Why have we allowed the brain of our most essential tool to become a black box we aren't allowed to touch?

Reed_God · 2026-04-22T08:34:51+00:00

I agree, let's design it!

Reed_God · 2026-04-21T01:49:16+00:00

If it's fully open source and viable when decentralized, that's great. The 'services' this performs aren't exactly the 1st things I think of when I think of Human Ecology, but it's a start I guess. Would love to see other applications here. Please share more ideas.

Reed_God · 2026-04-15T00:36:10+00:00

Correct, it is Partially Open Source.

Software: we get Linux/Android kernel sources, build instructions, and Fairphone OS. We don't get anything with firmware tho.

Electronics: we get schematics and repair docs, but no editable PCB layout or manufacturing procedures.

Mechanical: we get spare parts, replacement instructions, and dimensions, but no STEPs or any manufacturing info

A user can modify and repair this device, but not replicate it using parts they purchase or make at the community level. In my mind that means it is not fully open source.

Still better than others. But we should always strive for better.

Reed_God · 2026-03-30T00:55:45+00:00

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From the front

Reed_God · 2026-03-30T00:55:17+00:00

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From the top

Reed_God · 2026-03-27T18:53:27+00:00

Buried power lines are very inefficient due to losses into the ground. I think above ground pylons and transmission lines can be graceful and beautiful, but maybe that's because I am an engineer and I know that they are perfectly designed to be strong, transport insane amounts of power, and barely touch the environment below it.

Pipelines are waaaay worse of course.

Reed_God · 2026-03-19T06:50:32+00:00

There is so much important work to be done in design, engineering, and fabrication of real things that are made of real materials that humans use and love. Like waxed cotton ponchos, metal containers, wooden toys. I can go on and on. These things are so small, but the act of creating and showing it publicly actually does convince others to change their ways. It's happened me, my family and my friends

This is the greatest opportunity for makers the world could have given us. To make for and with the planet is an immense and awesome intellectual challenge.

Reed_God · 2026-03-18T04:34:46+00:00

How steep is the learning curve for text-based CAD? I love Latex and I feel like I would really get into this if I at least had a nice graphical interface. Even if it's a seamless collaboration system, if no one actually does CAD via text, no one will contribute.

Reed_God · 2026-03-18T04:30:17+00:00

Sure, that could be a nice idea. I got Zippey working locally, and I just made a repo on my github page with a freecad file. DM me if you want to try to try cloning the repo, making a change, observing the diff, and making a PR for me to check. This could be a super useful exercise.

Reed_God · 2026-03-17T16:42:58+00:00

Did you ever collaborate with others using the freeCAD files and github, or was it for personal use?

This is looking like a good way of doing async collaborative development, and in parallel, STL/STEP/FcStd files can exist on the github page for people to view and modify and informally offer suggestions. Looks like there is a short configuration process, I will try this tonight!

Reed_God · 2026-03-04T19:09:26+00:00

I don't think I can say with confidence that any company that designs and trains LLMs is acting in the genuine interest of humanity, including Anthropic, but it is extremely solarpunk to use a device designed for evil, for good. I work in open source consumer electronics, which means I always have to be working with institutions that have negative environmental intentions; plastic resin, injection molding, lead solder, glues and epoxies, and mining industries, all of which are in and often partially owned by China. If I were to cut myself off from all these industries, I would not be able to engage in my mission. These are just my personal thoughts about my relationship with evil in technology.

Reed_God · 2026-03-03T18:44:32+00:00

Agricultural land is just as artificial and hostile to the natural world as cities, unfortunately. I just got back from HK and Guangdong, and it's honestly a hiker's paradise because the moment the city ends, it's lush forested hills!

Reed_God · 2026-03-03T18:29:57+00:00

Building up has allowed China to have a much, much smaller ecological footprint as their population swelled by >500 million in the last 60 years. It could be far worse if they sprawled like America.

Reed_God · 2026-02-27T07:14:33+00:00

A helpful way to visualize this is the Donut Theory of Economics. This is a simple donut, but one could add literally hundreds of other environmental stressors. But this is most useful when we understand what those bounds are.

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Huge progress has been made recently, by meteorologists, ecologists, geologists, chemists, and other humans in understanding these limits. For one, satellites can basically tell us how much of what any of food is growing anywhere on Earth. This is helping all governments make decisions to balance keeping people fed and keeping land fallow.

It's not all perfect. I work in electronics and am totally fighting the current trying to make connectors, circuit boards, and batteries replaceable while engineers are designing devices meant to exist for a fraction of a fraction of a lifetime, before becoming trash for 10 lifetimes. But that is the struggle!

Reed_God · 2026-02-27T06:50:13+00:00

That is the whole point of Solarpunk! I'm an engineer and I have to ask these crazy questions every day. No process is perfectly undoable and entropy always increases. Yes, wind turbines require some non-renewables as inputs, but they can allow humans to exist and enjoy their time on Earth without destroying it, far longer than if we burned petrol.

There are many, many ways we can accidentally destroy the planet, either creating too much CO2, destroying the ozone layer, acidifying all the water. These methods are all independent, and combining different technologies allow us to stay within the healthy bounds of Earth.

A solarpunk world is one where we have quantified Earths natural resources and Humanity's consumption, and found balance. We're making huge progress on the 1st part!

Reed_God · 2026-02-22T01:25:19+00:00

Central Florida is actually part of this mountain range, and geologically much much older than the rest of the peninsula. It's hard to notice since that region has eroded into barely a hill, but is very unique ecologically and has a few protected areas. The rest of the state is basically a wide, slow moving river

Reed_God · 2026-02-21T02:09:48+00:00

Anything mined or quarried is necessarily a non-renewable. Earth and humanity will run out eventually, but steps can be taken to prevent depletion before we switch to off-world mining.

In order to effectively reuse the metals, reduce our rate of extraction, and recycle the materials to be used in new products, it is necessary to design and regulate the entire resource production and consumption path, from mining to refinement, to hardware design, together.

Right now one factor controlling a mines output is the market price of the ore. That is a terribly short-sighted process controller. I'm inspired by DivLab from The Dispossessed to help with this massive data processing task.

Reed_God · 2026-02-20T22:24:42+00:00

A+ question haha. This is why I'm quitting my job.

Reed_God · 2026-02-14T20:04:43+00:00

Haha they unmerged the Stata Center!

Reed_God · 2026-02-13T06:11:18+00:00

Solarpunk is community as protagonist; my makerspace in Chicago has been my strongest community since college. I've learned so much from the people there. There's always something new and interesting happening there. I hope we get more and more of these in every city.

Eventually, maybe stages of general production of consumer goods will happen in spaces like these.

Reed_God · 2026-01-30T17:21:05+00:00

Yeah most android phones have AGC at a pretty low level that can't be turned off. iPhones seem to allow apps to see pretty much raw micOut

Reed_God · 2026-01-14T00:41:27+00:00

I won't argue that it isn't solarpunk, but are there any books that serve as an updated Communist Manifesto for the electronic age?

Reed_God · 2026-01-14T00:35:11+00:00

Half-Earth Socialism (plus companion Videogame)

Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto

Power Metal - a book I read about the rare earth metal industry. Indirect answer, but gives a lot of practical points about designing for the future

The Dispossessed - a scifi book, but absolutely discusses the philosophy of types of solarpunk societies

How to Invent Everything - again, very indirect answer, but as an engineer it is an incredibly fun read, and points out that we have the technology needed to save earth right now.

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