Simulation and Simulacrum is a philosophy book written in 1981 where Baudrillard aims to explore the relationship between reality, symbols and society. Recent technology has allowed us to copy texts and other things over and over calling into question even more which is the original and the copy, where is the value and the meaning. An obvious other example is the emergence of virtual reality which allows the illusion of the world just by putting a headset on. Baudrillard aims to show that the media presents a kind of reality which we believe in but actually it is just a very persuasive illusion. The film The Matrix was influenced by the book.

The Raspberry Pi (/paɪ/) is a series of small single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries. The original model became far more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for uses such as robotics. It now is widely used even in research projects, such as for weather monitoring because of its low cost and portability.

• Lays out the foundation of  the story of economics for the last couple of hundred years.
• Very topical to write something about ‘fixing the economic system’.
• His argument seems to be that there are some points missing from the economics theories that form the main backbone of the current economic system and by adding some more information and interpretation to the theories this will help to create progress.
• Reading between the lines of the text, for me it is just as much about human difference e.g. different experience, upbringing, culture and separation of people, public / private space and openness that constructs the social and economic reality. The experience of basic human desire and behaviour through the fabric of the world and interactions.

Pros

• A compelling read.
• Following the narrative from earlier books.
• Paul Mason is not just an author but also a journalist and has credibility.

Cons

• It is too academic and theoretical and spends too much time looking to reframe theories and events.

My Notes

free work

wherever they can get labour for free – as in the American prison system or Nazi death camps – capitalists immediately take advantage of it. Another

For the high-value worker you are paid, effectively, to exist, to contribute your ideas to your firm and to meet targets. In parallel, the geography of working-class

To the younger, precarious workforce it is instead urban proximity that matters; they tend to cluster into city centres, accepting massively reduced living space as a trade-off for physical closeness to the network of contacts needed to find partners, sporadic work and entertainment. Their struggles – in places like Exharchea in Athens, or the London student uprising in 2010 – tend to focus on physical space. As they tried to understand

But there was a catch. In the first place, just like the market, the state can’t calculate what’s needed in advance. So each year’s plan is in effect an experiment – and not on a small scale but on a very large one. The

The USSR was inefficient for all the usual reasons cited, said Mises’s pupil Friedrich Hayek: no consumer choice, clunky allocation of resources, no reward for innovation. But

The equivalent of the new source of free wealth? It’s not exactly wealth: it’s the externalities – the free stuff and wellbeing generated by networked interaction. It is the rise of non-market production, of un-ownable information, of peer networks and unmanaged enterprises.

there is still the problem of space and who own what already exists - idling capacity

to focus all our actions towards the transition path

When, back in 2008, scientists trudged the mountains to find out what had happened to the 144 springs and mountain streams marked on the map, they reported: ‘With climate change and deterioriation of the environment, the southern mountainous areas have no springs and no mountain streams.’1

But for poor countries to become richer, they must break out of the so-called ‘middle-income trap’ – where countries typically develop to a certain point and then stall; both because they have to compete with the old imperial powers and because their corrupt elites strangle the emergence of functional modern institutions.

like Georgia armenia

Martians would see a system whose dominant colour was green. The message they sent home would say: this is a society primarily made up of organizations, not markets.1 It was a highly political point to make, in the year the triumph of the market was declared. Simon’s lifelong concern was to understand how organizations work. His

When they think about the state, it is at the level of laws to protect and extend the peer-to-peer sector. With the exception of thinkers such as Michel Bauwens4 and McKenzie Wark5, few have bothered to ask what a whole new system of governance and regulation might look like in this new mode of production. In response, we should broaden

The fifth principle for a successful transition is that we should maximize the power of information. The difference between a smartphone app today and the programs on PCs twenty years ago is that the modern apps self-analyse and pool performance data.

at present i feel like companie still expect people o pay fo this as luxury

The aggregated data of our lives – which will soon include our driving speed, our weekly diet, our body mass and heart rate – could be a hugely powerful

The best method for doing a distributed project is for small groups to pick a task, work on it for a bit, document what they’ve done and move on.

Gear technology towards the reduction of necessary work to promote the rapid transition towards an automated economy. Eventually, work becomes voluntary, basic commodities and public services are free, and economic management becomes primarily an

In pursuit of these goals, it will be important in all the economic changes we make to send transparent signals. One of the most powerful aspects of the Bretton Woods system was the explicit rules it enshrined.

