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263 comments on DrumBeat: May 12, 2007

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totoneila on May 12, 2007 - 2:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello Berkeley,

Thxs for the update. I have posted much on this before, but I think it bears repeating: widespread adoption of bicycles, wheelbarrows, and other human-powered hand-tools to help leverage human power limitations will help confer personal biosolar tactical advantage into a large and contiguous biosolar habitat's long-run strategic advantage.

Recall my earlier postings on how the invention of the wheelbarrow or rickshaw was considered a secret weapon for China, or see the links again:

http://www.uni-kiel.de/sino/ar/sk/12a_1970s.jpg
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi377.htm

I have also posted much before on spiderwebriding. Imagine if the Chinese laid down narrow gauge steel rails for steel-wheeled-barrows--how much more effective and efficient would the 100,000 workers in the linked photo accomplish their task?

First, by going to two wheels, it eliminates the required high center of gravity load balancing exertion by the upper arms and backs. Then, the steel wheel to steel rail vastly reduces frictional forces and eliminates the problems of potholes and mud. You can probably then move to a hip-harness: now you are using the superior strength of your legs and vastly reducing the upper body exertion [thus greatly reducing injury rates].

Now add modern design: what if those 100,000 workers further leveraged their efforts by adding PHEWs [Personal High Efficiency Workers] for negotiating the steep upgrades and downslopes? The battery assisted worker or PHEW could be a standardized design that would use a middle rail cog-gear setup for the bottom cograil, then the PHEW's upper frame would clamp onto the wheelbarrow's axle. It would then discharge the battery on upgrades, but could gather regenerative braking forces on the downslopes. That would free up the poor bastards in the photo who uphill assist the wheelbarrow operator to do more productive tasks with less effort.

Finally, TODer Jokuhl posted earlier in response to a reply by TODer AlanfromBigEasy:
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Bob Shaw's request got me thinking that we could keep the SWR [Strategic Wheelbarrow Reserve] safely and productively loaded aboard your SRR (Strategic Railcar Reserve, right?), for handy deployment!
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http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/12/17/85510/525/71

If humans don't plan ahead: we will end up like the iconic photos of the poor African women carrying loads on top of their heads, or the Chinese laborer balancing heavy pole loads across their shoulders.

Never forget: one crude barrel = 25,000 physical man-hours.

How do you want to work once the FFs are gone?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Greg in MO on May 12, 2007 - 6:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks for the link to the "Engines Of Our Ingenuity" website.

All those interested in tools, mechanics, physics, and the history behind our inventions (and looking for some quick light non-depressing reading) should check it out.

Here is a link to the Overall Index page:
http://www.uh.edu/engines/keywords.htm
2217 short articles!

Here is a quick sample...
2020 The screwdriver: archetype of subtle obviousness
[screwdriver, obvious, screwheads, invention]
1509 Late 18th century competition among roads, canals and railways [transportation, power, mines, mining, locomotive, Trevithick]
1512 The corner store: a retail outlet that is lost but not forgotten
[merchandising selling grocery store Galveston Beasley immigrants urban architecture]

Having recently started a business selling a modern version of a very old agricultural tool - still used world round by small farmers and called a grub hoe or digging hoe here in North America - I have been amazed at how many decent manual tools have been forgotten and have gone out of production since we started focusing on electric tools and farm tractors. Some I am able to find still available in other countries.

Thinking about the amount of effort needed to revive some of these tools and produce them here in the US is a bit overwhelming sometimes. One step at a time I guess..

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GreenMan on May 12, 2007 - 7:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

While we are talking about great hand tools...

This spring I have been using my new broadfork:

http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=1824&itemT...

It's a fabulous tool, and built to last a century. Surprisingly easy on the body (burns a lot of calories, though).

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totoneila on May 12, 2007 - 7:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello Greenman,

Thxs for responding. Good tool that could be easily improved by simply adding a fulcrum point. After sticking into ground: swing out steel arms with metal pads on the end to act as a fulcrum point--then the leverage required is reduced by the teeter-totter action. Save your back and arms!

