THE FERAL TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE

Growing Power in Milwaukee

2011-12-18T15:03:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick-and-dirty compilation video of my visit to Growing Power in Milwaukee...

ifixit's Self-Repair Manifesto

2011-12-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

Drones, Feral Technology and Freedom

2011-12-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

Today, Occupy Iowa protestors are targeting the maker of non-military drones. Should we be worried about the technology, or the government that misuses it?

http://thegazette.com/2011/12/02/occupy-protseters-to-target-cedar-rapids-drone-facility/

Here is a piece I wrote for OBSOLETE! # 3- it relates to this question a bit...

"Renegade unmanned drone wandered skies near nation’s capital" read the August 26th, 2010 headline on Yahoo News. The story explained, "The drone, a Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Navy Fire Scout, is supposed to have a failsafe system that directs it to land safely if it loses its communication link with the controller on the ground. That obviously didn't happen on the drone's Aug. 2 flight, and it made a beeline from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland, where it was being tested, toward Washington. It was roughly 40 miles from the capital before the Navy regained control." Where did the drone "think" it was going? What was it "planning" to do?

More and more, humanity's technological offspring is coming of age and being given its independence. However, our sentient electronic progeny is growing up to look more like Skynet than Robby the Robot. GPS, facial recognition software and CCTV coordinate and catalog our moves through the physical hive, while the World Wide Web and social networking create the hive mind. Robots manufacture our goods and run our warehouses. The latest new car models feature automatic parallel parking and braking, and next years models will feature automatic lane changing.

So far, our artificial intelligence has not chosen to unleash the "Terminator" scenario like Skynet. Steven Levy, in the Dec. 2010 issue of Wired wrote, "In its earlier days, artificial intelligence was weighted with controversy and grave doubt, as humanists feared the ramifications of thinking machines. Now the machines are embedded in our lives, and those fears seem irrelevant."

Technology appears to still be reliant on humans, particularly to supply its voracious need for energy. If humans suddenly disappeared, technology could not run for long on autopilot without humans to feed it electrons. Recent images of Chernobyl show us a 1980's Soviet city in the Ukraine, abandoned after a nuclear power plant disaster. The buildings are silent, the machinery quietly rusting and returning to the earth, the streets occupied only by reindeer and fox. But imagine a modern computerized city, abandoned by humans because of a disaster, it's power-grid humming along, it's CCTV cameras cataloging the movements of the animals that now inhabit it. How would those animals use the heat and light? What sort of evolution would take place?

For now, it is up to humans to unleash the potential in technology. In many cases, doing so in ways not intended by "Authorities" appears to be humanities best hope for the advancement of civilization. It is not the authorized use of technology that moving us forward, but rather its abuse.

The actions of Wikileaks and the hacker collective Anonymous provide reasons for hope. Wikileaks has done more to shine light on the real workings of the power elite than any news outlet since Watergate. When the world's oligarchs set out to silence Wikileaks, Anonymous set about attacking the nervous system of their money machine. Meanwhile, columnist Dan Savage is re-loading his 2004 Google-based attack against Rick Santorum, the radical anti-gay rights Republican presidential hopeful. Thanks to Savage's creative use search-engine technology, the top Google search result for "Santorum" is now " 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum" (go ahead and google it for yourself! Remember, by doing so, you help solidify the ranking of that definition.) While more and more people are satisfied to fall into the societal hypnosis and cultural Stockholm syndrome of mass media and consumer culture, these digital revolutionaries are fighting a very real war on the battlefield of the "New Reality".

In the developing world, mobile technology is becoming the dominant agent of change. Villagers across the globe are using mobile phones to transform their economic and political lives. Without grid power, creative uses of scavenged power supplies provide battery charging. Cheap solar cells, peddle-powered generators and home-built wind turbines are all being used to supply "juice".

Much credit has recently been given to social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter for the pro-democracy protests in the Middle East, but it is the creative use of those tools that has made those actions possible. Anonymous was preparing to reverse-engineer the revolution to use fax technology. If that didn't work, it would have been Xerox copiers or ditto machines, or...?

In this issue of OBSOLETE! we explore the relationships between humans, their technology and "The Wild". We wonder what happens to technology when it becomes cast-off, or when it is repurposed. What happens in that territory when good economic times swell and push technology into the wilderness and what is left behind when that tide recedes?

