sense of time
As is often the case I have a tendency to become less regular in my posting here. As I was writing up a description of a recent episode of the Discovery Podcast to share on a slack channel it occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of thing I should post here.
So, this was a fun podcast to listen to… about the perception of the passing of time in different animals. Basically, the perception of time is different based on sensory input, audio and visual, which varies. Flies, bats, and birds are discussed as examples of animals that have a higher frame rate of perception. In a sense, time seems slower for them or at least can be. For bats who can control their frame rate through clicks in the audio-echo based system, time can be slowed down as needed. So, when flying through an open space with little action they can conserve energy with fewer clicks but when hunting an insect they can speed it up from 1 click a second to 200 a second and slow their sense of time for accurate hunting. Kind of like increasing the resolution of what they hear/see as they need to.
TED Talk - Worker Co-ops
"Another economic reality is possible -- one that values community, sustainability and resiliency instead of profit by any means necessary. Niki Okuk shares her case for cooperative economics and a vision for how working-class people can organize and own the businesses they work for, making decisions for themselves and enjoying the fruits of their labor."
A good bit of my life has been dedicated to the creation of co-ops. Mostly volunteer co-ops but still, co-ops. I fully believe that this is a better way to do things.
Podcasts
I listen to a lot of podcasts and thought I might start mentioning my favorites here.
I’ll begin with two recently listened to. The TED Radio Hour is a favorite and one of the latest episodes is a perfect example of why I enjoy it so much. Hardwired. I’ve given it a listen but will need to give it a second. I always know a podcast is great when many of the episodes require at least a second listen.
Another favorite, Science Friday, has, as usual, aired another excellent episode. In particular I enjoyed the segments on Voyager which included a wonderful interview with planetary scientist Carolyn Porco as well as the segment on indoor microbiomes. Fascinating stuff. Check it out.
Episode 5 of our podcast Rhubarb and Sam
This week in Rhubarb and Sam, discussing community, connecting and not connecting. In particular, feeling connected to our new friends in England even as we feel disconnected locally. Being atheists in a conservative Christian community can often be a strange experience with few community connections. We work to cultivate and nurture the few that we have.
Please note that you can subscribe to the podcast in several ways:
At the iTunes store via this link.
If you are using an RSS reader or podcast app use this link.
Thanks and enjoy!
Rhubarb and Sam, Episode 4
This week in Rhubarb and Sam, astronomy! We set-up at the Tucker Creek observatory for some time at the telescope only to have a clear night turn into a not-so-clear night due to high humidity. The stars were still pretty bright in our dark skies so we settled in on the moon couch (our disc shaped outdoor couch) to record an episode. From Cygnus to Sagittarius, Saturn to Mars, take a tour of our night sky with us. There's nothing quite like pondering our place in our galaxy and our galaxy's place in the Universe. Have a listen!
Links of interest:
Our Milky Way Galaxy
Our Solar System
Globular Clusters
Please note that you can subscribe to the podcast in several ways:
At the iTunes store via this link.
If you are using an RSS reader or podcast app use this link.
Thanks and enjoy!
Rhubarb and Sam, Episode 3
Please note that you can subscribe to the podcast in several ways:
At the iTunes store via this link.
If you are using an RSS reader or podcast app use this link.
Thanks and enjoy!
Rhubarb and Sam, Episode 2
Please note that you can subscribe to the podcast in several ways: At the iTunes store via this link.
If you are using an RSS reader or podcast app use this link.
Our Podcast
It’s been a good long while since I had a podcast. I think I was one of the first back in 2004 and I kept it up for awhile but soon dropped the ball. This time around, I have a partner. We’ll keep them relatively light (usually) and fun, probably a bit absurd. Not saying we won’t occasionally delve into something serious or deep but, for the most part, that is not the intent. You can subscribe to Rhubarb and Sam via rss or via iTunes.
The Grid Remix Podcast
First podcast in a good while and the first of the year. To be truthful I created this almost a year ago as my first experiment with GarageBand. The music mix is mine, spoken word is Tim “Speed” Levitch via the excellent documentary The Cruise, 1998. This clip was one of my favorite moments in the movie in which Levitch discusses the straight lines of city planning. Fantastic stuff. It’s not a proper podcast in that I did not include my usual intro but that’s okay. I’m hoping to get back into a regular podcast after 7 weeks away. I can’t quite explain my podcast vacation so I won’t try. Hope you enjoy.
More via the Podcast which is also available as a direct mp3 download runtime: 3'12, 2.9 MB.