Linux, Cooperatives, General Health

[tcpip]

I've been putting this post off for a couple of days, wanting to get a copy of Wen's great presentation to the beginners workshop at Linux Users of Victoria on Saturday on the Raspberry Pi (which I still don't have). It was a crowded room (around 35 crammed into the VPAC training room) and he gave a one hour presentation followed by a one hour tutorial and demonstration. It was really high quality. Apropos to this organisation, I will speaking at their next main meeting on "Educating People to become Linux Users: Some Key Insights from Adult Education". Less related was an unfortunate outage at work this week as our aging Lustre/DDN storage array had a interesting development with an equally aging switch. The scheduler on our cluster was pretty much paused for the better part of two working days. Friday was also the last working day for Brian M., whom I reminded the staff is a person of such talent that he has a PhD in computer security, has a pilot's license, plays the classic violin, and has a working knowledge of Mandarin. As per a previous post I am less than pleased on the loss of our direct labourers; the symbiotic relationship of direct to indirect labour can indeed be parasitic.

After the LUV meeting convened the Isocracy meeting at Trades Hall on the topic of Workers Cooperatives and Environmentalism. I gave a broad introduction to the subject, noting the definitions, history, and criticism. I am particularly interested in how workers cooperatives are meant to raise the necessary funds in complex production processes given the large capital barrier to entry. This presentation was followed by a speaker from the Earthworker Cooperative, speaking about Eureka's Future in particular. One particular effect of the meeting is that we've decided to refinance our existing home loan from MEBank (owned by superannuation funds) to BankMECU (a consumer cooperative).

I've been intrigued by a recent publication in Cell Metabolism that suggests a half-kilojoule diet five days per month leads to improved cognitive performance, reduced cancers, and multi-system regeneration. And of course weight loss, duh. The health effects of periodic fasting are well known of course, but for obvious reasons people have a great deal of difficulty following it. So this seems to be an a good point to operate from, and I've decided to give it at least a three-month trial (which was the pilot study in humans). As previously mentioned, courtesy of Ingress and a minor modification to my normal regimen I have a higher Physical Activity Level than my rather sedentary worklife would indicate.

Comments

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I was, coincidentally, just skimming through Johnston Birchall's The International Co-operative Movement. Interesting stuff.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sounds fascinating... Does it provide a critical overview of the different types of cooperatives? Many retailer cooperatives seem to exist just to provide bulk purchasing for already big businesses..

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

It's a region-by-region history of the general development of the cooperative movement. Its global scope detracts from depth and detail a lot more than I'd like, but what I can tell it seems to do an adequate enough job at mapping out the contours of its subject matter.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Interesting. Would you be interested in doing a review of it for the Isocracy website?

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

At some point in the future, maybe. I'd feel obliged to do a bit of research first, and my schedule is a bit packed. It's a tempting idea, though.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I have you down for two articles now :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*ping* Are you up for doing a review now?

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Hello. It's been eons, much as I expected, but I believe I'm actually in a position to write this review now. Or perhaps I should say retrospective since the book is nearly 20 years old and mostly a history by this point. Do you still want a review, and if so, what length would you be looking for?