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A team of open source enthusiasts is putting together instructions for how to build 50 tools essential to establishing – or reestablishing – a civilization.

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is being developed by the Open Source Ecology (OSE) group, and includes such basic tools as a well drill, steam engine, and brick making machine, along with more complicated devices such as a bulldozer, 3D printer, and 50kW wind turbine. These can be built from scrap or recycled materials at a fraction of the cost of commercial machinery.

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A Child of the Crust will never want for bread.

‘And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.’

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Not that it made any impression.

“Real class acts, the Chicago Board of Trade,” tweeted Occupy Chicago. “This week, it’s McDonald’s job applications they litter from the windows. Soulless place.”

Hey, at least they have jobs. (And bathe regularly.)

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According to foreigners, anyway.

From a Canadian perspective – being able to walk into a store at 3am and purchase a can of beer the size of my head.

Drive-through everythings. Drive-through ATMs, drive-through bank tellers, drive-through pharmacies, drive-through liquor stores in some states. On the flipside, the paucity of sidewalks/pavements in many parts of the US, where your European would receive funny looks from his hosts if he suggested walking to a relatively nearby destination, and might even be stopped by the cops if they spotted him strolling along a residential area.

The first time I tried to cross a road by myself, it took me at least 15 minutes to get the rhythm of the traffic lights and how much time I had to make it to the other side. Streets are a lot wider, so the timing is completely different. And drivers in Southern California do not give a shit about pedestrians. And the multi-lane intersections… aaah. So confusing.

This guy obviously hasn’t tried crossing a street in Boston.

People using checks is antiquated in terms of other developed countries.

DID YOU HEAR THAT, YOU ASSWIPES WHO HOLD UP THE LINE WHILE WRITING A CHECK? IT’S A NEW CENTURY. GET A DEBIT CARD LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING.

A mate of mine was asked honestly if we have electricity in Australia.

Of course they do — they make it out of beer.

People without passports.

Passports are only for people who want to leave the country. Only wierdos want to leave this country; that’s why foreigners are always trying to come here, sneaking in if they can’t do it any other way.

The realization that while you may be familiar with American celebrities, journalists, politicians, and geography from it’s broader worldwide audience, no one in America has a clue about eqiuvalent sundry things from my country of origin.

That’s because no rational human being gives a shit about your country of origin; otherwise they’d be buying your stuff, not American stuff.

That it’s not unusual to see soldiers travelling in full uniform in the USA (I’ve seen this often at Grand Central, and at various airports around the USA). In many parts of the UK, soldiers, airmen, etc. are unable to wear their uniforms off base due to the level of abuse they get from the public. (Yeah, WTF?)

That’s why Britain (and other European countries) are turning into such behavioral sinkholes.

Read the whole thing — it tells you quite as much about how quirky non-Americans are.

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Somewhere in the old Cincinnati-Dayton Defense Area that spans Southwest Ohio and Southeast Indiana sits a $1.5 million “man cave.” I made my way to the site on a warm fall morning with Google Maps and GPS coordinates supplied by my real estate advisers, Matthew and Leigh Ann Fulkerson of 20th Century Castles, LLC. Built in a decommissioned Nike missile site, the residence boasts a kitchen, four bedrooms, two baths, an exercise room, indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi, and an elevator for lowering the owner’s classic automobiles below the surface. On clear days, the doors that once exposed anti-ballistic missile for launch can be opened to let sunshine penetrate the otherwise dimly lit basement.

Want your own missile base? It can happen.

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You know you want one.

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Check it out.

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Truly, you can make anything out of Legos.

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Traits that make great software testers _ intense focus, comfort with repetition, memory for detail _ also happen to be characteristics of autism. People with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism, have normal to high intelligence and often are highly skilled with computers.

Aspiritech, a nonprofit in Highland Park, Ill., nurtures these skills while forgiving the quirks that can make adults with autism unemployable: social awkwardness, poor eye contact, being easily overwhelmed. The company’s name plays on the words “Asperger’s,” “spirit” and “technology.”

Check it out.

Steven Hayward speaks for all right-thinking people.

The trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor for involuntary manslaughter.  The new network TV season.  (Why is it that Hollywood always resembles the birds on the telephone line, who all take off in the same direction when the first crow squawks “Mad Men”?)  Doonesbury.  New York Times op-ed columns; all of them.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg….

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Some people have entirely too much time on their hands.

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This Is So Cool….

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The State of Kansas this year established the office of State Repealer.

Oh, I would love to have that job….

Read it.

If everybody did things the Texas way, we’d all be better off.

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Dozens of Americans who claim to have been made ill by wi-fi and mobile phones have flocked to the town of Green Bank, West Virginia.

Diane Schou is unable to hold back the tears as she describes how she once lived in a shielded cage to protect her from the electromagnetic radiation caused by waves from wireless communication.

“It’s a horrible thing to have to be a prisoner,” she says. “You become a technological leper because you can’t be around people.

Libiamo ne’ lieti calici

Feel free to sing along.

Don Boudreaux, Chairman of the Economics Department at George Mason University, spanks another (purported) economist (who ought to know better).

Prof. Peter Morici
University of Maryland
Smith School of Business
College Park, MD

Dear Peter:

In your guest blog-post yesterday at CNBC you argue that the destruction caused by hurricane Irene will spark a “process of economic renewal [that] can leave communities better off than before” (“Economic Impact of Hurricane Irene“).  Central to your argument is your claim that, because of the rebuilding, “the capital stock that emerges will prove more economically useful and productive.”

In other words, whenever assets still in use are destroyed, wealth will thereby be created – that is, people whose assets are destroyed will be made richer – because these destroyed assets are replaced with ones that are newer and more productive.

I hereby offer my services to you, at a modest wage, to destroy your house and your car.  Act now, and I’ll throw in at no extra charge destruction of all of your clothing, furniture, computer hardware and software, and large and small household appliances.

Because, I’m sure, almost all of these things that I’ll destroy for you are more than a few days old (and, hence, are hampered by wear and tear), you’ll be obliged to replace them with newer versions that are “more economically useful and productive.”  You will, by your own logic, be made richer.

Just send me a note with some times that are good for you for me to come by with sledge hammers and blowtorches.  Given the short distance between Fairfax and College Park, I can be at your place pronto.

Oh, as an extra bonus, I promise not to clean up the mess!  That way, there’ll be more jobs created for clean-up crews in your neighborhood.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Read it.

Now that’s comedy.

Read it.

Among the startups tucked between restaurants, squeezed into office buildings and squatting in storefronts near Mountain View’s main drag is one that might stop you cold: @WalmartLabs.

Yes, Wal-Mart — the behemoth of Bentonville, Ark., the fount of falling prices, the beyond-gigantic retailer — has established an outpost here in its search for startup mojo.

What do you mean, nothing with Walmart in its name could be a startup?

@WalmartLabs talks like a startup. “It’s a great place to come and change the world,” says Anand Rajaraman, who runs the place.

Read it.

George Carlin, where are you when we really need you?

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He watched doctors treat up to 40 patients a day and have at least four staff members each to handle the nitty-gritty paperwork.

“It’s around 70 percent overhead,” he says. “It wasn’t like this decades ago. Doctors served their neighborhoods, took cash, and didn’t charge a lot because there was so little overhead. So I designed a process that went back to this model, looking at it from the patient’s perspective, and just injected a little technology.”

There are two major fields remaining in which automation is long overdue: Education and health care. This is a very good start.

 With $1,500, he set up a house-call-only practice in his Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood, serving only two zip codes. He created a website through Apple’s iWeb that featured his resume, and posted his schedule on a Google Calendar so patient’s could enter in an appointment time online.

Note: No office, so no office expense. (When was the last time you saw a doctor make a house call? I remember one when Eisenhower was President. Nothing since.) Scheduling is done online, which ensures that (a) his prospective patients are at least middle-class, since they have Internet access, and so will probably be able to pay him, and (b) no staff expense.

Freeberg always gets the good stuff.

Check it out.

Read it.

Now that’s America.

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How cool is that?

