Cash Ropeway in South Africa

cash ropeway in south africa

Low-tech Magazine editor Shameez Joubert spotted this cash ropeway in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Cash ropeways were used in shops from the 1880s to the 1960s. They worked in a similar manner to large-scale cargo ropeways. Bicable cash transportation systems were powered by a catapult device or by separation of the wires, monocable systems were operated by a small electric motor.

The Cash Railway Website is dedicated to cash ropeways and similar systems, but it does not mention any ropeway still in use. The system in the South African shop was installed in the 1960s and it still works. Thank you, Shameez!

Know Your Bolts

know your bolts

Makezine points to this printable poster that displays all the different bolts and nuts and connectors along with their official names (and instructions on how and when to use them). All bolts – except for the Pentalobe screw (more).

UK Lawmakers Call for Energy Rationing with Personal Fuel Quotas

“TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas) is an electronic system which guarantees reductions in a nation’s use of fossil fuels, and involves energy users and communities in the task of working out how to achieve this in the light of local conditions and opportunities.” Media coverage / UK report / Book / Website.

Cameroon Blacksmiths

cameroon blacksmiths

“On the outskirts of Maroua, the capital of the Extreme North of Cameroon, is a place quite unlike any other in the country. Here a community of blacksmiths practice their craft in the relative cool of a tree grove. Several dozen men with specialized skills are gathered here for a single purpose: to transform piles of scrap iron into finely finished tools, stoves, replacement parts and other useful implements for sale to the local population. Young apprentices learn the craft while operating bellows or shaping wood for tool handles. The production here is performed entirely by hand and on a scale which must be seen to be fully appreciated.”

The Extraordinary Makers of Maroua, via Afrigadget. Related: Innovation in Kenya’s informal economy.

Low-Tech Whale Hunting in Japan, pre-1900s

low-tech whale hunting in japan

“Pêcherie de baleines (départ des canots) à Ikézouki, Nagasaki”. Source: Histoire de l’industrie de la pêche maritime et fluviale au Japon, 1900. Original at CNUM.

Solar Box Cookers Only Work When the Sun is Shining – So What?

“By now, I suspect, some of my more skeptical readers will doubtless be jumping up and down, eager to point out that solar cookers aren’t viable everywhere, and only work when the sun’s shining. This is of course true, but it’s also beside the point. Nothing in the appropriate technology toolkit is suited to every context – that’s one of the implications of that word “appropriate,” after all – and nothing ever again in human history will provide our species with the kind of instant, context-free torrent of energy we now get from fossil fuels. Once those are gone, the entire approach to technology that’s built on the assumption of abundant, highly concentrated, highly portable energy supplies goes whistling down the wind, and the approaches – in the plural – that will replace it are going to be less convenient, less portable, and less capable of ignoring the rest of the cosmos than what we’re used to”. Read at the Archdruid Report + solar cooker plans.