Welcome to the Miscellaneous Materials Reading Club MM035 (Season 4 issue 5)
https://www.are.na/kristian-bjornard/mm-mm035

Current daily average CO2 PPM: 419.39 ppm
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/monthly.html

Miscellaneous Materials (https://www.are.na/kristian-bjornard/mm-miscellaneous-materials) are collected imperfectly. A reflection of whatever is interesting to me at the time. What is in this collection? What on earth was I doing or thinking about as I collected these things?



Well, I'm a bit far removed from the collecting to know much, or frankly even recognize much! But I will say this: As of this sending, these are just are.na collections, no more dropbox zip files and folders. This I am hoping is a more fluid way to collect and share and document in the process of collecting. I am also figuring out a way to get back to having a real website, so that these newsletters can then also live as a webpage, there will be a webpage, an are.na collection, and some sort of more real record and home for these things moving forward?

I am always inspired by Robin Sloan's newsletters (https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/buoyed-by-the-flood/). They are well written, they contain so much stuff, I feel like I learn so much and find so many new things. So, can I make this more in alignment with that style of a newsletter? Who knows, but it's part of the plan now. Oh! And over the summer, while on this wild and long cross-country national park tour with my wife and kids, I read Sloan's novel "Sourdough" to my kids (https://www.robinsloan.com/books/sourdough/). Robin has a new short story, In the Stacks (https://brandnewbox.com/inthestacks/), and it is fabulous. My 3 year old was entertained by having it read to her, and my 7 year old, actually finds the story and prose worthwhile to experience as someone learning to read as well as being interested in tinkering with things... my son has so many questions about analog synthesizers!

I collected much of what is in MM035 while driving from Baltimore to San Jose in fits and starts from random AirBnbs and family's guest rooms. This was from May 2022, woah. That was the start of this epic trip that still has me confused and excited and struggling to deal with "regular" life and work since.

So, there's not a ton, and it is non-sensical. Why did I collect what's there? I can't remember. But it makes for an interested juxtaposition: How to figure out the stable orientation of an iceberg, Julian Huxley and Transhumanism, Paris banning cars, myth busting use by dates, nuclear propulsion to mars, web3 shenanigans, Librarians Supporting the Creation of New Knowledge, El Lissitsky, and social justice issues in climate philanthropy… Not really a common thread, other than I guess these are my interests — climate change, energy, design, open source, the limits of technology…

Well, in case you missed it at the top, here's the collection: https://www.are.na/kristian-bjornard/mm-mm035

Enjoy what's there. Let me know if you don't like just being sent to Are.na, if many people prefer downloading things from dropbox, well, I guess I can go back to that.

My email (or phone) is always open for response and conversation.

Kristian Bjornard
507 301 8402
bjornmeansbear@pm.me
http://tinyletter.com/bjornmeansbear
https://www.bjornpaedia.com/ & https://a.wjerk.shop/

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