Feral Technology. Technology that has escaped from domestication and adapted to the wild. Technology that has found a new use for itself. Technology that has escaped extinction by lurking around the industrial wasteland at the edge of town.

Glass printing gizmo...

2011-11-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a little gizmo I built for a friend to silkscreen pint glasses and bottles...

Ridin’ w/ Sweet Lady Propane: A few notes about propane powered vehicles

2011-10-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

by W. Joe Hoppe
photos by P.S. Monear

From OBSOLETE! Magazine #4

Here in Texas it’s pretty much a given that every family needs at least one pick-up truck. And everybody knows that old trucks are way cooler (and infinitely more affordable) than new ones. Even though there are lots of arguments for old cars and trucks being less damaging to the environment than newer vehicles, claims that re-use zeros out pollution over time, concern with the toxic chemicals, petrochemicals, and silicone in new cars, lead or other heavy metals in batteries, etc, there’s no denying that old trucks from the pre-catalytic converter days pump out a lot of hydrocarbons when you’re driving them around. So I’ve got to admit that driving around Austin in my ‘71 Dodge pick-up, even with its economical and bulletproof slant six engine (225 cubic inch displacement) made me feel like I was more of a problem than a solution in the fight against global warming.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of information out there on the interweb about converting your vehicle to propane. And even more fortunate for me, one of the country’s premiere gurus, Franz Hoffmann (http://franzh.home.texas.net/) lives about 30 miles away in Bastrop, Texas. I also was able to access a lot of good advice through a website devoted specifically to slant six engines at www.slantsix.org.

After some research, I decided to take the plunge and convert my truck whole hog, not to some system that would switch back and forth from gas to propane, but a deep commitment to Sweet Lady Propane, and only Sweet Lady Propane. One advantage that quickly becomes obvious is that you get to make a lot of “King of the Hill” jokes.

Chemically, propane comes from the distillation process when crude oil gets converted to gasoline. It’s a by-product. All of those flares and flames at an oil refinery? That’s propane being burned off. So in an environmental sense, you’re making use of something that is being underutilized in general, and making more complete use of an existing product. This doesn’t get around all of the inherent evils of the petroleum industry, but it does lend to a deeper effectiveness, which can’t be too bad.

Although it’s called propane what one really is buying is liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, which is a mixture of propane and butane (Hank Hill calls it a “bastard gas” for reasons we won’t get into here). LPG is readily available, although generally expensive, at U-Haul stores and RV centers. It’s much less expensive at places that sell propane (or more accurately LPG) for rural heating, etc. The last time I filled up the thirty gallon tank in the back of my truck, propane was three dollars a gallon. That’s about eighty cents less than a gallon of gas. When travelling in Texas, I use a book put out by the Propane Association that lists fuel sources in towns across the state. I’ve used it in trips to Houston and San Antonio, but should probably get an updated version. Odds are that most states have some equivalent directory.

LPG is pumped into a tank under pressure in liquid form. It turns into a gas somewhere around 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, but pressure keeps it a liquid. Propane burns clean. The exhaust of my truck has fewer hydrocarbons than a brand new car.
The conversion, if you are working with an older carbureted engine, is simple as well. Basically you’ll need four main components:

1. A propane tank – this needs to be sturdy and build for the specific purpose of storing liquid petroleum. It should include a blow-off valve and a gauge. I have a 30 gallon tank in the bed of my pick-up. Trucks are probably the easiest vehicles to convert because all you have to do is give up some bed space for the tank. Tanks are usually cylindrical, and can be found in auctions of state and municipal vehicles and their parts (many City of Austin vehicles run on propane) or in areas where there are lots of oil wells, as often oil riggers will have converted vehicles that make use of a cheap and plentiful gasoline by-product. The tank can cost a couple of hundred bucks, but often you can find them used for much less.

2. A vacuum shut-off valve—this is a safety device that uses engine vacuum when the engine is being started to release propane, which is under pressure, from the tank.

3. A vaporizer/regulator – this part has two functions, even though the propane is going to come out in vapor form unless you’re in a very cold place, it just makes sure by diverting hot water from the truck’s heater core in order to vaporize the propane. The regulator functions just like the regulator on a scuba tank, ensuring proper flow to the next piece you’ll need—

4. A mixer---what gets mixed is the propane and air. There’s a big diaphragm in the top of the mixer that helps with this process. Just like any air fuel mixture, somewhere between 16:1 and 18:1 is the ideal proportion between air and fuel. In my truck, the mixer is bolted to the throttle plates of an old Carter BBD carburetor to control the mix of fuel and air being sucked into the engine. Since the propane is under pressure, a fuel pump is not needed.
Important note: because of less density than gas droplet/fuel mixture usually found in an engine’s combustion chamber, you must upgrade your engine’s ignition system as well.

