evan's ant village log

The fence looks styling.

evan l pierce wrote:For those who aren't familiar, bitcoin is an open-source peer-to-peer currency based on the innovative blockchain technology. You can send me bitcoin. Here's my address, (1CKBCGDPB3LFv4mc1MAJM9edYjMnrqF4fgu), or you can also scan the qr code below.

I think Bitcoin would make a fine currency option for the Lab, especially for those people who might not have a bank account. It provides for instant transfer of money between two people.

Baxter Tidwell wrote:I think Bitcoin would make a fine currency option for the Lab, especially for those people who might not have a bank account. It provides for instant transfer of money between two people.

You make it sound so simple! ;) Every time I look into bitcoin, I end up giving up, saying "I don't have time to weed thru this complexity, or deal with crappy software that loses my stuff". IIRC, there are several critical decisions that need to be made up front. Can you or Evan (or anyone else) suggest a simple starter set that you actually use? There are both technical and ethical considerations. And other crypto-currencies than bitcoin. And...???

Kerry Rodgers wrote:Can you or Evan (or anyone else) suggest a simple starter set that you actually use? There are both technical and ethical considerations. And other crypto-currencies than bitcoin. And...???

I feel your pain, Kerry. I felt that way every time I thought about planting a garden! Seems like the more you learn, the more you get curious and the more you learn and so on. Pretty soon, you're so intimidated that you never get started. I did this for years with gardening until I just put a seed in the ground. I learned more from that than in years of confusing research. And now I'm well on the way to creating a sustainable food forest that will feed my family and community for years. But it never would have happened if I didn't put that first seed in the ground.

I suggest you take the same approach with Bitcoin. Or any other thing that seems confusing. Just like gardening where there are experts that talk in a language of cations, soil micronutrients, and mycelium density, there are the Bitcoin nerds that talk in terms of blockchain bloat, the 51% hack, and mining difficulty.

Just ignore these people. You can circle back around to them like I came back around to the cation/anion people. For now, just dip in your toe. The first step is to get a wallet. The next step is to put something in it. Just a couple dollars. After that, you'll be invested and you'll be motivated to learn more. And then go to overstock.com and buy something. Or 20,000 other merchants that accept Bitcoin. Or send Evan a tip. You'll quickly see how easy and smooth Bitcoin is as a payment system.

I like Coinbase for beginners. It's easy, secure, and well-funded. You can create a wallet and then link to a bank account for moving between standard currencies and bitcoin. (If there are any Bitcoin anarchists out there, please take your criticisms elsewhere for now; the goal here is to get people started. Sometimes I think infighting within the Bitcoin community is the worst enemy of Bitcoin adoption! Nothing like that happens in Permaculture, right?)

Don't even worry about the other crypto-currencies, or alt-coins. Once you understand Bitcoin, then you can circle back around to figure them out. Most are just vanity projects that won't amount to anything.

So that's it to get started. Grab a seed, put it in the ground, and observe. Same goes with Bitcoin.

Day 71

Worked on Hamelot in the morning, and then went down the hill to join the berm shed work party in the afternoon. There's like a dozen new people here for the PDC now, and Brian's putting them to work on building this berm shed.

The PDC will be starting soon, and I'm so
excited to have the opportunity to be taking it. Another awesome thing is that Ava will be the location of at least four of the hands-on sessions, so I'll have like twenty permies helping out on my projects for a few hours during these times! I went ahead and bought a wheelbarrow today so that I could make better use of this opportunity. Some of the things I'm hoping we can get accomplished include building some stone wall, building some wood fence, maybe levelling and laying the rubble trench foundation of my shelter, gathering rotten wood for hugels, building some human-scale hugels in the parts of Ava that don't have good excavator access, and planting lots of seeds!

Evan, I got my PDC last August in the NC mountains. Our group was 15 plus staff and we did some serious work and learned what we needed to learn by "building and developing" the land. If I were an Ant and had 20 PDC permies working my land, I would be delighted also. So wish I could be there. Love the narratives and the pictures. Be well. Natalie

Day 72

Spent most of the morning and afternoon helping cut and haul wood for the berm shed. It's coming together pretty darn fast so far.

Found a little time in the evening to put together my new wheelbarrow, haul a few rocks, spread a little mulch, and do a little story-brainstorming. I was talking with Mike, a lumberjack from that state out west of here a ways, (I think it's called Jefferson.) I have lots of crazy ideas now, and they involve pie, and lichen, and dragonflies, and spiders, and also vikings. Prepare yourselves.

evan l pierce wrote:I have lots of crazy ideas now, and they involve pie, and lichen, and dragonflies, and spiders, and also vikings. Prepare yourselves.

I want to hear more, especially about the Vikings. You know I'm a big fan, and I'd love to see a competitor to the Boy Scouts arise based not on a military basis but on the Viking culture of self-reliance, reputation, commerce, and dragon riding. Well, OK, maybe not that last one. But while they weren't perfect I think there's a lot we can learn from them.

evan l pierce wrote:...and they involve pie...

Spending too much time around Paul?

Day 73

Jesse the Ant arrived today and selected his spot in antville! I can just barely see his camp from my southern border. It's nice to finally have neighbors. He took some video of me walking around and talking about Ava, and I reckon when he gets around to it he'll post it in his video thread. If a picture's worth a thousand words, then a video oughta be worth a thousand pictures at least, so his video should be more informative about what I'm doing here than all the pictures and words I've posted so far combined. Check out his thread here: https://permies.com/t/47811/labs/Jesse-Ant-Village-Videos

Devin the stone artisan was here helping me sort rocks today. We've got some good ones that will be helpful for building a wall, but most of the ones I gathered turned out to be less than ideal. Devin's got a website where you can check out his awesome dry stone creations: http://www.devineescapes.com