Tag: ecology

by jad

A710 vs. LX10 (and a Mural That Says Slow Down)

I’m back with another ridiculous camera comparison: the 2006 Canon Powershot A710 IS versus the 2016 LUMIX LX10, which technically still counts as a digicam, I think. What difference could ten years and a jump from 7.1 MP to 20 MP possible make? I took these photos near the spot that Liliana Moreno was murdered by automobile on February 16. I’d heard of this awful tragedy but didn’t realize how close it was to the bus stop I’d be getting off of yesterday—a sobering thought when I get around mostly by foot and public transport. I’m less militantly anti-car than … Continue reading “A710 vs. LX10 (and a Mural That Says Slow Down)” →

by jad

Fake Spring, Firmware Hacks, and Oxbow Park

I should have known that it would snow today, way after all the daffodils bloomed with their fake news of spring. I was almost shivering taking these photos in the ice cold rain yesterday evening. I was in Georgetown meeting with a couple comrades again, and decided to take the bus all the way to Oxbow Park first, to do another comparison shoot. But it was too cold and the gimmick I wanted to demonstrate was too finicky for me to stay very long. Here you see the Canon Rebel SL1 I bought for work paired with the Powershot SX260 … Continue reading “Fake Spring, Firmware Hacks, and Oxbow Park” →

by jad

Data Centers and the Post-Nuclear Landscape

The fight against the “thingification” of humanity is entering its new phase with the rise of the grassroot revolt against data center expansion. In support of this burgeoning movement, @seattledsa’s ecosocialists along with @350seattle and @troublemakerscommunity put on the first of two (and potentially more!) sessions of The People’s Forum on Artificial Intelligence, with the next session focusing on the labor dimension on December 8. It took a million spinning plates to pull this off, but the team smashed it (opa! pun intended). I’ve dedicated much of my adult life to the politics of infrastructure, so I’m proud to be … Continue reading “Data Centers and the Post-Nuclear Landscape” →

by jad

Ecotone

I learned a word when I was trying to find more information about this hidden gem of wilderness, encircled all around by private property and technosocial infrastructure—like when it was established, who maintains it, etc.: the word was “ecotone.” Ecotone refers to “a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate.” They’re natural formations; swamps, marshes, and other wetlands are by definition “ecotones” because they are the crossfade between dry land and bodies of water. They’re home to a mashup of species from both environments, along with those specially adapted to that particular mix. But you … Continue reading “Ecotone” →

by jad

#Route101: Klamath / Coos Bay

This little Paul Bunyan-themed #Route101 attraction is a perfect apéritif to this vast stretch of Redwood Highway wilderness, especially if you’ve never seen or touched a Redwood before, like me. I’m not a fan of heights either, but the skyways were absolutely breathtaking in the best kind of way with just the right amount of “adventuring” for my tastes. I don’t want to come across as California-woo but just being around and breathing in these giants felt soothing to the soul. x  Our New Year’s Eve morning actually started here, and it actually started a little rocky too. We’d pushed ourselves quite … Continue reading “#Route101: Klamath / Coos Bay” →

by jad

Dog Days/Dead Media

Today has been the wildest day for technology, with copiers falling apart, messages not going through, PDFs mysteriously rendering darker, and emails landing in spam mid-thread; so if Mercury isn’t in retrograde, it really, really ought to be. I even posted this before I was ready. Sigh. Astrology’s connection to my “style” has come up a couple of times in the past few of days; one friend zeroed in on my Aquarian bent (“a bit cerebral in your aesthetics. edgy, understated and clean. futuristic”) while another noted the broadly #crabcore vibe (“Cancer Mercury explains your posts, your memory for so much like … Continue reading “Dog Days/Dead Media” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Palouse Falls, June 28

Getting here was incredibly rough on our poor little hybrid sedan; the road into the park is grooved like sawtooth, which is great for winter visits, I guess, but absolutely bone rattling for city slickers in a ten-year-old car like ours. I genuinely expected parts to start falling off the chassis like some Hannah-Barbara cartoon. But we made it and were greeted by the most incredible lunch spot and view. Palouse is the official state waterfall and is significant to me mostly for what isn’t here; I love that Wikipedia even includes a whole section about it: “In 1984, the … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Palouse Falls, June 28” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Priest Rapids Dam, June 28

The genesis of this whole itinerary was my reading about Smohalla, a spiritual leader of the Wanapum people and prophet of the Washani (Dreamer) religion. After yesterday’s extended quote from Eugene Smalley, I want to share a little of what Smohalla had to say: “The work of the white man hardens soul and body. Nor is it right to tear up and mutilate the earth as white men do. … We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant’s fingers harm its mother’s breast. But the white man tears up large tracts … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Priest Rapids Dam, June 28” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Hanford Works, June 28

Somewhere past this barrier is the B Reactor, where plutonium was manufactured for more than a quarter of a century and was used “in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in ‘Fat Man,’ the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.” By 1966, the N Reactor came on and this death factory started to produce electricity, so up until that moment, the massive amount of energy produced here through the splitting of atoms and collision of neutrons “served no social purpose,” as Richard White so poignantly puts it. He goes on: “Everything at Hanford seemed … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Hanford Works, June 28” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Silica Road, June 28

Somewhere along #SilicaRoad, June 28—We caught a glimpse of this bus on our way to #Sunland and I just had to stop on our drive back. There were several NO TRESPASSING signs around it, but no physical barriers to stop me. On one corner, there was a tiny cardboard sign stuck to it that said RADIOACTIVE in a much-too-casual scrawl. We were actually on our way to the general vicinity of a former nuclear reactor, so I thought about that word for two seconds before promptly ignoring it. We laughed the whole thing off as we drove away; and yet, … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Silica Road, June 28” →