All told, parts for a conversion should run between $1,000-1,500.

ADVANTAGES OF PROPANE CONVERSION
--Clean burning and extremely small hydrocarbon emissions
--Since it’s already a gas, more equal fuel distribution to all cylinders
--Since under pressure, not effected by gravity, hills, etc (rockclimbers make extensive use of propane)
--Smoother idle, easy cold weather starting
--High octane (approx. 108) so engine’s compression and efficiency easily raised
--Unique and different
--Hank Hill references galore

DISADVANTAGES OF PROPANE CONVERSION
--fewer BTU’s (British Thermal Units) than gasoline –poorer gas mileage by at least 33%
--fueling stations can be difficult to find
--really doesn’t save you any money
--need to buy yearly propane tax sticker (in Texas, anyways)
--hard to find knowledgeable mechanics—you’ll need to do most of your own work

SO…
It took me about a year to get all the bugs out, but I’ve been running w/ Sweet Lady Propane pretty much trouble free for two years now. If you can resign yourself to the poor gas mileage, and having to plan ahead to get a fill up, going propane is definitely recommended. I’ve got the satisfaction of driving an old vehicle but not pumping out hydrocarbons, and I’m driving something different that I’ve done all by myself.

Places for more info:
Raso Enterprises Alternative Fuels Discussion Board:
http://fuelsforum.rasoenterprises.com/index.php?sid=fde616a2181c78c8e58931c40539055d
Info on Impco Propane Delivery Systems:
http://www.propane.tx.gov/commercial/7stepimpcosystem.pdf

Franz Hoffmann’s Alternative Fuel Site:
http://franzh.home.texas.net/

Sawblade gun- COOL!

2011-06-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Found on Neatorama....

Detournement and Re-Wilding: A Discussion with Karl Schoeder

2010-12-29T05:54:00.000-08:00

During the early part of summer 2010, I stumbled across an announcement for a Science Fiction Convention at a local hotel. Although I'm a life long reader of Sci-Fi and full-fledged geek (yes, I even used to work at Forbidden Planet, NYC's largest comic book and sci-fi store), I rarely venture out to “Cons” these days. Something on the schedule caught my eye, though. Special guest author, Canadian Karl Schroeder was slotted to do a panel on “The Politics of Climate Change”. This should be interesting, I thought- Can a room full of people dressed as Klingons, pie-eyed gamers and Aspersers sufferers have a coherent conversation about the ultimate reality?

Although the turnout for the session was small, it was perhaps the most thoughtful discussions I have ever heard among lay-people. The group included one hard-core denier, but even he had relevant points, and minds were open on both sides of the argument.

As for Schoeder, he lead the discussion with the deft hand of someone who understood his audience and a Canadian's perspective on what is possible when a nation is not ruled by a coporatocracy.

Having watched a Youtube video of Schoeder at OSCON (the O'Reilly Media shindig) talking about his ideas of “re-wilding” I was anxious to sit down with the author and talk about his ideas. Karl was kind enough to oblige. Upon describing the theme of “Obsolete Magazine, we immediately dove into a discussion of “Detournement” the situationist idea of reuse of elements and William Gibson's early cyberpunk novels like Count Zero and Neuromancer, in which Schoeder points out that “... the characters are constantly cobbling things together out of stuff the street has abandoned- there is a tradition of that in science fiction going back at least that far and before...”

R: You come from a tradition of science fiction that is heavily influenced by the “Science”. Are there instances where sci-fi has had an effect on science?

K: Science fiction can't make things come true, so it may not have had a huge influence on science, but it has had a huge impact on making people want to become scientists. I often hear people say that reading science fiction as kids got them into science. The line between science and technology gets blurred a lot- many people went into computer engineering with the expressed intention of making their science fiction fantasies a reality. Gibson's vision of cyberspace is the prime example- computer engineers have been frantically trying to construct since that book came out. I don't think you could find anyone in silicone valley that doesn't read science fiction.

R: In the review of Ventus, Cory Doctorow refers to you as an autodidact. Do you see yourself that way?

