Permaculture principles There are two basic steps to good permaculture design. The first deals with laws and principles, while the second is more closely associated with practical techniques. The principles are inherent in any permaculture design, in any climate, and at any scale. They are, briefly: Relative location: every element is placed in relationship to another so that they assist each other Each element performs many functions. Each important function is supported by many elements. Efficient energy planning for house and settlement. Emphasis on the use of biological resources over fossil fuel resources. Energy recycling on site. Using and accelerating natural plant succession to establish favourable sites and soils. Polyculture and diversity of beneficial species for a productive, interactive system. Use of edge and natural patterns for best effect. Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture principles
Software developers have stopped caring about reliability An Article by Drew DeVault drewdevault.com Of all the principles of software engineering which has fallen by the wayside in the modern “move fast and break things” mentality of assholes modern software developers, reliability is perhaps the most neglected, along with its cousin, robustness. Almost all software that users encounter in $CURRENTYEAR is straight-up broken, and often badly. softwareprinciples
How Websites Die An Article by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels notebook.wesleyac.com I recently started compiling a list of defunct blogging platforms. It’s been interesting to see how websites die — from domain parking pages to timeouts to blank pages to outdated TLS cipher errors, there are a multitude of different ways. It leaves no sign of its past self behindThis obsession with permanence
It leaves no sign of its past self behind When buildings are torn down and rebuilt, the ghost of the old building is often visible in the new one — strangely angled walls and rooms, which make sense only in the context of the space as a living organism. On the web, there are no such restrictions: when a website dies, it leaves no sign of its past self behind. deathwwwarchitecturebuilding
This obsession with permanence I think a lot about the lifecycle of websites. I’m frustrated by so much of the short-term thinking I see in the world today, and the way we think about websites is a part of that: it’s “normal” for them to just go up in smoke as soon as their authors stop paying attention. People switch platforms and providers and break links without a second thought. It pains me to see people build websites with no feeling of obligation to them — when you put something out into the world, it is your responsibility to care for it. At the same time, I wonder if this obsession with permanence is misplaced. care