Kardashev Street
Matt has made a new website for tracking our collective progress levelling up the Kardashev scale:
Maximising energy generation, distribution and usage at street level, for as many people as possible, everyday.
Link tags: punk
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Donuts and Dyson Spheres – Petafloptimism
I really, really like this post from Matt (except for the bit where he breaks Simon’s rule).
Down to Earth
Solarpunk and synthetic biology as a two-pronged approach to the future:
Neither synbio nor Solarpunk has all the right answers, but when they are joined in a symbiotic relationship, they become greater than the sum of their parts. If people could express what they needed, and if scientists could champion those desires — then Solarpunk becomes a will and synbio becomes a way.
Open Lecture at CIID: “Keeping up with the Kardashevians” – Petafloptimism
A terrfic presentation from Matt Jones (with the best talk title ever). Pace layers, seamful design, solarpunk, and more.
the Intersection (2021) - YouTube
A great little sci-fi short film from Superflux—a mockumentary from the near future. It starts dystopian but then gets more solarpunk.
Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors | Fix
Twelve short stories of solarpunk cli-fi “envisioning the next 180 years of equitable climate progress.”
Whether built on abundance or adaptation, reform or a new understanding of survival, these stories provide flickers of hope, even joy, and serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.
Solarpunk Is Not About Pretty Aesthetics. It’s About the End of Capitalism
Hannah Steinkopf-Frank:
At its core, and despite its appropriation, Solarpunk imagines a radically different societal and economic structure.
Why William Gibson Is a Literary Genius | The Walrus
On the detail and world-building in 40 years of William Gibson’s work.
Transreal Cyberpunk Readings
When you’re done listening to my reading of a J.G. Ballard short story, here’s a motherlode of huffduffable sci-fi shorts by Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling.
The End of Big Data | Motherboard
A great piece of near-future sci-fi from James.
I enforce from orbit, making sure all the mainframes that used to track and store every detail of our lives are turned off, and stay off. And as the sun comes up over Gloucestershire this morning, there they are, resplendent in the mist-piercing light of RITTER’s multispectral sensors: terabytes of storage laid out around the scalped doughnut of the former GCHQ building. Enough quantum storage to hold decades of the world’s pillow talk. Drums of redundant ethernet cable stacked stories-high. Everything dismantled, disconnected, unshielded. Everything damp with morning dew.
On Thingpunk
Perhaps we are fetishising physical things because our digital creations are social media junk food:
It’s easy to fetishize Brutalist buildings when you don’t have to live in them. On the other hand, when the same Brutalist style is translated into the digital spaces we daily inhabit, it becomes a source of endless whinging. Facebook, for example, is Brutalist social media. It reproduces much the same relationship with its users as the Riis Houses and their ilk do with their residents: focusing on control and integration into the high-level planning scheme rather than individual life and the “ballet of a good blog comment thread”, to paraphrase Jane Jacobs.
Starpunk | booktwo.org
James Bridle is my favourite Blogpunk author.
The Blast Shack
Bruce Sterling on Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and the unintended consequences of cypherpunk.
Flowers for cyberpunk « Adam Greenfield's Speedbird
A personal ode to cyberpunk.
bab-instr
Instruction manual to operate and maintain Charles Babbage's 2nd Difference Engine built by Barrie Holloway and Reg Crick, June 1991 for the Science Museum, London SW7 2DD.
Babbage and Lovelace Fight Crime T-shirt from Zazzle.com
I'm not sure I can resist ordering one of these T-shirts featuring crime-fighting duo Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace.
Paleo-Future - Paleo-Future Blog
A look into the future that never was. This stuff is right up my alley.
sydneypadua.com » Blog Archive » The Lovelace Adventures Pt 2
I think this has to be my favourite contribution to Ada Lovelace day. Brilliant!
BBC NEWS | Technology | Bruce Sterling - Prophet and loss
I know this sound uncharitable but there's a good chance that the reason why Bruce Sterling's books aren't selling is because he's just not a very good writer. And I say that as a big sci-fi fan. I mean, really... have you read Distraction? I tried ...and failed.
jewellrey - a set on Flickr
Beautiful steampunk jewellry.