The Amazing Online Building Technology Heritage Library

...with Internet Archive to digitize 9,500 pre-1965 construction and building technology documents for your perusal via the Building Technology Heritage Library. Enjoy strange Murphy bed contraptions? They’ve got you covered: Tiny Hawaiian kit homes: Vintage seed catalogs: Fans: Fuddy-duddy 1920s home furnishings: 1960s lamps: And a few bad ideas: In case you’re wondering, Jim Brown’s boyhood dream was to build giant factories to manufacture livestoc...

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The Primitive Technology Guy

...of Queensland, Australia uses a “show me don’t tell me” philosophy of film making that I greatly admire. No long, babbling intros! Kelly was especially impressed with his pump drill fire starting technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEl-Y1NvBVI He has a blog that describes the content of his videos in more detail. People like John Townsend and the Primitive Technology guy are the good side of the internet, producing quality work that’s a lot...

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Looking for the Union Label

...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

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Journal of the New Alchemists

...ire people to work on the more prosaic stuff. But another criticism of the appropriate technology movement of the 70s is that it focused on technology rather than social and political problems (see economist Richard S. Eckaus article “Appropriate Technology: The Movement Has Only A Few Clothes On“). We may be in the midst of repeating that mistake. Aquaponic system. Image: Journal of the New Alchemy. One does not need to wander the closed stacks o...

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