"But it is not simply that there are rich people in the world and then there are poor people; it is more that there are rich people because there are poor people- the one group depends in effect on the other (the poor do low-paid work for the rich). In a sense, the “poor” are simply “that group of people that have failed as yet to become rich”. The rich and the poor of the world are not separate species; wealth is not genetic. It is a one-world system in which the activities of one group effect the activities of the other- and of both groups, the impact on the whole system."

Warning! Highly Contagious

If you like candles, live without electricity, or like to have some lighting back-up, you might like this simple little DIY project. An oil lamp can have a number of advantages over candles and mineral oil lamps:

very cheap to run - can even burn used cooking oil

the fumes are less toxic than those of paraffin candles or mineral oil lamps

the production of renewable vegetable oil is less harmful to the environment than petroleum based products (including paraffin candles)

for the extreme survivalist, vegetable oil is easier to store in bulk, or can even be produced on the home farm

due to the wider base, more stable than candles, and the flame of any burning wick falling into the oil will be extinguished

odour free when using olive oil

Making an oil lamp is very easy, quick and cheap, and gives plenty of opportunity for a creative outlet. The basic element is nothing more than a piece of twisted wire, a length of twine, some vegetable oil and a vessel to hold it all in. The photos pretty well show how to do it, but there are a few tips which might help, and save some trials and errors.

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Comment Widget and RSS for Non-Blogs

December 22nd, 2007

If you have a plain html website which is periodically updated, you don't have to miss out on some of the great features of blog engine run proper blogs. Comments and RSS are two of the most obvious and useful features of blogs. At a glance, my site may appear to be a proper blog, but it is a very simple, hand crafted website, with a few third party widgets (check out the page source). The new comment feature is cut and past java script, which is very easy to install, and is run on the supplier's server. The basic code is just two very short lines, one being the link. It is quite basic, but does allow some customization, and above all, it allows communication with your readers. And, if that wasn't enough, it is free. So go and grab yourself the script at JS-Kit.

You can try it out at the end of this post. Just say test, if you like, and no need to delete tests - leave them for others to see how it works. When there is a bunch of them, I will delete them eventually. They have a few other widgets, like rating and polls. If you are worried that JS-Kit may vanish one day, along with all your hard-earned comments, you could copy and paste the comments permanently into your pages, after allowing a set period when visitors can go back to delete their comments if they wish. That is what I intend to do here, after, say, at least a month.

If like me, you have relied on email communication, you may find more visitors responding with comments, as many don't like giving out their email address. With this widget there is no need to register. Oh, and you can even show your face, if you like. Now is that neat, or is it neat?

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Foraging for Wild Food in the UK - Print your own Guide

July 20th, 2007

At last, the long awaited Wild Cards - Handy Foraging companion and Hedgerow Herbal. This downloadable concise, illustrated 88 card pocket guide contains a list of over 350 plants in a handy format, as well as detailed profiles on over 50 common edible plants.


Use like index cards for home reference ......(click to enlarge)


.....or bind them to use as pocket guide

Whether you forage on a leisurely weekend walk, or want to prepare for a potential survival situation, Wild Cards are your handy companions.

This unique guide packs a lot of information into a small space

• list of over 350 plants with basic information on edible parts (colour coded for quick reference), how to consume, and caution notes
• an illustrated directory of over 50 plants with guide to identity, culinary, medicinal and other uses
• month by month chart to availability of those plants featured in the directory
• caution notes including warning features to look out for
• glossary of medicinal terms with brief list of relevant plants
• general information on plant parts, collecting and preparation
• key to colour coding and other information
• find plants by botanical or English name

Read the rest of this entry > and find out how to obtain a copy for yourself.

The DCMC Binding System

April 8th, 2007



This binding system is so new, you won't have heard of it. The Dirt Cheap Milk Container binding system is, well, dirt cheap, is made with milk containers, and only came into existence today. As with so many of my tinkering projects, the idea was born out of necessity. A little while back I became enamored by the Circa and Rollabind binding system, or it's European counterpart Atoma and ADOC . At first I asked the same question I have heard being asked since - what is it with these discs? The answer was in Douglas Johnston's post Review: The Levenger Circa System, Part I on the DIY Planner website. The disc binding system is very versatile. Lets look at some of the key advantages:

• add or remove pages
• the book can lie open
• 360 degree turning
• mix and match different sizes of paper in same book
• customize to your heart's content with a punch

You can add and remove pages and customize ring binders, and they will lie open flat, however, you can not fold the pages back. This, and the binding mechanism makes ring binders clunky items. Even if you have a humongous desk (i.e. about 1/10 of a football pitch), the most valuable space is within arm's length, so every inch counts. When you get down to about A7 size, the mechanism makes the binder unnecessarily large, and a standard two ring binder will not accept paper smaller than A7. The one inch spacing on the disc system allows business cards to be punched on the short side. There are small speciality ring binders sold as planners, which can take smaller paper, but the binder size is usually some custom size, and so is the hole arrangement, making the purchase of an expensive punch necessary, and the cutting of paper wasteful.