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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GreenMan on May 12, 2007 - 7:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Ah, you are missing the point. The crossbar is the fulcrum.

You step on the crossbar to drive the tines into the ground, then grab the handles and lean back. The crossbar on the surface of the soil is the fulcrum, and you just swing your weight back. Works very well.

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kjmclark on May 12, 2007 - 9:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yeah, they're fun to use. Just make *sure* when using your broadfork in rocky soil, that you don't lean back into a *big* rock. The tines are quite solid, but you have tremendous leverage with a broadfork, and straightening those tines after you bend one on a big rock is not fun.

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ET on May 13, 2007 - 11:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Good tool that could be easily improved by simply adding a fulcrum point.

Hi Bob. A good friend of mine who frequently travels to India says that it is common there for 2 laborers to operate a simple hand shovel. One digs in a normal fashion while the second pulls on a rope that is attached near the shovel's head, thus sharing the real digging effort of moving the dirt up and out of the hole. Makes sense when labor is plentiful.

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WNC Observer on May 12, 2007 - 9:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Got one and do use it. The idea is to initially double dig a bed using the French intensive system, then never ever set foot on the oil again. Use your broadfork every spring to lift the soil for aeration and to loosen it so that you can work in more compost with a spading fork. The broadfork isn't really designed for TURNING soil, but for LIFTING it.

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notintodenial on May 12, 2007 - 9:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

In Tennessee archiologists have excavated a Native American "industrial" site specializing in the manufacture of chert digging hoe blades. The site has chert nodules of just the right size and having a near-ideal combination of toughness and workability. The workshop arrangements imply worker specialization, and were used over a long period of time. Their hoes have been found hundreds of miles away, re-sharpened down to a nub.

Maybe in a couple of hundred years that site will be back in production.

Errol in Miami

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WNC Observer on May 12, 2007 - 9:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

If you haven't dicovered him yet, Eric Sloan's books are loaded with facinating info about old tools and ways of using them.

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jokuhl on May 12, 2007 - 6:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks for remembering that one, Bob. I kind of liked the notion.

Here's today's wildly-impractical supplementary notion, or TWISN. I envision this with bike riders on some 'big hill' in a newly renovated, bike friendly town.. but it could work equally well with wheelbarrows, also! If there was an 'up' track and a 'down' track, with a looped Tow-Rope between them, then the ones going downhill could latch on and help the climbers ascend. This would/could even spare the descenders some of the strains of an unregulated descent.. (or in the case of bikers, the wasting of their height potential into the friction-wear on brake pads. A variation would be some kind of Linked Funicular Railcar, like a paralleled pair of escalators. There would be friction losses to consider, as well as the inertia of system equipment (making that rope look better and better), but such details, while devilish are not automatically dealkillers.. as much as we want things to be devilishly simple!

Regards,
Bob Fiske

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totoneila on May 12, 2007 - 7:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello Greg in MO & Jokuhl,

Thxs for responding. Yep, we need lots of simple tools improved for the postPeak era.

I think spiderwebriding is best, but I was thinking about ways to improve the uphill & downhill use of rubber-tired wheelbarrows & bicycles for ice & snow because safe footing will be next to impossible.

Perhaps the rope-tow used on beginning skier bunny slopes. The safest way I have seen is where the novice sits inside a inflated tube to be dragged up the slope-- no way for them to fall. It also greatly reduces weight/sq. foot; it takes tremendous advantage of sliding across the top of the snow [no snow removal required].

Therefore if a wheelbarrow or bicycle needs to go up a snow-covered hill--just have them flop down onto the tube or some kind of sled--simple and safe. Since the rope or cable is circular-looping, the other side of the mechanism can be used for those wishing to get a load down the slope.

Same principle could be used on frozen canals or across lakes.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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