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The Survival Machine Farm
pacopico writes "There's a 30-acre plot of land in Maysville, MO where about two dozen people have gathered to build a Civilization Starter Kit. As Businessweek reports, they're working on open-source versions of bulldozers, bread ovens, saws and other tools right on up to robots and chip fabs. The project has been dubbed the Factor e Farm, and it's run by a former nuclear physicist and a bunch of volunteers. The end goal is to have people modify the tool designs until they're good enough to compete with commercial equipment."
wskiâ(TM)s hut anchors a 30-acre compound near Maysville, Mo., full of wooden shacks, yurts, work sheds, flapping laundry, clucking chickens, and a collection of black and strange-looking machinery. A dozen or so people in their twenties, none of whom appears to have bathed in a while, wander around or fiddle with the machines."
I'm not sure these people are queued for success...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Have gnu, will travel.
An Open Source Bulldozer?
I think these Open Source evangelists are going a bit off their rocker.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Didn't these guys do this last year with the Global Village Construction Set on Kickstarter?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/622508883/global-village-construction-set
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Civilization starts with an ability to feed and shelter its members. Not with tractors, open source and agile development techniques.
If you are serious at building civilization survival kit, obsess less with open source (in the event of apocalypse there won't be anyone enforcing patents), but with a designing robust, reliable and highly redundant system to meet basic needs.
But if civilization has collapsed, or you are just building a new one, everything is open source.
So why not just reverse engineer existing tech...
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It is nice that they are providing the material requirements for a civilization, but I wonder if developing laws wouldn't be more prudent?
Having a plow won't be too useful if there isn't a stable society to make use of it.
Initially when we setup a base on mars we'll send two of everything plus parts, but over time being able to build for yourself using a basic erector set of parts is going to be extremely useful, if not completely necessary. All we need is some calamity that causes launches to be delayed and suddenly they'd be on their own.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Most of Factor e Farm’s equipment runs on an in-house invention called a Power Cube. It’s a black metal box about the size of an office copier, with a 27-horsepower engine that runs a hydraulic pump.
Honestly, if you're going to have a bunch of 27HP motors with hydraulics kicking around, (and fuel to run them), how big of a challenge is it to mechanize things?
I think a true post-apocalyse scenario should focus on relearning the now-forgotten survival skills of past generations. Simple, fundamental things that were once widely known, such as how to grow and store crops, mill lumber, weave fabrics, make soap, etc. Assume that available sources of power will be draft animals, water and wind mills, or your own hands. Don't assume there will be a gas station open for business down the street.
Is Garden of Eden Creation Kit taken?
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
I took a look at the picture on the first page and your clean room needs a little work
Doesn't sound like they're thinking very long term, more like in the 30-70 year span after some world changing event (super volcano, plague, extreme climate change). The point where machinery starts breaking down but parts and equipment are still somewhat available, only not always the correct parts so modifications are required. Beyond that you're going to have to restart some level of manufacturing or do without things like tractors, "power cubes" and such as there are likely going to be few working components left.
There are several existing solutions for this problem. The better specialized postapocalyptech for earthmoving is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox but for more general usage the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse design is widely preferred. If in doubt, consult the Whole Earth Catalog.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
The nerd in me really wanted to read this as a real life implementation of Civilization (the computer game). Sigh.
Just get you a cardboard sign and live under an overpass. You can keep your agile development techniques too. Heck, I saw a guy having a stand up scrum meeting by himself on a street corner just this morning.
These folks pop up every year or so. I'm assuming it's around when they run out of money and need to find some more suckers to fund them. I've been following them and their "Compressed Earth Brick" huts (sod huts anywhere else) for a few years. They would be better off buying some Oxen, Pigs, Horses and maybe and old 8N tractor. The the concept is fundamentally flawed the hubris involved is off the charts. If they want to be self sufficient the first thing they should do is dump anything invented post 1900. This classic DIY'itis. Gahh so annoying, what a waste of 30 acres of good land.
Could chocolate be quiet and let me finish?
Typical "not re-invented here" syndrome.
I thought that's why we kept these beard-slashing traffic impediments around.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Would they stop closed source people form using these?
Good bye Bill G!