Wire bound (spiral or twin wire) have the advantage of lying flat, and turning 360 degrees, however, you are stuck with the book you bought, and can not move paper around. A spiral can be threaded in and out, but this is more than tedious. Comb binding is somewhat more flexible, but does not easily turn back on itself, and has the habit of opening up and even braking. The punch and binding machine is a hefty item.

Then there are treasury tags and screw posts, binder rings and bits of string, staples or glue, all of which have plenty of disadvantages as a serious flexible binding mechanism for a planner, notebook, project binder, contact book or whatever else you wish to custom make.

With the disc system you can make any size, any type of book you choose, fill it with your own printed templates, blank paper, ruled, unruled, pockets, fancy paper, anything. There are several sizes of discs to choose from, so you can make a dinky little pocket pad, or a thick year planner with all your contacts under one cover. But there is a sting in the tail. The disc system requires a special punch, which is not cheap, especially if you live outside of the US. That is the point at which doubt began to creep in. By the time I had bought the punch and a few packets of discs, I would not have had too much change from £100. But I liked the idea, and so I began to ponder the DIY route, which, I am pleased to say, has led me to a binding system with all the above advantages, and one I (and probably most of you) could get started with straight away. It requires few tools and materials (even recycles materials) to make the binding mechanism, and uses a standard two-hole punch, which can be purchased for as little as £2.

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Foraging for Wild Food

March 12th, 2007



Have you ever looked at a wild plant, and wondered if it was edible? Foraging is very popular these days, but alas, most field guides on wild plants do not give any information on edibility, and most foraging guides are a cumbersome item to take into the field as an additional item. They do, of course give information on how to prepare the food, along with interesting historical snippets, and other useful data, and are still a valuable item to have on the book shelf, especially if you want to take up foraging more seriously. To lighten your load, I have prepared a list of plants, which will only add a few extra pages to the field guide, but give you that valuable missing information.

The new revised and expanded UK list has details of over 300 plants, which are considered by some publications to be edible. The list includes trees, shrubs, coastal and wetland plants. Details include common name, botanical name, family, caution notes, which part is edible and in what way it may be consumed. Following the plant list is a key, and important information on safety, as well as some additional information, which must be used in conjunction with the list.

Read the rest of this entry > and download the free plant list

Hardware - The Slip

January 28th, 2007

The Slip Method continued



One of the main aids to organizing in the slip method is - you've guessed it, the slip, more specifically the action slip. The little work docket is transient, passing through the system temporarily. It pauses along its route and is given additional information; the where, how, when, who and what. Its behavior is ordered but flexible. It carries a unit of information and is a building block. Detailed description of the process, and how to make or obtain a supply will be found in later chapters. Lets follow it on its journey. It can start from several places. The blank slip is either loose or padded up and resides in a dispenser, a small pocket case, on the desk, the fridge, memo board, bedside table - wherever you place a quantity in readiness. It may even be torn or cut from any handy source of paper. All actions are written in brief on the slip - one action, one slip. Just remembered something that needs doing? Write it on a slip. Just received a bill? Write 'pay bill (and details like who)' and either file the bill if payment is made from source, or place in bag/briefcase if paid away (e.g. at bank or merchant). No more cluttered in box. Anything that needs to be acted on goes on a slip, unless it is a quick job that can be done straight away (see more on that in David Allen's Getting Things Done, or read introductions to GTD on the web).

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Low Cost, Low Flow, Home Made Hydraulic Ram Pump (no welding required)

January 24th, 2007



If you have a water supply (spring, brook or river) below the point where you need the water, and the source is higher than the lowest part of the property, then a hydraulic ram pump may be the solution. Hydraulic ram pumps are powered by a portion of the water running through it. If the cost of a commercial pump puts you off, or the water volume is too little to operate the pump, you can make one to suit your conditions at very little cost. There are two excellent books published by Intermediate Technology on making your own ram pump. One is "Hydraulic Ram Pumps: A Guide to Ram Pump Water Supply Systems" by T.D. Jeffrey, T.H. Thomas, A.V. Smith, and P.B. Glover. The other is "A Manual on the Hydraulic Ram for Pumping Water" by S. B. Watt. I would recommend you get both; they do complement each other. They also explain how to design and build the whole system. The pumps featured in the books do require welding and threading equipment, and the smallest pump has a 2" diameter body which requires a fair amount of water to operate. However, the principle also works on a smaller scale, and I have made a pump from standard brass 28 mm compression fittings, with 28mm, 22 mm and 15 mm pipe (all readily available) and with soldering equipment.
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The Last Taboo

