Category: AltEco

  • The Edge of Something

    This comes to me to compliment an impoverished philosophy. “I feel I am on the edge of something …” David Bohm

  • The Price of an Impoverished Philosophy

    I have and continue to avoid doctors not because of the drugs they prescribe but because of the mentality & mindset with which they look at me. First, this video in which Jordan Peterson (a renowned psychologist, researched, teacher who disappeared for almost a year) describes what he went through because of psychiatric medication: Then…

  • The Unfolding of 17th Century Amsterdam

    … reminder – you are looking at 100 years in a few minutes! via Yodan Rofe of Building Beauty

  • Sequence: The Difference Between a Novice and a Master

    The experienced carpenter keeps going … every action he performs, is calculated in such a way that some later action can put it right to the extent that it is imperfect now. What is critical here, is the sequence of events. The carpenter neves takes a step which he cannot correct later; so he can…

  • Autism Labeling

    This tweet appeared in my feed: Hey if you work in tech and you know you’re neurodivergent, please reply to this tweet if you’re willing to make yourself available to answer questions to other folks in tech who think they might be. We need to pull a chunk of us out of the matrix, which…

  • Bryan Ungard – Deliberately Developmental Organisations

    This came to me via Richard Bartlett and: Listening to it while reading Christopher Alexander’s A Timeless Way of Building feels almost eerie … as if Bryan is looking over my shoulder and re-whispering the book in my ear recontextualized from the architecture of buildings to the architecture of organizations. I felt a deep sense…

  • The Order of the Language

    Design is often thought of as a process of synthesis, a process of putting together things, a process of combination. According to this view, a whole is created by putting together parts. The parts come first: the the form of the whole comes second. But it is impossible to form anything which has the character…

  • … not quite adding!?

    … not quite adding!?

    Ryan Singer posted this on twitter: “Adding” and “integration” are different operations: Adding: Bolt working wholes together w/ no problem solving. Integration: Solve lots of problems to connect parts together into a working whole. Complex problem? Orthogonalize into integration problems that can then be added. source I had to read it a couple of times…

  • Palpable Organic Tension

    When I witnessed patterns that I felt “could be improved” I used to go right at the pattern and try “to make it better”. That approach didn’t seem to work very well for me. I now try to look beyond the surface pattern that caught my attention. I have come to prefer a different approach.…

  • Wholehearted

    Wholehearted

    A man is alive when he is wholehearted, true to himself, true to his own inner forces, and able to act freely according to the nature of the situations he is in … … it is a state of being in which all forces which arise in a man can find expression; he lives in…

  • Space is Not Mute

    Space is Not Mute

    … Here right now was the space of my building, as plain and fresh as it would ever be. And what it helped me to understand is that space is not mute, that it does speak to us, and hat we respond to it more directly, more viscerally, than all the cerebral, left brained talk…

  • Richard Feynman on How Computers Work

    A beautiful explanation of how computers work for non-technical people that can be as useful today as it was almost 35 years ago. As the talk unfolded and approached the subject of intelligence in computers I began to wonder how his ideas have held up in light of AI … and (spoiler alert) damn did…

  • Kumihimo: Japanese Braiding

    A Japanese spirit seems to be upon me … Kumihimo is yet another beautiful example of a living-meditation: … and in this video … working with 68 braids … there is a glimpse of what I believe is a key to this art (and any art!?) … the instruction sheet that guides the maker ……

  • Japanese Toolmakers

    As I stand at the entrance to the space of Japanese Kumiko woodworking, I find myself also getting acquainted with the tools associated with the culture. And one of the fundamental functions in wood-working is cutting … which ultimately involves blades in many forms. A unique feature of many japanese tools is laminated metal ……

  • Echoes from Building Beauty Seminar of April 4th 2019

    1: Project as a Living Being!? In my experience as a Yoga practitioner there is only so much that can be done on the mat. Ultimately the work and qualities of Yoga push up against the realities of life. There is where the real work of change happens. What changes can I make in my…

  • Indra Adnan On New Politics, Soft Power and the Feminine

    I am increasingly feeling disconnected from podcasts (and other materials) about subjects I care about (or think I care about!). I mostly feel that ideas are not well grounded and talk about (what strikes me as) disassociated fantasies. The latest wave of disappointment comes from this list from Richard Bartlett (whose work and person I…

  • Yoga of Groups

    Yoga is a solitary practice, it focuses inwards … my body, my breath, my attention. Maybe that is one of the reasons it appealed to me. When I researched Yoga, I also considered martial arts where there seems to me to be more potential for interaction with at least one other human being. But I…

  • Spiraling Together?

    Spiraling Together?

    Context This post is an echo from a short interaction between Nora Bateson and I on Twitter: Nora: The distraction of fighting for the meager leftovers after the wealthy corporate robbery of life, future, human rights and ecology while trillions in off shore accounts could be used for building a new way of life: #Refugees…

  • Elinor Ostrom and the Tragedy of the Commons

    I see the tragedy of the commons for manifesting around me, and though I do believe it doesn’t have to manifest, it seems that often it does. This article pays respect to the work of Elinor Ostrom and cites her set of design principles for avoiding the tragedy of the commons:   Clearly defined boundaries:…

  • Christopher Alexander – The Character of Living Structure

    Christopher Alexander – The Character of Living Structure

    In nature the principle of unfolding wholeness … creates living structure nearly all the time. Human designers, who are not constrained by this unfolding, can violate the wholeness if they wish to, and can therefore create non-living structure as often as they choose.