K: In the strictest terms I am an autodidact in that I'm a high school dropout. I've taught myself essentially everything I needed to know about the science and technologies I write about. I firmly believe that if you know how to learn, all doors are open to you. At this point though, I'm pursuing a masters degree in “Strategic Foresight and Innovation”... which, when I tell people that, causes them to stare at me blankly. It's a new program, but not a new idea. The idea of “Foresight” goes back to the Rand Corporation in the 50's, and even prior to that. It's not about predicting the future, but it is about minimizing surprises. For me, it dovetails nicely with writing science fiction. In writing science fiction, I can be as outrageous in my predictions as I want. Now, I'm getting the tools to look at the future in a more sophisticated way.

R: Do you think that your educational background or lack thereof sets you apart from your colleagues in the program? Are they at all burdened by pre-conceptions that you might have? I'm thinking of Buckminster Fuller, who was kicked out of college several times before he went on to be one of the greatest big-picture thinkers of the 20^th Century. He always said that his best education came from being a supply officer in the Navy.

K: I've deliberately avoided becoming a specialist, because with that comes a specialists perspective. I always wanted to be a well-rounded generalist, because of what I wanted to write. This program at the Ontario College of Art and Design is a generalists program. The other students come from a wide range of backgrounds from advertising to medical technology to government policy. They share the characteristic of wanting to have that big picture view of things. The courses in the program cast an extremely wide net to broaden the toolset for understanding the world.

R: I have heard you talk about the idea about “re-wilding”...

K: I want to write a novel laying out these ideas. I use “re-wilding” as a metaphor for what we need to control in the world around us and things we can let go of, because we better understand the world around us. In the past we tried to control everything in the environment around us in order to survive because we didn't understand how the world worked. Hopefully, we understand the environment well enough now to let go of some of the systems of control that we've developed over the centuries.

R: You mentioned the “re-sanctification” of the natural world, and I found that a strangely spiritual idea in a pretty technical discussion...

K: It's not if you understand the metaphor I'm working with here. There is the “re-wilding” of the physical world, where we selectively un-build those parts of our industrial infrastructure that we no longer need and restore as much of the natural systems around us as we can, but there is a psychological and possibly even spiritual component that comes from the great revolutionary science of the 20^th century, which is cognitive science- understanding ourselves gives us the opportunity for the first time to reassert a natural and healthy relationship with the world around us as people.

R: You are sort of talking about pushing past technology. How do you think that differs from the people who originally coined the phrase “re-wilding” who are the sort of Earth First!, Primitivist types... The Unabomber comes to mind- these people think that we need to go back to nature, not forward to nature through technology....

K: There is no going back. The project that we are engaged in has no reverse setting. But what it can have is a fulfillment. It's like water filtration plants and wetlands... when you don't understand wetlands you have to build the water filtration plant. When you understand wetlands and integrate it into your urban setting and use it... that is not stepping back from technology...that is the highest technology- the full culmination of technology.

R: It makes me think of John Todd and the New Alchemist Institute and “Living Machines”...

K: There is always a role for stewardship, but what we need to do is find our role as equals in nature, and not fight it as an antagonist.

R: You talk about Ecosystem services and assigning monetary value to those. How does this relate to carbon trading? In the aftermath of the collapse of the derivatives market, it seems that carbon trading is falling out of favor as people see it as another dubious “financial instrument”...

K: In systems theory, you can map out the inter-relationships between the parts of the system. One of the things you have to do is draw a boundary and say, “This is the edge of the system”. That boundary is often drawn arbitrarily. In business, we call things outside of that boundary “externalities”- what we are really talking about is a reform of accounting practices. There are a lot of ways to do that. We need to account for the cost of the toxic stuff that you have been dumping for the last 25 years- we used to be able to dump it over our neighbors fence- we need a system that doesn't allow that anymore.

R: We are in a market system that internalizes profit and externalizes risk- what sort of societal change do you see happening that will allow for this new way of accounting? Why should they want to pick up their trash if they aren't required to?

K: There is a new profession known as a garbage designer. It's the person that designs the output of an industrial process- or tunes it- in such a way that it can be sold as an input into another industry. Industries can generate an income stream from what was considered waste.

R: You talked about relinquishing control in your talk as well... about moving ahead to letting go of our control over nature. In the short term, that's going to leave a kind of void- are we designing these systems and setting them free, or are they overseen by a government agency? Are they a private endeavor? This gets into the politics – is this a sort of Green/Anarchist endeavor? What is our model?

