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Not in California. By law, all timber harvests in California on public OR private lands must be approved by the State. That includes how much timber is taken, how the site is prepared and cleared, etc. If the site is not cleared of underbrush, it's because the State of California wanted it that way.

I've heard about for or five years. While this sounds like a good concept to save money and danger from kerosene lamps, what do people do then? Still, even with planned obsolescence, such systems may still be very cost-effective. But it seems to me there might be better battery technologies one could pick? If not, I hope some sort of battery replacement and recycling program is thought about.

More on a related larger movement of design
"Design for the Other 90 Percent: Innovating for the World's Poor"
http://miter.mit.edu/articlede...

Of course, EF Schumacher and the "Appropriate Technology" movement was doing this in various ways in the 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
"Appropriate technology is an ideological movement (and its manifestations) originally articulated as intermediate technology by the economist Dr. Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his influential work, Small is Beautiful. Though the nuances of appropriate technology vary between fields and applications, it is generally recognized as encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled.[1] Both Schumacher and many modern-day proponents of appropriate technology also emphasize the technology as people-centered.[2]"

A website in this area: http://www.appropedia.org/

Another organization (of many):
https://www.ncat.org/about-us/

Another cheap way of getting some light indoors (but only during the day):
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
"Brazilian mechanic creates light bulb using water, bleach and a bottle
Alfredo Moser's cheap and environmentally friendly invention is picking up steam in developing nations around the world. The 'Moser lamp' was picked up by the Liter of Light campaign and is now brightening 140,000 homes in the Philippines."

BTW, extending the day using artificial light (which I'm not eager myself to give up) is still problematical in a few ways including for health reasons.

On "Spread the wealth, but don't do it for free", it's important to remember that much of the wealth we enjoy in the West is due to cultural ideas that originated in Africa and the East (even things like the concept of "zero"). A lot of key minerals come from poor countries as well, where any wealth from their extraction got concentrated in a few hands. And there is a brutal history of slavery and genocide and colonialism underlying much of the unfolding and spread of Western "civilization". Look at the history of any, say, any currently materially poor African country and you will likely find a land that probably had (for their time) wealthy kingdoms hundreds of years ago that were taken over by European powers with most of people then driven into poverty and/or slavery and then eventually carved up into countries not respecting tribal and cultural boundaries which contributed to later warfare. Entrepreneurs may need to charge for things to make sustainable businesses in today's economy, but there are complex economic and political issues underlying great wealth disparities.

The "Social Credit" idea is worth considering when accepting how so many things are essentially the common capital of all of human kind, and thus all humans in that sense have some claim on the fruits of anyone using that capital:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
"Douglas disagreed with classical economists who recognised only three factors of production: land, labour and capital. While Douglas did not deny the role of these factors in production, he saw the "cultural inheri

Laser sintering gets you sintered material with different properties than say single crystal material. http://www.appropedia.org/Sing...

If one can sinter the blades for a jet engine damaged by a bird strike, that would be a fundamental technological accomplishment, especially if the blades are balanced and could be installed.

Printing a turbine blade would be quite an accomplishment, considering that modern blades are often made from a single crystal of Superalloy metal

.

Okay, fine, in the hypothetical (but maybe not so far away future) - wouldn't this be a significant change to how the global economy functions?

Particularly should the materials recycling concepts gain traction, like this one -

http://www.appropedia.org/Recyclebot_v2.3

In that world, you won't even use a whole lot of new plastic. Kid's toy breaks; grind said up and print replacement.

Seems significant.

They are already working on machines to take old milk bottles or soda bottles and manufacture the filament needed for a RepRap.

http://www.appropedia.org/Recyclebot_v2.3

Octane reflects the resistance to detonation. It isn't directly related to "compressibility" as you assert. And higher octane is almost always accompanied by lower energy density (I know you asked for a cite, but http://www.appropedia.org/Energy_content_of_fuels is all I could find). I'm not sure what your complaint is about, other than talking about your Porsche (probably a 944).

Would a waste plastic extruder interest you? http://www.appropedia.org/Waste_plastic_extruder It takes waste plastic and makes filament usable for extruding.

http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing
"We bring free and open source software development methodology to the physical world."

I help moderate that list, which ranges over a variety of related topics. There are many other related places you can look at or ask questions at, too; some other links to get started which are often more shelter-related:
    http://www.inhabitat.com/
    http://www.os-house.org/english/os-house/home
    http://ostatic.com/blog/open-source-house-launches-design-competition

Other general resources:
    http://makezine.com/
    http://www.appropedia.org/

I still am not entirely sure about this project -- there seems to be more of a reliance on technology as an end in itself, simply crossing fingers for some kind of digital third-world transformation to occur.

From the beginning, the OLPC project has been clear that it is an education project in which technolgoy is a means of enabling a particular mode of education, not a project in which technology is an ends.

Instead of outcomes, they seem to be focusing on outputs, namely laptops distributed. But what are they supposed to do with them practically? Does it give them a pocket library, replacing books if not thousands of books?

Yes, one focus of the project has been developing Free (libre) content.

Will this help them with agriculture?

Its not intended to, directly, though if it succeeds either in increasing the quality or (by being a more efficient replacement for other materials) reducing the cost (or both) of education, it is likely to do so as a secondary effect, but improving skill base and/or freeing resources.

Are there any structured curriculums for learning?

There is some work on those in some of the content projects, though, remember, that the prime focus of the OLPC has been to sell to national education ministries. Constructing structured curricula around the provided resources would remain the responsibility of those users, for the most part. (Also, the focus of the OLPC project has been on enabling constructivist education, which has less focus on structured curricula; still, its features are also useful for more traditional education.)

Can it do anything with disaster recovery, like help locate food and water?

Not that I know of. Nor is it advertised or promoted as a disaster recovery tool.

Are there guides on it for setting up sanitation systems and preventing disease?

There's at least one project for that, yes.

is turning into quite a movement.

http://appropedia.org/ is like wikipedia but, predictably, for appropriate technology.

http://hexayurt.com/ is a nice little emergency shelter (that's my project.)

http://globalswadeshi.net/ takes Gandhi's ideas (like the spinning wheel) and generalizes them into a global picture based on appropriate technology innovations

http://akvo.org/ does water technology

http://openfarmtech.org/ does a wide range of systems for a very high standard of living

and there's a lot more out there.

http://www.globalswadeshi.net/video has a series of video interviews with people working on appropriate technology in this general vein.

not from a charitable approach, but from a foreign policy approach.

http://www.guptaoption.com/2.long_peace.php - Winning the Long Peace

http://www.guptaoption.com/5.open_source_development.php - Saving the World through Open Source

(also relevant: http://appropedia.org/

Basically, if governments or foundations pay for open source innovation in key areas, like solar cookers and efficient cooking stoves, rural water purification technologies - hell, basic sanitation - they can get a very great deal of leverage on the fundamental problems of the world for only a tiny fraction of the money it would take to try and solve them directly.

It's like Linux or Apache - even counting corporate funding, not that much money went into these things, but the value created in the developing world is *huge*. Can you imagine trying to run the IT infrastructure of the developing world, where techs are rare and expensive, on Windows?

Well, we could do the same for infrastructure in general.

More at http://hexayurt.com/ - click on the infrastructure links.

* How do you tie the hexayurts down so they don't blow away in the first breeze? I don't see any hard points to tie a rope to.

Tape anchors. The straps of tape that go up and over the point of the building terminate in these:

http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa_checklist#Assemble_the_Roof_Cone

http://www.archive.org/stream/Hexayurt_Clips_From_Combined_Endeavor/Hexayurt_Tape_Anchors_Old_Method_256kb.mp4

        * Your site has patterns for the 6 footer, and the stretch 6. Any patterns for the bigger ones?

We found the roof cones were more or less impossible to document like the building process for the smaller hexayurts, so we switched to video instructions. It might be somebody skilled with making instructions could do it, though.

        * What tape are you using? I saw passing references, but I'm not sure of the details.

Any bidirectional filament tape - 3M 8959 is one good option. Regular filament tape may also be enough. 3" wide or wider in all cases.

        * Have you given any thought to ways to scale this up slightly and make it more permanent? Maybe using structural insulated panels? I realize that's totally off-topic for your immediate purpose, but it might help win acceptance if it were seen as more mainstream.

Yes. If you go to regular SIPs this geometry is probably not optimal any more, but (for example) Thermax HD is a plausible lightweight SIP for this application, or we could go to hexacomb cardboard, which was used for making SIPs in the 1980s.

I haven't looked at wax impregnated cardboard - do you have somewhere to start learning about it?

Thanks!

Your page totally stinks. Gives no real information, only fluff marketspeak. This is Slashdot, so consider your target audience.
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Playa
and
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa_checklist
are MUCH better sources of real information.

Your page totally stinks. Gives no real information, only fluff marketspeak. This is Slashdot, so consider your target audience.
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Playa
and
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa_checklist
are MUCH better sources of real information.

Hi Vinay,

You should take the summary information from this page - http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Project - and put it the front page of your site. I'd also like to see a summary of how your project borrows from Ghandi, Bucky Fuller and FOSS.

FWIW, I think what you are doing is really interesting - and I disagree that you suck at video!

--
R108

Fascinating videos. The last one especially is excellent.

Ghandi+Bucky Fuller+FOSS = interesting stuff!

This is a page with more info on the Hexayurt:

http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Project