GoodGNUs

As I prepare for the third Ignite Liverpool event, I found my first talk online, on urban food - from foraging to guerilla gardening. As a pecha kucha style talk it’s a bit of a gallop, but manages to cover a few points.

(It also doesn’t jump after a minute like the Manchester recording did.)

• The Challenges Ahead and Ways to Overcome them « The Big Society
  “…a number of challenges which Big Society policy-makers and practitioners are going to have to overcome in order to encourage genuine people power that has a real impact on society”
  (tags: bigsociety community socialenterprise politics peoplepower change)
  
• David Barrie: Who are the recruiting sergeants of The Big Society?
  “There are plenty of examples of initiatives both here and in the United States that exemplify social and economic change based upon promoting the principal of shared information and self-organization.
  “Here are a few, devoted to democratizing public planning, focus upon place-making and all picture problem-solving alliances of people:”
  (tags: bigsociety socialenterprise digitaldivide digitalinclusion community)
• Moneyless man: To gather possessions, don’t we need cash? Not so | Environment | guardian.co.uk
  “Money does not create things. We create money, and almost all of it as debt. It is simply a means of exchange, a way of apportioning reward to people for their labours, nothing more”
  (tags: money freeconomy diy sharing consumerism community)
• havemehavana — Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on…
  Thought…
  (tags: thought russell philosophy politics revolution)

• The Modernization of Emacs (the most important changes i think emacs should adopt)
  Heresy? No, a collection of good ideas that would improve Emacs.
  (tags: emacs elisp coding programming ergonomics gnu)

Growing rare veg - some resources

• Agroforestry Research Trust
  Seeds, plants, research, publications, courses
  (tags: seedcatalogue gardening horticulture plants permaculture veg fruit)
• Victoriana Nursery Gardens - Quality Seeds & Plants
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg gardening horticulture permaculture)
• Flowering plant seed price-lists
  (tags: seedcatalogue horticulture permaculture gardening veg)
• J. L. Hudson, Seedsman
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg gardening biodiversity permaculture horticulture)
• Dreschflegel-Bio-Saatgut - Direktversand - Biologisches Saatgut
  (tags: seedcatalogue gardening veg)
• The Green Living Forum • View forum - Permaculture
  (tags: permaculture resource forum)
• deNieuweTuin
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg)
• Graines Baumaux : graines de semences florales et potagères
  (tags: seedcatalogue veg)
• Vegetable Seeds : Pea seeds
  Very tempted by “Champion of England ” Tall Pea, and much else from their excellent range :)
  (tags: seed seedcatalogue horticulture permaculture gardening veg)
  
• Amaranth:_Modern_Prospects_for an Ancient Crop (BOSTID, 1984, 74 p.)
  & this was the inspiration for my 1994 dissertation
  (tags: amaranth amaranthus grain permaculture horticulture agriculture)
• Permanent Publications Publications 1
  Been thinking a lot about low-impact buildings since my last visit to the CAT bookshop. Still saving for a plot of land :)
  (tags: land building selfbuild lowimpact ecobuild eco permaculture)
• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains
  I once wrote a short dissertation on one of the lost crops of the Incas (Amaranth). Looking for time to get back over the Atlantic & read about some of our hemisphere’s old grains
  (tags: permaculture grains ethnobotany food crops eco horticulture agriculture gardening)

LinuxUser & Developer, issue 86, just came through the letterbox. I flicked through and a reader’s letter caught my eye - not because it called my Arduino article “wonderful” <blush>, but for its links to CopyLeft hardware resources.

Small Form Factor, Free Software, Open Hardware - 3 out of 3 for the NanoNote.

QI-hardware, producers of the Ben NanoNote, and the MilkyMist One boards are all projects deserving much wider publicity within (and beyond) the Free Software and hardware hacking communities. I’m certainly very tempted by the NanoNote.

Thanks to Wolfgang Spraul of QI Hardware for writing in to LU&D with the links.

