shared economy

FORUM The Sharing Economy

shared shade in the wretched heat = good times :)

Yeah, maybe sharing things could result in a more efficient economy. Not that we must be communist, but we could at least have the option of sharing things to save money and resources when we feel like it. Sharing is the antithesis to loneliness, no? Policies could help: Policies for a Shareable City and innovative entrepreneurs could help:

The Sharing Economy Evening Forum

Tuesday, April 3rd at 6PM

654 Mission Street, San Francisco

with Leah Busque, Founder and Chief Product Officer for TaskRabbit; Jessica Scorpio, Founder of Getaround; Joe Gebbia, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer for AirBnB; Jamie Wong, Founder and CEO of Vayable; and Jay Nath, Chief Innovcation Officer of the City and County of San Francisco.

Shared: chickens with my neighbors; a neighborhood chicken coop! yay!

So hip

BUSINESS Urban Worm

Yeah, it's a hipster worm, yeah it is. My friend, Hayley, and her cohorts are running this thing in conjunction with Urban Adamah!

'Urban Worm is your Bay Area source for local, organically-raised red worms and vermicompost. Red worms are an ecologically friendly composting system and their castings are a nitrogen-rich soil amendment guaranteed to help your garden flourish! We are a project of Urban Adamah, a non-profit farm in Southwest Berkeley.'

Have you heard? Worm castings are like magic, making things flourish 'n such. Urban worm will be hosting their kickoff event this Sunday April 1st, from 2-4PM, including a workshop on how to start a home composting system.

San Jose!

SAN JOSE is a Poetry Slam

Last weekend, took a walking tour of Downtown and by chance, stumbled upon a number of interesting parts that makes this place, San Jose, so much more than one would suspect: art, technology, culture, space.

A R T s p a c e

Anno Domini urban art gallery with venue space and some really colorful/hilarious/bright/dark joys. The San Jose Poetry Slam - every second Friday of even numbered months (wow) is held here, $6-11.

T E C H s p a c e

Tech Shop, a membership-based workspace (like a gym) offers almost unlimited use of everything - 3D scanner & printer, water pressure cutting machine, wood shop, metal shop, industrial sewing & embroidery equipment, bike tools, autocad computer stations, workspace, classes, coffee stand, etc., oh my god and for $75 per month if you're a student. Walked right in and got a tour of the place.

C U L T U R A L s p a c e

Vietnamese/Mexican/Japanese markets, Vegan vietnamese home cooking, boba tea + pork rice pickled vegetable combos, dark films from Paris*, museums, and rock climbing, too.

S P A C E s p a c e

There's just more space here. Vacant space, too.

*watched a short film called Cushing's Syndrome - a twisted dark, murderous, and ridiculously amazing series of scenes - supposedly inspired by the filmmaker's former work as a trade analyst in the financial sector. The psychotic disease as analogous to finance, he explained.

home grown nursery

HOW TO Start a legitimate home nursery business

chickens!

Rained out from work today, so spent it researching potential business ideas. Here's one: a home nursery business selling organically-grown herb and vegetable starts at the local Japantown Farmers Market (specializing in rare heirloom and ethnic varieties). After a lot of web browsing and calling random government offices...

Assumptions: The business will be structured as a sole proprietorship (single owner) and operated out of the Downtown San Jose home, categorized as 'home occupation' as authorized by the Department of Planning, Building & Code Enforcement.

Necessary Legal Steps

1. File for a fictitious business name with the Santa Clara County Clerk by filling out a Fictitious Business Name Statement. $37.75

2. Procure a seller's permit by filling out an Application for Seller's Permit or visiting a CA State Board of Equalization field office. small fee

3. Procure a business license. Fill out the registration form, send it in through mail or hand-deliver to City Hall, and pay a fee (or fill out a Hardship Exemption Request and waive most of the fee as a low-incomer). $150 or $45

4. Procure a license to sell nursery stock from the California Department of Food & Agriculture. Their website links don't work :( so you have to call them. $150

5. Obtain a Producer's Certificate from the Santa Clara County Division of Agriculture. Call them and schedule an inspection. Prepare a list of all products/plants that will be sold and get your operation ready for inspection. $65/hour of inspection

6. Obtain Home Business Insurance to cover liability and loss. Call an insurance dealer. more money

7. Contact the Farmers' Market and make sure they even want you. Then fill out an application to sell and provide evidence of both Producer's Certificate and Business Insurance. Pay booth fees. $26/stall

Other steps:

Prepare a full-on business plan.

