When BJ and Danielle Siegel began planning their dream home in the hills of Sonoma County, California, they wanted something light on the land. "Sometimes when people build a house they want to express all the cool things they can get into a house and for us it was kind of the opposite," explains BJ.
Scotty Kilmer Explains Why Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars Are The Future.
Elon Musk is Wrong, Hydrogen Cars are the Future Not Tesla Electric Cars. The truth about Hydrogen fuel cell cars, FYI with Scotty Kilmer. The truth about electric cars. Hydrogen cars vs electric cars, which is better? How hydrogen cars work. The future of hydrogen cars. Tesla electric cars are not the future.
We Call This House, Future House. Another Great Video By Kirsten Dirksen.
To bring natural homes into the 21 Century, architect Tono Mirai designed "Future House": a home that blends earth building and traditional joinery with modern design. Located in Miura, Kanagawa (about an hour and a half south of Tokyo), this fusion home was built for a businessman and his wife and 3 children.
Links: Fair Companies | Future House | Kirsten Dirksen
Norwegian Cabin.
Students from the University of Trondheim have embraced the Norwegian cabin tradition and have built/rehabbed a network of 23 small cabins available to students interested in overnighting in isolated nature. The group- NTNUI (NTNU sportsklubb)- began in the 1940's when a former Trondheim student was killed in WWII.
Open Source Home Design. (The Boathouse)
Designer Ryan Frank wanted a semi-mobile home for a small plot in a "sensitive area". He thought about yurts and domes, but settled for an open source design he found online. Often called a "boathouse" or "gothic arch" structure, it was originally developed by a boat builder; it's centerpiece are the wooden support ribs.
From faircompanies: Frank built the home for about 1000 euros in roughly 100 hours. He now lives in it full-time with his girlfriend, though they use a separate camper as a kitchen, as well as a separate composting toilet and outdoor shower.
Rust Belt Revival.
It's become difficult to afford urban living in places like San Francisco, New York or even Portland, but there is an alternative. In Rust Belt cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Cincinnati, you can buy or rent for about 1/10th the price.
Ave Mundi Spes Maria.
Ave mundi spes Maria, ave mitis, ave pia, ave plena gratia.
Ave virgo singularis, quć per rubum designaris non passus incendia.
Ave rosa speciosa, ave Jesse virgula:
Cujus fructus nostri luctus relaxavit vincula.
Ave cujus viscera contra mortis foedera ediderunt filium.
Ave carens simili, mundo diu flebili reparasti gaudium.
Ave virginum lucerna, per quam fulsit lux superna his quos umbra tenuit.
Ave virgo de qua nasci, et de cujus lacte pasci res cćlorum voluit.
Ave gemma coeli luminarium.
Ave Sancti Spiritus sacrarium.
Oh, quam mirabilis, et quam laudabilis hćc est virginitas!
In qua per spiritum facta paraclitum fulsit foecunditas.
Oh, quam sancta, quam serena, quam benigna, quam amoena esse virgo creditur!
Per quam servitus finitur, posta coeli aperitur, et libertas redditur.
Oh, castitatis lilium, tuum precare filium, qui salus est humilium:
Ne nos pro nostro vitio, in flebili judicio subjiciat supplicio.
Sed nos tua sancta prece mundans a peccati fćce collocet in lucis domo.
Amen dicat omnis homo.
The Water Crisis That We All Knew Was Coming And What We Could Have Done To Prevent It.
California's water crisis is the disaster everybody saw coming but nobody had the political will to stop. It's the byproduct of a broken system that's dominated by self-serving elites and misguided ideologues. Or so says Joel Kotkin, a distinguished professor at Chapman University, who writes frequently about Golden State politics.
We could have built more storage (Do you mean dams, Joe? Yes!), not removed storage (Again, do you mean dams, Joe? Yes!), found alternative water sources (desalination or piped in water from the NorthWest), and stopped subsidizing water for farmers growing crops on land batter suited for cattle (shoot, just stop subsidizing water),
Bang the rock together, guys!
The Numbers Don't Lie, The World Is Getting Better.
An animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, The Fallen of World War II looks at the human cost of the second World War and sizes up the numbers to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts. Visit http://www.fallen.io for the interactive version and more information Written, directed, coded, narrated by https://twitter.com/neilhalloran Sound and music by https://twitter.com/Dolhaz
A Simple Life.
In the Jubilee year 2000 the monks of Norcia breathed new life into the birthplace of St Benedict. Armed with only their faith and zeal they founded a monastic community which has been attracting men from all over the world to follow St. Benedict's ancient Rule.
In a world gone mad, it is great to see some who have returned to less frenetic way of living.
These People Rock! "Living On A Half-acre Homestead With Lloyd Kahn And Lesley Creed."
At 80 years old, Lloyd Kahn is an icon of alternative housing. In the seventies he was a poster child of the geodesic dome (he published Domebook One and Two and he and his dome home were featured in Life magazine).
He got his start in publishing when Stewart Brand made him the shelter editor for the Whole Earth Catalog. The book that put him on the map as a publisher was “Shelter”, an international survey of alternative housing that he continues to sell over 4 decades later.
