From their site:

We curate a list of quality forest projects for you. We remotely verify projects, ensuring they follow international standards for carbon credits. And unlike older offsets, Pachama checks projects to ensure they are protecting real carbon in old-growth trees or growing new ones. We believe in transparency and strive to give you the information you need to make the choice best for you.

I started 2021 with spreading my estimated/anticipated emissions for the year evenly across their bundles, and am offseting more than my personal share throughout the year. You can use the EPA's carbon footprint calculator to get a sense of how much you and your family are responsible for day-to-day. And you (and your company) can offset past and future flights using Atmosfair's flight emissions calculator, down to the aircraft model, precise route, flight class, etc.

Props to Katie Genter for pointing me to the calculators and to Jumbo for making me aware of Pachama.

The Second Coming BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

and bonus: my fav phrase of [non-2020] alveolar agility from mero: https://song.link/us/i/1442086795

A brief, beautiful interrogation of life, death, and consciousness by BJ Miller for the NY Times.

Is consciousness broader than life and death? Is consciousness a portion of life? Or life, even death, a portion of consciousness? When does life become death? Is it an instant? A transition? Do they coexist? When does the enduring assemblage of quanta that coalesce at conception—to later fully dissipate—become and cease to be human, the person we are, the ones we've known? And after we are materially no longer animated, what of the memories and stories that persist, spread, grow, and fall away as they move through those assemblages of quanta that remain?

It seems 2020's COVID and friends are bringing death, connection, and meaning, out of the shadows of thought for many. The questions remain grand and consequential well before answering them enters anything so distant the human experience as the divine (pantheist notions precluded). This short piece keeps it local [to Earth] and thoughtfully examines the topic with just enough sentimentality to feel very human without ascending into the clouds. Consider adding it to your reading queue as you and I contemplate the end(s), the beginning(s), and my favorite apocalypse so far (perhaps yours too).

You may not care what the weather is in LA today, but this is David Lynch, it's not about the forecast.

See also David Lynch Theater Presents: Today's Number Is...

March / April 2021 dates just announced for The Climate Leadership Lab, a rapid prototyping program designed to let us ‘unlearn’ many of our current mechanistic mindsets and practices for working on complex challenges. The two-week intensive is focused around the Gigatonne Strategy and engages a international cohort. Sign up now!

What will a post-Covid 19 economy look like in 2030? The good folk at Complexity University came up with three stories, or scenarios, for alternative futures. Each tells a story of a possible future based on an analysis of forces in play today. Each story presents an alternative future. They are not predictions. They are provocations. What do they provoke for you?

In which jeremy is cited as source on the term "twiddle wakka".

Just learned about this cool virtual space platform from our friends at https://www.fluidnumerics.com/ -- they are using it to provide highly interactive non-sucky-zoom spaces for hackathons in the High Performance Computing arena.

For those in the terminal - a monospaced font is essential.

Thanks to the Vibrarian for recommending Les chansons des autres by MOTO & Bandit Voyage. Catchy, sweet, fun bites of musique délicieuse. Just what the doctor ordered. Stream it or buy the digital album for whatever price you name here: https://souterraine.biz/album/les-chansons-des-autres

an illustrated introduction to your next hip hop listening session/party...neglect your ears no further

This clip is a couple years old, but skiing bottomless powder never gets old. Just like the developers at dojo4.

sometimes we must fully acknowledge, and then contemplate, the darkness of our time...to process the phenomena occuring in our exterior and interior landscapes...if only briefly, to inhabit the darkness...to scream without screaming...here is a catharsis aid for 10 minutes of mindfulness...closing your eyes is recommended

blending dreamy post-metal/-rock, [grindcore] screamo, and of course black metal...from krasnoyarsk, russia with love, ultar paint a passionate, hauntingly beautiful aural environment from which to embrace the darkness...pairs well with a cbd cigarette and low lighting outdoors

HAPPY HALLOWEEN Y'ALL!

for a deeper experience, listen to the full album: https://album.link/i/1453396347

The ACSL is right for you if you carry a new world in your heart, and in your code.

Like all our operations policies and business documents (https://github.com/dojo4/policy), we open sourced our updated enviromental polocy: Dojo4 Environmental Policies: A Manifesto for Earth-Friendly Business Practices. Please feel free to reuse, recycle, distribute, and make your own, in whole or part.

We are committed open-source contributors. For the greater good, and the benefit of ourselves and others, we share libraries of code and libraries of business documents: see blog post for links to legal agreements, HR and operations policies. Feel free to use in full or part. We hope it offers a helpful model.

the atmospheric shoegaze français you didn't know you needed

down-tempo and calming, but still a touch heavy...keeps the break/build/drop/breakdown/repeat form...but feels very organic: skips down beats, shifts others; flourishes (ac|de)celerating percussive tuplets; layers acoustic kit/hand drums over/under trap synth; samples phonemic vocals to create oddly spatial vocal phrases/collages; the 808 hi-hat slowly loses its mind over the course of the song (listen for it)...yet somehow stays in 8 thru out and remains thoroughly danceable...truly a composition, not a beat, not a loop...take the necessary precautions to maximize your benefit and feel the bass

Need us some more of loooong tracks - this one is 24+ minutes and it's a good one.

Thanks again to the Vibrarian for recommending this excellent album. Just what the nervous system needs after a long day of pandemic.

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.” —Arundhati Roy, The Pandemic Is A Portal

The portal presents us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-conceive who we are, individually and collectively. It is asking us to choose: life or death. As feminists and entrepreneurs, let's not squander this moment by clinging to the machinery of Capitalism, white supremacy, and business-as-usual...[more]

To read more about doing feminist business and inhabiting the portal, go to https://sister.is/.

image credit: https://shyamagolden.com/

This is a small story about a small person doing something from the heart.

Our Friday question this week was: what is an album you've listened to ~50+ times that not many people may know about or is under-appreciated? Based on the arbitrarily reliable practice of 'first thought, best thought', here's our list:

• Undun - The Roots
• Nhanderuvuçu - Arthur Melo
• Exploration 84 - Waveshaper
• The Best of Rent - Rent
• The Loon - Tapes n'Tapes
• The Wilderness Road and Jimmy Driftwood - Jimmy Driftwood
• Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (The 1955 & 1981 Recordings) - Glenn Gould
• Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo
• Annie (Original Broadway Cast Recording) - Original Broadway Cast of Annie
• What Does It All Mean? - 1983-2006 Retrospective - Steinski
• Nashville - Bill Frisell
• Tres Cosas - Juana Molina
• Bismillah - Peter Cat Recording Co.
• This Is How You Smile - Helado Negro
• Jock Jams Vol. 1 - Various Artists

I've been chatting with my cousin Vic, who lives in Philly, which has been hit hard by COVID-19, and he sent me a track his friend and neighbor made. Guessing many will identify with it ;-/

When the Senior Narrative Director for Meow Wolf shares a reading list, the collection is invariably eclectic, immersive and deliciously imaginative. From Jemison to Mukakami, and Lethem to Marquez, there's something here for everyone. Aid and abet your QQT (quality quarantine time) with guidance from this list (and/or from the Meow Wolf movie list: https://meowwolf.com/articles/lucius-seligs-long-lost-list-of-essential-movies)

Ukraine ethno chaos group Dakhabrakha are IMNSHO one of the best bands going these days. Fully in sync and endlessly creative, they are as melodic, harmonious (polyphonic, even), playful and tight.

Oregon's Pickathon is airing a concert a day from their archives, and Dakhabrakha's set ran yesterday. It was one solid hour of escapism. No raging plague, no crashing economy, no isolation - just a deeply talented band reaching across language and other borders to connect with their audience.

Notice how, at first, the crowd reaction is kinda "WTF IS this?" but by the end they're totally under Dakhabrakha's spell, all one, sharing the same remarkable moment. Reminds me of how much I miss live music.

Normaly I don't share all the secret nordic skiing spots around Boulder County, but these are special times and people need nature like never before.

Need help? Have help to offer? Connect here...

This set was originally created as part of an Afternoon Sound Alternative I did back in February on KGNU. It's barely pre-corona; the wave hadn't hit yet but it was in the air. Feels like the right mood in this time of virus: overall optimism in the face of a medical/political slowpocalypse.

Featuring music by: Hector Plimmer, Dizzyride, Yppah, The Heliocentrics, Solo Moderna, Childish Gambino (remixed by Funk Sinatra), Phil Cook, Jimi Hendrix (via Michmach vs Dj Tomahawk), The Lewis Express

Enjoy and thanks for listening.