Picture Credit: http://sharism.cc/ - licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

• Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says
  93 clearly-stated answers to some of the desperate arguments brought up by those who’d rather not face up to the challenge of man-made climate change.
  (tags: climatechange environment globalwarming reference CO2 carbon)

• BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Costing the Earth, The New Diggers
  Dig for victory - faced with a collapsing economy & ecology, what better response than growing, preserving and sharing abundance?
  (tags: localfood GuerillaGardening FIxTheFoodChain BBC food sustainability permaculture selfreliance organic commons diy csa transition)

Last week, I found myself writing (to a very tight deadline) an article on the Arduino board - and how it has led to a new sort of participation in Open Source, bringing more people from a range of backgrounds to playful & creative fun with technology.

The article will appear next month in Linux User magazine #84 [to be published 18 Feb 2010]. In the meanwhile here are links to some of the really cool projects that I found in the course of knocking out the article.

Where to buy one

http://www.oomlout.co.uk/

http://www.earthshinedesign.co.uk/

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Buy

http://www.sparkfun.com/

http://www.tinker.it/en/Projects/TinkerKit

robot kits that were integrated with arduinos at Howduino:
http://kre8.com/

Or make Your own

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware
http://arduinofun.com/files/byoa.pdf
http://www.ladyada.net/make/boarduino/

Basic info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino [a technical article]

http://arduino.cc/

Of course, you can Google for Arduino, Freeduino, Howduino, & Hackspaces. :-)

Learning

HOWDUINO: http://www.howduino.com/

http://tinker.it/en/Teaching/

http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/

The complete beginner’s guide to the Arduino

Projects

A. Wearable

LilyPad - Arduino in wearable form

The LilyPad: http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/

Leah’s Lilypad Lecture: http://www.smm.org/ltc/node/175

The bike vest: http://www.mykle.com/msl/?p=10 & http://speedvest.com/

V&A Smart Clothing Course

B. Music

Cake Orchestra & mark II & see the video

Theremin as a Capacitive Sensing Device

Theremin controlling xylophone - AKA ThereXylomin

C. Power Monitoring

Power monitoring

http://www.pachube.com/

http://homecamp.pbworks.com/

D. Around the home

Multi-channel-ambient-orb

The amazing Weasley Clock

Arduino, Stepper Motors, Weasley magic

James Devine’s Arduino Laser Projector

E. Practical

Camera remote:
http://www.fizzpop.org.uk/blog/nikon-dslr-ir-remote-project/
http://benosteen.tumblr.com/post/253208029/ir-control-for-a-nikon-d60-updated
http://www.bigmike.it/ircontrol/index.html
Vivarium temperature monitor

F. Fun

The Flock Clock & others….
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/arduino/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Flock-Clock/

hallowe’en is a popular excuse for Arduino family projects in the USA.

But here, and for Ben Tappin, it was an 80s party

http://www.thingiverse.com/oomlout

Misc

All sorts of links:
http://howduino.pbworks.com/PossibleProjects3

http://howduino.pbworks.com/Project-DisplaySharing

http://www.instructables.com/tag/?q=arduino

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=DIYbio

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=growduino

And big thanks to

Asa Calow, Cyberspice, James Devine, Hwa Young Jung, Lady Ada, John McKerrell, Nick O’Leary, Pindec, Ben Tappin, Aisha Yusuf, everyone on the various UK hackspace mailing lists who helped, & special thanks to Adrian McEwen.

EDIT - CopyLeft Hardware

Some great links from Wolfgang to CopyLeft hardware appeared in response on the LU&D site’s article. See also http://www.goodgnus.org/2010/04/open-hardware-copyleft/

• A few voluntary organisations using Drupal web software | VoluntaryNews
  I’m developing a few sites in Drupal myself, and it’s good to see that I’m not alone in this :-)
  (tags: webdesign cms drupal vcs)