Seek consulting and feedback.

Seek funding to cover start-up costs.

Implement the business plan into action.

Record everything.

Pay taxes.

Smile?

Resources: businessownerspace.com (BOS) for Santa Clara County and Silicon Valley SCORE.

Horace Albright Lecture in Conservation

LECTURE The U.S. Farm Bill: What's at Stake

6:30PM Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Panel Discussion: Michael Pollan, Karen Ross, Ken Cook, Patricia Crawford, moderated by Gordon Rausser @ Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley (free).

I don't usually like panel discussions, but sometimes they make for good introductions.

Rebellion

REBELLION via chickens, poetry

1. I figure rebellion, however small, is an important thing to be able to do on a day to day basis, not just for kicks, but a thing necessary to be honest or expressive or free or something like that.

2. On a billboard I've been driving by lately: If you want to be free, be free.

3. Attended a lecture last week by Joel Salatin on the importance of animals in human ecosystems.

1 + 2 + 3 = I want chickens (and fresh eggs).

A related poem: The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer by Wendell Berry

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,
and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,
and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven’s favor,
in spite of the best advice. If I have been caught
so often laughing at funerals, that was because
I knew the dead were already slipping away,
preparing a comeback, and can I help it?
And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed
my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom
had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not
be resurrected by a piece of cake. “Dance” they told me,
and I stood still, and while they stood
quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
“Pray” they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth’s brightnesses, and then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
When they said “I know that my Redeemer liveth,”
I told them “He’s dead.” And when they told me
“God is dead,” I answered “He goes fishing every day
in the Kentucky River. I see Him often.”
When they asked me would I like to contribute
I said no, and when they had collected
more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.
When they asked me to join them I wouldn’t,
and then went off by myself and did more
than they would have asked. “Well, then” they said
“go and organize the International Brotherhood
of Contraries,” and I said “Did you finish killing
everybody who was against peace?” So be it.
Going against men, I have heard at times a deep harmony
thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what
I say I don’t know. It is not the only or the easiest
way to come to the truth. It is one way.

A related quote by Albert Camus:

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

backyard

VISION backyard

braising greens

heirloom tomatoes

stepping stones

meyer lemon

bees + honey

aquatic plants

sweet peas

apricot foxglove

reading spot

wisteria

compost

sunshine

chickens

Social Networking

ENTERPRISE Nextdoor

note pinned to a wall

Online social networks like Facebook and related sites such as Pinterest and Spotify are providing platforms for people to connect and share, be it visual, musical, or intellectual. These platforms are dependent on existing social networks - personalities and communities - ultimately working to shape and evolve them. This season, Twitter and Facebook broadcasts Jeremy Lin. Last season, Twitter and Facebook broadcasts uprising in Egypt. We update, we comment, we like, we share.

My question is not focused on whether online social networking is valuable (it is), but rather on the question of paying for it. Presumably, it's free, but nothing ever is, and if I think too much about it, I realize that Pandora knows what I want to hear, Facebook knows who I want to 'stalk' and Blogger can read my every word, analyze, dissect it, and throw it back to me in an instant. Even if they are just algorithms, they are quiet and faceless, and someone is paying for them.

I recently read an article about a new start-up called Nextdoor. It's a social networking site based on building geographically local communities by connecting neighbors with one another to share information, trade materials, organize community events, etc. Tag line: 'the private social network for your neighborhood.' It's been compared to both Facebook and Craigslist. This comparison inspired my question - does it matter who pays for social networking? Is it okay to trade personal privacy for social networking tools?

Nextdoor sounds like a brilliant idea to facilitate community building, but who will pay for it? If the point of the network is to support and benefit local communities, how can it be funded and operated in a way that doesn't betray? While respecting independent personalities and communities as independent, private entities? I think it might depend on who is investing monetarily in these social networks - which companies - local or corporate. Or perhaps, the users themselves. I don't know, just questions.

Gardening with Christopher Walken

SKIT Googly Eyes

"A lot of people are putting googly eyes on their cactuses nowadays. I think it's because cactuses are dangerous. Cactuses have pricklers. They can stab you in your hands, see, the throat, the face. So, you need to know where you stand with them at all times."

(SNL, 2008)