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Assuming, of course, that Commissioner Gordon knows how to use Mathematica.

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Assume that Dr Phibes got a government job….

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Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield issue a report on the state of the poor in America.  The short answer is that the poor, by historical standards, are doing well, enjoying what were considered luxuries a few generations ago.  President Obama, as usual, seeks to obscure these issues and to implement a new definition of poverty that assumes economic growth never helps the poor.

We keep forgetting that ‘poor’ is a relative term. The ‘poor’ in modern America eat better, sleep better, are healthier, and live in more comfort than any king prior to the First World War.

I am reminded of Dinesh D’Souza’s anecdote about a friend from India who told him that he was emigrating to America. When Dinesh asked why, his friend said, “I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”

Read it.

I am not making this up.

I always suspected that Bill was full of it, but hey….

Read it. And watch the video.

Pretty cool. You don’t need a transmission — the ball rotates at a constant speed, and your ground speed is controlled by what part of the  ball (relative to the center rotation point) touches the ground … which also governs whether you are going forward, backward, or turning.

I suspect that the tricky part would be wear on the hemisphere, and shock absorbtion. But I’m sure that there are engineers who could handle that.

This would be perfect for a gas turbine engine, which really prefers to operate at the same speed all the time.

Watch it.

And about time, too.

Read it.

We have the technology.

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Customer service. That’s what it’s all about.

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I am not making this up.

Freeberg distills the essence.

1. Before we realize absolute success in making life completely perfect and before everybody’s safety and happiness are resolutely guaranteed, I think we can stop making new rules. Yeah, before we get there. For no reason, just stop. Otherwise, all things within our ability fall into two categories: What’s already illegal now, and what will be someday. And, you know, I don’t like that.

2. I don’t want my elected officials to make me a better person. I don’t think they have what it takes to do that, even when my favorite guys are the ones that got elected. It’s just not in the job description.

3. I think the whole point of taxation is to raise revenue for vital services. Their purpose is not to punish or reward people, or offer people incentives to start or stop doing certain things.

4. If you have a hot new idea, I think it should be tested out someplace where it doesn’t impact anyone, before we force it on people. That’s just the way I see it. For this reason alone, I can’t be a democrat.

5. I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

6. I don’t think we’re more civilized when we find reasons not to lock up violent criminals, or look for excuses not to execute them when they’ve killed innocent people. That doesn’t protect the innocent. Actually, I think that’s barbaric behavior, because innocent people get hurt and we know it. I think we’re more civilized when we pull the switch.

7. I think when some people produce goods and services of value and other people do not, the people who produce things can go ahead and do their producing without advice or regulations from the non-productive people. Those non-productive people, if they knew anything about the best way of producing things, I figure they’d already be doing it.

8. The way I see it, humans are part of nature. Even when you take humans out of nature, this doesn’t make nature “pristine,” or free of malice, violence, death, even sadism…so what’s the point? Leave humans in it. We belong in it.

9. I don’t think it’s right to count “jobs created or saved.” I think when you create jobs with money you forcibly removed from other people by means of taxation, you need to produce a “net”; you need to factor in the jobs that failed to materialize because the people who would’ve created them, had to worry about these taxes.

10. I think when you earn money, and you pay all the taxes in effect at the time, whatever’s left belongs to you. And that is perfectly okay.

11. It remains okay even if you end up with vastly more money than some other guy. I don’t think there is any one point where you’ve made enough money.

12. I respectfully disagree with Michael Moore. Private property is not a “national resource.” It is a resource that should be placed under the control of the people who own it.

13. I’m worried about the exploding public debt. I’m worried about it when we debate tax policy…AND…unlike democrats, I keep worrying about it when we discuss where the money should be spent. I can’t turn it off like a switch.

14. By the way, those two are separate in my mind. Because I’m not mentally disabled, I don’t think a tax cut is something that “costs” us anything.

15. When we talk of the virtues of “choice,” I don’t think sex means an awful lot. To be a democrat, you have to think choice is important when you’re talking about sex, then you have to be suddenly anti-choice when we’re not talking about sex anymore. I just can’t bend that far.

