No Tech Magazine

London Traffic Improvements (the Bressey Report, 1938)

In 1935 Sir Charles Bressey was appointed by Hore-Belisha, Minister of Transport, to make a comprehensive and systematic survey of the roads of Greater London. It was clear that the infrastructure required radical improvement to keep up with the expansion of traffic and Belisha said that Bressey's report "would stir the imagination of the whole country".

The report was published three years later and laid out a reconstruction scheme for London based on a detailed 30-year plan for highway development. Bressey's plan to deal with traffic involved tunnels, overhead roads, new arterial and circular highways and 'parkways' linking the city to the rest of the country. Before any of this could be implemented the plan was interrupted by war and aerial bombardment. Nevertheless, many of Bressey's ideas would influence post-war reconstruction and subsequent schemes for the capital's reorganisation.

Source (if you're in a UK school or library, you can access a movie about it).

Via Ptak Science Books, where you can see more illustrations of the "traffic improvements" outlined in the "Bressey Report". Check out this blog, by the way, there is much more to be found (about 900 posts on the history of ideas and technology, to be precise...). It is written and illustrated by John Ptak, an antiquarian science bookseller.

Related: Magic Motorways, a similar plan for US cities.

Characteristics of Modern Technique (1)

"The one best way": so runs the formula to which our technique corresponds. When everything has been measured and calculated mathematically so that the method which has been decided upon is satisfactory from the rational point of view, and when, from the practical point of view, the method is manifestly the most efficient of all those hitherto employed or those in competition with it, then the technical movement becomes self-directing. I call the process automatism. (...).

A surgical operation which was formerly not feasible but can now be performed is not an object of choice. It simply is. Here we see the prime aspect of technical automatism. Technique itself, ipso facto and without indulgence or possible discussion, selects among the means to be employed.

The human being is no longer in any sense the agent of choice. Let no one say that man is the agent of technical progress and that it is he who chooses among possible techniques. In reality, he neither is nor does anything of the sort. He is a device for recording effects and results obtained by various techniques. He does not make a choice of complex and, in some way, human motives. He can decide only in favor of the technique that gives the maximum efficiency. But this is not a choice. A machine could effect the same operation.

Quoted from "The Technological Society", Jacques Ellul, 1964 / Original work: "La technique ou l'enjeu du siècle", 1954 / Picture: polygraph duplicating device.

Characteristics of modern technique (2)
Characteristics of modern technique (3)

Three Thousand Pages of 19th Century Technology

The "Dictionary of arts, manufactures, and mines containing a clear exposition of their principles and practice" by Andrew Ure (and many others) is a 3,000 page illustrated encyclopedia packed with useful technical and statistical information relating to industrial development in the nineteenth century.

The paper version can be yours for a mere € 1,248 (or $ 1,760, including a discount), but the Internet Archive has made the entire seventh edition (published in 1875) available for free: Volume 1 (A-C), Volume 2 (D-I), Volume 3 (J-Z). Some volumes of earlier editions can be found at Google Books.

Illustration on the left: the manufacturing of money (see "Mint").

Related: The wonders of industry (1873-1877).

Jailhouse Tech

Kevin Kelly notes an emerging category of street technology which might be called Jailhouse Tech:

"The material constraint of a prison inspire fantastic innovation and re-use of made parts. A lot of the devices made in this manner are crude weapons, but others include eating implements, tattoo instruments, music, and other tools."

Above you see an electric cooking stove made with wire and brick. Kelly previously linked to Escape Devices, the work of photographer Marc Steinmetz. Also of note is Prisoner Inventions, a 2003 book which includes many drawings, some of them online (review 1 & 2).

Copenhagen is not the Bicycle Capital of the World

I am a fan of Copenhagen Cycle Chic, because it combines two of my favourite inventions ever: bicycles and, well, women. However, reader Rogier forwarded me a link to a well-researched post that clearly shows that the popular Danish blog (or rather its sister site Copenhagenize) is exaggerating the success of cycling in Copenhagen. David Hembrow argues that many Dutch cities have much higher cycling rates and that cycling in the Danish capital actually faces some serious obstacles. Related: Cars, out of the way.

Sailing Directly into the Wind

"In the late 90s/early 2000s my interest was in developing boats that can sail directly into the wind. To some, this seems impossible, and they find it hard to accept that it is possible to overcome the wind using the force of the wind itself. This technology has further implications also, it can allow a boat, or a buoy, to remain stationary in the water, unsecured, no matter how hard the wind blows without using any fuel. Having revived the project recently (2008) I am doing further research."

I cannot help but admire the simplicity of the design. Find all information here.

Wovel Wheeled Snow Shovel

"Replace the intricate wheel casting with wooden spokes and it’s possible to believe that the Wovel was designed and built a thousand years ago". Read more.

Post-Oil Automobile Drives on Wood

Joost Conijn travelled through Europe with a wooden car burning wooden fuel.

Update: "Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank".