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Do you know how to make your own plastic recycling machines from scratch? Where to download free designs for your 3D printer? Where to find millions of free artworks, books, movies and other cultural resources? Well you do now. Join James for today’s “Thought For The Day” as we start collating the best open source resources on the web.
SHOW NOTES:
Open-Source, DIY Machine Recycles Household Plastic Into New Products
Episode 222 – Lessons in Resistance: Open Source
1.8 Million Free Works of Art from World-Class Museums: A Meta List of Great Art Available Online
I know the link is in the show notes above, but I said I’d get the ball rolling by suggesting Open Culture, so here’s the link:
https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=18825
Looking forward to seeing what other open source resources are out there.
Here is an interesting article exploring the idea of open source housing. This one suggests the use of CNC machines to mill the pieces parts to be used in building one’s own home. This is in contrast to the 3D printing approach that implies some authority in control of a large, expensive machine.
http://www.rexsoftware.com/open-source-architecture-set-change-way-live/
I like this site; http://www.loyalbooks.com/. Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads
Thanks for the contributions, everyone. We’re off to a nice start.
How about some open source recipes?
There’s Open Eats:
http://www.openeats.org/recipe/
Open Source Food:
http://www.opensourcefood.com/
Github’s Open Recipes:
https://github.com/fictivekin/openrecipes
And, of course, the open source beer recipes from Brew Dog that Pilato highlighted on #GoodNewsNextWeek a few months ago:
https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/blog/diy-dog
A couple of solutions based on open source blockchain technology…
Ethereum – A decentralized platform that allows people to write their own contracts (financial or otherwise) without the need for banks or middlemen.
https://www.ethereum.org
Bitmessage – A P2P encrypted instant (well almost) messaging system.
https://bitmessage.org
Appropriately enough I just got an email from OSVehicle that the latest version of their open source modular build-it-yourself electric vehicle is ready for download:
https://www.osvehicle.com/
(You wouldn’t download a car, would you?)
and here is a project to introduce a little open source hardware and software to your existing vehicle
http://openxcplatform.com/
Maybe a bit off the open source theme, but I have found this to be a great boon in helping folks at my library (where I work) who have a need to know how to operate ‘something’…
http://www.manualslib.com
free downloads or viewing of a manual for just about anything ever made.
Alcohol (not for drinking) is my bailiwick as part of solutions and open source.
How Homemade Moonshine Could Conquer the World
Moonshine is mankind’s second oldest profession.
Anyone can make moonshine (alcohol, ethanol, ethyl alcohol, C2H5OH ) at home, in the backyard or on the farm from inexpensive or free materials. People can scale the production and share the benefits by forming co-ops or alliances, even “producing script” among themselves.
Being a hydrocarbon, moonshine can virtually replace many of petroleum’s aspects, including the “petro-dollar script”, plastics, synthetic agricultural products, or many of the Wall Street manipulation games. Even more so, a grassroots’ movement of alcohol production actively destroys Big-Agra giants like Monsanto along with promoting healthier foods and a better economic society for everyone in any part of the world. It fact, when an individual understands the permacultural and economic implications of alcohol production, one can grasp the idea that this is surely a method to take down the manipulation of the transnational corporations.
The cost per gallon can range from 40 cents to $1.50. By utilizing the many side products from alcohol production the net costs drop dramatically. Some examples of side products for alcohol production are wastewater cleanup, garbage cleanup, fish and animal feedstock, plant fertilizer, pest control applications, accelerating the growth of plants in a greenhouse, etc. By taking advantage of tax credits one can “get paid” to make alcohol fuel.
Alcohol can run your car. It has many advantages over petroleum including the elimination of toxic chemical exhaust emissions along with longer engine life and better compression. Alcohol can run most existing newer vehicles “as-is” at close to a 30/70 mix with gasoline. The millions of Flex Fuel vehicles currently on the road can have close to a 85/15 ratio. Inexpensive, simple to install, conversion kits can modify any car to run at this 85/15 ratio.
This is a short list of substances which can used to make alcohol:
A vast variety of plants adapted to your specific part of the world. Trashed donuts and baked goods. Trashed produce (weekly, many grocery stores throw away produce worth thousands of dollars). Cattails or Duckweed from sewage cleanup. Seaweed. Cactus. Different desert plants. Grass. Plantation or farm waste harvests (not viable for the food marketplace). Molasses. Fruits. Sugar beets. Sugar cane. Corn and other grains. Soft drink bottlers who must dispose of left-over syrup not used before the expiration date is also a source. The paper industry has a similar slurry, called black liquor.
There is no way to relay all the information about alcohol production in a few paragraphs.
The foremost world expert on homemade alcohol production along with its vision and ramifications is David Blume. David Blume (who once previously worked with NASA and also for Mother Earth News) had major portions of a “do it yourself” book about alcohol production at the press ready for printing back in the early 80’s. He had also spent years making a film series for PBS. However, the PBS documentary was cancelled at the very last minute by the oil giants after airing only a few shows. The original 1983 printing of the book was also squashed. The cartel also crushed David Blume financially at that time. He was lucky enough to eventually retain the rights to his book after many legal battles.
Today, the book is more revised.
“Alcohol Can Be A Gas” by David Blume – A 600 page book with graphics and DVD.
http://www.permaculture.com/
A short message from David Blume about the revolution.
https://youtu.be/Km7xFd87-mw?t=28s
This is one of David Blume’s many video presentations.
https://youtu.be/U-iWgbWiP48?t=28m20s
On the internet, there are abundant resources about alcohol production for fuel.
This is a “Wiki-how” graphic – http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Ethanol-Fuel
People can make their own still or very easily purchase one designed for making alcohol fuel.
Here is an average guy who made a still which produces about 100 gallons a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go3USwVIqfs
An anecdote which is currently being done on a large and also a small scale:
During the distillation process of alcohol production CO2 is given off. This can be fed into a greenhouse to accelerate the growth of plants and to also kill off the bugs. (Note: Greenhouses sometimes will purchase a CO2 machine for this purpose.) The mash left over from the alcohol production can be fed to fish, which in turn can be sold commercially. The fish poop can be used to fertilize the greenhouse plants.
https://youtu.be/rR-C_bcEGf4?t=1h15m8s
Here is an Ethanol Fuel Trade Magazine
http://www.ethanolproducer.com/
Alcohol production’s investment return is fantastic when compared to oil not only in an economic sense, but within the framework of the environment and society.
For the most part, the current oil industry is based on borrowed money and the forfeiture of the future environment. It takes around 15 million to complete a toxic, fracking oil well which has a “shelf life” of x amount of oil.
This open source commodity takes away the control from the controllers.
Water from air
Ap Verheggen has published all his findings so others can utilize and expand the technology of producing water from air (with no moving parts, thus lasting for decades).
REUTERS 90 second video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xewwZLJaeak
websites – http://www.sunglacier.com/
http://inhabitat.com/tag/ap-verheggen/
Artistic work – http://apverheggen.blogspot.com/