almanac.sh

almanac.sh is a bulletin that follows lunar cycles and deals with ecological/social/digital and non-digital sustainability, esoteric and queer approaches to computing, and everything in between.

It has a participatory format: if you feel like it, take a look at the open call (there is no deadline :)

Here is the first alamac.sh bulletin. I (Federico) will begin by explaining how we got here.

The interest in the themes of this project is a synthesis of various topics that are generally not very popular. During my master's studies and the beginning of the Habitat project, I became interested in topics such as low-tech, the community use of technology and the concept of limits. I also encountered a sphere that I had not yet been able to decode, namely that of the metaphysical and the sacred. During those years (around 2022), Davide and I met at the Reassemble Lab in Amsterdam, where we began a friendship as well as sharing our concerns about the same topics. We were introduced by Marloes, who was also my thesis supervisor. I read one of her articles regarding a review of Computing within Limits related terminology and discovered the concept of permacomputing. Ecstatic about these discoveries, I tried to lay the foundations, outlining a cosmology of rural computing, which will often appear in the bulletins.

In 2023, Davide organised a research session at Servus.at where we started studying, unpacking and formulating meaning, especially regarding permacomputing. Almanac.sh is an output that came out of that week and from a workshop held at AMRO24

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Computer-less computation. Calculating the moons: the epact

The epact is a value that represents the age of the moon at the beginning of the new year and corresponds to the days separating the NEW MOON in December from 31st December (with some complicated exceptions that we will not discuss here).

Each year, the epact number increases by 11, and if the sum is greater than 30, then 30 is subtracted.

Remember that every 19 years, in 1976, 1995, 2014, 2033, 2052, 2071..., it increases by I2.

Thanks to the epact, at any time of the year you can know on which day the NEW MOON falls and, therefore, when the other three phases of the Moon fall (first quarter waxing, full moon, last quarter waning).

BUT TO MAKE THE CALCULATIONS CORRECTLY, YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT

the epact is counted from 1 March: therefore, for the first two months of the year - January and February - the epact of the previous year is used. In our case: for 2026 the epact is 11, in 2025 the epact was 0, which should be used for January and February;
each month, from March to February of the following year, corresponds to a month number ranging from 1 to 12: the “month number” for March is 1, April 2, May 3, June 4, July 5, August 6, September 7, October 8, November 9, December 10, January 11, February 12.

NOW LET'S LEARN HOW TO RECOGNISE WHEN THE NEW MOON OCCURS

add the month number to the epact number (remember: from 1 March the number is going to be 11);
if the total is greater than 30, then subtract 30, otherwise leave it as it is;
subtract the result from 30 again (except for February, September and November: for these months, subtract from 29) and you will get the day of the NEW MOON;

There is little difference between the results obtained by calculating the epact and those obtained by astronomical calculation: at most one day, two at the most... The real difference, however, lies in another aspect: astronomical measurement requires complicated calculation tools, computers and scientists, while calculating the moon with the epact requires only ten fingers, and anyone can do it.

some example:

when is the new moon in January 2026?
0 (epact in january, considering the epact of previous year) + 11 (month number) = 11
30-11 = 19
the new moon is around the 19th of January. (the 18^th according to astronomical calculation)

When is the new moon in May 2026?

11 (epact of 2026) + 3 (month number) = 14
30-14 = 16
the new moon is on the 16th of May (It’s going to be the last day of AMRO26** :O ).

approximately: from the day of the new moon, subtract 7 days to get the LAST QUARTER; subtract 15 to get the FULL MOON; subtract 22 to get the FIRST QUARTER.

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3 January 2026: Full moon on a night with fast-moving clouds.

Living outside the city, light pollution is virtually non-existent and I can walk without a torch when our satellite allows it.

On the table in my garden, there are some mineral stones, probably calcite. The moon reflects a little light on them and makes them sparkle.

They are not used (at least for now) as amulets or anything else, they are just minerals found on the paths in the surrounding woods. They tell the story of thousands and thousands of years of chemical and physical events, and then, voilà, they sometimes reveal themselves during a walk. Holding the result of this complex geological struggle in my hand causes me conscious amazement and unconscious resonances on these themes. Or perhaps exactly the opposite.

I have decided that every full moon of the year I will do a reading of the Tangible Cloud Oracle - a deck of cards inspired by the classic Marseille Tarot. The major arcana are reworked with virtues and criticalities in the macro topic of “tech” and, in fact, we can consider it a dramaturgical tool.

