SPCC A Casa Amarela

i went a little crazy and got the house a new 160AH battery (Lead acid), produced locally by a Portuguese company (Autosil). we now have full electricity all day / night (depending on consumption). all i need to know now is whether we can keep adding batteries to the system, or if doing so will fuck it up.

also, week end party for the non profit i've been a part of for the last 3 years.

plus new damaged solar cells for a full 100W panel. i'll be starting it today, and working on the speakers for saturday.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

last night we had a long-missed multicultural spontaneous party, bringing back many memories from the past. i missed falling asleep to the sound of laughter, music and silliness. thanks to a lot of freecycled alcohol from the festival (super bock super rock, thanks Teddy & Mara), it got everybody's spirits up. it's a sign that we're finally succeeding in creating a welcoming traveler community like we wanted.

i also successfully finished and installed my first home made solar panel. even though it could output about 100W, i think it will hardly go that far, since i didn't have enough tabbing wire and used very thin copper wire instead, and the cells were very damaged. i measured the resistance and it's high for cable standards. that means current won't be as high, and may even fry the cable. i really enjoyed using acrylic sheets though, and loved the look of a fully transparent solar panel. i'll write a proper story on how to make solar panels soon, but you can google it, it's really easy. it just takes a lot of time (it took me about 12h for a 100W panel). we now need more batteries for the battery bank.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we're starting some cane constructions but our first tryout failed. we're planning some cane structures to make the front of our building look nicer. other than that, same old. the dutch guests brought two austrian guests that are really into building stuff, and want to build our windmill. just the other day they were building stuff out of all the bones.

our chapito guests have been there a lot, and are excited about the possibilities, but are beginning to hit the same wall we did: electricity and cooling. their power requirements are much higher than ours, so in their case i suspect a generator would be the best, maybe a modified diesel one to run on DIY diesel.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

apparently, yesterday during the day, the crew had a breakthrough, and when i got there EVERYTHING was clean, there was a stage built, a bunch of new initiatives. i guess T (crowbar) used her super powers again.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we've been a bit frustrated lately. our creeped out right is higher than ever. i think it's because of the extreme lack of hygiene of most of our residents. besides adopting two new dogs and not taking care of them (it's me and T feeding them and treating their problems), people not only do not clean, but also shit, break and generally mess up all over. we're 4 working (mostly 2, T and A), but whenever the people count goes up to 10 people (as it's been), we can't do anything for the house anymore, and can barely keep it at general cleanliness state.

one of the guests has repeatedly SHAT outside the toilet. what the fuck. last night they did the same thing again, this time moderately wiping it off with toilet paper. not good enough! there is still SHIT on the fucking SEAT! how hard is it to shit INSIDE a BIG FUCKING HOLE?

i can't blame our guests for leaving. it can be a bit overwhelming. level 4 looks like a minefield of dog shit, it's hard to walk around without stepping into a piss puddle. i could go on. plus the drunkenness, loudness, overbearing music, and a lack of interest / arrogance towards guests is too much. every time someone asks why a guest leaves, i feel an urge to say "because the place is covered in shit and arrogance". i would probably leave, too, if i kept being harassed, ignored or just lustfully stared at like some of our guests are.

the unfortunate side of this is that since we're putting our effort in maintenance, the project is slowing down. luckily, some guests catch on to this and help out more. over and over again, anarchy works if you don't have anarchists around. street punk anarchism seems to be just another excuse for libertarian individualism, a capitalist ideology, which makes it kind of ironic when the agent of individualism is wearing a t-shirt with a big (A) for anarchy on it. most of the self professed anarchists should be self professed libertarian individualists, that would ease the stereotype burden on other anarchists (like anarcho-syndicalists and others).

it's funny when an anti authoritarian guest imposes his way on everyone and shouts "this is anarchy! i can do whatever the fuck i want!"

on a lighter note, we've successfully built our first solar panel. we're at the finishing stages, and i'll post a story on how to do it soon. so far, i'm very happy with the progress, it's my first one and it works! also, a bunch of new toilets are working out great. the big compost pile smells wonderful, like a big cow dung mountain.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

another party, this time for R's and my birthdays. i was so tired i just collapsed after dinner. i can't do anything with this heat. too bad we didn't have that many people yesterday, but i guess it's harder on a week day.

S is back, moderately healthy. he is still pretty bad, but getting better. our recent guests were also really fun people. we're not having that many quality requests these days. CS is desperately awkward. one of our most recent guests had no idea what a squat was and she filled out the questionnaire. it's hard to say something truthier than the truth. we're looking for a way of sending a back message that helps people understand what it's about. i know that some people are somewhat lacking in the way they write their first message, but can turn out to be people interested in the project. so we might do a second layer of communication on approvals.

other than that, same old! here's the add for the mixer sale: http://lisboacity.olx.pt/mesa-de-mistura-peavey-pv6-como-nova-c-garantia...

