Good news for nomads everywhere … you are not alone; in fact, there might be more of us, than them.

So you say you want to train yourself for the luxurious life aboard the international space station? You could start with a year on the road in a 32’ RV.

That’s our primary roadmap for 2012; which has the side benefit of enabling any number of interesting experiments and productive hacking opportunities along the way. Of course, living aboard the RoboRig Environmental Awareness Lifestyle Initiation & Tenable Energy Experiment (S.S. REALI-TEE) platform, you won’t have the infinite cosmic view outside the ISS portholes; however, you will experience first-hand the itty bitty living space and an up-close-and-personal reali-tee that challenges your own personal sense of entitlement to the obliviously flagrant, engineered obsolescence, end-rather-than-mend, industrial capitalistic conspicuous carbon consumer lifestyle.

In the so-called advance west, it’s no secret that our entitlement to conspicuous WASTE has reached utterly mind boggling proportions. What many do not understand is that a huge part of achieving the global postscarcity scenario revolves around conscious conservation, re-use, shared-use-of-stuff (from cars to private jets) versus ownership of stuff, all along the way to gradual development of molecular nano-assembly and the like. Yes, there will be a whiz-bang, Master of Reality quantum physics aspect to postscarcity; but it’s not how we get there. 

infoneer-pulse:

Ancient seagrass: ‘Oldest living thing on earth’ discovered in Mediterranean Sea

Australian scientists sequenced the DNA of samples of the giant seagrass, Posidonia oceanic, from 40 underwater meadows in an area spanning more than 2,000 miles, from Spain to Cyprus.

The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old.

Prof Carlos Duarte, from the University of Western Australia, said the seagrass has been able to reach such old age because it can reproduce asexually and generate clones of itself. Organisms that can only reproduce sexually are inevitably lost at each generation, he added.

» via The Telegraph

Details at http://www.vta.org/xbus

Gilroy to Lockheed Light Rail in just over an hour, with wifi http://www.vta.org/schedules/SC_121.html

There is zero reason to not have self-driving, 100% solar-powered, electric-engine buses running in synchronized pods well before 2030. Only reason forecast is not for 2020 is widespread institutional mailaise and incumbent energy interests working to slow progress. This too is evidence for how industrial era capitalism continues to hobble Accelerating Sustainability.

The most ancient of readers will recall when “Ma Bell” tried to charge us for connecting a second rotary-dial phone to the same line, in the same home. So obviously full of #FAIL on a thousand metrics.

Grown ups in general will remember when incumbent DSL internet providers in the 1990’s tried to charge us for using a home hub or router to share our land line internet connection with more than one computer. Absurd, right?

When we access telecom services, we’re paying for a signal, a service, which has nothing to do with the devices connected to that service. Just like electricity or water. Today’s oligarch want to charge you extra to use a different shaped glass, pitcher, carafe; or charge more if the water you get from the spigot is intended for cooking instead or cleaning. 

This oligarchic, bit-measured (they don’t even really exist, except as energy, humans!), device-centric contrivance is and always was nothing short of an abomination to common sense; the equivalent of having to pay extra for plugging in a toaster or blender to household electricity. Electricity has peak use and hence a kind of “congestion” too, yet nobody would ever dream of paying extra every time they plug in another desk lamp. Here’s the latest example from VerizonWireless, foisting precisely that model onto a captive, closed market:

Galaxy Nexus by Samsung:

“Data packages may not be used to tether your smartphone or basic phone to a computer or tablet, or as a Wi-Fi hotspot, unless you subscribe to Mobile Hotspot/Mobile Broadband Connect.”

Telecom oligarchs are the slum lords of bandwidth. They only build the bare minimum and then do everything they can to raise rents at the fastest possible pace while putting off improvements until someone takes them to court. The biggest #WIN for oligarchs, like slum lords, is that the vast majority of their tennants are in absolutely no position to be able to hold them accountable.

The answer to carrier complaints of “bandwidth hogs” (i.e., Smartest Innovators on The Network) is the same as it ever was: open networks, open markets up to more competition to keep building more capacity, faster, so that more innovation can continue to improve the entire interdependent system.

Cisco’s John Chambers answered “the congestion question” in the 1990’s and it’s still true today, there’s no scenario in which installing sufficient capacity doesn’t successfully and effectively kick the congestion can down the road. Unlike politics, in technology, kicking the can down the road isn’t a bad solution at all; in fact, it’s almost always been the way we grow into where we’re going, from where we are, with what we have on hand.

