May 09, 2008

Computing without electricity

World_expo_58Fast and complicated calculations are a product of fossil fuels.

Multiplying and dividing numbers was not always that easy. Before the arrival of cheap electronic pocket calculators and computers in the 1970s, people relied on an array of low-tech means and machines to calculate taxes, profits or the properties of engineering parts.

Being an obsolete technology now, some of these 19th and 20th century calculators are surprisingly sophisticated and fashionable. Moreover, most are powered by a crank, which makes these gadgets "green". Today's pocket calculators are no power hogs, either. The thing is that computers took over most calculating jobs from calculators, and a large supercomputer consumes as much energy as a convoy of trucks.

What do we do with all that calculation power? We build fast cars, giant jumbo jets and worldwide information highways, all of which, in their turn, raise energy consumption. We also construct opaque financial products, rickety electronic voting systems and contradictory global warming scenarios. Mechanical calculators may be an inferior technology, but they had the benefit of keeping things on this planet relatively simple. A brief overview of the most remarkable models.

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April 24, 2008

The pinhole camera: low-tech photography

Pinhole_picture_2_by_liquid_lucidit

Build a pinhole camera, turn your bedroom into a camera obscura, and rediscover photography.

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April 18, 2008

Bring back the horses

Cheval_1 Replacing tractors with real horse power could be the revolution that agriculture needs.

Horses and other draft and pack animals revolutionized transportation, war, hunting, manufacturing and agriculture. Work horses formed the backbone of industrial society until the first decennia of the 20th century, mining coal, ploughing fields and transporting goods and people in fast growing cities. Reintroducing horses in city traffic would be a bad idea - cars might be noisy, dangerous and polluting, but mounts are even worse. In agriculture, however, animal power would bring surprisingly large environmental profits. Horses could also guarantee food security.

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April 04, 2008

Leave the algae alone

Algae_close

While the first generation of biofuels is wreaking havoc on the environment and the food markets, the second generation is set to make things even worse.

Since it has become clear that ethanol and biodiesel made from food crops are doing more harm than good, the hope for finding a substitute for oil has shifted to algae and cellulose. If we can believe the advocates of this ‘second generation’ of biofuels, these combustibles will deliver way more energy than it takes to make them, without threatening the world’s food and water supplies. Upon taking a closer look, however, this is very hard to believe. They might even cause bigger problems than biofuels made from food crops. Maybe this time around we could sort this out before the damage gets done?

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March 30, 2008

Photoshop in the early 20th century

Tall_tale_fish_2_2At the beginning of the 20th century some clever photographers specialized in Photoshop before the term existed, faking postcards from mainly rural communities. Images of oversized vegetables, fruits and animals created a utopian myth about a town or region and served as a way of encouraging settlement and population growth. Some noteworthy collections of these so-called "Tall Tale Postcards" can be found here (Wisconsin Historical Society) and here (American Museum of Photography). UPDATE: Things magazine has found another weird example of postcard manipulation.

March 22, 2008

Why bottled water is good for the environment

Soft_drinks Drinking bottled water is a much more ecological choice than consuming soft drinks, coffee, fruit juice or beer. Water drinkers should be praised instead of criticized.

Bottled water is under attack from environmentalists who preach that tap water has a similar quality and saves a lot of energy since it does not need to be transported by trucks. That might be true, but bottled water is not our biggest problem when it comes to drinking habits. All other beverages consume huge amounts of water and energy during their production processes, which makes their ecological impact far more detrimental than that of bottled water. Like bottled water, most of them are distributed in bottles and cans, too. (Illustration: plan59)

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Found

  • Help in case of an atomic bomb attack
    One reason to get down flat is to let the worst of it pass over you (see & read) (Via)
  • Build an electric car
    Retrofitting a 1970s Fiat 500 (read)
  • Minerals
    “Peak oil” is just one of several cases of worldwide peaking and decline of a depletable resource (read)
  • Travelling light
    Airships are one of several green technologies which might be killed by a shortage of materials (read)
  • Farms became factories
    Chemical corporations continue their propaganda efforts to convince farmers that they cannot make a profit without using chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, and genetically manipulated crops and animals (read)
  • Take it easy
    A 0.5 horse power car (see & read)
  • Robot wars
    Airstrikes from unmanned aircraft over Iraq hit record levels in April (read)
  • TV
    A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken (read)
  • Privacy
    How to kill an RFID tag (read)
  • Insurance versus nature
    In the past five years, London councils alone have chopped down almost 40,000 street trees (read)
  • Long-term storage (2)
    How to make a Moleskine notebook (make)
  • Long-term storage
    It only takes five years and archived data is obsolete (read)
  • Monsanto rules (2)
    Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops (read)
  • Monsanto rules (1)
    Intellectual property thuggery is not restricted to the IT and entertainment industries (read)
  • Time is money
    From New York to Los Angeles in 48 hours (read)
  • Solar
    One of oldest forms of energy used by humans -- sunlight concentrated by mirrors -- is poised to make an astonishing comeback (read)
  • Book of the future
    From stone-age tools to space-age computers (see & read)
  • Food crisis
    What level of meat-eating would be sustainable? (read)
  • Green cars (2)
    Cars like the Aptera are severely impeding humanity's faltering steps towards creating a sustainable society (read)
  • Green cars
    From rainforest to rubber plantation (read)
  • Time capsule
    2000 A.D. (see)
  • Time capsule
    2063 A.D. (read)
  • Green buildings (2)
    It takes 90,000 kWh of energy to construct a single family dwelling (read)
  • Green buildings (1)
    Even if 40% of the materials in a new building are recycled, it would take 65 years for a green, energy-efficient new office building to recover the energy lost in demolishing an existing building (read)
  • Flying
    The revival of propeller-driven planes (read)
  • Water
    Low-tech lemonades (make)
  • The front lawn
    What is that chasm between house and street? Why is it there? Or rather, why is nothing there? (read)
  • Ethanol
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions (read)
  • Wheels
    The car of the future (see)
  • Communications
    Build a telegraph (make)
  • Housing
    Build an eco village (make)
  • Wireless
    Mobile phones more dangerous than smoking? (read)
  • Magnetic levitation
    Germany ditches Transrapid project (read)
  • Writing
    Emoticons on paper (see)
  • Trees versus solar
    What happens when one neighbour with solar panels sues another with big, shady trees? (read)
  • Public transport
    A bus to keep pace with other transportation (see)
  • Obsolete skills
    People would actually have to hold what they called Pens or Pencils if they were very old, and put this in contact with paper, which would make marks that they called "writing" (read)
  • The new black
    Clean coal is a combination of two technologies, one of which is expensive and the other completely unproven (read)
  • Bat phones
    The low-tech hearing aid is an update to simply cupping your hand to your ear (see & read)
  • Space travel
    After travelling hundreds of thousands of kilometers, the landing crew of the Apollo 11 lunar mission barely covered an area the size of a football/soccer pitch (see)
  • Food miles
    There is only one way of being sure that you cut down on your carbon emissions when buying food: stop eating meat, milk, butter and cheese (read)


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