okasen

My debut into solarpunky vocaloid music. Music produced by me in garageband/piapro/synthv, art made in clip studio, video rendered with a neato little tool called vizzy.

Quick caveat: I know it says Kasane Teto "AI" as one of the artists. This is not generative AI. Vocaloid is way, way older than any of them there GPTs, and is a wholly different kind of computer-assisted music. It's the difference between digital artists spending hours on digital art (Good!) and prompt peddlers generating "AI Art" (the devil). While Kasane Teto is now an "AI voicebank", her voice was still provided by a single, paid individual, and honestly I'm... not entirely sure what the AI part is. I made her voice do the sing thing. There might have been some natural language processing with how she's able to pronounce English, I think?

I will 100% unleash my autism to rant and rave further about how vocaloid works, if anyone's interested. But mostly I want to share my music and its meanings. This song was basically made for this instance, which I do love so dearly.

If anyone has questions about my music creation process or my lyric writing thoughts, uh, please ask. I'll answer. That's a promise and a threat.

Hello cool folks. I have a trans friend in California who might be facing unhoused-ness, and I want to be able to give her resources to help her. I used to know about stuff like the trans couch network from tumblr, but that was ages ago, and I live in the UK now so I only know UK based housing charities.

So: what housing organisations or resources exist in California, specifically the LA area? If any? I feel so out of touch on this side of the pond. I’ll do a Google search as well, but I don’t really trust Google to vet organisations like actual trans folks can.

Alternatively, any advice I can pass along to her would help. I’m trans but I’ve been lucky enough to have secure housing so far, so I feel out of my depth.

My baby is 6 weeks old. I’ve been planning to buy some loop earplugs “soon”. Well she just discovered a kind of cry that reverberates in my amygdala, so “soon” was NOT SOON ENOUGH.

Sigh. I’m gonna buy loops once my partner is awake. Yknow, so I can ask what colour he wants his in…

Eta for context! Loops and ear defenders specifically don’t block all noise, they just reduce the decibels of loud sounds. So using them means you can be more physically present for a baby with colic (and probably other fun ailments that happen later) longer before you need to step away from your nerves being fried. This is especially life-saving for neurodivergent parents, obviously, but I’d bet most parents get stressed and tetchy during certain cries.

Tl;dr still always reply to your baby when they cry! And it’s okay to use tools that make the experience gentler on yourself.

So I gave birth to my first (likely only) child about 10 days ago. First off, I can’t comprehend how much I love her. But more to the point, I’m having such big emotions about her and the world I brought her into.

I’m big into climate activism and uh, in general doing my damnedest to ensure there is a world for her to grow up into.

So it’s so weird looking at her. Thinking about the kind of tasks she has ahead of her should she go down the activist path. Wondering what kind of struggles she’s gonna face thanks to my generation. And also, I’m aware she’s her own person and will become herself, not mini-me. But in light of all of that, whenever I look at her, I just feel so much hope. It’s so irrational, this child’s highest achievement so far is drinking 85ml of formula in one go. But I look at her and feel like we will be okay.

It’s a stark contrast from the typical doom n gloom around child-creation you find in activist circles. Stuff about overpopulation and dooming your progeny.

Anyways… does anyone feel the same? Am i just a super sappy postpartum person?

So I live in a touristy part of Scotland, and my street is absolutely overrun with "secondary lets" (i.e. someone buys a house in addition to their normal home, and instead of being a normal scumlord, they turn it into a short term rental situation like AirBnB). If you search on my street on booking.com or airbnb, there's a total of 9 that I'm able to count-- and we're a small street! And the next door neighbour has posted a notice on their window that they're seeking a licence to become an AirBnB themselves.

Things of note:

• They're already operating as a short term let. And it's obnoxious. And eroding the community spirit of the, well, community. Because a tourist here for a week is not a member of the street's community.
• When I say next door, I mean I live in a semi-detached house, so this airbnb is/"would be" literally attached to my house. (Americans, think duplex if that terminology is more familiar)
• I literally have not been able to meet the owner of this airbnb in the year I've lived here, which sucks because hey, I like to know my neighbours! But also because we had a rat problem in winter and their side of the building had a massive gaping hole in the front exterior wall, which the exterminator wanted to fill but couldn't because it wasn't our property. We left letters for the owner, even just to introduce ourselves, no dice. I'm salty, yes.

