“Gravel roads don’t mean the end of transportation. We’ll just have to slow down considerably, and that may not be a bad thing.”
Read: The return of gravel roads.
Picture: a strip road.
Has There Been Progress Since 1250?
April 4, 2010 by Filed Under: Jacques Ellul, Quotes, Random, Work
“Fourastié [A French economist] is right in putting the case numerically to dramatize the shortening of the work week and the enormous transformation in living standards and in the qualitative nature of life. The case is indeed simple if 1950 is compared with 1815. But it is no longer quite so simple if 1950 is compared with 1250. It is important to consider, for labor, not only time but intensity.”
“It is possible to make a meaningful comparison between the fifteen-hour workday of a miner in 1830 and the seven-hour workday of 1950. But there is no common denominator between the seven-hour day of 1950 and the fifteen-hour day of the medieval artisan. We know that the peasant interrupts his workday with innumerable pauses. He chooses his own tempo and rhythm. He converses and cracks jokes with every passer-by.”
“We cannot say with assurance that there has been progress from 1250 to 1950. In so doing, we would be comparing things which are not comparable. Therefore, it is advisable to limit ourselves to saying that there has been progress since the beginning of the industrial era, which was founded on the breakup and destruction of the non-comparable and vanished old order.”
Quoted from “The Technological Society
High-tech Bike or Low-tech Car? The Sinner Mango Sport
The Mango Sport is a new recumbent tricycle by Dutch manufacturer Sinner. The emphasis is on light weight (27.5 kg) and high performance. As is the case with other velomobiles sold by Sinner, the 20 gear drive-chain remains entirely enclosed for low maintenance, all three wheels have suspension, and the luggage capacity is generous (70 litres). It has built in front and rear lights. A weather-proof top is available. All this comes with a price tag of 5,950 euros, including sales tax.
Detailed specifications / More pictures / More Sinner bikes.
Grinding the Wind: the Treadwheel Fan
March 25, 2010 by Filed Under: History, Human power, Jailhouse technology, Random, Treadwheels & treadmills
I wrote about prison treadmills before. They were invented in England in 1817 by Sir William Cubit, who observed prisoners lying around in idleness and put himself to the task of “reforming offenders by teaching them habits of industry”.
Forty-four prisons in England adopted it as a form of hard labour that could also grind grain or pump water.
However, as it turns out, in at least one jail prisoners were only “grinding the wind”: they were walking a treadwheel that was connected to a giant fan built on the courtyard. By this apparatus the resistance necessary for rendering the tread-wheel hard labour was obtained.
The system is explained in “The criminal prisons of London and scenes of Prison Life” (1862), written by Henry Mayhew & John Binny. Starting on page 299, they describe the method of “hard labour”, and the technologies used for it: the treadwheel, crank labour & the shot drill. Great reading.
Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts
Vladimir Arkhipov’s “Home-Made” (Amazon link) presents objects made by ordinary Russians inspired by a lack of immediate access to manufactured goods during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each of the more than 220 artifacts is accompanied by a photograph of the creator, their story of how the object came about, its function and the materials used to create it.
The book is expensive, but you can find some pictures and stories here, here, here, here and here. Related (but the Soviets obviously had better materials): Jailhouse Technology.
Forum
Arkhipov continues the reach of his project through his multilingual Folk Forum website where anyone is free to post examples of hand-made objects. The website is not very user-friendly (tip: start by manipulating the layers), but it hosts some great ideas and pictures (some of them below).
Thanks, Caroline!
Obsolete Occupations: the Jobs of Yesteryear
March 18, 2010 by Filed Under: Professions, Random, Work
Overview of endangered professions at the National Public Radio (via Obsoletos): “As computers and automated systems increasingly take the jobs humans once held, entire professions are now extinct”.
I would like to add to this: As fossil fuels run out, some of these professions might return. And then I want to become a River Driver. Previously: the panorama of professions and trades.
