Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media

August 10, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Books & Reference, History, Media

Coptic bookbinding From Cave Paintings to the Internet is “designed to help you follow the development of information and media, and attitudes about them, from the beginning of records to the present. Containing annotated references to discoveries, developments of a social, scientific, theoretical  or technological  nature, as well as references to physical books, documents, artifacts, art works, and to websites and other digital media, it arranges, both chronologically and thematically, selected historical examples and recent developments of the methods used to record, distribute, exchange, organize, store, and search information. The database is designed to allow you to approach the topics in a wide variety of ways.”

Illustration: coptic bookbinding.

Via Achille van den Branden.

Saving the Earth by Shrinking Humans

July 19, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Genetics, Population growth

Research into the implications of genetically downsizing the human species to better fit the earth. Via Treehugger.

Wind Powered Trikes

July 19, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Bicycles, Bikes, Human power, Pedal power, Random, Recumbent tricycles, Travel, Tricycles, Trikes, Wind Power, Wind powered vehicles

wind powered trike 1

Pterosail Trike Systems is sailing and cycling over 3,000 miles from coast to coast across the USA this summer. The Pterosail is a street-legal recumbent tricycle with sails. It can reach up to 40 mph in good winds. No wind? Pedal. See also, below: the Whike, a Dutch made sail assisted trike.

wind powered trike 2

Related: Guido Vigevano’s wind car / Sailing rockets / Kiteboating / Velomobiles.

Can Traditional Knowledge be Categorized?

July 18, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Books & Reference

ITKI “This bears all the hallmarks of a well-intentioned project that will grind slowly to a halt. Like flowers that wilt when cut and put in a vase, indigenous knowledge
tends to degrade quickly when removed from its context.”

Doubts on the recently launched International Traditional Knowledge Database.

Obsolete Technology Prints and Photograph Collections

July 13, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Aviation, Balloons, Boats, Cities, Obsolete technology, Pack animals, Photography, Streets

Tissandier collection

Three wonderful collections from the Library of Congress, showing obsolete technologies.

[Read more…]

Characteristics of Modern Technique (3)

July 13, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: E.F. Schumacher, Quotes, Technology, Work

“The type of work which modern technology is most successful in reducing or even eliminating is skilful, productive work of human hands, in touch with real materials of one kind or another. In an advanced industrial society, such work has become exceedingly rare, and to make a decent living by doing such work has become virtually impossible. A great part of modern neurosis may be due to this very fact; for the human being, defined by Thomas Aquinas as a being with brains and hands, enjoys nothing more than to be creatively, usefully, productively engaged with both his hands and his brains.”

Bookbinders “Modern technology has deprived man of the kind of work that he enjoys most, and given him plenty of work of a fragmented kind, most of which he does not enjoy at all.”

“All this confirms our suspicion that modern technology, the way it has developed, is developing, and promises further to develop, is showing an increasingly inhuman face, and that we might do well to take stock and reconsider our goals.”

Quoted from: “Small Is Beautiful“, E.F. Schumacher, 1973.

Characteristics of modern technique (2)
Characteristics of modern technique (1)