Technology for Luddites
Standby power use is the electricity consumed by appliances and other equipment when they are switched off or not performing their primary purpose. It is responsible for 3 to 12 percent of residential electricity use worldwide (source, pdf). Freelance journalist Robert Buzink has a low-tech solution for this – all you need is a pair of scissors and a screwdriver. The text is in Dutch but the pictures speak for themselves.
“As the earth’s population steadily increases, so does the pressure to open new frontiers. While the oceans have long been used for transportation, this book is an extended thought experiment about how they could support permanent settlements. Considering these issues will be invaluable no matter which way humanity next expands. In particular, the ocean bears some definite similarities to space: the final frontier, which will surely be an important part of our near future.”
Intro page / Book / Contest / Wired article. Related: the Venus Project.
“Computers tend to replace one category of worker with another. There are two ways to get something done. You can find one group trained to accomplish things the old-fashioned way. Or you can pay another group to set up and maintain machines and systems that will do the same work with fewer employees – of the older category of worker. You are not really replacing people with machines; you are replacing one kind of person-plus-machine with another kind of machine-plus-person.
When IBM persuaded corporations to modernize their bookkeeping in the 1950s, businesses were able to get along with far fewer accountants, as they expected, but they had to hire more programmers than they had anticipated. Automatic teller systems also require programmers and technicians paid four times as much as bank tellers.
If things go well, banks need less than a quarter of the staff, and they come out ahead. But it is notoriously difficult to predict all problems, or their levels of difficulty, in advance. And one mark of newer technology is that while it is cheap in routine operation, it is expensive to correct and modify.”
Quoted from: “Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences
Mike Sheldrake makes surfboards out of interlocked ribs of cardboard, coated in fiberglass sheet. Many pictures and full instructions online. Via Makezine.
“Airships past and present – together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon” by A. Hildebrandt, captain and instructor in the Prussian Balloon Corps (1908). Pictures, table of contents and list of illustrations below. Related: Camping in the clouds – the zeppelin that never lands / Green slow air cargo / Kite aerial photography.
“No, I’m not some old hippie or off-the grid survivalist. I’m a big city guy who really likes modern technology, especially computers. But when does the heavy application of technology become overkill? The more I started poking around, the more I found others thinking along the same lines. It’s too early to pronounce this a trend, but there are budding signs.” Read 1 / 2 / 3. Sponsored by IBM !
