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Explorer, writer of travel stories and taker of mediocre photographs. I get obsessed with things. Over the years I have walked to Spain from England, hitchhiked from Amsterdam to the top of Norway and driven across East Africa. I have recently published my first book, which can be found here: https://mybook.to/AIMmMDy

If you want to read some of my work, you can go to https://www.slowwavepublishing.com

Websiteslowwavepublishing.com

And I must also acknowledge the challenges we're dealing with here. I'm just begging everyone to be cool if you see someone using the fediverse a bit differently than what you're used to, or goes on a bit of a rant to vent a minor frustration, or asks a rhetorical question.

Not everything requires a response.

If you mostly agree with a post, give it a like/star/whatever, and move on with your life. If you disagree, but the person isn't hurting anyone, then the post is not for you.

I just want the fediverse to be a safe place we can share together, where people can come to be themselves, and where we can connect and help each other. We all need this.

#fediverse #activitypub #standards #OpenWeb #anniversary #BeCool #BeKind

Inspired by Google's move to remove @organicmaps from the Playstore without warning, I finally decided to move my > 3,000 Google Maps saved places to Organic Maps. To facilitate doing this for others' benefit, I made a quick webpage to convert your Google Maps GeoJSON data to GPX and KMZ files that render well in Organic Maps.

https://rudokemper.github.io/google-maps-places-to-organic-maps/

Convert Google Maps saved places to Organic Maps

So, pretty much 7,000 or 8,000 years ago, humans figured out how to live without rulers, and men and women were equal.

From Wikipedia:

#Çatalhöyük (English: Chatalhoyuk /ˌtʃɑːtɑːlˈhujʊk/ cha-tal-HOO-yuhk; Turkish pronunciation: [tʃaˈtaɫhœjyc]; also Çatal Höyük and Çatal Hüyük; from Turkish çatal "fork" + höyük "tumulus") is a tell (a mounded accretion due to long-term human settlement) of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 6400 BC and flourished around 7000 BC. In July 2012, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

"Çatalhöyük was composed entirely of domestic buildings with no obvious public buildings. While some of the larger rooms have rather ornate murals, the purpose of others remains unclear.

[...]

"The sites were set up as large numbers of buildings clustered together. Households looked to their neighbors for help, trade, and possible marriage for their children. The inhabitants lived in mudbrick houses that were crammed together in an aggregate structure. No footpaths or streets were used between the dwellings, which were clustered in a honeycomb-like maze. Most were accessed by holes in the ceiling and doors on the side of the houses, with doors reached by ladders and stairs. The rooftops were effectively streets. The ceiling openings also served as the only source of ventilation, allowing smoke from the houses' open hearths and ovens to escape. Houses had plaster interiors accessed by squared-off timber ladders or steep stairs. These were usually on the south wall of the room, as were cooking hearths and ovens. The main rooms contained raised platforms that may have been used for a range of domestic activities. Typical houses contained two rooms for everyday activity, such as cooking and crafting. All interior walls and platforms were plastered to a smooth finish. Ancillary rooms were used as storage, and were accessed through low openings from main rooms.

"All rooms were kept scrupulously clean. Archaeologists identified very little rubbish in the buildings, finding middens outside the ruins, with sewage and food waste, as well as significant amounts of ash from burning wood, reeds, and animal dung. In good weather, many daily activities may also have taken place on the rooftops, which may have formed a plaza.

[...]

"Çatalhöyük has strong evidence of an #egalitarian society, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious #hierarchy for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status, as typically found in Paleolithic cultures. Children observed domestic areas. They learned how to perform rituals and how to build or repair houses by watching the adults make statues, beads, and other objects. Çatalhöyük's spatial layout may be due to the close kin relations exhibited amongst the people. It can be seen, in the layout, that the people were 'divided into two groups who lived on opposite sides of the town, separated by a gully.' Furthermore, because no nearby towns were found from which marriage partners could be drawn, 'this spatial separation must have marked two intermarrying kinship groups.' This would help explain how a settlement so early on would become so large.

"In the upper levels of the site, it becomes apparent that the people of Çatalhöyük were honing skills in agriculture and the domestication of animals. Female figurines have been found within bins used for storage of cereals, such as wheat and barley, and the figurines are presumed to be of a deity protecting the grain. Peas were also grown, and almonds, pistachios, and fruit were harvested from trees in the surrounding hills. Sheep were domesticated and evidence suggests the beginning of cattle domestication as well. However, hunting continued to be a major source of food for the community. Pottery and obsidian tools appear to have been major industries; obsidian tools were probably both used and also traded for items such as Mediterranean sea shells and flint from Syria. Noting the lack of hierarchy and economic inequality, historian and anti-capitalist author Murray Bookchin has argued that Çatalhöyük was an early example of anarcho-communism."

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk

#AnarchoCommunism #Anatolia #MutualAid #AncientHistory #Histodon

Çatalhöyük - Wikipedia

Meet George and I in Dinder National Park, Sudan.

We were just setting up camp when some of the local guys decided to pay us a visit.

See the link below for the full story.

#travel #vanlife #Sudan

https://www.slowwavepublishing.com/dinder-national-park/

Dinder National Park

J.S May's independent publishing company based in Sheffield

Slow Wave Publishing

Spent some time #hiking around Salt marshes in #Norfolk. On this hike we also passed the prehistoric #Seahenge, which I have always found a little unsettling.

Despite the sunshine, it was cold and windy as hell. We found some shelter in an empty tourist office that was being refurbished (last photo).

If you want to read abut some of my travels, you can go to www.slowwavepublishing.com

#travel

Bird watching box in #Norfolk UK, that I came across whilst #hiking some of the coastline. #travel

I've been thinking about how trust is a resource. Without trust, I would never have been able to hitchhike across Europe. I was powered from Amsterdam to the Arctic using the resource of trust.

Hopefully, I behaved respectfully on my travels and added to humanity's trust stockpile. Trust is self perpetuating. So, I suppose, is distrust. #hitchhiking #travel

Anyway, here's another one of the North #Norfolk coast. I love anything ramshackle. The world needs more ramshackle.

Holkham Beach, #norfolk. A very underrated part of the world. Took this one whilst on a three day trek around the North Norfolk coast #travel #walking

So, Sudan.

I have some great photos that I can’t upload as I have no way of getting permission from those in them. Here are some I can upload: two of the Meroë pyramids, and one taken somewhere between Khartoum, the capital, and Meroë.

The Sudanese are the most hospitable people I've ever encountered. I think we British could learn a lot from the Sudanese.

I've made a short blog post about our time in Port Sudan, should you like to read it. #travel #sudan #africa

https://www.slowwavepublishing.com/port-sudan/

Port Sudan

J.S May's independent publishing company based in Sheffield

Slow Wave Publishing

Sinkat, #Sudan. This was once a British military office, now smithereens. I found visiting this area powerful. I was reminded of the poem Ozymandias. I collected a shard of tile. You can see it in the second photo.

There is a lot more to Sudan than this (more pyramids than Egypt, over 100 languages, great food). I'll dedicate a post to Sudan, the country, soon. I just need time to compile it and do it justice. #travel #africa