December 5th, 2006

Following below is a copy of a comment I made on Zachary Nowak's article Communities, Refuges, and Refuge-Communities on Transition Culture, a UK Peak Oil blog. As blog comments so easily get lost in the archive vaults to gather dust, I thought of resurrecting what I believe to be a comment on a very important issue, population. The whole saga started with Rob Hoskin's post Why the Survivalists Have Got It Wrong in response to Zachary's article Preparing for the Crash: Nuts and Bolts on Energy Bulletin, another Peak Oil website. Zachary responded to this rather scathing post, and was then given the opportunity to publish the above article on Transition Culture.
In the original article Zachary took the "doomer" survivalist view of a post peak world, where survival skills will be needed. Rob's response was to paint a picture of a deranged gun hording lone survivalist, and that cooperation and "we all pull through or none of us do" were the only alternative. In the heated discussion that followed, commenters soon fell into the "gloomer" or the "utopian" camp, with the survival orientated gloomers rejecting the lone survivalist image. Sadly, in my opinion, one of the most important issues was hardly touched on, until Zimba of the Human Extinction Movement boldly stepped in with the taboo subject population control. I would like to point out though, that complete human extinction would not be necessary for the good of the rest of all life forms (though not lamentable) but a very heavy reduction certainly is, also for any humans to have any quality of life. I would also like to point out that I am talking about non-replacement.
Emphasis was added on this page.

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World View

November 29th, 2006


Today I met a woman from South Africa, from the most southern part, she said. Now, I live in the northern hemisphere, and one of the thoughts I subvocalised was 'down the very bottom'. Down the very bottom? Later, thinking about it, I imagined being down there,standing upright without feeling that I was falling off the earth, looking up at the stars, with nothing but sky above me. Yet, if I were to imagine my home, Wales, on the map, it would also be above me, even though it would be well below me physically. How would I feel about standing at the bottom of the world?

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Chaos with a Silver Lining

November 22nd, 2006

It is said that a butterfly flapping its wings can trigger a tornado. A seemingly small action or occurrence can lead through a chain of events to a major response, possibly in a distant location. In this chaos example the trigger event is harmless in itself, but causes a catastrophic response. But lets look at a reversed scenario, a negative event - small or major, it doesn't matter, but negative - causing a benefit, the proverbial silver lining. The greater the benefit, the better. Think of something good in your life, and retrace your steps to some mishap which was an essential step along the route to arrive at your destination. The good thing may simply be being alive. Stories abound of people missing the train, only to hear on the news later that the train was derailed, causing many casualties. When they realized they had missed the train, they were probably upset, but relieved later, not to be among the casualties (albeit, in this example, the relief would be tinged with sadness for the actual casualties). Nevertheless, it is a silver lining, one less person a potential victim.

The chain of events which lead to me sharing my life dream with a delightful cat may have started with the Big Bang, and later with the primordial ooze, but in more recent history, I can trace at least a few mishaps and syncronicities which were essential links in the chain leading to this beneficial outcome.

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Did You Notice that this is a Blog(ish)?

October 29th, 2006

A blog(ish)? Yeap, not a real, proper, blog engine run blog. Just a simple DIY version pretending to be a blog. A luddite manual version, with basic html, tables, and email comment. I tried, I really did, to run a Wordpress blog, but my coding skills are limited. I may be able to change some obvious text, or insert some script by following instructions, though when it comes to fixing anything in php or CSS, I am lost. Life is too short to learn all that. Well, maybe in time, but I have content to create. The website is a means to an end; convey information. I get by reasonably well. Its the 80-20 principle. I get 80% results with only 20% knowledge, probably even less. Now comes the point of diminishing returns. I am not earning my crust with creating websites, I'm not a web developer. Anyway, there were other things I did not get on with, so here I am, back at my trusted old website. But I like some aspects of blogs, and I know visitors do too. New content is up top, you can check it out, or move on. Blogs are interactive. They are the water cooler area, somewhere to hang out and chat, talk shop. Some of the cool stuff about blogs is something I have not yet figured out how to include (I am investigating FeedBurner for RSS ), if at all possible, so there are some short comings. If you want to comment you have to send me an email, though I made it as easy as possible, its just not immediate, and I know some of you don't like to give out your address, but rest assured, it is safe with me, and unless given in the body of the message because you want it to be public, I do not publish it. If I can't get RSS to work on this site, the only option is to bookmark it, and check out the updates.

On the bright side, I think a simple website is less code heavy, quicker to download, and I try to make it easy to navigate, and blend as many of the advantages of each as possible. The overall experience should not be too different to a 'normal' blog, with some of the advantages of a 'static' site. So cheers, here is to blogg(ish)ing, eh, whatever.

Update
I added a comment widget, so no more need to send an email, unless you want to send me a privat message, and there is no need to register to leave a comment. You may have also noticed, that I did get RSS to work on here, so not much different to a blog now, at least on the surface.

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