With the deck in my hand, I head towards what at Habitat we call Holy Mountain. Perhaps it is more of a large clay rock, but that is not important. We consider it a bit of a hotspot, a basic beacon: it sends one signal, its existence. But that's not all: the symbolic connotation we attribute to it lies in the desire to stabilise the vertical dimension, a way to feel a connection with the up there. In the horizontal dimension, the stones were signals which revealed the geography of the place, serving to describe its physical structure and its productive and/or mystical-religious utilisation.

At our rock we perform, we contemplate the landscape from the top, we dance, we sing, we read poems.

In front of the hill there is a large antenna for mobile communications. I would like to quote the philosopher Gilbert Simondon:

Look at this antenna of television as it is… it is rigid but it is oriented; we see that it looks into the distance and that it can receive [signals] from an emitter far away. For me, it appears to be more than a symbol; it seems to represent a gesture of sorts, an almost magical power of intentionality, a contemporary form of magic. [...] there is a sort of “co-naturality” between the human network and the natural geography of the region.

Found at: Hui, Y. (2017). On Cosmotechnics. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 21(2), pp.319–341

Here Simondon describes antennas in a way that goes beyond the limits of the language of technic, it embraces the gesture that the antenna implies: the environment, the ecosystem.

Conscientiously blocking further reflections, let's move on to the oracle... but first, a note on tarot: tradition says that it should be the images, symbols and figures on the cards that speak.

The ineffable meaning of the gesture represented cannot be fully decoded through words. Here we will do the opposite: no images in the almanac, only written words, for two reasons: in recent decades, we have been bombarded with images, and digital images are heavy, they have a real and tangible impact. Of course, anything, even this word, even this transmission via email or RSS feed, even keeping the computer on. But this publication will, by choice, be reduced to text only, without fancy styling or images.

Now I reveal the cards that were drawn that night:

IV asymettric shimmering

an old king in full armour sits on a throne with the logos of Big Tech. He is holding a webcam pointed at you.

X Retournment

a sphinx, representing wisdom, sits on a wheel carrying the alchemical symbols for mercury, sulphur, water and salt, which represent a process of unfolding change and chance. The Egyptian gods of destruction and death encircle the wheel. The whole scene is surrounded by radically different yet interdependent lifeforms.

VII degrow screentime

A person on a chariot is holding a staff with a power button. They gaze victoriously into the distance, aware and in control, even without reins to steer. The chariot is not pulled because the two sphinxes that should be pulling are on their phones.

The IV and X cards resonate with each other in an almost overbearing way. “Where are you within the matrix of power?”

The anxiety of power, of exercising it outside and inside oneself, of losing it and finding it, of abandoning it and demanding it. The sphinx encapsulates its virtue in the mystery of its form: lion's paws, human head, bull's pelvis, eagle's wings. Monolithic in size, diffractive in its symbols. Is it perhaps time to completely de-Google ourselves? Perhaps the atomisation of applications is frightening, as is going through a few more authentication steps and writing down passwords on pieces of paper?

But the transformation of habits is what resonates in the recipe for the philosopher's stone established in the wheel: gold lies in the distribution of power.

Even limiting oneself is power - a chosen power: freedom is sometimes a form of discipline. The VII proposes the very elegant gesture of setting a time limit on screen use. The time we spend on screens is mostly passive cognitive work.

If you would like to propose other readings of these cards or reflections or comparisons, we are extremely curious, so please write to us! At poni at riseup dot net

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The aim of almanac.sh is to attempt a non-technical reading of everyday (and not) technology, questioning its serialized use and escaping the complete full-productivity fetishism of current tech trends.

Proposing an esoteric approach to the aforementioned topics, we want to imagine a different narration for the devices we have in front of us right now, doing what machines cannot do: imagination and real randomness.

What we call a computer is an apparatus with different shapes (laptop, smartphone, wearable, IoT...): some have called it an extension of us, while others describe it as a fragmentation of perceptions and therefore an impoverishment of the original source. These days, the second vision seems probably the more fitting one.

Is the digital pool of memory that we call devices an extension of ourselves or a truncation of our inner (and possibly, ancestral) memory?

We won't (maybe) know, but we can invent and narrate some other stories, departing from a monolithic reality.

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Colophon