I'm way behind with an overview of links and updates from our sister publication No Tech Magazine. And because I won't get the chance to publish another article this month, I'll try and keep you entertained with a selection of the best short posts from the past 12 months.
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Transportation:
- Why bicycles are faster than cars - the industrialization of traffic
- How to ship an obelisk - exceptional transport
- Cyclekarts - there is a future for the automobile
- Metropolis II - there is a future for the automobile
- Overview of early electric trucks - 1907 catalog
- Wind powered trikes - hybrids
- Belgian velomobiles - picture gallery
- Vintage Dutch carrier bikes - cargo
- Ferraris of Ancient Egypt - chariots
- Los Angeles without cars - the best bike lanes in the world
- Tricycle with foldable fairing - sophisticated pedal power
- French towns swap rubbish trucks for horse-drawn carts - they're faster & cheaper
- Pedal powered flatbed truck - recumbent cargo quad
Architecture:
- How to build an earthbag dome - cheap housing
- Why older buildings are more sustainable
- Birch bark sauna - sweat tech
- Engineering for the ecological age - lessons from history
- The changing rural habitat - two great books
- The Blackfoot Indians - low-tech living in America
- How to build a reciprocal roof frame - roof tech
Do-it-yourself:
- DIY book scanning - the low-tech way
- How to make an adult soapbox kart - racing in a post-oil world
- Contemporary Russian folk artifacts - extreme low-tech
- Where no one would believe someone could live - low-tech living
- Compendium of useful information - diy database
- Green wizards - diy forum
- Peer to peer waste processing - humanure
- Cameroon blacksmiths - workshops of the future
- Shoemakers of the world - make your own (shoes)
- Know your bolts - printable poster
Work:
- Has there been progress since 1250? - Jacques Ellul
- Has there been progress since 1250? - Lewis Mumford
- Characteristics of modern technique (3) - E.F. Schumacher
- Workers of the world relax - we work too hard
- The jobs of yesteryear - obsolete occupations that might come back
- Grinding the wind - prisoner power
- The conquering factory system - a critique of the factory
Progress:
- Medieval England twice as well off as today's poorest nations - income
- Lasers or longbows - the paradox of military technology
- Pay-per-swing hammers - digital rights management
- Developed nations dangerously over-reliant on GPS - how to bring down the industrial world
- Characteristics of modern technique (2) - Lewis Mumford
Obsolete technology:
- Crane locomotives - hybrids
- Wooden stave pipes - they can be huge
- Hand operated vacuum cleaners - early household tech
- The return of gravel roads - street tech
- How to rig a windmill sail - so now you know
- Flint knapping - primitive technology
- Obsolete technology prints and photograph collections - more than 8,000 illustrations
- Parts of 1909 automobiles - catalogs
- Water powered rope making machine - medieval high-tech
- Philips, Decker and Canadian pack saddles - horse tech
- Primitive kitchen timer - for large kitchens
- Automatic line fishing in Russia - fishing gear 1
- Historical fish landing statistics - fishing gear 2
- Low-tech whale hunting in Japan - fishing gear 3
- Cash ropeway in South Africa - low-tech money transfer
- Drug catapults - low-tech air mail
Energy:
- Geeks and nuclear power - meltdowns
- Small wind turbines put to the test (2) - an update
- Tree windmills - the best of both worlds
- Digital billboards - another example of Jevon's paradox
- Solar box cookers only work when the sun is shining - so what?
- Ten Reasons Why Jatropha is Neither a Profitable nor a Sustainable Investment - second generation biofuels
- The receding horizons of renewable energy - simplistic subsidy programmes
- Environmental impacts of light emitting diodes (LEDs) - long live the incandescent light bulb
- The world's first post-growth economy - this post reads very different after Fukushima.
- Saving the earth by shrinking humans - downsizing
Books & reference:
- Bicycles & tricycles; an elementary treatise on their design and construction - 1896 reference book
- The wonders of industry - 3,000 pages of early industrial technology (1873-1877)
- Exhibiting the Latest Progress in Machines, Motors, and the Transmission of Power - 1892 encyclopedia
- Engines of our ingenuity - radio program & blog dealing with the history of technology
- Industry among primitive peoples - another primitive technology handbook (1895)
Farming & Gardening:
- Water batteries for trees - innovative low-tech
- Gardening for geeks - domestic terraforming
- Maximizing growing space - vertical veg
- Grasses can't graze themselves - herd animals
- Guerilla farming - make food not war
- Waste to meat recycling - sustainable cattle
- Fertilizer trees - evergreen agriculture
- Leaf blowers must die - the worst invention ever
