WinSol +

Do you really want to go off grid? what does that mean? putting your phone in airplane mode?  buying a remote island?  For most people it's about leaving the mainstream city and doing the off-grid full monty - like almost homesteading.   For me it was about getting off the 'dreadmill' : the hamster wheel of modern living. Now is the time.  why?  because  the sky is blue,    because the sooner you make the move, the happier you'll be    because it's way cheaper than the mainstream lifestyle       because there's a creeping breakdown of infrastructure services, ever            escalating fees & taxes and regulations, growing disparities in our           society, and now the COVID19 pandemic           because the earlier you start making mistakes, the quicker you'll learn          ...

we homosapiens are programmed to be tribal - we define ourselves through social circles – from families to communities to countries.  Over eons we have set up boundaries and raged battles within and across those boundaries. Modern tribes can range from a group of strangers at Starbucks or 100,000 screaming soccer/football fans and everything in between. Music concerts are as much about the experience of thousands of people elbow to elbow than it is about the music and a stage one can barely see.      will we ever see this again? This COVID19 pandemic has pulled the rug of human contact experiences out from under us. I miss that human experience.  Living alone in a remote forest sanctuary has many, many blessings, but I direly need human contact at least once a week – even something as lame as sitting in a crowded Starbucks. Lately I’ve enjoyed waiting in long lines at the market. Hey, it’s as close I can get to human contact(lessness?). I...

Color me rosy.  I think we'll be better off going thru this global pandemic than before.   Not the clean air, not the lower fossil fuel use, not the open roads - no, my optimism is grounded in our psyche. The only good thing that Freud every said (in my limited opinion) is that people will do anything to distract themselves from being by themselves:  they'll go shopping, to the theater, to a concert - anything but being alone with ourselves. Cuz then we have to deal with our internal demons, our disappointments, our ... everything that is us:  our own mental health. This morning I was standing in line at the grocery store and noticed the person in front of me frantically looking around at every product display within eye sight.   And then i looked at other people in line, and there were quite a few people also glancing around.  I had that urge too - did I forget something?  is there something else I need to buy?  And it dawned on me tha...

The short answer for me is HECK NO!  We may have this romantic illusion that we are part of nature, but in reality we are playing God.  We are busy ants trying to control and change nature at every chance we get.  The very purpose of advanced physics is to unlock the 'secrets of the universe'.  To what end?  What comes after discovery and understanding of these secrets?  We will unleash whatever new powers we discover for our own benefit, may it be atomic power, bombs or what have you.   Stewart Brand said it best in his two seminal works:  in the 1960's with his Whole Earth Catalog he stated:  we are like gods, and we need to get good at it'  and in his 2003?????  book 'Eco Discipline' he stated:  'we are gods'.   As an engineering student at the University of Wyoming, I had to look at the inscription on top of the engineering building that state:  'the control of nature is not given, it is won... strive on'....

There's a major do-over going on for the greenhouse.  Hundreds of flower and vegie seeds have been planted.  A new dwarf cherry tree and a relocated one from the outside have been moved inside the greenhouse.  It'll be interesting to see how the 10' tall ceiling curbs their growth - bonsai maybe?  The solar hot shower is working again - so the luxury of  more frequent hot rainwater showers will be the norm until October. I like this time period.  April through October is always the nice period at WinSol. between  October - April you never know when an artic front will move in - like they have for the last 5+ weeks.  ------------------------------------------------------------ COVID19  Life is pretty normal here compared to most other places. I have noticed myself being a bit more cautious about bats flying around - are they kissing cousins from Wuhan?  (they sure do look like flying rats, don't they? If only we could evolv...

I spend a l ot of time contemplating and exploring AI (artificial intelligence).  I've recently gotten into Alexa and Google Assistant.  I find it fun, but also with some serious consequences.  I constantly game the algorithms in my news feeds and purposely will click on things to throw off AI trackers. i use duck-duck go for searching, and VPN's with changing locations to throw off harvesters and trackers.   But it's a losing game.  AI is now so ubiquitous and prevalent in our everyday lives that humans don't stand a chance.  Every location ( and almost every movement), every transaction, every search, every conversation and email, every text/twitter/instagram/FB posting is part of your DNA.  We are fast becoming cyborgs.   Elon Musk says we already are.    Our digital selves ( and decades of tracking/recordings of each of us) is way bigger than our physical selves. Here's a great conversation about AI by Elon Musk an...

in response to this growing social media trend of millenials dismissing gray hairs with the diminutive phrase 'OK Boomer'  I'd like to propose a counter 'OK Millenial'. Did we (boomers) know that the policies of the 80's and 90's would result in inequity, unaffordability and crippling student loan debt - heck no!  The government watchdogs were asleep at the wheel.  But these three big problems are nothing compared to what's coming (this was written before the COVID19 pandemic).   If the watchdogs were asleep at the wheel during the last 30 years, they have all but disappeared over the last 10 years.  Except for Europe.  European watchdogs have a different, more uplifting social agenda than USA capitalists.  European watchdogs have done way better on enforcing things like corporate transparency rules, utility microgrids, 'right-to-be'forgotten', data privacy, and now the right to repair issues.  Meanwhile USA watchdogs are allowing net ...