Erik Christiansen via luv-main writes:
On 12.05.16 11:54, Russell Coker via luv-main wrote:
Do you own a house if banks can destroy your neighborhood by robo-signing forclosure documents that the residents can't afford to legally oppose?
Do you own a house if corporations own the roads, water, and electricity supplies and can cut off your entire neighborhood if it's not profitable or if there are mostly non-white people living there (IE Flint)?
Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there?
It is difficult to gain FOSS-type freedom for our residences, but utility independence is possible. I'm in the last throes of design of my tree-change strawbale solar-powered off-grid tank-water home. As no utilities are provided at the site, there are no related charges¹. OK, there's still rates, but four down (electricity, water, gas², telephone) is a good start.
Admittedly, I'm quietly praying to Odin, Thor, Freja, and Sif, that the wireless internet out there will improve from basically adequate to good.
The biggest freedom, though, is no-one else on my 3 sq. km. - just kangas, wombats, and possums. The kangas stop and hang about if you talk to them right.
Erik
¹ Haven't been for the last 52 years, anyway. ² No service/supply charges, but there is bottle rental and a higher gas price for the little that is used for cooking when on-site firewood supplies provide all imaginable heating needs.
Now this is off topic and also nothing to do with Linux, but...... There's no such thing as "free lunch", as with any remote locations there is the constant need to look after all these systems. From quite along experience of this type of dwelling, the plumbing, power and toilet system will all require significant amount of long term maintenence. A hint, when putting in the water system make _______SURE________ (excuse the shouting) that there is plenty of slack poly pipe in the trenches, if the poly pipe is run tight, the fittings will end up pulling out in droughts when the ground dries out, and this type of problem can be VERY difficult to find. Note: I have lived in this type place for most of my life, from my experience a good number of people doing "tree changes" do not apreciate the the scale of the maintence effort to keep ones "services" running. Lindsay I wonder if this message will get through, I have not been able to post a message to luv for quite a while, this though is being posted a different way.