Ed Dowding

• Would you like to come stay at http://digg.com/u14Guq for a few days for free in exchange for 4 hours work per day gardening and whatnot? #

• @alices So do you like the idea? Interested in helping with (aka completely doing) the marketing plan & execution? #

We recycle used bicycles to build pedal-powered machines, bicimáquinas, which support and help facilitate the work of small-scale, self-sustainable projects. Through this work we hope to contribute to the conservation of the environment, the health or the Guatemalan people, and the productivity of the local economy.

MAYAPEDAL.

Via @Al_Humphreys

A few notes from various bits of paper lying around the place:

—

More people are being more productive that ever, and we still have trouble making ends meet. Something is fucked here, Dude.

—

“Eat only parents.” This was my conclusion about the ethics of eating meat. Basically once they’ve fulfilled Biological Imperative #1 (breeding), I figure the job is done, and you’re fair game.

—

In my house I’m going to plant different coloured grass seeds and make a giant Scrabble board.

—

I am a Twaatist.

—

WIR Bank, Switzerland: book keeping only, no scrip, founded 1934, 62000 members, turned over £1bn in 2004, not subject to economic fluctuations

—

Build up a few strips of superglue on the edge of a razor, and you have a stubble making razor. Result: Unfortunately this hurts like hell since razor blades just aren’t sharp enough to cut through hair comfortably without bracing it against the skin.

—

If anyone wants to get rich, here’s an idea. Hairbrushes get hairy after a while, right? So put some string or rubber bands through the bristles when it’s clean, then when you want to clearn it, just pull them off in one. Poorly explained, but if you don’t get it, you’re probably not the person for the job.

Plastic bottles leech chemicals which cause cancer and / or mimic oestrogen. WTF?! WHY DAMMIT?! WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!! And if you knew you were, wouldn’t you stop?

Reusing Plastic Bottles Can Pose Serious Health Hazards
Refilling and reusing plastic bottles can release toxic cancer-causing chemicals
http://environment.about.com/od/healthenvironment/a/plastic_bottles.htm >

Popular plastic baby bottles leach a hormone-disrupting chemical when heated
Possibly posing a danger to infants, according to a study released Thursday by a consortium of consumer groups.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/plastic-baby-bottles-may-pose-danger-to-kids-report-finds

Alas, the only thing that prevents me from going mad from a corrosive combination of hatred and fear of the unknown is the thought that I would not have been able to become so blasphemously rich were it not for one simple truth: the peoples of the world will always believe whatever preposterous hateful bull-shit I tell them so long as it it printed in neat columns next to attractive pictures of their leaders. And thank God for that, I say.

T. Herman Zweibel, The Onion

The founder of Ecotricity is building a wind powered (well, electricity powered) car. Read about it as his blog, Zerocarbonista.

Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves?

If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him?

I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer.

I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies [...] one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.

Some Thoughts on the Common Toad by George Orwell

This page logs mistakes we’ve made, strategies we should have planned and executed differently, and lessons we’ve learned.

Because we are a startup organization working in areas we have little experience with, it is particularly important that we constantly recognize and learn from our shortcomings. We make this log public so as to be up front with any potential supporters about ways in which we need to improve.

Issues Log | GiveWell.