The Heineken World Brick

...a that never got beyond a run of about 100,000–Heineken’s “World Bottle”–a beer bottle that doubles as a building material. It was a collaboration between Alfred Heineken and Dutch architect John Habraken back in the early 1960s. The story goes that the idea came when Heineken saw tons of his own beer bottles washed up on a Caribbean beach that also lacked affordable building materials. It would be great to see more reusable packaging like this. A...

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Reforming City Codes

...that party just how important it is to get neighbors to chat over food and beer. If we’re all friends, we’re less likely to start calling city inspectors on each other and more likely to resolve disputes face to face. Another step would be to create city codes that work as guidelines, something like Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language, rather than proscriptions. Take parkway planting regulations, for instance. Put together a group of landscap...

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The Flow Hive: a Solution in Search of a Problem

...open the hive and remove frames. It’s like a cross between a beehive and a beer tap. My problem with this design is mostly symbolic. Conceptually, the idea that a beehive is like a beer keg you can tap is troublesome. A beehive is a living thing, not a machine for our exploitation. I’m a natural beekeeper and feel that honey harvests must be done with caution and respect. To us, beekeeping is, at the risk of sounding a little melodramatic– a sacre...

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Moonshine

...preferably from a source that will lend itself to a pretty picture on the label — bottle it, and you’re in the vodka business.” As it turns out there is an art to good homemade moonshine — a far cry from the soulless mouthwash Archer-Daniels-Midlands turns out. Here’s some excerpts from an interview of ex-moonshiner John Bowman conducted by the Coal River Folklife Project from “Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia...

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DIY Sage Deodorant

...this in the original bottle, which is, happily, glass with a pump top. The label from the bottle even peeled off easily! Thank you, Weleda. Then I added about 20 drops of essential oils to the bottle, which holds 100 ml/1/2 cup. I used a blend of sage, lavender and tea tree. I can’t tell you how much of each, because I was fiddling with it as I went, but the sage and lavender dominate. I held back on the tea tree because it has such an assertive o...

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