....someone claims their version infringes someone's existing patent.
start with the public domain version.
By which I mean, every idea patented more than 20 years ago is currently in the public domain. Without inventing anything new, you can produce the best possible bulldozer that humanity could come up with from the beginning of our species until 1992.
Surely that should be a good enough design with which to start a civilization...
That would fit....
Basically, these people need to learn from the Amish, who are already skilled in knowing how to survive without the complicated infrastructure of a high-tech society.
--if there really is going to be a civilization-destroying apocalypse, the Amish are going to be the ones who rebuild civilization, 'cause the rest of us all starved to death by about the fifth winter.
(Yes, the Amish don't live completely independently of the rest of society. But they are a darn sight closer than any of the rest of us.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This "project" puts the filthy in Filthy Hippie.
The saddest thing about all of this is that it was reported on by Bloomberg Business week and twice by Slashdot.
Stuff that matters, indeed.
Not to mention, groups such as the Amish and the Mennonites are living right now with minimal reliance on modern technologies. Survivalists could probably learn a lot from studying how these religious communities subsist.
This happens in Missouri for a reason: lax zoning and a distinct lack of busy-bodies who complain.
This is what California was like 40-50 years when hippies were doing this kind of thing there. Now it's locked up tight. In some cases it's for good reasons. Developers were silting streams and destroying fisheries with ill-advised grading. OTOH, the government is literally telling you where you can poop, which makes doing things like this illegal and/or expensive now. Sometimes it still happens. They can't police communes any better than they can police illegal pot growers; but a project like this out in the open is less likely to happen in CA now, which is a bit sad.
My understanding is that a good chunk of Missouri was depopulated by the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. I wonder if too many "back to the land" people like this will eventually cause complaints and ruin it like California.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Blueprints for Civilization This TED video is worth 4 minutes of your time.
Jakubowski articulates his vision very clearly.
I remember hearing of this a few years ago; I am glad to see they're making some headway.
It appears this nuclear physicist has determined in his own mind folks will be reduced to local needs fulfillment at some point, as a result of a nuclear exchange, or a monetary crash, and is simply developing the technology for that possible outcome. Considering they can't get 6 generators to gas stations in New jersey and 3 tanker trucks to them despite the clear freeways and long lines of cars, it might be smart if only as a dumbshit proctector.
JJ
In spite of the vision of sci-fi authors. I think when people go to settle on Mars, there will be in the hundreds of thousands to the millions. The fixed costs of developing infrastructure and technology to get to and live on Mars will be very high. The incremental costs will then be lower. Why have a few hundred people on Mars, when you can have a few million, and not have to develop many small scale, inefficient technologies.
I mean if civilization is reduced to the stone age do you really want to survive it?
When I see shows like Doomsday Preppers, and the types of people preparing for the end of the world, it further steadies my belief that I in no way want to survive any of these kinds disasters once the yokels crawl out of their caves and spider holes.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
wake me up when you've got v1 of your script checked into sourceforge and it's driving slashdot to the verge of collapse.
If you have all that stuff, post-pockyclypse, there's going to be a lot of meaner, more badass people ready to take it from you.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Concept reminds me of the the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) from Fallout. Without the "just add water" deus ex machina.
The tractor alone is incredible, though I'd love to know how they built it in six days, and starting with what.
On the *other* hand, the "reporter".... I have a friend who teaches at colleges around the country, and who has a course called "science for non-science majors". A few years ago, he went down the food chain of the majors that take the course. Business majors were the next to the bottom - "they didn't get it, but didn't let that worry them". The very bottom of the food chain were the communications majors, who "didn't get it, and didn't know that they didn't get it". The "reporter" is clearly at the bottom. If she were ever stranded away from civilization, say, with a broken down car and no cell phone, she'd be in deep do-do; if civilizaiton collapsed, I guess her choice would be either sell her body,,, or die, since she appears to be incredibly snotty about people who can actually make things and do things. "nerd camp"; "who didn't seem to have bathed in weeks" (been reading right-wing crap from the sixties, have we, girly?)
What a jerk she is.
I want their final report and docs. Esp the chip fab.
mark
So, they have been so brainwashed that they are concerned about being sued for violating the patent on the wheel (tractors, motors, and so on) after civilization ends.