Kahn’s enthusiasm for shelter extends to “building every place I’ve ever lived”, including his current home which started as a dome and is now a more traditional shelter capped by a 30-foot-tall hexagonal tower (the only remnant of the dome).
His home is only a small part of his half-acre homestead where he and his wife Lesley Creed believe in doing things for yourself, when possible. Besides tending the organic gardens (and dozens of free-range chickens), Creed is a natural dyer, quilter, sourdough bread-maker and believer in the “value of actually working, not just trying to figure out how not to work”.
On our visit to the homestead, Kahn showed us his wild-caught pigeons, his seaweed harvest, well-fermented sauerkraut, home-cured olives, oatmeal grinder and workshop (where he still keeps his father’s “nuts and bolts box”). We caught Creed baking her sourdough bread (from her kitchen-harvested starter) and drying “bread seed” poppies.
Years ago the couple were pushing the boundaries of self-sufficiency to include goats and harvests of wheat, but Kahn found his limits. “With self-sufficiency you never get there, you never become self-sufficient. I mean we tried back in the seventies. We had goats and chickens and bees and I was trying to raise grain. Pretty soon I realized that if I want to raise enough wheat for the bread for a year here, it’s better left to a specialist, like I can’t be my own dentist. So you do, it’s a direction self-sufficiency. You do what you can do as much of it as you can.”
Shelter Publications: http://www.shelterpub.com/
Another great video from Kirsten Dirksen. Take a stroll over to Kirsten's website to learn more about living slow in a fast world.
Who Said The Internal Combustion Engine Was Dead? The Elio Gets 85 Miles Per Gallon!
Elio Motors. A three-wheeler capable of 84 MPG selling for only $6,800. This is our story.
Elio Motors unveils its new 0.9 liter, 3-cylinder engine prototype becoming the first start-up to build an all-new internal combustion engine in 60 years. Coming in 2016.
Has Elio Motors Conquered Perpetual Motion? Discover the mind-blowing, jaw-dropping data that proves when compared to all other forms of transportation, Elio is like never paying for fuel!
Link: Elio Motors
Kansas Street Farm. Mini Farming In Oakland.
Sheila Cassani began farming her rental home while a college student. She started with a small vegetable patch, but it soon spread to keeping chickens and bees and planting produce on nearly every available patch of the small yard not dedicated to the poultry.
Meet The Man At The Helm Of The Hyperloop. "Hello Buck Rogers!"
In 2012, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, released a proposal for a futuristic tube transport system that could go faster than the speed of sound, cutting travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco to 35 minutes or less.
If the Hyperloop really happens, it could be in service before Moonbeam's Boondoggle ever sees the light of day, Imagine going down south for a day at the beach.
Old Style Craftsmanship On Display By Finns Showing Us How To Build A Log House.
Traditional Finnish Log House Building Process.
Don't be turned off by the video being in Finnish, you'll learn a lot about building a quality log house by watching this fascinating video.
Dick Proenneke, Outdoorsman Extraordinaire. "Alone In The Wilderness."
www.DickProenneke.com - "Alone in the Wilderness" is the story of Dick Proenneke living in the Alaska wilderness. Dick filmed his adventures so he could show his relatives in the lower 48 states what life was like in Alaska, building his cabin, hunting for food and exploring the area.
www.DickProenneke.com - Dick Proenneke's simple, yet profound account of his 30 year adventure in the remote Alaska wilderness continues in this sequel to "Alone in the Wilderness". Watch through his eyes as he continues to document with his 16mm wind-up Bolex camera, capturing his own amazing craftsmanship, the stunning Alaskan wildlife and scenery and even a visit from his brother Ray (Jake).
A Hawaiian Treehouse.
Kristie Wolfe spent $5000 to build herself a tiny home on wheels in her hometown of Pocatello, Idaho. It started off as a yearlong experiment in simple living, but she liked it so much she decided to keep living small, not only in Idaho, but she began looking for land to build a tiny vacation home.
Solar Seawater Distiller Turns Salt Water into Drinking Water Using Only Sunlight.
Italian designer Gabriele Diamanti (@GabDiamanti) has invented Eliodomestico, an eco-distiller running on solar power, to provide safe drinking-water for people in developing countries: a very simple way to produce healthy, bacteria-free water. Eliodomestico is an open source project. Winner at Core77 Design Award 2012 - social impact category; Finalist at the Prix Émile Hermès 2011 competition.
Nick Bernabe
(ANTIMEDIA) A genius yet very simple way to produce healthy, bacteria-free water.
Italian designer Gabriele Diamanti (@GabDiamanti) has invented Eliodomestico, an eco-distiller running on solar power, to provide safe drinking-water for people in developing countries: a very simple way to produce healthy, bacteria-free water. Eliodomestico is an open source project.
This ingenious distiller was the winner at Core77 Design Award 2012 – social impact category and finalist at the Prix Émile Hermès 2011 competition. For more info and to donate to this project, click here.
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