schmorpel

So I have this silly idea/longterm project of wanting to run a server on renewables on my farm. And I would like to reuse the heat generated by the server, for example to heat a grow room, or simply my house. How much heat does a server produce, and where would you consider it best applied? Has anyone built such a thing?

A good overview and link collection around small scale hydro power technologies

Small reminders for stupidly big cars

A couple of years ago I built two ram pumps and installed them in the stream near my house. They pumped water for the garden for a few months during spring and summer. I'm okay with the fact that the pumps are just useful during part of the year, but didn't really like damming up the entire stream for my installation, seemed rude towards wildlife.

So this year I returned with a longer tube and just took the water from further upstream. I have only about 70cm head. I haven't really measured the height I'm getting, but it's more than the first year and enough for what I want to do.

My installation in the stream is very simple: fence post hammered/wedged into the stream bed, pump tied to it with wire. Everything wobbles a tiny bit. Might return and solidify that later, but I love it when stuff is so simple that I can just throw it into the stream and it works. After a while of pumping by hand it just runs. Variations in water height might stop it as it sits low in the water. Will report back tomorrow.

This is for a reservoir IBC and washing tank outside the kitchen. I'm thinking about adding a solar heating panel in there as well.

The image is of a smaller kid-sized pump that I want to turn into a demonstration model to take to markets and fairs.

If you have tried several self-hosting platforms like the above, please share your experience.

I have so far only tried Yunohost and I'm quite satisfied. It does help to read French, sometimes solutions can be hidden in French forum topics.

Coop Cloud seems to be docker-based, as far as I understand, and I just never managed to wrap my head around containers and why I should use them. Not sure though if Yunohost does container stuff in the background that I am not aware of?

I've just started to use my Yunohost installation for some small scale collaborative stuff so I really hope it scales (to probably not more than 100 users) and keeps running smoothly. Starting to host common stuff is a little more scary than just fucking up my own private files.

Did someone say airship?

Web 3, nature conservacy, crypto-somthing, blockchain? So this organization appears to be buying land to then put in the hands of stewardship organizations. One of the places being bought under this scheme is Traditional Dream Factory.

Their plans and ideas seem sound, I just don't understand the crypto part and tokens and what these are supposed to accomplish as opposed to something like traditional shares or just write everything down on a piece of paper?

Is crypto ultimately just an ultra complex way of record keeping here?

I would really appreciate your opinions. In terms of activities and spaces, a lot of the TDF setup is very close to what we would like to build, so I try to study and understand different ways people organize such projects.

Preference of community hosting instead of self hosting has recently come up in a permacomputing chat, and in this sense I am trying to set up a tiny yunohost server that can serve my local alternative community - a series of mostly rural living people spread throughout the landscape around a small towns. I want to support local barter and trade, local tool sharing and connections between people.

I am trying to feel my way towards what functions could be useful for a mostly non-tech community, and what is out there to self-host? And what is especially useful and makes sense for local communities? Event calendar, small ads and some sort of map functions come to mind, what else? I guess a lot of what Facebook does.

As I don't see myself in the position to replace Facebook anytime soon but would like to pave the way towards having Facebook and the like replaced by many small scale solutions like the server I am building, I would like the server to have other useful stuff. Currently using CryptPad for collaborative editing, got a SearXNG instance and a digital book shelf with stuff related to gardening, foraging, homesteading, renewables, but none of this is really local. Maybe offering people a small portfolio website where they can put their offerings, skills?

I currently have an Epicyon instance installed that does all of this, it has skill sharing, item sharing, even a calendar, and I really like what it does - but I'm afraid it might be a little tough on the non-tech users.

Please dump your suggestions and ideas about what could live on such a server. As I am still a baby admin I'm not too far in to notice that people's eyes glaze over when I mention things like 'server' or 'search engine'. Trying to keep it intuitive enough for a big enough group might be a challenge, especially when keeping it all clean and FOSS. Probably needs to work really well on mobile phone as well.

I have finally contracted my electricity with them. I didn't even know much about their story, but it's a nice example of cooperative success and EU-wide support among cooperatives.

Also, it looks like PT is fully renewable now anyways, no more coal!

I think what needs to be done now is evaluate the impact that each of these technologies have on the landscape.

Some people seem to have problems with the wind turbine noise and vibration, but as the turbines are placed on top of the hills not many people are affected. All turbines are placed by large corporations, as far as I know. This seems to be a little different in Germany if I remember well, anyone knows any details?

Hydro power has a large impact on the landscape, whole villages have been flooded an the people relocated, ancient common lands expropriated. But the remaining villages all have electricity now. There's irrigation water to grow many crops. Built by the state (nowadays, half-private state-adjacent corporations).

Solar panels can be used for smaller citizen investments like the above mentioned coopernico cooperative. But solar is not necessarily the best technology for everywhere - solar panels are high tech devices for a start, that I cannot produce or repair at home.

Whereas a hydro or wind generator will be based on simpler technology. I have, for example, a stream running through my land that could provide power during 9 month of the year. I'd have to go back into a lot of DIY, engineering, experimenting with no guarantee for success if I wanted to tap into it.

I'd say Portugal in general is on a good way, with a lot of room for improvement. I would want to see more microgeneration, and more citizen initiatives, I'm sure we can work on that!

To create a new, non-pathologizing paradigm around our minds. Lots of good texts.

Hi, if you identify as on the spectrum, neurodiverse, ASD, ADHD - I would be curious if your family is multicultural, and if you or a relative has moved to a foreign country or lives in a foreign country. For example, I have grandparents on both parents side who moved abroad. I moved abroad myself as an adult, and have a sibling who has done so as well.

This seems to be a response to feeling alien in one's own culture, therefore having less of an incentive of staying. And then it increases the alien-ness for the next generation. I wonder where are correlation and causation here. Maybe they just intertwine, like some neurofunky globetrotter's dna.

A few times I've come upon the power of a common language in the last few days.

I've seen a video about a meeting of Amazonian pajés (shamans) and herbalists sharing and maintaining traditional plant use, facilitated through the common language Portuguese, I've read about the success of the Zapatistas where native people are helped in their efforts by the common language Spanish. And just now a post in Anarchism & Social Ecology mixing Spanish and English just as comfortably as my family juggles three languages at home.

Do you know of other examples?

I thought one of the non-evil possible uses of a LLM could be to create a new language like Esperanto, and ideally it would simply be a mix of English and Spanish, to connect a maximum number of people? Or are artificial languages always doomed to fail?

Edit: title, because there is not one language of solarpunk