Forget the frigen zombies, it is obviously the lawyers we have to worry about eating our brains.
While I applaud them for what they are doing and their attempt, I think they need to do some more research into what else is going on in the (self)sustainable living sphere.
1. Waste management and water supply is important. People have been drinking water from wells, streams and rivers for a really long time. I'm sure with some time on google you can find simple, inexpensive ways to purify it enough that it's not harmful to drink. (Boiling + filtering?) And keeping waste away from the main water source seems pretty self explanatory. Also, you can totally use filtered gray water to shower and stay clean.
2. Agriculture and livestock are important. So, he planted 100 trees in a day, great. It takes years of growth and cultivation for a fruit tree to reliably produce fruit. There are lots of other crops you can plant year round that will give high enough yields to support a small population. I've seen some people that produce a large part of their food on less than an acre. With the land that they have, it opens up many more opportunities to reuse wastes from ag and livestock (From TFA sounded like they didn't really have any, except a cow) to fuller advantage as feed/fertilizer. And all with out a bulldozer.
3. Home designs seemed kind of shitty. I know a number of people who live in yurts from time to time, and they're great for what they do. But they were designed by a nomadic culture and aren't the best for long term summer abodes. And, a BRICK HOUSE? Are you F'ing kidding me? There are many better ways to build build houses that can be really comfortable: Cool in the summer, warm in the winter, yadda yadda. One that I've come across are earthships made from recycled materials and built into the ground.
4. Work ethic. From TFA It sounded like a lot of the on-site work force was AWOL from much needed work. This is totally unacceptable and easy to fix. If you don't work, you don't get to eat/stay/reap the rewards. You can't be self sustaining if people won't pull their weight. It's demoralizing and a drain on wile compound.
5. Power cube idea was sort of cool, but I have to question any "post-apocalyptic"/sustainable items that depend on distilled fossil fuels. Are you going to build your own oil pump and distillery as part of the kit? the still can totally be done, but not everyone has gas or oil within simple drilling distance.
Like some other commenters said previously, take a hint from the Amish. I would extend the "must read list" to imitating other communities like urban homesteaders and aqua/hydroponics aficionados. There's no reason to be hot stinky, unable to drink local water and totally dependent on food from Wal-Mart. Especially a few years into the project.
Not sure if the reporter missed this or if it's just a Slashdot obsession, but I'm sure I read before that these guys are trying to make technology accessible to third-world countries. Their goal is not (necessarily) to bootstrap a post-apocalyptic economy, but to bootstrap starving villages so that they can rapidly increase food output using all the tech we can bring to bear in a cheap, interchangeable manner.
I nominate Detroit for beta testing.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Because porn should survive an Apocalypse!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
..that everything is going to go poof some day is beyond me. In a disaster there will be plenty of gasoline operated devices suitable for conversion to producer gas operation, and thus, all of the power tools laying around because their owners left/were killed/staved to death/died of disease will be operable due to all of the inverters/generators/solar banks available. Nothing short of nuking every square inch of this country will change that, and as afar as developing countries, their major concern is political stability, not access to resources. The first drives the second. That being said, if they want to play hippy like their parents/grandparents, all the more power to them.
Environmentally limited(wouldn't last well in Alaska)
Actually pretty resource expensive for what you get - They eat a LOT.
Not all that great at the tasks a bulldozer is really good for, such as the moving and spreading of large amounts of dirt.
I don't read AC A human right
...not cool hippy hydraulic tractors/smitty combo machine/woodworking tools. I would argue that the problem in africa is that the carrying capacity post colonial is far below the carrying capacity while under colonial rule, and those left in charge find it far more profitable to simply become warlords than take time to create a civiliation capable of supporting stable agricultural industries--if the capacity for such is there...
developing an open source Kool-Aid recipe?
I'm doing it too, though not on such scale, here (see my sig). Doing the best I can to show how people really do things (often despite their PhD training). And doing a lot of it myself. Off grid since '80 or so, drive electric car - nothing to do with green, all about freedom to NOT have to work for the man, and live my life as I choose. The one bill I pay is the one that gets me online.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
"However, more analysis needs to be put into their plan; more requirements gathering and architecture is needed."
