Derek Caelin @Argus@mastodon.technology

#introductions

Hi all, my name is Derek. 👋

I'm a social impact technologist, historically focused on peacebuilding and democracy promotion. About a year ago I switched gears and joined a nonprofit building open source tools for landscape partnerships. I'm working on a project called #Terraso (terraso.org) and looking at using technology to handle a bunch of environmental services. I've been kind of throwing myself into climate-oriented stuff (installed #solar panels, switched from oil to heatpumps, trying to convince my partner to replace a big part of our yard with meadows.)

I love #scifi, #woodcrafting, #chess, and... let's just say I'm working on figuring out #gardening. 😄

My primary account is @Argus and can also be found on @DerekCaelin.

Anyway, I'm trying to find a community of people to learn from and share with as we develop a #solarpunk revolution. Looking forward to connecting with you all!

Interesting #EU economy comparison against USA from Polish Puls Biznesu: “Europejski model kapitalizmu triumfuje”. Paywalled, so a brief summary here:

EU caught up with USA in terms of job activity in 2020, and overcame US in 2021; the indicator saw a steady decline in the US since 2000, while EU saw a steady increase
Authors conclude that “Europe offers citizens plenty of job opportunities and at the same time social safety network and healthcare”
Market freedom and competition on the EU market is kept at a stable level, while in the US it’s in decline due to well dug-in monopolies that control whole sectors of monopoly
The authors quote a book by Thomas Philippon “The Great Reversal. How America Gave Up on Free Markets” that goes into detail on the latter
European society perceives itself as having less social mobility, while in reality it has much more social mobility than the US (Alberto Alesina i Stefanie Stancheva, “Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution”). The data shows you are actually more likely to move into a higher income group in EU is higher than in the US, regardless of the “American dream” stereotype.

#Library #tinylibrary

@mburtonkelly @Argus hi from a passive solar house. Just back from a 4 day trip and it was 60-65F when I walked in.

There was a snow storm the other day and still snow on part of the roof.

@mburtonkelly
> there are allegedly some models that will work in the coldest temperatures

Grand Forks North Dakota can get pretty cold. https://weatherspark.com/y/8355/Average-Weather-in-Grand-Forks-North-Dakota-United-States-Year-Round says "rarely below -21F" which is pretty cold.

@Argus

@Argus there are allegedly some models that will work in the coldest temperatures (I've been looking a bit).

However, I'd follow up on the #passiveHouse concept suggested by others. Friends of ours (in #GrandForks, #NorthDakota) build a new house that's entirely electric, with rooftop solar, and the construction is super tight. They use electric in-floor heat and a small fireplace.

This is the house: https://www.sips.org/leed-platinum-sip-house-grand-forks-nd

I hate my web developer job. No time for unit testing, no time for documentation, no time for creativity or nice algorithms.
Just use whatever trendy JS {front,back}end framework, ship high bandwidth, heavy, soulless sites in no time.
The mere consciousness of it from my colleagues are jokes between two crypto bs talks. The climate catastrophes ahead are literally a joke to them.
I hate that I contribute to this and I want out.

Does anyone here have experience going from this kind of job to a more engineering-focused, ethical one? Tips? Interesting reads? I'd love to hear about it!

Boosts are appreciated!

Hey everyone! o/

A few months ago, we had a security audit of Funkwhale performed as part of our funding agreement. Due to the recent changes to our structure we've not had time to talk about it, so let's do that now!

https://blog.funkwhale.audio/security-quick-scan.html

I want a Web where CDNs are unnecessary.

Where different organizations, different website operators, can help each other out by hosting assets for each others' websites, thus spreading the load across many orgs in solidarity, instead of centralizing it in gatekeepers.

I've had this idea for years. The problem always was: how do I trust third party operators with my website's assets?

I believe I might slowly be getting to a point of having a decent answer to that question.

No blockchain required.

"Sudo incidents"

submitted by _Dark_Forest

"There are now more than 2,000 billionaires living in 20 countries from the United States, China and Russia to Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia. An annual wealth tax levied at just 1.5 percent of their net worth would raise $74 billion each year: that alone would be enough to fill the funding gap to get every child into school and deliver essential health services in all low-income countries."

-- "Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist"

@dredmorbius @Argus

Check out https://oneplanetthriving.com/2012/11/newenhouse-kit-home/

We took a tour. Very comfy in Wisconsin winters, electric heat, not much electricity consumption.

Sonya has designs and is developing kits.