16. I don’t think, when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

17. However, when a child has both a mother and a father…I do think, generally, that is good for everybody.

18. Drill, baby, drill. Consuming resources is a natural part of living life, and going after those resources is a natural part of consuming them. There is no shame for anyone in any of this. The shame is in compelling others to make sacrifices you yourself are not willing to make.

19. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they voted for Obama.

20. I don’t think people are necessarily better because of the color of their skin.

21. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they’re women.

22. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they’re gay.

23. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they choose to be vegetarians.

24. I don’t think people are necessarily better if they happen to work for the government.

25. I know too much to be a democrat. I know you can’t restore the hours that the library is open, by cutting defense spending.

26. I don’t think a nation can tax its way into prosperity. I don’t think the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. And if they are, then that’s great, because you can only get so poor, but if the rich are getting richer then that would mean the economy is doing better, and who would have a problem with that?

27. I don’t believe the middle class is taking any kind of a beating when it is found that fewer people are in it. I don’t think organized labor is taking a beating when there are fewer members. I don’t think people appreciate the environmental movement more when they see more hybrid cars or eco-cups. I don’t think college graduates enjoy a brighter future when there are more college graduates. In short, I can’t be a democrat because I appreciate the simple economic truth that commodities become precious through scarcity, not through abundance.

28. I think a study that is funded by the government has just as much chance to be biased and inaccurate, as a study funded by oil companies, in fact the government-backed study has greater potential to rely on false information.

29. I don’t believe in “unfettered capitalism.” Such a thing is an impossibility, because you cannot have capitalism without a free market, and in a free market all transactions 1) must involve at least two parties representing different interests, and 2) are suspended by default, permitted to go forward only if both sides believe they’re coming out of it ahead. Capitalism is self-regulating. Socialism, on the other hand, works within the rules only until such time as it figures out it needs to break the rules, and then consistently tries to find ways to break the rules.

30. I know Ronald Reagan was right: If not a one among us is sufficiently competent to manage his own affairs, there cannot be anyone among us sufficiently competent to manage everybody else’s.

And that pretty much says it all — thirty pieces of gold to match the Democrats’ thirty pieces of silver. Print this out and post it on your wall. Put it on the ceiling above your bed so you see it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Stick it on the front door so that people will know what real American’s believe.

Steve Sailer looks at questing in America.

One day, you should compile all the ongoing Ponce de Leon like quests in contemporary America:

1) The Great White Defendant
2) The Great Bright Illegal
3) The Magic Bullet To Close The Achievement Gap (or Home Ownership Gap or Firefighter Test Scores Gap)
4) The Great Moderate Muslim (I guess this one’s more of an international scope) or Democracy Loving Islamic Nations That Love Us Back
5) The Great Black Quarterback
6) The Great Republican African-American
7) The Great Gay Male Athlete (in sports people care about) or The Great Gay Soldier [recent — there are a lot of them from awhile ago]
8) The Incredible Latino Supervote (as you once called it)
9) The Great Female Movie Director [or cinematographer — I campaigned for Mandy Walker to become the first woman to get an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography for Baz Luhrman’s Australia but the insensitive sexists in Hollywood didn’t listen to me]
10) Green Jobs, Shovel Ready Jobs

Read it.

Beats working.

Watch it.

Because your life will never be the same.

Check it out.

I guess California isn’t totally worthless.

Paul Carr and Sarah Lacy are Not Safe For Work.

Delightfully entertaining. (Complaints always sound more sincere in a British accent.)

My favorite is PETA wanting to re-name the Tenderloin area in San Francisco to ‘the Tempe district’. I am not making this up.

Read it.

And I, for one, am looking forward to it.

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One of the killer features of the Desmos Whiteboard is an interactive calculator that graphs equations as you write them. (Founder Eli Luberoff was a double math and physics major at Yale). Desmos has now taken that and rewritten it as a standalone online graphing calculator. It instantly draws the equations as you update them, it’s free, browser-based, color-coded, and you can share any graph with a bitly link.

Who could ask for anything more?

Read it.

I am not making this up.

Read it.