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Monthly Archives: October 2008

Four notes on the last few days.

1> The laptop is the new desktop – moving essential communications functions on to the Acer Aspire One (AA1) – leaves the MacBook as the workstation frees up a ton of ram, but more importantly, frees up focus. – it seems to be psychologically significant that the subnote is *small* – can’t say why – [...]

New Hardware: Acer Aspire One

Gift from a dear friend who knows that my mac needs some time in the shop and that I could use a traveling machine. Wikipedia page on the AA1. Four thoughts. 1> Keyboard is very good for the size. 2> Machine is fast – subjectively faster than my Macbook for some operations. 3> Bundled software [...]

Factor e Farm update 10: taking dirt out of the ground, making bricks, hexayurts

They’re financing this on a community supported model – we send them our money and they do the work that the Government should be funding. I really want to stress that: this is work that should be government funded, the most natural channel being university research funding. But universities have narrow cultural mandates, do not [...]

On sudden poverty

Tips for new paupers from The Exiled. Really kind of heartbreaking. Sad.

Shaking out the big ideas

So this is one of those time periods during which I go through and cull things – what ideas are workable, which ideas are fail-laden monstrosities. There are a bunch of critical mass phenomena all heading in roughly the same direction at roughly the same speed, and now its a case of figuring out what [...]

Blog Action Day: Poverty – Ending Poverty with Open Hardware

I gave this talk – about how appropriate technology can save billions of people from the worst effects of poverty – in Reykjavik earlier this year. Here are the slides from the talk and a link to a discussion thread on Global Swadeshi, a poverty alleviation / appropriate technology social network. (gv link) If you’re [...]

Another great Pentagon picture

I’m liking those little combined wind/solar units in the background, too.

It’s just as well I’m going more private sector…

Because these new mac laptops are gorgeous. (searching for the new equilibrium… what’s the sweet spot for maximum effectiveness? It’s between the gutter and the five star hotel, but where between?)

Right now, at the Pentagon, they’re building Hexayurts (in the courtyard.)

From the STAR-TIDES image stream on the STAR-TIDES twitter. Thanks, Daniel!

The Open Toolbox for Domestic Disaster Response – new company, new paper

The Open Toolbox for Domestic Disaster Response The Open Toolbox is our new brand. It’s a consulting company which is focussed on getting open source appropriate technology (OSAT) into commercial supply chains, using a “Red Hat” approach – consulting, custom engineering, service contracts, and all the other stuff that companies and governments need to have [...]