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

T's birthday party was awesome. she did an amazing job with level 2. we had the bar, a dance floor, lounge, and made it roomy and fun. we got our mixer + laptops + cellphones + strobe light + lighting all to run off the car alternator and a 1kW inverter. now the impressive bit: for a whole night we spent maybe 10€ in gas. add to that free food + free booze for about 40€, we got everyone wasted and having fun for next to nothing.

i'm a bit unhappy with this mixer, so we're planning on selling it and getting another one. we're definitely needing a good sub woofer though.

we have a lot of pictures ready on our recent projects, but no laptop means no card reader means no pictures.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we're out of laptops at the moment, so we haven't done that many updates. until we set up computers at the house again, we're down to intermittent updates. we have some photos ready for the report on our dry toilet and our (small) green patch on the roof.

our new (damaged) solar cells arrived. i will be training anyone interested in it, on how to build solar panels for a fraction of the price (e.g., 100W panel for about 80€ instead of 1000€). it's a recent discovery of mine, the fact that solar energy is incredibly cheaper than advertised. anyone can have a solar system for about 200€. compare that to the 3000€+ price tags you see in hardware stores. it seems more likely that this big "eco tax" is just another way to discourage alternative power systems.

yesterday we had a visit from 3 former/final chapitô students, a tip by Tiago (thank you!). they are looking for a place to do their shows, we showed them around and they liked the place. it's only a matter of time and whether they really are into that kind of life.

we're, as usual, slowly progressing towards our goals. i think we'll have a proper sub woofer soon. our amp is wimpy but for what it's for, it's fine. that means since it's T's birthday on saturday, we'll be raving again (i suspect). so soon another kawak kay sound system tryout.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

we've successfully built a dry toilet. thanks Tori for the input and skills. it's much better than the previous one, with no smell at all and no need to carry around water buckets. also, we put it in our compost pile for the first time and it didn't stink remotely as bad as i expected. just a brown sludge. not as smelly as our leftover compost. we might need a big composting bin now to speed up the process. since humanure can carry diseases, we need to be more careful about it. we'll be writing a story soon on how we did it.

we've also successfully started our green roof (a tiny patch). it still needs about 100L of soil, which we still have to get. i abandoned the full water filtering system on all of the farmed soil. instead, we will collect the rain water and add a filter after the collector. this makes the set up much easier. getting off the water grid is probably the hardest step these days. we are also using the concrete tiles as a replacement to the stone layer, since it allows for quick water flow down. we will use the existing water collecting layer and the pipes, so all we need is to plug a container to these pipes.

we're also starting our own solar panel construction. i got some damaged solar cells on ebay and we'll be running trials on building and using these. i'll write more on this soon.

now that summer is starting, people tend to abandon their dogs. that's what happened last week, when someone abandoned two puppies near our street. O took them in, so we now have two more dogs. they are friendly but clearly traumatized. they are great guard dogs though.

other than that, we were helping a couple out until they found a place to stay. the guy was clearly troubled, and once he realized he couldn't stay, he robbed us and left (this is the current established perspective on what happened). nothing much. he took the house money box (about 50€ in), my mp3 player (which is worth nothing these days) and money from A's pocket (about 3€). again, people on survival mode show a very obvious behavior pattern, which i will try to summarize.
1) they are unlikely to say thank you or i'm sorry, even when you give them food or shelter (he fit this, she didn't)
2) they tend to empty praise people around them excessively (he fit this, she didn't)
3) they tend to be overly friendly, yet selfish and hoarding (he fit this, she didn't)
all of this is mainly connected to, in my opinion, self preservation and awareness of ingroups. someone on survival mode will not care for anyone but themselves. but they know human groups are tribal and that they need to create a "non zero sum", a fake reciprocity that creates a sense of understanding, so that they are welcome in a community. he did this with skill, though he wasn't the most skilled we've hosted so far. he was friendly and funny and tried to compliment and be friends with everyone. yet he never said thank you for the food or appreciated what we were doing for him. he enjoyed our surplus while he could, and once he realized he couldn't move in, he took off with our money.

i do wonder how this works. the fact that the people in the house weren't willing to take him in caused him to go on self preservation mode. people off the street are frequently like this.

we later learned that he had done this before to his girlfriend. he also stole money from her and skipped rent. her perspective is that he's bipolar. my view is that he is exploiting her for being insecure. i can find no other explanation for someone putting up with this kind of behavior. when he left, he didn't say goodbye to her at all. he left her behind and took off with his stolen goods.

it is tragic that the people that need help are the ones that end up falling in the selfish preservation loop. like previous people that lived with us, the pattern repeats itself over and over. when self preservation is an issue, people will hoard, be selfish and violent. but self preservation is a fable, made up in the junkie / social outcast mind. we live in a society of surplus, with food, water, electricity everywhere, with safe streets. no one is "out to get us". there is no need for a survival mode approach, except if one choses to make that the defining story of their lives. inevitably, it will leave them alone, or with enablers, that will perpetuate the cycle of abuse and violence.

healing this is incredibly hard. it requires a very positive setting that allows for each individual to grow out of their vicious cycles. unfortunately, at our house we can't really do it when someone is so down this loop. they require full professional help. maybe one of our future helpxers or surfers can turn out to be a psychologist and help us out. but more and more, we're understanding that sometimes we have to push people away to preserve our community. this is a tremendous political defeat for me. over and over again, anarchy doesn't work because of anarchists and their selfish authoritarian ways.

in line with this, check out Chris Hannah of Propagandhi on the G20 protest.

i updated my personal feed, all i'm sharing is now on one URL, if you're also interested in my other topics of interest. the address is http://starstuff.collected.info/ .

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆

as i did previously, i continue to do data analysis on the requests we get on CS. this time the experiment is a simple test on how much does a picture matter.

i chose two pictures, one anonymous, simple and gray (though customized to reflect my hair and clothes), and my usual "laying in the grass" picture. then, every week, i swap the pictures (on tuesday afternoons). i do this to remove weekly effects (more requests on some days than others).

the first data set, from 6 weeks, has a total of 40 requests. 28 for the grass picture, 12 for the anonymous picture. this is over twice the quantity of requests. even though we all expected it, it's now pretty clear that not only a picture matters, it makes a difference on whether someone will take time to read your profile. with the anonymous picture i got NO filled out forms. there is a direct connection between the attractiveness of your picture and the likelihood of getting a request. i guess we all suffer from prettytitis! the irony is that i remain the same human being, no matter what picture i put up. that is a sad but true statement on how shallow we are.

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