Supposedly the first sunny Sunday of 2020. Lucky me!
Cater vegan by default (per Guardian environment article^1). Defaults matter, and changing them works (changes behavior).
Instead of making "vegan" or "vegetarian" a special meal option, flip it around, and cater vegan by default, with special meal options for dairy (milk/cream/cheese/yogurt), meat, or fish (as well as other needs / sensitivities).
Mozilla Berlin catered lunches are fairly simple, and all but one of the "normal" dishes were vegan(1,2). There was both vegetarian (with cream) and vegan salad dressings on the side. Lastly a "special meal" container had fish. Putting non-vegan additions on the side is another good technique.
Several years ago, @aaronpk and I decided we would cater vegetarian by default at IndieWebCamps we ran. He’s vegetarian, and I’m pescetarian so that worked for us. We of course ask participants to tell us if they have any additional special meals needs, turns out nearly none did / do. Changing defaults works. Most recently at IndieWeb Summit we did more than 50% vegan dishes (all vegetarian) with no complaints.
We leave it up to each city’s IndieWebCamp organizers to decide for themselves (in a very distributed decision-making BarCamp way), however I think we’re going to make at least vegetarian a suggested default for new organizers, while going with a vegan default for IndieWeb Summits in Portland.
I’ve also been (repeatedly) advocating internally at Mozilla for the company to switch to vegan catering by default for events, especially the ones where people have to sign-up with a form and indicate any dietary requirements. Hasn’t happened yet but I’m not giving up. I can say I’ve had more and more people say they think it’s a clever idea and they like it. Eventually I expect enough support that change will happen.
I admit that seeing @osbridge (Open Source Bridge) provide vegan meals by default for years definitely inspired me. Seeing a large conference do it makes you realize how doable it is.
Things like this are why personal, small group, and company choices around food, consumption, environmental impacts do make an impact. By setting a good (if bold) example, you normalize it, you remove fear, you make it that much less strange for the next person to choose to do so, for themselves, their group, or their company. Eventually maybe you help inspire a policy maker, or enough people to influence a policy maker, and can impact local city decisions, maybe state, and more.
Systemic change is possible, and it’s possible to work in parallel at all levels.
#vegan #vegetarian #caterVegan #veganByDefault #defaultsMatter #resetAllDefaults #optionalDairy #optionalMeat #optionalFish #environment #environmental #optimist #futureOptimism #noFilter
^1 https://
My Spanish is pretty poor, but I sure miss it too
No: Can't make it this time unfortunately. I hope to show up next time though!
I want to get off Mr. Ton-That's dystopian facial recognition ride, please: https://
Hi @skiweather I'm not a skiing destination (:
New old bike
2 min read
I mentioned that my bike got stolen before Xmas, and it thoroughly pissed me off. My stolen steed was a Trek District single speed hybrid bike. In my experience the most perfect commuter bike I've ever had.
The bike had a carbon belt from Gates instead of a chain, and this means zero grease, and very low maintenance. I had driven my bike, according to Strava, for ~11500km in its lifetime. Mind you, I don't really do longer bike runs, I go to work, and I come back from work. I bike an average of 15-16km pr. day on weekdays. It's not much, but it keeps me happy and out of the tube. It's also a nice time where you are just transporting yourself, and you can clear your mind a little.
Anyway. Trek doesn't make the same bike any longer, so I immediately setup alerts on eBay to try to see if I could find the same one, or a worthy replacement. I don't really like to buy new bikes. They look too shiny and inviting for thiefs. 2nd hand it is.
I was in luck! On the 24th of December a gentleman from Gloucestershire put his belt driven Trek District for sale. I had a few exchanges with him, and bought it. On the first weekend of the year I went West to pick it up, and here it is in all its glory!
The frame is a bit smaller than what I had before, but it's otherwise entirely same bike, which is great. I'm still on the lookout for a Trek District with a 54cm frame, but until then, this is now my steed.
The astute observer would notice that it has no mudguards, which is not good for a commuter that is supposed to get you somewhat dry between locations in London, so on Sunday I fitted it with mudguards from SKS, and I also swapped the pedals. It had flat pedals with toestraps, which also aren't great for a lot of start-stopping on your commute, so I swapped the pedals for some simple flat metal pedals that will hopefully last a while.