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The Diamond Hitch - high-tech knotting (picture above and below)
Harnessing the sun - solar power history
A manual for the transport of sick and wounded - pack animals
Cardboard box bass - musical instruments
Extending the principle of libraries - community
Best Curta pictures ever - mechanical calculators
Dutch book bindings - craftsmanship
Primitive technology handbook - lost knowledge
Digital books and your rights - bits & bytes
Pen shaking centrifuge - hand tool overkill
Kick sleds & wheeled snow shovels - snow-tech
The misanthrope's guide to the end of the world - garbage eschatology
Characteristics of modern technique (1) - efficiency
3,000 pages of 19th century technology - books & reference
Jailhouse tech - prisoner inventions
Copenhagen is not the bicycle capital of the world - say the Dutch
Sailing directly into the wind - boats
Timbrel vaulting in South Africa - timbrel vaulting
Art can save the world - f*ck mass production
Windmills and wind motors, how to build and run them - diy
The declining marginal return of research and development - complexity
Time flies - web 2.0
Hand powered tree sawing machine - tools
Roadtown - cities
How to transport oil in a post-oil world - paradoxes
Building with whole trees - architecture
Online multimedia museum of machine motion - mechanics
Floating citadels - history
Ran Prieur - blogs
507 mechanical movements - mechanics
It's easy being green - marketing
A high-tech wind turbine, made from trees - wood
City life - lessons in vanity
Hand powered table saw - tools
Electric wooden car - extreme low-tech vehicles
Plastics in the world of tomorrow, plastics in the world of today - trash
Low-tech indoor truck - cargo
Streetcar scooter - private rail transport
Construction in reverse - architecture
The panorama of professions and trades - craftsmanship
Trashwiki for dumpster divers - re-use
Scale models of Dutch industrial windmills - diy
Cargohopper - solar energy
The Blackpool tramway - public transport
Competing with computers - lost arts
Why paper is eternal - books
(1)
While the link to the 1916 pack manual is of historical interest, what you ought to know is that low-tech packing has advanced considerably over that publication and anyone who wishes to pack with animals should know that there are much superior options available today. The manual describes a very difficult to use piece of equipment that is so easy to get wrong that only a few experts could ever use it properly.
What your readers ought to know is that in 1924, the US army adopted the Phillips Pack Saddle which was much simpler and easier to use.
Other advances in pack saddles since then are the Dekker style and the Canadian saddle pack, neither of which require complex knots, both of which incorporate simple, effective new design ideas, and both of which could be easily made in a small shop. Perfect for low-tech affictionados.
Posted by: BG Hearns | October 04, 2010 at 12:15 PM