Something I tried to get NASA to support a dozen years ago: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
That said, the Factor e Farm people are really trying hard and making some progress in the general area. What is ridiculous is that this is not a top priority issue funded by NASA, NIST, and European counterparts with hundreds of thousands of reasonable paid engineers involved.
Another related idea I posted: :-), no obvious external enemies declaring war, and so on. And they are so worried about their future ability to make and use things (which is how I translate "fears for Greece's economic future") that they are running out of tear gas? This all makes no *physical* sense. The place should be a paradise. Instead it is in "self-destruct mode" according to one editor. It must be *ideology*. Or, more correctly, ideology *embodied* in a certain type of productive infrastructure. ..."
"Getting Greece and Iceland to be 99% self-sufficient by mass; international consortium"
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/openmanufacturing/YzbzBFjeBkg/HXC7-XHSGLkJ
"Now, does this [Greece running out of tear gas during riots about economics] make any sense if you understand the possibilities of open manufacturing or an open society? In Greece you have a warm climate, access to oceans, lots of sun and wind, an educated populace with a 2000+ year history of democracy (on and off
The closes I know of from the US government is from the Carter presidency: http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
Here is something more recent from NIST which is great but not quite as self-replication focused and only had about 20 staff involved (last I heard):
http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/lifecycle/sm_smo.cfm
http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/lifecycle/
Frankly, it feels to me like the failure of engineering academia in the USA to comprehensively work to analyze our productive processes is perhaps a reflection of how much a certain form of capitalist ideology infests US academia. It seems like it is heresy to even consider that anything other than some mystical "market" would decide what would be manufactured or how it would be made or moved between users, even though a lot of companies are being weighed down by supply chains they don't really understand or control. So, in academia you can study one tiny part of how something is made, but you can't try to create an approach to comprehend the whole because that goes against mainstream economic dogma of willful blindness about lifecycle consequences and comprehensive design. Only in a thought experiment like NASA might do about a moon base or something like that is it permitted to discuss the idea of comprehensive planning about how to make *everything* and take it all through a full lifecycle. Meanwhile, we drown in our own e-waste because externalities like disposal are not priced in up-front. Modern computer-based manufacturing has the potential to be so flexible that we could have, if not Star Trek replicators, at least the next best thing of small production runs and mass customization coming out of very flexible manufacturing lines (seem James P. Hogan's "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" for some descriptions of what that would look like, set in a space habitat).
Still, there is the RepRap project and such as an exception in academia. So, I think change is happening, slowly. Maybe the rate of change on this meme is growing exponentially though?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I was thinking of an old Robin Williams movie that could do with a more modern remake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0o0sKekpec
'damn hippies, why can't they be MBAs?'
Sure, that's a cheap shot, and you can point that out.
However, on a deeper level, it's a significant criticism. If their goal is to at least keep the jet age alive -- but they don't have any jet planes built, then they aren't quite successful yet, are they?
I mean, how can they claim to preserve civilization for others, when they can't even preserve polite, civil society for themselves?
The fixed costs of developing infrastructure and technology to get to and live on Mars will be very high.
Well, how high is "very high"?
Why have a few hundred people on Mars, when you can have a few million, and not have to develop many small scale, inefficient technologies.
Well, someone will be first. That's the "few hundred" stage.
' ... they're working on open-source versions of bulldozers, bread ovens, saws and other tools ...'
Okay, remind me how long patents go for! (Sorry, it's a rhetorical question) ... 20 years after 1995, and 17 years prior to that ... so ... From Wikipedia:
'On December 18, 1923, Cummings and McLeod filed U.S. patent #1,522,378 that was later issued on January 6, 1925 for an "Attachment for Tractors."'
The Bulldozer patent went into public domain in 1942, and subsequently you could possibly build a design of your own using the technology of the original without legal worries ... and I'm sure there are plenty of other Bulldozer improvements that have fallen into public domain that could also be used. As for Bread Ovens, Saws, other tools (are we talking hammer, screw drivers and mallets etc?), I'm pretty sure they have all been around long enough to be in public domain too. So, sure, maybe you'd have to design an open source bulldozer, but aren't all these things (saws, hammers etc) pretty much 'open source' already?
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)