The answer for consumers is to Just Say No and/or practice Peaceful Conscientious Resistance through superior understanding and knowledge of their own, including opening more unlicensed spectrum and building our own nationwide mesh networks.

If we don’t realize that energy companies are watching carefully, and will try to pull the same stunt with ephemeral photon from the sun that oligarch telecoms are attempting — in pretending data packet of photons consist of mass and cost — then we have only ourselves to blame. Once the optical fibers and microwave towers are in place, the marginal costs of moving bits are as close to zero as one can get without literally vanishing into oblivion. 

The bit-measured, device-centric telecom pricing phantasm is so ipso facto absurd that I can’t believe so many of us have spent 30 years explaining this in such excruciating detail, still to be met with a deer-in-the-headlights responses, more often than not. It’s just not that hard to grok; really it isn’t. I am definitely not that much smarter than the average bear; I know some really damned smart bears who remind me of this on a daily basis.

If supply and demand had anything to do with the way the world really works, then WATER should be priced like bandwidth and bandwidth like water. This is just one of the thousands of ways that we continue to see that the old capitalism has already passed, and the next capitalism, continues it’s evolutionary emergence. The olden ways were fine for the olden days and those days are long gone. It’s as fundamental as the Rights of Mankind to restate the aphormism that nobody can own the sun, the stars, the wind, or the sky. They are here for all, and apart from the initial cost of building the physical collectors and connectors, it’s all virtual FREE LUNCH. That’s what we mean by Apprehending Postscarcity. The world has changed.

To remix the late great Walt Kelly, “We have met the future, and it is us.”

King’s evolving political advocacy in his later years … paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with whom King was affiliated. King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation. Towards the time of his murder, King more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice. Though his public language was guarded, so as to avoid being linked to communism by his political enemies, in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. In one speech, he stated that “something is wrong with capitalism” and claimed, “There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

Of course, the word distribution has long since become an emotionally hijacked firestarter keyword of the fundamentalist tinfoil hat lexicon; and actually, it’s perhaps not the most accurate word to describe the challenges of a sustainable postscarcity circulatory system. Notwithstanding, a preponderance of economic scholarship over the most recent half dozen decades or so has gradually converged on the most logical first step, variously described as Basic Income, Universal Basic Income (UBI), Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), and similar language-specific nomenclature that crosses virtually all ephemeral cultural and language boundaries.

Follow, learn, and join the rapidly rising global #BasicIncome trend on twitter:

• @BasicIncome
• @RentaBasica
• @RevenuDevie
• @BasicIncome_J
• @Grundeinkommen
• @BINews

And if all that is still not enough to bring you up to warp speed, here’s Captain Picard: Make it So.

#28c3: The coming war on general computation (by 28c3)

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never
became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a
result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical
details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end.
That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what  others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

“For testing special clothing.” Right. Got it.

“PETMAN is an anthropomorphic robot developed by Boston Dynamics for testing special clothing used by US military personnel. PETMAN balances itself as it walks, squats and does calisthenics. PETMAN simulates human physiology by controlling temperature, humidity and sweating inside the clothing to provide realistic test conditions. PETMAN development is lead by Boston Dynamics, working in partnership with Measurement Technologies Northwest, Oak Ridge National Lab and MRIGlobal. The work is being done for the DoD CBDP. For more information about PETMAN visit www.BostonDynamics.com.”

Decriminalization: A Step in the Right Direction

The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world. — Carl Sagan

If the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on. — Terence McKenna

It doesn’t take an expert to see that things are very wrong with the current legal status of cannabis. Our government says there is no accepted medical use for it, yet it holds a patent (#6630507) for medicinal use of cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants, and it distributes canisters of rolled joints to a few select patients in the Compassionate Use Program. Sativex, a whole plant extract that is administered sublingually, is being approved in other countries as a prescription drug, but not in the United States. Our government says it needs proof that marijuana is in fact therapeutic, though it makes this impossible to prove, with its monopoly on substandard plant material from the one FDA-approved farm in Mississippi, and the maze of federal approval required for research to proceed. FDA requires NIDA to sign off on cannabis studies, a hoop that no other drug researchers need jump through.