Jules @afewbugs@librem.one

Watching crypto implode in exactly the same ways that unregulated financial markets have been imploding for the last 400 years.

Watching billionaires fantasize about transcending their mortal bodies and becoming gods, just like they have been for the last 4,000 years.

There's just these ruts in our brains where it's easy to get stuck.

To encourage safe winter cycling, Oslo offers 50% off the cost of studded tires, up to 1000 NOK ($102).

~1000 residents applied on the first day it was offered. Last year 75% of rebate recipients said they didn't bike the previous winter.

https://nettavisen.no/norsk-politikk/byradet-i-oslo/sykkel/4000-far-piggdekkstotte-ugreit/s/5-95-788118

#cycling #winter #bike

If you listen to the news, you could be forgiven for thinking that everything is shit.

It’s not.

One example, Humpback Whale numbers are growing massively.

#whales #goodnews #humpbackwhales #beautifulnews

How it started: How it's going:

I’m seeing people posting pictures of themselves as AI versions of paintings and fantasy scenes and films and although the creative photographer in me loves it I would be mindful that you are handing over your face to unregulated new tech to form the basis of better recognition software, survelience tech and forming parts of how your likeness can form into other people’s creations. I don’t want to tell you what’s right or wrong, but I think it is worth knowing what your feeding your face into.

If you consider yourself a serious anarchist/communist/socialist/leftist, today I want you to do something for me.

I want you to commit to a bit of direct action this week. I want you to do something for your community .

Feed that homeless person, trim your elderly neighbours hedge for them, spend 20 mins talking with neighbours about how to best organise within your community. Do something that has a tangible positive outcome for your community, do it this week.

The Better Urban Spaces zine is in progress! here's the working illustration for our cover. If you'd like to contribute, add some ideas to our organizing doc! There's a space at the end to leave an email for updates and to get access to the WIP zine on Google Slides:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t-nXPQ3H83_wbHGM8NLt65xfDmFsWCswjRPUp42llCM/edit?usp=sharing
#zines #solarpunk #urbanism

The Dutch invest €595 million annually on urban biking, resulting in €19 BILLION saved in public health care costs alone. That’s how smart governments do the right math on investing in better mobility.

Let’s be clear — it wastes public money to NOT do it.

#CityMakingMath, hat tip to @modacitylife for their excellent books!

#UK folks, there's a petition to keep protection of transgender people in the equality act.

It's pretty scary being trans in this country at the moment, and we could use your help to protect our rights.

Feel free to share broadly/openly with others. Steal, boost, whatever. Let's get 100k signatures, please.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/627984

Pay attention when strikes happen. Because the rhetoric quickly becomes "the nurses should sacrifice themselves for the greater good", "the railroad workers should sacrifice themselves", "the teachers should sacrifice themselves", "essential workers should sacrifice themselves".

Listen for how few and who says "Profits should be sacrificed for the greater good". Listen to how those asked to wear a mask or get a vaccine SCREAMED about how unfair that sacrifice for the greater good was.

"If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because 'you turned out fine', you did not in fact turn out fine."

Daniel Swensen

We are all living through what is likely to be the most profound crisis modern civilization has seen: a combination of climate breakdown, ecological collapse, an out-of-control pandemic, and ongoing war.

All of it is happening while our 'leaders' pretend it is not, nothing needs to be done about it and everything is "normal".

It's OK to feel angry/overwhelmed/stressed/scared.
It's OK to not be OK.

You are not out of your mind, this society is.

France will abolish flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of less than 2.5 hours.
#ClimateCrisis #nofly

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/02/is-france-banning-private-jets-everything-we-know-from-a-week-of-green-transport-proposals

Your daily reminder that there is no war on free speech going on.

What we’re seeing is the people with immense power and wealth demonstrating how they hate being talked back to.

The only things on this map are railroads!
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/lj4wqt/the_railroads_of_the_world_oc/

"London tattoo studio offers to remove Kanye West tattoos for free"

https://www.nme.com/news/music/london-tattoo-studio-offers-to-remove-kanye-west-tattoos-for-free-3349551

Reading a magazine *in print* and realizing how nice it is to not have the publisher know every bit of data on how I consumed it—how long it sat on my coffee table, time spent on each article, which products I research because I saw it on the pages…

In a constantly connected world, analog feels like an escape.

#RandomThought

It isn’t the hills.
It isn’t the wind or weather.
It isn’t the size, or legal powers, or budget.
It isn’t any of the usual excuses people in your city have been using for years.

Remember this picture every time you hear someone in your city say "we're not Amsterdam." This was #Amsterdam in the 1970's via @fietsprofessor.

The cities we admire made better choices regarding cars, and are still making them today.

Better choices instead of excuses.

#Dutch #cities #urbanism #transportation

I recently found this picture, taken in the 1930s at Le Monocle, one of the lesbian nightclubs in Paris at the time.

It's a great picture, with a lot of different people, absorbed in their own merriment, and at the center, my new reference for the concept of badass.

I don't know who she is, but she deserves a long, adventurous backstory -- maybe involving mutiny aboard an airship, spies, and broken hearts.

She's the only one looking at the camera, so the story is definitely about her.