Brooklyn Parrots is about a non-native species which is surviving and doing well, without causing problems for the native environment.

Tis the season for driving along country lanes and finding apple trees loaded with fresh fruit, never picked. Kind of sad those trees that grow forgotten along the road. Once they would have been picked, the apples used in pies or eaten right off the tree. Now people just drive on by and only notice them in passing. Yet those are our history, our heritage.

Next time you see an apple tree stop and pick a few. Some may be bug eaten, but some of the brown patches are only places where it rubbed on the tree branch and not anything you can’t just peel away. It may be the best apple you have ever had, if you give them a chance. Of those I picked almost all were edible, not bug eaten as I expected they would be. One was especially delicious. It’s a shame I don’t know what kind of apple tree it came from.

Would you grow an apple from seed? Have you ever grown a plant from seed? Why not try one, even something tropical or exotic and have it grow by your writing space. Keep your seedling company and let it inspire you with something fresh and growing where you work.

From Romantic History: "WIFD" or Week in Feminine Dress. During this time, members who want to participate post pictures of what they wear from day-to-day, to encourage and inspire each other to dress in pretty, practical and feminine attire – something different from standard sweats, or jeans, or whatever.

“There are no future facts.” – Fred Polak

From the Association of Professional Futurists:

What is a Futurist?

A professional futurist is a person who studies the future in order to help people understand, anticipate, prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes. It is not the goal of a futurist to predict what will happen in the future. The futurist uses foresight to describe what could happen in the future and, in some cases, what should happen in the future.

Most people use some sort of foresight all the time – something as simple as listening to the weather forecast to prepare for the next day. A professional futurist uses formal methods to develop descriptions of possible futures. The output of a futures study may include the driving forces, assumptions, evidence or indicators of the futures. A futurist is more likely to say how or why a future could appear rather than to say what the future will be.

One of the founding principles of the field of futures studies is the idea of personal and organizational choice. Although the future is unknown, a person can identify possibilities, select the most favorable outcomes and attempt to influence events to create a desired future.

By considering systems and human agency, futurists help identify choices that affect the future, for ourselves and future generations.

What do futurists do?

Futurists work in large and small businesses, governments and non-profits, as teachers or researchers in education, and as consultants or as permanent staff. Many futurists focus on one topic such as a technology or an industry. Other futurists study broad social changes or global problems. All futurists take a very wide view of the world in both scope and time. Futurists tend to take a much broader perspective, consider longer time horizons, and include many more factors in a study than analysts such as economists, technology specialists, social critics or political commentators.

A futurist’s analytical process falls into five general areas:
Framing – understanding the current state of affairs
Visioning – opening the range of possibilities
Describing – explaining or reporting on possible futures
Scanning – looking for indications of the future
Planning – creating/implementing a future direction

About Future Studies:

Wikipedia: Futurology – Future studies (also called futurology) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch under the more general scope of the field of history. Futures studies (colloquially called “futures” by many of the field’s practitioners) seeks to understand what is likely to continue, what is likely to change, and what is novel. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends.[1] Unlike science where a narrower, more specified system is studied, future studies concerns a much bigger and more complex world system. The methodology and knowledge are much less proven as compared to natural science or even social science like sociology, economics, and political science.

While forecasting—i.e., attempts to predict future states from current trends—is a common methodology, professional scenarios often rely on “backcasting” — i.e., asking what changes in the present would be required to arrive at envisioned alternative future states. For example, the Policy Reform and Eco-Communalism scenarios developed by the Global Scenario Group rely on the backcasting method. Practitioners of futures studies classify themselves as futurists (or foresight practitioners).

Futurists use a diverse range of forecasting methods including:
Anticipatory thinking protocols:
Causal layered analysis (CLA)
Environmental scanning
Scenario method
Delphi method
Future history
Monitoring
Backcasting (eco-history)
Back-view mirror analysis
Cross-impact analysis
Futures workshops
Failure mode and effects analysis
Futures biographies
Futures wheel
Technology roadmapping
Relevance tree
Simulation and modelling
Social network analysis
Systems engineering
Trend analysis
Morphological analysis
Technology forecasting

Backcasting starts with defining a desirable future and then works backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect the future to the present.[1] The fundamental question of backcasting asks: “if we want to attain a certain goal, what actions must be taken to get there?”[2][3]Forecasting is the process of predicting the future based on current trend analysis. Backcasting approaches the challenge of discussing the future from the opposite direction.

Resources:

Wikipedia: List of futurology topics
World Future Studies Federation
Association of Professional Futurists
World Future Society
Future Timeline
Acceleration Watch: Futurist

Our world is shrinking. The Internet was predicted to save us paper, bring sweeping changes to the way we communicate and bring the world together, connecting us all as a community over distances.

I don’t see less paper use, maybe even more as people print things from the Internet, including their bills, statements and such which are sent via email from their paperless accounts with banks, insurance, utilities, etc. The corporations can show a savings in paper but, in reality, it has just been passed to the consumer.

Mushing School: A Dog Sledding Adventure « becominganomad.

How to Farm in the City; Urban Homesteading.

Busker Central