DIY Wooden Bike Trolley

October 6, 2022 by kris de decker Filed Under: Bicycles, Bikes, DIY, Human power, Pedal power, Random, Travel

Marie Verdeil made a tutorial for a simple wooden bike trolley. It is available in English and French on the Low Tech Lab wiki.

Method to create a simple bike trolley, using up-cycled materials. Easily fixated to every bike (adult size). Holes on the board help attach any kind of cargo. It’s made out of wood and simple hand tools, no welding required. Dimensions are detailed and can easily be adapted to the material available.

I tried to create a trolley, which can replace the car to go to the market / grocery shopping. No need to transport heavy cargo, but big objects (cardboard boxes, crates, wood, etc.) – Therefore it needs to be easily adaptable, with the option to fix a crate on the board. + Priority goes to second-hand materials!

Solar Concentration for Craft Practice

August 12, 2022 by kris de decker Filed Under: DIY, Random, Solar

“This research indicates the technical capabilities of using a 40 cm2 Fresnel lens to heat, melt and vitrify a variety of materials and suggests future applications of this technology including the ability to digitise the process. This material processing technique offers an alternative to heat matter and is significant in geographical locations with ample sunlight, offering a cost-effective option to traditional heating methods and allows directional heating, which local craftspeople can exploit to their creative advantage.” [Read more…]

The Contradictory Bind

August 5, 2022 by kris de decker Filed Under: Quotes

Quoted from: Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets, Brett Scott, Vintage Publishing, 2022, ISBN: 9781847925879.

When describing the rise of automated surveillance capitalism, it is easy to point out its various dangers, but something more subtle drives my own discomfort. It is the pervasive feeling of inauthenticity that accompanies it. It is that tremor of emotional conflict a person feels when — in full knowledge of how Amazon is taking over the world — they nevertheless sense the futility of resistance, and find themselves with their finger on the ‘Buy’ button…

We have blindly stumbled into systems that exploit our short-term desires to the detriment of our longer ones, and they break and disrupt our lives if we attempt to pull back from them. Rather than crawling to Utopia, then, large-scale markets crawl towards concentrating production and consumption into pure conglomerations of profit-seeking, represented most acutely by transnational corporations. While the individuals who work within this conglomeration can feel many things, the financial and corporate sector as an institutional complex is unable to ‘feel’ anything except profit, so our systems are running away with us, like a centrifuge spinning ever faster. [Read more…]

Low-tech Zine

August 2, 2022 by kris de decker Filed Under: Books, DIY

Brazilian “mini-publisher” Casatrês made a beautiful zine which includes three articles from Low-tech Magazine, translated into Portuguese. It is for sale on their website.

Damaged Earth Catalog

July 29, 2022 by kris de decker Filed Under: DIY, Random

“We are humans and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross profits obscure actual loss. In response to this dilemma and to these losses a realm of intimate, community power is developing—power of communities to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share their knowledge with others. Practices that aid this process are sought and promoted by the DAMAGED EARTH CATALOG.”

–> Damaged Earth Catalog. [Read more…]

The Future is Degrowth

July 28, 2022 by kris de decker Filed Under: Economy

Quoted from: Schmelzer, Matthias, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan. The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism. Verso Books, 2022.

These days, with growing interest in degrowth, it seems that almost every other week another humourless columnist for a major newspaper writes a criticism of degrowth. This is to be expected and even, to a certain extent, welcomed: the more those in positions of power rail against degrowth, the more people who might be sympathetic to it, who would otherwise not have heard about it, are exposed to it.

And, indeed, it also fulfils degrowth’s initial goal as a provocation, a conversation starter, a shit-disturber. Yet, usually, these columnists show little understanding of what degrowth means – and so their objections tend to badly miss the mark. [Read more…]