So on to the point of this post. I submitted an objection to this licencing, and was informed of its safe receipt today! But uh they also said in the email "there will be a meeting to discuss the licencing, you are invited to attend and make your objections in person"

I'm not exactly a stranger to public speaking, or trying to be persuasive. But I'm autistic as fuck, out of practice with said public speaking, and also like 8 months pregnant. But I recognise that showing up to speak is going to be influential, moreso than my letter. So I'm gonna haul my pregnant autistic ass to the wherever and make my statements. I do feel like being a heavily pregnant person is going to help my case from an emotional standpoint? Who knows.

But oh god. I'm nervous. I want to have solid facts, solid arguments behind my case. I don't want to come off as a petty NIMBY, I want to present myself as someone who cares about communities being eroded, who cares about people being unable to find affordable housing because everyone and their cat wants an airbnb, and I want to have sources to back myself up. I just feel a bit lost in finding those sources and knowing what to say. Heck, I don't even know what the council will ask! Or expect! Or what it'll be like!

I am taking any and all advice. I'll also be scrubbing the identifying details from my objection letter and sharing it in a comment here, if that's helpful at all.

Do note: "You can do it!" is also a VERY welcome comment right now.

Very much inspired by the recent post about what anti work actually means. If you were free from the “work or starve” paradigm, what would you do with your time? No wrong answers.

Personally, I would like to spend more time outside cultivating food and fiber. (Fiber here meaning growing flax for linen, raising angora rabbits or even goats or sheep for their fiber, etc. I am big into textiles)

This is a goal I pursue even now, because my current job is high paying and 4 days a week and I want to use that relative privilege to gain skills that help my communities. Speaking of, I’m also a big fan of community organising, which is another thing I’d want to keep doing post-work.

But like I said, no wrong answers! You don’t have to have a plan for how you’d serve your community. Some of us wouldn’t. And most of us don’t have the time to even think of what we could do for our communities. For that last case, I hope this discussion can be inspiring!

Weird title, I know. But I've recently found out that I'm pregnant with my first child. It's an equal mix of anxiety, excitement, and anger at just how consumeristic having a goddamn baby is. So I'm curious how my fellow Solarpunks would handle the introduction of a new small mammal into their world.

My main concern revolves around Amazon and general gifting.

I live in the UK, but I'm from the US originally, and my family and most of my friends are back in the US. Their go-to for sending me anything is Amazon, because you can easily shop in the US and ship to my home in the UK. I've had mixed feelings about this for a long time, but now that my entire family is gonna want to Buy Something for Baby I'm especially cautious. I don't want to tell them not to buy anything (Well I do, but more on that later). But I absolutely do not want to receive anything from Amazon. Environmental, economical, political, and ethical concerns aside, I don't really trust items from Amazon to hold up like I'd want them to. Might not technically be an issue with baby clothes, since they'll be worn for a day at most, but anything else I come into possession of needs to be sturdy enough to be safe, and to be able to be reused/passed down/given to other parents in the community when no longer needed.

I found a website called LittleList that's a UK-based baby registry, which seems to allow people from anywhere to order anything to my door, and they even seem to have an emphasis on more eco friendly brands. My plan as a result is to tell people they can only order off of the LittleList registry, or they can just get a card for my family and/or baby. That said, I'll take advice for either how to get people to actually listen to this request, or for other, better requests to make.

My other concern with getting gifts (and even buying stuff myself) is I don't know what I'll actually need and use, and I'd hate to buy or receive useless stuff just to clutter my house. Also, I'm in Scotland, so the government will send us a box full of baby necessities when baby is born. I hope I can use this little fact to convince people that really, I don't need anything.

TL:DR; anyone have advice for how to keep people from inundating me and baby with cheap Amazon stuff?

I'm also wondering if there'd be interest in a solarpunk parenting community here, because god knows if I posted this on a generic parenting forum I'd get all kinds of people not getting it, and I know this won't be the last weird question I have.

(view this in gemini too! gemini://okasen.smol.pub/how-a-dress-becomes-a-sweater)

I just want to share this sweater DIY project I did last night in a furious anger at fast fashion. If anyone wants specific construction details, I can try to provide answers to questions! But in general, it was very slapdash and haphazard and I don't recommend anyone just jump straight into turning one piece of clothing into an entirely other piece. It takes a lot of practice and... battle-hardenedness... to not give up or be too perfectionist with this kinda stuff. So if you're already a sewist, give something like this a go! If you're not a sewist: become one!

