The Oil Drum has published its last post. The archive remains accessible.
Makeshift: A Journal of Hidden Creativity
September 18, 2011 by Filed Under: Blogs
“As populations explode and resources dwindle, the ability to innovate under constraints has become a more pressing competency for individuals, companies, and governments. To document resourceful production Makeshift looks to the grassroots: to the garage tinkerers and under-the-radar businesses that make up the global informal economy. This sector of primarily unprotected and unregistered businesses accounts for over three quarters of employment across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These maker-entrepreneurs are resilient, flexible, and immensely creative.”
Makeshift, a quarterly magazine and multimedia website highlighting creativity and invention in resource-constrained areas around the world, will launch September 30.
The Revival of the Craftsman
April 19, 2011 by Filed Under: Blogs, Craftsmanship
Extensive and beautifully illustrated interviews with a new generation of craftsmen: Grain & Gram: the new gentleman’s journal.
Pictured: Blair Sligar, who builds furniture and sculptures from salvaged and local materials.
Via Clockworker & Dude Craft.
Tribal People vs. Progress
July 13, 2010 by Filed Under: Blogs, Primitive technology
“Wherever they are in the world, tribal peoples are deprived of their livelihood and way of life; driven from their land by mining, logging or settlers; flooded by dams or forcibly relocated in order to make way for cattle ranches or game parks. Such abuse is often justified by the claim that tribal peoples are somehow ‘primitive’ or ‘backward’.”
Survival International documents the on-going clash between tribal people and civilization.
Engines of Our Ingenuity
March 17, 2010 by Filed Under: Blogs
Engines of our ingenuity is an American radio program “about the machines that make our civilization
run, and the people whose ingenuity created them”. The program is written and hosted by John Lienhard and it has been running since 1988. Illustrated transcripts of the more than 2,500 episodes are available online, recent episodes are also available as a podcast.
