[Post18guy]

a hat tip to Yankeeprepper on YouTube, it details the works of Ernesto Orozo and the some the tech that has been developed in Cuba in the wake of US sanctions and and a shortage of available technology, and his book;The Technological Disobedience

and Mr. Orozo's site and other works;

i'http://www.ernestooroza.com/index.php (you'll need to translate to English as needed)
I'm still looking for a copy to download to, or purchase for, my survival bookshelf.

 

[OhCanada]

Very cool, I'll have to share this with my Cuban friend.

 

[Post18guy]

Interesting read here;
http://archive.org/details/ablockadedfamil00hagugoog
details efforts of southern families during the Civil War to reported commodities on a small scale locally when they could no longer obtain them owing to the war and the lockadfe of finished goods coming in for sale and distribution.

 

[solsurv1ver]

This video is awesome. As addicted as we are to technology, we really need to think about the fact that when **** does hit the fan, we will have to figure out how to do it all by ourselves. I've learned a lot of computer repair, soldering, and wire terminating/splicing, but some things just require more technology. This is an awesome example of cheap ways to fix problems. The more we can do on our own, the less reliant we are. I really appreciate this video

 

[unno2002]

Multimachine, made from a vehicle engine block:

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/distr...-the-potential-of-the-multimachine/2009/10/01

The folks at Factor E Farm are focused on developing the technological building blocks for a replicable, post industrial village. Their work focuses in terms of modular multi purpose interchangeable units.

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Factor_e_Farm

 

[fullofit]

I hate to burst the bubble here, but this is not Cuban technical disobedience, this is the age old "necessity is the mother of invention" practiced all over the world for thousands of years.

You go to any third world country and you will see the same thing, poor people are often poor not stupid, throw away nothing, re-purpose everything.

Look at the guys in shanty towns installing 2liter soda bottles in the roof filled with water that causes the bottle to become a Fresnel Lens and lights up an otherwise dark shanty...happened in India first I believe then in Haiti ....not sure if it ever happened in Cuba.

I find it humorous that the author is giving Cuba credit for innovation, when other poor countries have been doing it far longer.

Here in the USA, we have another name for it, we call it Jerry Rigging...."organized or constructed in a crude or improvised manner" which is often used to refer to items that have been re-purposed by cobbling together the various components in a crude or improvised manner based on what is readily available to the "innovator"

That phrase entered the English language in 1959, way before "the special time of peace" in Cuba....

Backyard mechanics have been around doing these things the world over since the stone wheel...thank god we weren't waiting Cuba to come up with this concept, we would still be trying to build the pyramids today!

 

[Post18guy]

thanks Fullofit, the thread isn't per say about cuba rather it is about improvised viable long term technology.
for instance this site from Africa:
http://www.afrigadget.com/
Interesting site by the way, some of this stuff is just plain out there, but there is a lot to see and hopefully get us thinking about ways we might find ourselves doing something similar.

In that vain i'd also invite folks to check out this site;
http://journeytoforever.org/

Hopefully we'll manage to keep the lights on someday.

 

[fullofit]

thanks Fullofit, the thread isn't per say about cuba rather it is about improvised viable long term technology.
for instance this site from Africa:
http://www.afrigadget.com/
Interesting site by the way, some of this stuff is just plain out there, but there is a lot to see and hopefully get us thinking about ways we might find ourselves doing something similar.

In that vain i'd also invite folks to check out this site;
http://journeytoforever.org/

Hopefully we'll manage to keep the lights on someday.

Journey to forever is interesting, I found a really good article there about raising catfish in barrels.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/Raisingcatfishinabarrel.pdf
Looks like there are a lot of good articles and information there to help budding homesteaders like myself.

 

[d3athp3nguin]

This is neat- I find it interesting to hear an artist/designer's interpretation of how widescale "Jerry-rigging" affected his culture.

He waxes a little philosophic about it though, I don't know if the "movement" he saw was anything deeper than: "Everyone was broke and had to repurpose old items to survive."

Reminds me of an old quote that I see attributed to a bunch of different people:

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing."