Blogger Beta has been giving me problems since my third post. I haven't been able to syndicate (announce) my posts anywhere and it is getting rather annoying. I'm looking into hosting my own blog as my main blog, and then copying content over to blogger and livejournal for additional exposure. Annoying :/
So, sustainability math isn't something that people pay a lot of money for. It doesn't really get top advertising. Sustainability is a prominent topic but it is a buzzword, usually politicians branding their existing policies as sustainable to sell them, or supermarkets owned by people who drive SUVs trying to cash in on a niche market.
SCRI is a foundation funded in its entirety by me so far. Every dollar used for research, prototypes, testing, promotion, software, books, etc has all been money that I put into SCRI out of my paycheck. I've been trying to write a bit of code on the side and work on SCRI full time, launching the Eternal Garden Kit. We have 4 more projects lined up that we want to fund. I'm working on grant proposals, but I need to find someone with a PhD working at a university, with tenure or about to get tenure, before we will be eligible for any of the related grants.
One of the biggest criticisms I have heard regarding Living Systems as a model for sustainability and my concepts of sustainability in general is that I have not explained myself well. I have been accused of being rather close-lipped regarding my ideas three times, and that was not intentional. We created a website to help with community collaboration for SCRI, but I wasn't posting much. In no small way, this was due to a sense of perfectionism regarding publishing of theories. I didn't want SCRI to be held accountable for a math error or estimate regarding power or efficiency. The blog format was chosen because it is more forgiving, I can write without my mistakes being permanent.
There have been several things we planned to do in order to provide funding for SCRI. The first and foremost of course being successful products. Once a product has completed testing, it should leave the SCRI incubator and enter the market. Other methods are book or product sales through Amazon.com, Google Adsense and Paypal donations. None of these are really expected to fund amazing changes to the world since I'm not doing a book review per week, writing about real estate or how to make money on the internet/ebay, and we aren't exactly a 'pictures of baby seals' for donations organization.
All of the "Recommended Books"I have read all or in part (as many excerpts as I could) and I consider very good. I will add a "Related Books" section that I haven't read, or don't wholeheartedly endorse, with some designation which is which. For example, I read and enjoyed Ishmael by Daniel Quinn quite a bit but there was too many math errors, conceptual errors, and contradictions by well established research in this book and others by Quinn for me to recommend them.
Perhaps I am a little too annoyed at Amazon's fine print. While most affiliate systems provide referral credit on sales for 30 to 90 days, Amazon.com only provides credit 24 hours after a click. We do not receive credit if you close and open your browser again. We don't receive credit if a gift certificate is used to make an order. We don't receive credit if you claim to have ever heard of us before clicking the link (orders "on behalf of customers or orders for products to be used by you or your friends, relatives, or associates in any manner"). The FAQ and Operating Agreement disagree on several topics including gift certificates.
If you do want to support us through donations, thank you very much. If you purchase through
Amazon.com and intend for us to receive credit, close any open Amazon.com pages, click our link or search for the product you wish to buy, and complete the order the same day.
