Today I’m recommending two platforms that exemplify serendipity – the finding of interesting things you weren’t actually looking for.

The first is Wikimedia Commons, a library of images, sounds and videos available to use for free, usually under a creative commons license.   I get almost all of the images I use for my blog from this platform, so I look here every day.

This morning, a picture of rather beautiful countryside in the Western Caucasus intrigued me, so I clicked on it.  Having read through the Wikipedia entry, I clicked on another link and ended up at the Circassian Genocide, an event I’d never heard of.   Sadly, just one of many.

Wikipedia is brilliant platform for a bit of mental flânerie, The information it contains is so interconnected, you never know where you might end up, or what you might learn.  Well worth allowing 10 minutes a day for.

The second such platform is Connect the Carbon Dots, a project that came out of The Carbon Almanac.

Connect the Carbon Dots is a platform that shows the interconnectedness of the climate emergency with other pressing issues for humanity, but more importantly the interconnectedness of solutions for those issues.

Because if you can see the system, you can change the system, especially if you get together with other to do it.

We’re currently looking at ways to make it even more useful. Have a look, explore, see where it takes you.