Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Sixth Stage of Collapse


Joel Robison
[In italiano]

I admit it: in my last book, The Five Stages of Collapse, I viewed collapse through rose-colored glasses. But I feel that I should be forgiven for this; it is human nature to try to be optimistic no matter what. Also, as an engineer, I am always looking for solutions to problems. And so I almost subconsciously crafted a scenario where industrial civilization fades away quickly enough to save what's left of the natural realm, allowing some remnant of humanity to make a fresh start.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Boat Bits

Sometimes collapse starts to feel like too tiresome a subject (more and more so as time goes on), and sometimes I wish to instead channel RLM of BoatBits and write about boaty stuff instead. We just got back from a week-long sailing vacation, of sorts, aboard our new boat. It was supposed to be a lot longer; the original “plan” (the word makes me laugh) was to sail to South Carolina and spend the cold months there, then sail back to Boston in the spring. But the new boat did not inspire confidence with its mechanics, or please me with its sailing ability, so we headed back.