The sociologist Max Weber believed the rise of capitalism was driven not by technology but by a ‘new spirit’ – a new attitude to finance, machinery and work, not the things themselves.

The important thing is to indicate – as clearly as the ‘organic’ label on the coffee does – what social good is being produced and who will benefit from it.

You could erect a sign saying ‘we sell coffee for a profit and that helps us give away psycho-social counselling for free’.

you incentivize the creation of local energy systems, so that excess power generated can be sold to nearby businesses, you create further positive externalities. We need a new understanding

To be brutally clear, this would reduce the value of assets in pension funds, and thus the material wealth of the middle classes and the old; and by imposing capital controls you would be partially deglobalizing finance.

S&P predicts, 60 per cent of all countries see their debt reduced to junk by 2050.

the postcapitalist form of the co-op would try to expand non-market, non-managed, non-money-based activity against the baseline of market activity it starts from.

The creation of monopolies to resist prices falling towards zero is capitalism’s most important defence reflex against postcapitalism. To promote the transition, this defence mechanism has to be suppressed.

But in order to control the transition, we would need to send clear signals to the private sector, one of the most important of which is this: profit derives from entrepreneurship, not rent.

The act of innovating and creating – whether it be a new kind of jet engine or a hit dance music track – is rewarded, as now, by the firm’s ability to reap short-term gains, either from higher sales or lower costs. But patents and intellectual property would be designed to taper away quickly. This principle is already r

These are some of my favourite pieces of equipment for mountain biking that I have owned and rigorously put to the test.

1.  A good bag. The Osprey Escapist 32 gives me enough space, whilst working as a bike guide to carry tools, spare tubes, repair kits, snacks, water, jacket, camera, knee guards, wallet, phone, back up battery. At a squeeze I could fit enough in it for an overnighter with a sleeping bag & bivvy.

The Weather Makers

A series of essays about the consequences of global warming. It looks into the knock on effects of rising carbon dioxide levels such as changing weather patterns, desertification and conflict over resources. It also proposes solutions.

Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans

The book tells the tale of Captain Charles Moore, who, taking a shortcut back from a trans-pacific race through the rarely travelled North Pacific Subtropical Gyre known for poor sailing conditions discovers a huge area of floating plastic. It goes on to talk about the shocking impact of plastic on the environment and highlights the dire need for better waste management solutions.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a well known tech engineer and entreprenuer. His company Tesla deals with solar energy, batteries and electric cars. Here is a video about the latest car model - the Model X.

Electric Bikes

Electric bikes are becoming more popular as technology improves and gets lighter and prices go down. Here is a report from Interbike 2015.

E-Bike Touring

This guy has does a series of videos where he takes his e-bike touring. His bike is fully kitted up for touring with bags and gear. It looks like an interesting set up with mountain bike forks for safety (with the extra speed) and shows an alternative route from traditional bike tour with the emergence of the electronic bike.

There are many techniques for decision making that are based around list making and weighing up pros and cons, but this ‘left brain’ way of thinking misses out the other elements of the mind - the subconscious, ‘right brain’, intuitive processes.

These videos uses meditation to attempt to press pause on the conscious, everyday mind, thoughts and allow deeper images and thoughts to arise and be observed.

Guru

The following video from ‘Sadhguru’ offers another point of view. If a decision is clear then you are already using your intuition. If it is unclear then you should be wary.

There are many videos on Youtube with inspirational content. Here is a selection I’ve put together for you. Video has a unique way of quickly altering your consciousness, overriding existing thoughts and feelings and replacing them with story communicated in the video.

When it comes to footwear, wisdom wins over extreme preparation unless you are really doing something severe or will be doing the same activity for ages (or specialist activity).

I have done a bit of travelling and therefore I’ve had some time to test out different types of footwear and I’ve learnt through the experience.

My first independent travelling experiences worth mentioning are working in Croatia as a mtb guide. Working as an mtb guide I had cheap sandals for casual, slip on deck shoes for parties (>) and SPD shoes for riding. The sandals were cheap and disposable (max £10).

My favourite piece of gear over the last couple of years has been my Fivefingers Treksport shoes from Vibram. I have been using them regularly mainly for walking and trail running.

Why I bought them

I was attracted to the shoe because when I went cycle touring, I took one pair of boots with me which were too narrow. This gradually crushed my little toe.

Fivefingers looked like a good way to rehabilitate my feet. The foot has the most intricate bone structure of the body, with sensitivity as much as our finger tips and to be able to balance the shifting weight off our bodies.