K: I wanted to give a new name to what I've been talking about because it doesn't fit with the traditional themes of the modern environmental movement, or the Greens. I don't see a clear distinction between natural and artificial systems. I think it's increasingly important not to make such distinctions, particularly in a highly political and moral sense. By taking a moralistic stance toward nature, we are basically condescending to it and imposing our own prejudices on it. There have been a number of people in recent years that have been trying to get beyond the rhetoric of environmentalism. Bruno Latour, a French philosopher, wrote books like We Were Never Modern, and other books like Ecology Without Nature. They dovetail well with what I'm talking about. 20th century environmentalism is one of the things we need to get past to save the planet and save ourselves. It creates too awkward of a dichotomy between us and them, humanity and the natural world.

R: Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Catalog fame has a new book out that embraces nuclear power and genetic engineering as the solutions to the problem. It's a very iconoclastic approach and he is pissing off a lot of old fans that grew up with the “Deep Green” idea. Patrick Moore, who founded Greenpeace, is another one who now supports nuclear, because carbon reduction is what we are after. It seems like there is an “either/or” thing happening, either you are on this team or on that team. People are forced into making black and white binary choices. You talk about a lot of the shades of grey...

K: That's absolutely right. If you want to preserve the environment, the best place to do it is in a high-rise. We can't go back to making our clothing out of all-natural fiber and hunting and gardening for our food. Imagine nine billion people trying to do that. It fails on the simple basis of scale. We need intensive industrial systems to maintain human life, at this point. If that is the case, we need to optimize them.

R: I always love to read John Zerzan – love his ideas about primitivism, but of course, I read about them on his website...

K: Yes, the only way we could go to some sort of neo-primitivist society would be if we reduced our population by 99%.

R: According to a friend of a friend who does environmental analysis for the CIA, they think that a likely climate change scenario is exactly that- a pandemic will probably occur which will reduce our numbers and our emissions significantly. The planet will self-regulate.

K: I have spent the last three months studying strategies for intervention and negation of climate change. I've identified three points of intervention. I haven't really heard the discussion framed this way before, but you can intervene at the origin of the CO2, you can intervene by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere, or you can reduce the temperature change itself, through geo-engineering activities. I'm currently working on the idea of carbon/air capture, which involves sequestration (through plants) but also removing the carbon directly from the air. It's a scrubbing technology that pulls the CO2 out of the ambient air and drives it into deep strata. Obviously reforestation is one way to do it, but it's a slow process. I'm looking at industrial processes that can take advantage of the infrastructure we already have in place. I think an industrial-scale capture process is the only way we can reduce CO2 levels to a pre-industrial level in a timely way.

R: Are there companies engaged in this process now?

K: There are researchers working on it, and companies in Canada and the US being formed- it's still a stealth technology- Al Gore doesn't mention this as an option in his new book, but it is one of the 3 pillars of climate mitigation, and one we should be working on it more.

R: There is a lot of talk in this country, and in the Midwest in particular about using perennial grasses to create a “carbon sink”.

K: There is a lot of potential there, but it would have to be done on a global scale. We also need to increase our food production, and you can't tear down one part of the biosphere to prop up another.

R: What about the idea of vertical farming? Even here in the middle of farm country, the majority of our actual food is shipped in from California or even Central America. We grow animal feed and high-fructose corn syrup. Is the idea of vertical farming something we should be looking at?

K: Vertical farming is an idea that has been championed by a guy named Dickson Despommier. He has a website called verticalfarming.com. I don't claim to be an expert in that area, but by using hydroponic technology you can increase production by 4-20%. The least efficient thing you can farm is cattle. By stacking your acreage- in a tall building, making it mostly self-sufficient for water and protecting it from outside environmental effects like frost and pests, then you get further multiplying effects. One projection that Despommier's group makes is that using one block square, 47-story building could feed 50,000 people on an ongoing basis.

R: It also reduces the transport costs and energy use...We are working here on increasing the efficiency of local food systems by looking at making farmers trips to market more than just a delivery- we (Feral Technology Institute) are working on a system that would have a someone from the farm delivering produce and picking up waste grease and food to return to the farm for composting, biodiesel and biogas production...

K: That goes back to the idea of a garbage designer-

R: Hey, I think I'm a garbage designer!

