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--- writing:high_context_living [2026/08/15 01:14] – [Cooking] JacobCoffinWrites
+++ writing:high_context_living [2026/08/16 22:51] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites
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 And that's probably not a bad thing.
-There are some important benefits to the systems that allow for low-context living. The standardization of parts and design, the safety and quality standards, the accessability benefits from their ease of use, the efficiencies of centralized infrastructure, and the emphasis on expert-run operations are all good, admirable things which would likely be prioritized //more// by a solarpunk society than our current one. Regulations are written in blood and most of this complexity came about for good reasons.
+There are some important benefits to the systems that allow for low-context living. The standardization of parts and design, the safety and quality standards, the accessibility benefits from their ease of use, the efficiencies of centralized infrastructure, and the emphasis on expert-run operations are all good, admirable things which would likely be prioritized //more// by a solarpunk society than our current one. Regulations are written in blood and most of this complexity came about for good reasons.
-At the same time, high-context systems operated without a reduction of consumption can actually be worse ecologically.
 It's just also worth recognizing that the places where low context living is the default also tend to consume far more resources per person, possibly (partly) because these systems are easy to use, seemingly without limit, and because they abstract away the complexities of operation and the sourcing of resources.
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 =====Examples of High Context Living=====
-The following sections will attempt to gather good IRL examples of the sort of systems people build when they're living off grid or trying to reduce their consumption.
+The following sections will attempt to gather good IRL examples of the sort of systems people build when they're living off grid or trying to reduce their consumption. With any luck, they will provide inspiration and useful details for describing similar systems in fiction.
 Some of the following links are to blog posts, others are excerpts from permaculture or off-grid forums.
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   * Solar Hot Air systems can be useful for winter heating, food dehydration, or any other daytime space-heating goal. These [[https://stonehavenlife.com/comparing-solar-air-heater-designs-performance/|can be DIY]] or [[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0549/4905/2463/files/4000_Series_Heater_Manual_V2c.pdf?v=1651793890|factory made]]. Typically they are set up with an electric thermostat (or two, one to check that the interior of the heat panel is hot enough to warm the designated space, and the other to check that the designated space is cool enough to need it, the second is optional). But there is still some complexity in adding these systems, closing the vents and covering the glass in the summer.
+  * Solar Hot water can be as simple as a length of hose coiled in the sunlight or as elaborate as vacuum-lined rooftop tube systems carrying antifreeze-based heat transfer fluids through a heat exchanger to provide warm water even in winter. Some of these systems can be seasonal, and must be disconnected before temperatures drop below freezing. Either way, the water only heats to a comfortable temperature at a certain time of day so you have to plan around that.
 ====Cooking====
 There are a wealth of
-[[solar_concentrators|Solar cooker]] designs used all over the world to cook food using only heat from the sun. These range from small portable devices to huge solar concentrators which focus sunlight into an indoor oven. But all of them require at least some adjustment when you're accustomed to gas or electric stove tops/ovens.
+[[https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Solar_cooker_plans|Solar Cooker designs]] designs used all over the world to cook food using only heat from the sun.
+There are a ton of ways to cook with sunlight, there's a vibrant DIY community and hundreds of designs to fit almost any circumstance, requirement, or starting materials.
+      * Two interesting variants to call out: there are some designs that allow for fairly traditional ovens. Most solar cookers are more of a replacement for a camping stove than a kitchen oven, but even that can be done: [[https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/04/23/solar-baking-how-the-sun-is-helping-to-reduce-the-cost-of-bread-in-lebanon|This system]] appears to use a series of reflective troughs on the roof to heat a transfer fluid running through a tube and conveys that down to a fairly traditional convection oven. While a [[https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Scheffler_Community_Kitchen|Scheffler reflector]] is a huge mirrored dish positioned outside a building to [[http://www.solare-bruecke.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/2-the-scheffler-reflector?itemid=|bounce light through a hole in a wall into an oven]].
+**High-Context Expectations**: You generally need clear skies and they get less and less effective at higher latitudes. You also need sunlight - this might seem obvious, but think of how many changes you'd have to make if you could only cook when it's light out. No hot breakfasts (at least for much of the year in certain latitudes), no more bakers hours getting food ready before you open. Solar cooking and baking are done exclusively during the heat of the day.