Autumn leaves! Staying aloft during the fall

Happy Halloweek! The crux between October and November is considered by some to be the Thursday of the year, the strange time when autumn feels more-or-less spent but winter is still chilling in the wings. It's been a quietly busy season, which is generally a good kind of season to have, and this is a round-up of some things you may have missed, or may have read, or may have engaged with in some alternative way to reading. We all operate in our own ways.

Bottoms up!

Let's start with a look at our aim to build resistance and opportunity from the bottom up. (An architect friend assures me this is the most practical way to build anything, but big billionaire business-leaders don't always agree). In this piece, Kim delves into the work of Geeks for Social Change and the plan to take our community and our communication out of the laps of the Musks and Bezoses of this world, and place them back into the hands of the people.

Building bottom-up resistance to billionaire technology

We shouldn’t need platforms owned by the biggest losers on the planet to live happy, healthy, connected lives. Our fledgling network of technologists and organisers aims to make tech billionaires obsolete by co-creating our own means of production.

Geeks for Social ChangeDr Kim Foale

How the Web was Spun

Kim started a series on website building. Just as all of us began as babies – a fact I still struggle to believe – all the websites of the world began from a person and a plan and some rudimentary code, and there's really nothing to stand your way if you want to set up your own site for yourself, your project, or the desires of your heart.

This is the first of a series on setting up your web presence, looking at the choices you can make and the hands-on ways to get things going.

What’s the best way to make my personal website?

Kim responds to the most Freqently Asked Question on our Discord. In the start of our new series on getting started online, we take a look at what a website is under the hood, the main ways you can go about it, and the pros and cons of each overall category.

Geeks for Social ChangeDr Kim Foale

Spotlight on Community Projects

This month, the community spotlight illumined Resilience Web and Karrot. The former is a community mapping platform, bringing together key information about neighbourhood resources and raising visibility for those in the area who need them most. Kim spoke to Diner about Resilience Web's use in social justice and the ways it can help people find out about the support in their area.

Kim also interviewed Nick about Karrot, an open-source community-building tool for co-ordinating group meet-ups and other practical in-person events. A particular boon for food-sharing projects, redistributing food where it's needed.

Resilience Web: Community Spotlight

Resilience Web is a campaign and platform that helps social justice organisations create maps of their area. Kim caught up with project founder Diner for an update on the project process and an insight into the tech stack.

Geeks for Social ChangeDr Kim Foale

Karrot: Community Spotlight

Karrot is a free and open source tool for grassroots initiatives and groups of people that want to coordinate face-to-face activities on a local, autonomous and voluntary basis. Kim caught up with project founder Nick for the lowdown.

Geeks for Social ChangeDr Kim Foale

Persons with things that they do

This month we met Vicky Stevenson, who wrote of a lifelong interest in zines, and how these low-budget publications can be a way to connect with others, and engage creatively in topics of class, gender and disability – and almost any other topic.

We also heard from Ben, who bewailed the culture war, but began making transgender computer games to set a light in this dark and frustrating era.

Zines are for Everyone

Are zines life? Vicky has done her best to find out. Read about a life in self-publishing, starting Pen Fight Distro, and what the future might bring for working-class zinesters.

Geeks for Social ChangeVicky Stevenson

Hope, then Excommunication, and then Hope Again

Meet Ben, a person with a tale of transphobia, excommunication, lost hope, and the secret joy of failure. How does all this lead to gender gladness, to hyacinths, and to a game called Trans Theft Horso?

Geeks for Social ChangeBen Swithen

Next up

As one season clongs into another, we can look to the future: how to make a merit of the dark season of winter. Our immediate aims: we're seeing if there's any interest in a collaboratively-run Mobilizon server for the UK, and migrating our Mastodon server to match our new domain name. Oh! And we are now running this website on Ghost 6, meaning you can interact with it directly through the Fediverse at @[email protected] (we think).

Next up, we'll be thinking about what projects we can make together – both now and into the future, to bring light, to strengthen communities, and to put tools into the hands of those who need them. Is there anything you would like to see us do? It's a broad question, but we'd be glad to hear your thoughts, your questions, and any other noises you wish to produce (possibly via our Discord server?).

Let us hold tight to the great autumn sayings: “May all your noxes be equal”, “May your autumn be autism: especially interesting” and “If a ghost bites you on Halloween you will surely die”.

There's really something for everyone. Have a great spooky season.