• Digital inclusion, disabled audiences and web accessibility through personalisation
  “Government Digital Inclusion Champion Martha Lane Fox was the Big Thinker at COI last week. She announced the launch of her campaign to Race Online for 2012, which aims to get more people online particularly from socially excluded groups.”
  (tags: inclusion digitaldivide community excluded cohesion accessibility bbc web government disability disadvantage)
• Words & Eggs
  (tags: vintage retro typography illustration graphics blog resources art design)
• grain edit · modern graphic design inspiration blog + vintage graphics …
  “Grain edit is focused on classic design work from the 1950s-1970s and contemporary designers that draw inspiration from that time period.
  “Site content includes interviews, articles, designers’ libraries as well as examples of rare design annuals, type specimens, Ephemera, posters and vintage kids books from our bookshelves.”
  (tags: design art graphics blog advertising typography vintage posters graphicdesign retro illustration)
• SoyPrint Toner Cartridges
  “For every SoyPrint toner used, you save 2-3 litres of petroleum, and you keep 6 pounds of heavy plastic and a pound of metal out of landfills. This environmentally friendly SoyPrint black laser toner cartridge replaces HP item number 92274A and is compatible with HP 4L, 4P, and 4MP machines.”
  (tags: ecofriendly biodegradable printer peakoil officesupplies soya)
• Natural Economy - Resources - Reports
  “A suite of reports on Green Infrastructure looking at a number of issues; Green Infrastructure development based on the need expressed within the Region, the opportunities for GI to deliver sub-regional economic plans, an assessment of the CITYgreen computer model for estimating economic benefit, an outline strategy for linking green and grey infrastructure, and a collection of pioneering work on the economic benefits of Green Infrastructure”
  (tags: green eco reports economy northwest environment habitat naturaltourism)
• The 7 Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing | Copyblogger
  “Harsh Reality #2: You’ve got to give (some of) your best stuff away”
  (tags: socialmedia marketing tips blogging strategy advertising advice)
• 7 Mantras For Maverick Entrepreneurs | Sterling Performance | BNET
  “Throw out your business plan.” Like it :-)
  (tags: business advice entrepreneur socialenterprise marketing mentoring)
• BE LEGAL: Six things a hyperlocal blogger really should know about the …
  “…the potential for danger in the ice field of libel law is terrifying”
  (tags: hyperlocal blogging journalism law legal libel media socialmedia defamation advice)
• Geek Hub
  The Hub for UK Tech Events & Groups
  Born from ‘Wheres The Geek’, we decided on a brand change partly because we’ve shifted focus a little and partly because people kept moaning about the grammar!
  (tags: tech events geek geekup hub portal)
• Bespoke: Tailor-made local news
  “THE Bespoke project is an innovative collaboration between a number of different academic and commercial bodies around the UK, including the universities of Central Lancashire, Surrey, Newcastle, Falmouth and Dundee, the Lancashire Evening Post and Nokia Research.
  “Highly skilled Bespoke project members work across a number of different disciplines, and include anthropologists, product designers, engineers and mobile applications developers – as well as experienced multi-media journalists.

  “We are currently arranging a series of digital storytelling workshops with members, users and clients of groups and organisations as diverse as the Ablaze Youth Group, Callon Kids Community Club, Contour Housing, Fishwick Rangers Youth Development Scheme, Preston FM and Preston College’s Elev8 initiative, as well as individual members of the public”

  (tags: digitalstorytelling community hyperlocal collaboration journalism radio media film)
• #ECOSYS
  “demonstrate that virtual collaboration can drive social innovation, adapting our collaboration process for improved results as experience is gained”
  (tags: socialmedia collaborative socialaction innovation socialenterprise)
• Winston Churchill’s Short Guide to Life: 6 Essential Fundamentals
  “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” “I never worry about action, but only about inaction”
  (tags: inspiration advice churchill life positivity positivethinking lifehacks)
• Same ol’ g? Think again: A visual study of the lowercase g
  lowercase “g”
  (tags: fonts typeface typography design art)
• Recycling Lives; the recycling charity (Reg. No. 1116562)
  “In a purpose built facility Recycling Lives provides a multi-agency approach to addressing the causes of worklessness and homelessness through the provision of employment opportunities and skills-training, opportunities for new business incubation, and a strategy for reducing landfill waste”
  (tags: recycling socialenterprise homelessness community regeneration training NEET unemployment)
• A climate deal is like trying to halt the rains in Cumbria | Paul …
  There is some hope, but not much. The depressing reality of “An economy predicated on constant growth cannot be the engine of a change that urgently demands less of it”
  (tags: climatechange consumption capitalism peakoil sustainability future)
• Monbiot.com - The Population Myth
  Population Control / Reduction = “Way too many of you, just enough of me”. The world can support a huge population, just not on a European/US consumption pattern
  (tags: environment climatechange sustainability development poverty monbiot consumption hypocrisy noborders malthus overpopulation)