K: Yes! In science fiction, Samuel R. Delaney uses the idea in a novel called “Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand” which was published in the mid 80's- he treats a city as an ecosystem in which the most valued members of society are the garbage collectors, called “Tracers” who literally trace the flow of materials through the system.

R: I can't let you go without asking you to talk about your concept of “Thalience” – the idea of science being done outside the sphere of human influence.

K: My ideas have evolved a lot in the 10 years since I came up with the idea of Thalience. The question was whether computers and other technology just mirror human's view of the world or if they can develop their own. What those ideas have evolved into is my concept of re-wilding- giving natural systems intelligence through a network of sensor nets, Internet connections and legal instruments. For instance, the new constitution of Paraguay gives rights to nature, and allows individuals to litigate on behalf of natural systems.

R: So maybe we should be willing to do for nature what we have done for corporations? Create a legal persona?

K: Exactly. If a corporation can be a legal person, there is no reason that a natural system can't also be a person. I'm writing a story about that right now.

R: So is the original idea of Thalience still relevant in the real world?

K: It is, but it revolves more around arguments having to do with artificial intelligence. I hasten to add that I am doing a mashup between AI and environmentalism in my work right now. On one hand, treating natural systems as potentially intelligent legal entities and on the other hand, trying to see the natural or the non-conscious in human nature and the systems we create. If I could describe these ideas in a few words I would, but sometimes you have to spread out the argument over many, many pages.

R: Do you think that AI and technology is reaching a point that it can start creating itself? I guess the other vision of that scenario is “Skynet” in the Terminator movies...

K: Our traditional vision of computers is the Terminator model of intelligent machines taking over. What I'm talking about is natural systems that have been augmented with technology. So it's not robots that are taking over, but your local aqua fir.

R: Genetic engineering is one nightmare vision of technology escaping into nature- I'm much more excited about artificial intelligence escaping into nature...

K: That's what Thalience was about...and my idea of re-wilding is that there is no distinction between nature and technology. If we replace nature with technology, technology is our natural world. It will evolve on it's own because things do evolve on their own. To a great extent, control is an illusion.

R: We had an ice storm here two years ago and lost power for six days- it really illustrated how much of an illusion that control is!

K: Events like that are more catastrophic when you are trying to maintain a state of direct control. When your systems are optimized to coexist with nature, events like that are not nearly so catastrophic. When you don't need to control the system, you don't care what breaks down.

Karl Schoeder is the author of nine novels, including the “Virga” series, as well as co-author with Cory Doctorow of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Science Fiction. http://www.kschroeder.com/

The Safety Razor

2010-12-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

Inspired by a woodworker’s plane, the first safety razor was invented by in the late 1700's in France. The design was perfected during the 1800's by British and German companies, but it was not until a traveling salesman from Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, King Camp Gillette, patented his design for the double-edged razor in 1904, that the the modern safety razor challenged the popularity of the straight razor. By securing a contract with the U.S. Military to supply the Gillette Safety Razor to each and every G.I. during World War II, these virtually indestructible little tools became the standard issue shaving implements world-wide for decades. Wilkinson Sword, a British company, introduced the stainless steel blade in the 1960s, significantly improving blade life, as well as creating an iconic object that has become an international symbol for “danger.” Adopted by 1970's punks as a symbol of the movement, the double edged razor blade has been adapted for use as drug paraphernalia, jailhouse shiv, and professional wrestling blood-letting tool.

With the advent of the era of cheap, plastic and disposable, U.S. manufacturing of the Gillette-style safety razor has ceased, but they are still found at nearly every American drugstore or grocery. Because of the longevity of the handle as well as the steel blades, they continue to be manufactured and used around the planet, and have, arguably, the lowest environmental impact of any shaver, with the exception of the traditional straight razor.

Biodiesel Basics

2010-11-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a little video I did a while back on the basics of biodiesel...

Growing Power in Wisconsin

2010-10-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Dymo Label Maker

2010-09-30T05:42:00.000-07:00

If you over 25 years old and live in a country that uses the English alphabet, you probably have used a Dymo label maker at some point in your life. The hard plastic embossed labels have adorned everything from file cabinets to sports equipment, lockers to utility panels, notebooks to foreheads, from their invention in 1958 until the advent of digital labelers in the mid 80's. The daisy-wheeled pistol-shaped labelers and their shiny, brightly colored strips with raised white capital letters may not be as popular now as in their heyday, but they are still available, in new, ergonomic designs. The classic models can still be found on ebay, at yard sales and flea markets everywhere.

