http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2008/03/observing-omission-of-seabasing-in.html Interesting concept. seems that its utility in fighting is probably pretty limited, but for humanitarian interventions, being able to do this with, say, a floating hexayurt factory would be pretty damn cool.
Read more →http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/speakers/1759.en.html via Arto
Read more →Rant excerpted from an email. The problems that I’ve seen in survival planning at a community level come from trying to streamline costs by creating implicit bureaucratic systems of control. We’ll have a water team, that takes money from a budget, and Does Water. Farming team that Does Farming and so on. But, in practice [...]
Read more →I’ve been working towards a simple model of survival for some time. The Hexayurt Infrastructure Package is based around a “substitution” model: * instead of your electric cooker, a wood gasification stove * instead of your toilet and the sewage plant, a composting toilet and so on. The problem with this model is that it [...]
Read more →* simple – easy to understand and to evaluate * easy – can be done without extensive preparation or heavy engineering * clean – does not produce unwanted side effects * cheap – or raising the money to do it will be harder than doing it * smart – should use deep insight into the [...]
Read more →“When we decide about a product, we always start with the price,” Deboehmler said. “Then, what is the consumer need?” For example, the product designers might begin thinking about designing a new flat-screen-television stand. Assuming that there’s evidence such a product is needed–like a trend of many people buying flat-screen TVs–Ikea will set out to [...]
Read more →Commenting on http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/04/robbing_peters_meal_to_gas_pau.html I agree with you completely on hunger from biofuels. That’s been expected for a while. I wrote a paper predicting this scenario in 2003 and I was far, far from the first. Worse, biofuels are basically useless in the big picture unless you move to algae as a feedstock. Consider: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/311/5760/435 Which [...]
Read more →“We were struck by how much food the organic farmers would produce,” Perfecto said. The researchers set about compiling data from published literature to investigate the two chief objections to organic farming: low yields and lack of organically acceptable nitrogen sources. Their findings refute those key arguments, Perfecto said, and confirm that organic farming is [...]
Read more →Kerala Miracle It’s really hard to find good links on the Kerala Miracle. Searching for that term typically returns, god help us, tourism to some kind of christian sacred site, which is not, at all, the kind of miracle most people are looking for when they google for those terms. Do us all a favor: [...]
Read more →http://guptaoption.com/7.soft_development_paths.php Draft of a new piece over at Gupta Option. Soft Development Paths A tangible solution to global poverty and environmental degradation Sustainable development means different things to different people. This is a plan for making sustainable development completely tangible and real for the poorest half of the human race by creating a “soft development [...]
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