Archive for March, 2009
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Casting at The Crucible
I just got back from The Crucible in Oakland, CA where I spoke to Nick DiPhillipo. Nick constructed their foundry and has designed and built foundry equipment such as kilns and cupola furnaces at The Crucible, UC Santa Cruz, Artworks in Berkeley, and elsewhere.   We talked about setting up a basic foundry, electric induction …
4 Comments » - Posted in Permafacture by Mathew
Friday, March 27th, 2009
Factor E Farm Featured in Arthur Magazine Today
Check out Arthur’s coverage of our work in their daily blog.
No Comments » - Posted in Factor e Live Distillations,Open Source Ecology by Molly
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
One Raised Bed a Day Keeps the Grocery Bills Away
Here at Factor E Farm we’re trying to grow all our own food. However, it’s a daunting task to grow and process enough food to feed ourselves. That’s why we have a simple policy this spring to help us get closer to 100% food sufficient: Every Body Plants One Raised Bed A Day. It’s …
3 Comments » - Posted in Open Source Ecology by Molly
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
What is Open Source Ecology?
Before reading this post, we invite everyone to write a message about what you feel Open Source Ecology means to you, and your ideas on how this can be communicated effectively to others. How do you feel about Open Source Ecology?
Open Source Ecology’s latest core message is “Building the world’s first replicable, open source, …
12 Comments » - Posted in Open Source Ecology,Organizational Development,The Story of Stuff,Viral Village by Jeremy
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Oekonux Conference in Manchester, UK
I’m leaving for the Oekonux Conference today. You can see my abstract under the 2nd day program at 2:30 PM. Here is a copy of my presentation, minus the transcript. If you want to meet up, just let me know.
1 Comment » - Posted in Global Village Construction Set by Marcin
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
CEB Prototype 2 Design Forum and Issues
Finally, the factorefarm.org Drupal site is starting to look coherent. Alex spawned it, Jeremy owned it. We are starting discussion on the second CEB prototype there. Log in, join the forum, and we’ll have the second prototype done in a jiffy. Once the second prototype is done, we’ll be taking preorders.
MicroTrac is the power …
10 Comments » - Posted in Collaboration Platform,Compressed Earth Block Press by Marcin
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Open Source Development Pipeline Continues to Flow
How does one reinvent corporate R&D by using open source methods? We missed a couple of details in yesterday’s hairy diagram and explanation. Now it should all be clear:
Now a couple of words on the above.
Yesterday’s post covered the left part of the diagram, which includes primiarily the technical due diligence steps necessary …
5 Comments » - Posted in Open Collaboration,Open Engineering,Open Source Economic Development,Open Source Product Development Pipeline,Viral Village by Marcin
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Open Source Product Development Pipeline Refined
I posted the updated technology set in the last post, but how do we actually develop the Global Village Construction Set in a timely fashion? What is the elusive, scalable methodology for open product development? It’s obvious. It’s this;)
If you would really like to understand this very important but messy hairball, give yourself a …
3 Comments » - Posted in Collaborators,Open Source Product Development Pipeline,Organizational Development by Marcin
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Explaining the Global Village Construction Set
Yesterday, Mathew, Nick, Jeremy and I participated in the conference call on extending our collaboration ability. One major issue that we face is the large scope and difficulty of explaining the process of building the world’s first, replicable, off-grid Global Village, via the Global Village Construction Set.
We made 2 conclusions in the conference call.
We …
1 Comment » - Posted in Open Collaboration,Open Engineering,Pattern Language by Marcin
Friday, March 20th, 2009
First 3 Raised Beds
We have a total of 11 organoponic raised beds now. No more clay hardpan. We are taking the chainsaw to some pallets, screwing them together, then filling the bed with straw, compost, a little soil, plus mulch on top. The whole garden will be filled with these soon – a perennial garden of apple, …