It's ok to slow down and be with your family. Maybe it's even really really good.

I bought this album on Bandcamp a couple of weeks ago (Ok, I've bought a lot of music on BC during this lockdown) and can't stop listening to it (nor do I want to). A breadth of textures here; each song has its own feel, but they fit together like a nitrile glove. Numa Gama is a dynamite new discovery (for me, anyway). They split their time between Berlin and SE Brasil. Downtempo hypnotic electroacoustic trance from Numa Gama, Perfect for evening chilling, late night staring at the moon and defusing peak freakout moments.

This mixtape was Selected, Sequenced, Mixed and Photochopped by dojo4 Resident DJ Joel Davis aka The Vibrarian

I mean, seriously...what is there to freak out about? Right?

Featuring music from: The Black Wizards, Memes, X, Aksak Maboul, Aphex Twin, Juana Molina, ELWD, Kaytranada, Talking Heads, Leifur James, Kamasi Washington, Skinshape, Lee Perry & The Upsetters, Emanative (feat. Tamar Collocutor), SOOHAN, The Space Lady, Mary Lattimore

Enjoy, and thanks for listening -- and wash your hands, y'all.

The Isolation Check-In: New Music, Livestreams, Playlists, and More Amid Coronavirus

Mary Oliver for Corona Times (Thoughts after the poem Wild Geese) by Adrie Kusserow

You do not have to become totally zen,

You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better,

your body slimmer, your children more creative.

You do not have to “maximize its benefits”

By using this time to work even more,

write the bestselling Corona Diaries,

Or preach the gospel of ZOOM.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn

everything capitalism has taught you,

(That you are nothing if not productive,

That consumption equals happiness,

That the most important unit is the single self.

That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine).

Tell me about your fictions, the ones you’ve been sold, the ones you sheepishly sell others,

and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world as we know it is crumbling.

Meanwhile the virus is moving over the hills,

suburbs, cities, farms and trailer parks.

Meanwhile The News barks at you, harsh and addicting,

Until the push of the remote leaves a dead quiet behind,

a loneliness that hums as the heart anchors.

Meanwhile a new paradigm is composing itself in our minds,

Could birth at any moment if we clear some space

From the same tired hegemonies.

Remember, you are allowed to be still as the white birch,

Stunned by what you see,

Uselessly shedding your coils of paper skins

Because it gives you something to do.

Meanwhile, on top of everything else you are facing,

Do not let capitalism coopt this moment,

laying its whistles and train tracks across your weary heart.

Even if your life looks nothing like the Sabbath,

Your stress boa-constricting your chest.

Know that your ancy kids, your terror, your shifting moods,

Your need for a drink have every right to be here,

And are no less sacred than a yoga class.

Whoever you are, no matter how broken,

the world still has a place for you, calls to you over and over

announcing your place as legit, as forgiven,

even if you fail and fail and fail again.

remind yourself over and over,

all the swells and storms that run through your long tired body

all have their place here, now in this world.

It is your birthright to be held

deeply, warmly in the family of things,

not one cell left in the cold.

Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems: https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/

Let astronauts read to your children from space: https://storytimefromspace.com/library/

Virtual field trips: https://adventuresinfamilyhood.com/20-virtual-field-trips-to-take-with-your-kids.html?fbclid=IwAR0sphWFgVQtYlZqmu4GqC_47yRuX_yeTCPhgVmC-idih706l2weD4mnjqk

More virtual field trips: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SvIdgTx9djKO6SjyvPDsoGlkgE3iExmi3qh2KRRku_w/preview?fbclid=IwAR1U3B00jZCtXRQGn3_vlzALR1ERGCjhieHs5ot92XaWKsHqZF1mT4H7jpw#

Brave Writer has made some resources free: https://bravewriter.com/about/homebound?fbclid=IwAR33VqKnltmTb38YbhUowAlBs2FUA_0UBCwd4xWedsyuOLvbo7wZb94K-aw

Fluency and fitness is free: https://fluencyandfitness.com/register/school-closures/?fbclid=IwAR156ou-BX3WUDdy4KJgdssZKyfpdFNYhopeK6FBsCcX9zyRREs29HsflwE

