I will give a talk at the LIFT Conference in Marseille, France, July 8. “Lift France 11 is a three-day conference about current and emerging use of digital technologies and their effects on innovation, societal and economic transformation. Under the slogan “Be Radical!”, Lift France will focus on disruption: when (high- or low-)tech contributes to redefining a market’s terms of reference, a whole industry, a share of social life, etc. Participants come to better understand the challenges and opportunities presented by digital technologies, to meet the people who drive these innovations, and to share their own insights”. More info here.
Talk at LIFT Conference: Be Radical
June 30, 2011 by Filed Under: Talks
Fences of Fruit Trees
“Almost anyone who has a backyard or garden would do well to plant fruit trees for the years ahead. Most fruit trees, though, take more years to mature than most of us have to prepare, and take up more space than most of us have in cities or suburbs. Luckily, only a few centuries ago master gardeners developed a way to cultivate fruit in narrow spaces – one that yields more fruit, more quickly, and with a longer growing season.
Espalier is a method of growing a dwarf fruit tree along a wall or fence, binding it for support, and bending the branches to follow certain lines, as Japanese artists do with bonsai trees. Most gardeners started espaliers with a “maiden,” a one-year-old sapling that had not yet forked, and tied it to a staff of wood to keep it straight. Then they tied the desired branches to the fence or wall as they emerged, bending and pruning aggressively as the tree grew.
With the tree’s natural growth concentrated into only two dimensions, it creates many spurs looking for a chance to spread, creating more flowers and fruit than their conventional counterparts, and earlier in the trees’ life. The fruit can be picked casually while standing or sitting, with no need for the ladders or devices needed to pick many other fruit trees, and no risk of injury. Growing a tree against a south-facing wall has another advantage; not only does the tree receive maximum light and heat, but the thermal mass of the wall absorbs the heat and provides shelter from the wind. In this way trees get a longer growing season, and can grow in cooler climates than they would ordinarily tolerate.”
Read more: Fences of fruit trees. Related: Irish hedgerows.
Window Orientation and Shading
June 28, 2011 by Filed Under: Air conditioning, Architecture, Cooling, DIY, Random, Shading, Solar, Windows
“In sunny southern locations, protecting your windows from the sun is an important component of good window management. The first step is to know how the sun moves through the sky and to orient the building and place the windows in it so as to minimize direct solar admission through your windows.” Read more.
“Sustainable By Design provides a suite of shareware design tools to calculate the right dimensions and placing for your specific location, wherever you are.
- SunAngle: our premier tool for solar angle calculations.
- SunPosition: calculates a time series of basic solar angle data.
- Sol Path: visualization of the path of the sun across the sky.
- Window Overhang Design: visualization of the shade provided by a window overhang at a given time.
- Window Overhang Annual Analysis: visualization of window overhang shading performance for an entire year.
- Overhang Recommendations: suggested climate-specific dimensions for south-facing window overhangs
- Light penetration: visualization of the penetration of sunlight into a room
- Louver Shading: visualization of louvered shading system performance for an entire year.
- Vertical Fin Shading: visualization of a vertical fin shading system performance for an entire year
- Window Heat Gain: calculation of monthly heat gain through windows.
- Panel Shading: visualization of the shading of rows of flat panel collectors throughout the year.”
Interesting follow-up at Treehugger.
How to Build a Spiral Pump
June 26, 2011 by Filed Under: DIY, Random, Water, Water management, Water powered machines, Water pumps, Water wheels
“A spiral pump, first invented in 1746, has been recreated and tested at Windfarm Museum using lightweight and inexpensive modern materials. A 6 foot diameter wheel with 160 feet of 1-1/4 inch inside diameter flexible polyethylene pipe is able to pump 3,900 gallons of water per day to a 40 foot head with a peripheral speed of 3 feet per second.
With its low torque requirements, the pump is particularly suited to be mounted on and driven by a paddle wheel in a current of two feet per second or greater. This easily built, low maintenance spiral pump can be used to provide water without the need for fuel wherever there is a flowing stream or river. It can also be hand turned or otherwise driven to provide a low cost, efficient pump.”
Read more: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4. Thanks to Paul Nash.
See also:
What’s the Amish community’s stance on cars?
June 25, 2011 by Filed Under: Amish, Cars, Low-tech living, Travel
“To the extent that you are mobile in an automated or motorized way with something like a car or motorcycle or fast moving tractor, you’ve increased your radius of contact with other human beings, but at the same time you dilute the quality of contact within that radius.
So you can have more contact with a lot more people, but the quality of your relationships with those people, especially the people who are your immediate neighbors, is diluted. You don’t rely on them as much. It really drastically undermines the community.
The Beachy Amish — that’s a sect within the Amish — they decided to adopt cars. Then most of the young people left the group because they got exposed to the rest of the society and — poof! — they’re gone.”
Read more: Despite horses and buggies, Amish aren’t necessarily ‘low-tech’.
DIY Heirloom Technology
June 17, 2011 by Filed Under: DIY
Heirloom technology at makeprojects.com. Small collection for now.