The peel-and-stick plastic labels still have many advantages over their modern counterparts- they require no electricity to produce, the plastic labels don't fade when exposed to the elements, in fact, they are virtually indestructible. Not to mention that they just look so damned cool. So cool, in fact, that the look of the Dymo embossed label has been duplicated in several font designs, like “Punch-label” and “Plastique.” The font suggests a low-tech, retro, DIY attitude- and we here at OBSOLETE are down with that.

The 3-speed Bicycle

2010-08-30T05:38:00.000-07:00

Before the 1970’s explosion of Japanese road bikes with derailleur gears, the English-style 3-speed ruled the roads. In fact, the 3 speed roadster accounts for more than ½ of the bicycles ever built. The Raleigh DL-1, with its fully enclosed chain-case, rod and roller brakes and giant 28 inch wheels made it the perfect all-terrain bike of its time. Designed in 1913 for the British military, it eventually served across the Empire as the bike of choice for police, mail carriers, couriers and commuters from Kingston to Shanghai. The first manufacturing facility built in post-imperial India was a bicycle factory, which still produces an exact replica of the DL-1. Across Asia, the English-style roadster is the platform of choice for cargo bikes and pedi-cabs.

At the heart of every English-style 3speed is the Sturmey-Archer 3speed hub. The fully enclosed hub is nearly impervious to the elements, and extremely rugged. To disassemble and reassemble the planetary gears of a 3speed hub is a lesson in physics, and some might say a peek into the clockwork of the universe (okay, mostly old hippie bike mechanics say that...). Many variations have been built with up to 7 speeds, and the “DynoHub” includes an AC generator for powering lights. In America, 3-speed bikes built in the UK with Sturmey-Archer hubs were sold up until the late 1970’s, labeled as Robin Hood, Sears brand, and even K-Mart. Easily found at second hand stores for $50 or less, these workhorses will still out-ride and out-last any cheap bike bought from Walmart.

We are here to inspect your genetics.

2010-07-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

The World's Deadliest Meme

2010-07-23T17:46:00.001-07:00

excerpt from OBSOLETE! Magazine #1...

The AK-47

In the movie “Lord of War,” the protagonist Yuri Orlov, played by Nicholas Cage lays it all out:“Of all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.”

Designed by a wounded tank commander and aspiring agricultural equipment designer named Mikhail Kalashnikov, the AK-47 is perhaps the quintessential product of the 20^th century. In an earnest attempt to create a weapon that would defend his Communist homeland from the aggression of fascist Germany, Kalashnikov unwittingly invented one of the key elements in the blueprint for Soviet expansion. By making the AK-47 design a sort of “open source” technology, the USSR licensed the manufacturing of AK-47s to facilities in Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, China, North Korea, Egypt, Iraq, and others. Today, it is estimated that there is a one Kalashnikov-style rifle in use for every 66 people on earth.

As Yuri Orlov points out, the very image of the AK is a symbol of revolution worldwide, and a symbol of the business of revolution. It is the world's deadliest meme. In another Hollywood film, “Jackie Brown,” Samuel L. Jackson’s character Ordell says: "AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes.”

image by Terror Worldwide

Kal Spelletich gets a nice plug from Boing Boing...

2010-06-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

Boing Boing gave Kal's fundraiser a really nice plug...

"We've posted on BB before about San Francisco machine artist Kal Spelletich, who has made dozens of elegant, menacing, and incredible robots and kinetic sculptures over several decades. Kal is a veteran of Survival Research Laboratories, Seemen, and a former artist-in-residence at the Exploratorium. He's managed to secure a gallery show in New York City on August 6, 2010..."jump to full article...

Help Robot maker Kal Spelletich get to NYC!

2010-06-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

Old friend Kal Spelletich is raising bucks to take his robot show to NYC- check out his work at:
http://www.kaltek.org/
You can pledge by clicking the kickstarter link on the right side of this page.....

FRINGE: Kal Spelletich Exhibit, Jun. 2-30, 2007, L.A., CA

Time to Make Sumac Tea!

2010-06-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

We shot this last summer but I just got round to editing it last night- yes, it's very silly. But the Sumacs are in bloom- time to make Sumac Tea!

Operation: Biodiesel Phoenix

2009-07-25T05:13:00.000-07:00

Rebuilding the little diesel pickup- the new engine has run nothing but B100!

taproot solar installation

2009-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:00