Dreambox has a free 90 day trial: https://www.dreambox.com/at-home?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=og&utm_campaign=covid&fbclid=IwAR03fd-pu2DsUqw3bZ9IyVguiisUwoepo3gwWnTTBDtcSID1sG5ZizQghDk

Raddish has a free Swedish Eats Cooking Kit: https://www.raddishkids.com/pages/suddenlyhomeschooling?fbclid=IwAR0rBZALujcCnIy6S_Y-Kj75Ss37RqvSxFkSCxtpEfm0Cwtt1kwistp-2x8

Kids Cooking Classes: https://kidscookrealfood.com/

Khan Academy has lots of good ideas: https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040167432-How-can-Khan-Academy-be-used-for-remote-learning-during-school-closures-

Code Academy: https://www.codecademy.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid-search&utm_content=US_Brand_Core_Exact&utm_term=code%20academy&d=c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIy-ugrduf6AIVy8DACh0VkQWlEAAYASAAEgIoT_D_BwE

Free printable math worksheets: https://www.math-drills.com/

More online math at Beast Academy: https://beastacademy.com/online

Outschool has many amazing classes: https://outschool.com/

True Earth, Community Connection: free schooling from home in times of pandemic: https://www.trueearth.org/community-connection-free-schooling

Kidappolis is an app that enables parents to use screen time as deep learning time, through interactive, caregiver-led early learning opportunities.Use CODE: FREE for access: https://www.litlab.org/kidappolis

General Business Assistance - generously compiled by our stellar legal counsel, Jason Wiener | pc

• National Assistance
  • Small Business Association Disaster Assistance Loans: Application (applicable if your area has been declared eligible for disaster loan assistance)
  • Small Business Association Local Assistance Directory
  • Small Business Association Funding and Lender Match programs
  • Federal Disaster Unemployment Assistance
  • Loan information for cooperatives from NCBA CLUSA
  • CDC Interim Guidance for Businesses and Employers
  • Tax deferral for individual and non-corporate tax filers from April 15 to July 15
• Colorado
  • Workshare Program (an alternative to lay-offs)
  • Updated Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards
  • Colorado Unemployment Insurance with specific COVID 19 information
• Massachusetts
  • Small Business Recovery Loan Program
  • Small Business Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program
  • Prohibition on Gatherings of 25 or more
  • Emergency Operations Center Private Sector Hotline
  • Massachusetts Unemployment Insurance
• New York
  • City Financial Assistance for Businesses: Interest Form in anticipation of open applications
  • City Emergency Preparedness and Risk Assessment Grant Program
  • SBA Coronavirus Economic Injury Disaster Loan
  • New York Unemployment Insurance with specific COVID 19 changes
• Washington State
  • Tax filing extensions
  • Seattle Small Business Stabilization Fund
  • Washington Unemployment Insurance
• Oregon
  • General financial resources and general support services for businesses
  • Oregon Unemployment Insurance
• Minnesota
  • Minnesota Small Business Assistance Office
  • COVID 19 Information for Employers
  • Minnesota Unemployment Insurance with specific COVID 19 changes
• California
  • Employment & Development Dept COVID-19 Resources
  • San Francisco Small Business Resiliency Fund
  • Oakland Business Tax Relief and Paid Sick Leave
  • California Unemployment Insurance, Disaster Unemployment
• State by State Resources Spreadsheet for Small and Medium Businesses by Gusto
• Mutual Aid assistance: Considering joining or forming a mutual aid / peer assistance business support group
• Gig worker assistance:
  • Artist Assistance
  • Freelancer Emergency Fund
  • See also Federal Disaster Unemployment Assistance above.

from yours truly.

Live guided meditations, every morning from Simple Habit on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/simplehabitapp/ and recorded meditations relevant to these times https://simplehabit.com/ease-your-coronavirus-anxiety

Turning Little Free Libraries into Little Free Pantries

I came across beautifulsongoftheweek.com a few months ago and would occasionally check in to hear the latest. Now, this Spotify playist (471 songs and 32 hrs long as of this post) has become an essential, regular part of our regular lockdown listening queue.

There are way (way) more hits than misses here. Put it on shuffle, let it ride and bring a comforting sense of calm to your environment.