(NOTE: this is mainly hosted on the gemini protocol, a New to Me thing that I've really enjoyed. If you want to get into the small internet, check out https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

If you're already a geminaut(?) you can find this post here: gemini://okasen.smol.pub/dead-cities)

I wanted to share this post I wrote on my tiny blog because it inspired me while writing it, so I thought it might inspire others to read it. The summary is "All life is futile so live anyways"

Also, I wanted to share how nice the smol internet is. It's really refreshing to write a post and know that it'll only be seen if I choose to share it (like, here) or put it on a feed like Antenna. I don't need to worry about too-catchy titles or clickbait or dreaded SEO.

I barely even edited this, mostly because I wrote it in vim and that sounds like a nightmare. But I'd love to know y'all's thoughts.

(Also I wasn't sure if this REALLY fit into solarpunk as a broad community, but... well I'm putting it here anyways. That said if anyone else wants a solarpunk-adjacent-personal-blogs community, I can make one and moderate?)

This is my smol.pub blog! It's on gemini, gopher and the web. I'm super stoked about this tiny interent. Here's the gemini link:

gemini://okasen.smol.pub/about

I'm also really liking astrobotany. Gemini link to my garden:

gemini://astrobotany.mozz.us/public/8a025bdd014c443e8fa21282674fa99b/m1

Put these gemini links into wobbly if you don't have a gemini browser!

https://warmedal.se/~wobbly/

(See also: My awesome gardening coveralls, which I made myself to be as Loud as possible. Also, one of my dogs)

I've recently bought a house and there's a LOT of work to be done in the back garden to get things ready for my purposes. Little by little I'm clearing away dead stuff and overgrown bushes... and oh god so much of it has thorns. but I'll persevere.

(But if anyone has a brand or type of garden glove they like for dealing with thorny plants, I'm all ears.)

I'm also curious what you all would do with all of the garden waste this generates? I have a bin I can put garden waste in, but before I start binning the clippings and such, I want to be sure they can't be used. I have started a compost pile that desperately needs more browns, but with regards to the greens it's getting quite full!

so this is the other end of animal husbandry, but I feel it's important to know how to deal with an animal on the cutting board with skill and respect before you ever dispatch one. I'll try not to make this too long and rambly, but here's my thoughts on why you should try to learn how to properly break down whole birds.

First, respect. I find that seeing an animal in a form that still looks vaguely like an animal helps build that connection in your mind that yes, this was a living creature once. And I think that's important when we're still buying chickens from the grocery store-- obviously if you're raising your own chickens already, you're more intimately aware of that. I have a lot of issues with the meat industry, and one of those is how sanitised and detached the meat buying process is. It's a lot easier to ignore that the food you're buying was once alive when it's a plastic package of seven breasts from 3 and a half different animals.

Second, frugality. I'm not saying it's strictly cheaper to buy chickens as whole birds vs. a pack of breasts or thighs, maybe like for like but I find when I buy a whole bird I'm more likely to purchase one that was as high-welfare as possible. But once I have that bird, I'm more likely to use the whole thing in a frugal mindset. I'm not going to toss the drumsticks if I don't like dark meat, or discard the skin. I worked hard to make that one bird into what can be around 10 meals (for a single person), and I'm going to appreciate each bit, up until all that's left is bones and I'm making stock.

Third, meal diversity. I know a lot of people just eat the breasts, but continuing from the second point, when you've broken down the entire bird you're kind of boxed in to making a meal with the drumsticks, with the thighs, with the wings. Maybe this is only a benefit to some people, but I feel like when I have ingredients I Must use I have an easier time deciding what I will make. And I'm pushed out of my comfort zone of diced chicken breast into remembering that there are recipes I love for thighs, and that I can make my own hot wings.

Anyways, now that I've hopefully convinced you that you should have this butchering skill whether or not you intend to raise meat chickens, here's a video I used to learn how to do it myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTNEjPOixKY

Also please enjoy the photo of my recent chicken butchery... nobody make fun of me for having the shittiest plastic cutting board and knife, I just moved house and all of my nice stuff is still back in my old place and I needed Something on a tight budget so I could still cook. (But in general, if you're looking for a cutting board, get one made of wood. The heavier the better. These shitty plastic cutting boards are like chicken turntables I swear to god)