pcplantdb

[John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

> 2. Lawrence suggested that we get in touch with the International Seed 
> Saving Institute.  Which brings up the question all over again: are we 
> ready to publicly announce ourselves?...  What do you all think?

I am for waiting.  Vaporware is so ubiquitous, talk is cheap, let's not 
be just another one of those.  Let's actually have something working 
that is demonstrably PC-centric, however basic.

I mean before making any broad/big announcements.  There may be cases 
where we want to involve others and obviously they will have to know we 
exist.

> 3. ...Everyone, please 
> take a look at permaculture.info, and think about logo/graphic elements – 
> I will do so tonight and tomorrow.

I like clean and simple.  Clean and simple is good.
I don't like that the words read bottom to top in the logo.  Confusing 
IMO.  Other than that I like the logo so far.

> 5. None of the ‘techies’ responded to this – would it be possible to
> sort results by multiple characteristics

Yes.

> And display these 
> results 3-dimensionally, so users could visually see how plants fare 
> according to multiple characteristics?

Probably.  Not sure what you mean by 3-D display.  But we can certainly 
show results sorted by multiple attributes.

> 6. An idea I had today while visiting a beautiful farm in Santa Cruz, 
> California. ...

Uh-oh, major feature creep already and we don't even have an alpha... ;-)

> Apprentices at the USCS program have to overlay farms maps from the 
> previous 2 years over each other to determine what ought to go where.

Good opportunity for some human community and interpersonal relating.
Spreadsheet would do, technology-wise.  And save the maps, for when no 
more computers (Mr. Original Peak Oil, Jay Hansen, dieoff.org, who lives 
Kona-side of this island, has apparently decided to retire from his 
doom-info-mongering and go back to cruising the south seas on a sailboat 
while humanity slides down into the end-of-oil catastrophe...).

> I agree that this might 
> not be the best program to write, considering that it replaces human 
> thought/skill with automation, which will never account for all the 
> variables anyway.  

Yeah, that was my original argument against this very project.
We need more embodied living knowing, not more abstractions of abstractions.

> However, we recently got a letter from the Whole Systems Foundation, 
> replying to our proposal, saying that we need to demonstrate PIW’s 
> applicability to larger-scale agriculture.

Mollison might holler "permaculture is not agriculture!!" right here...
I think the WSF needs a lesson in Permaculture.
Their Ashland School of Environmental Technology ought to be teaching 
it, instead of teaching that straw is a "waste product" of agribusiness. 
 Instead of turning it back into soil they want to turn it into a 
hardboard product.

Their site page on Grain Production says
"Grain production is the key to feeding the growing human population. 
The yield of grain crops has been increasing since the advent of the 
agricultural revolution, and has made it possible to develop the urban 
culture of today supported by a diminishing number of farmers."
Uh, is that supposed to be a good thing...?

At the end of the same page they conclude with
"Modern agriculture is clearly on of the most unsustainable activities 
currently practiced because its ramifications are ubiquitous in the 
environment."

Nowhere do they suggest any alternatives.  Permaculture is an 
alternative.  What's this nonsense about applicability to larger-scale 
ag when they themselves say it's clearly unsustainable?

End of rant...

> Assuming that large-scale 
> Permaculture is even possible and desirable (I know we’ve discussed this, 
> but let’s assume for now), the tool described above would certainly be 
> applicable to large-scale farming.

It would be applicable to any size permaculture system or systems - why not?

> 1. Make accounts on bugzilla/scarab – Johns, would you still like us to 
> do this?

Let me have a good look at scarab first.  Don't bother with bugzilla for 
now.  Still ironing out a kink or two in JohnH's install on arashi. 
More news as it happens...

> ∑ John S.
> 1. get whatever you need for evaluation set up (?)

In process...see above.

cheers,
John S.



--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net