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Open Source Low Tech

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Re: Open Source Low Tech

#121

Post by ForHackernews »

cwmoore wrote: post #84
idiotsecant wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of nonprofits making a difference, your cynicism aside.

How is that difference measured, in general? Setting aside cynicism is one thing but what answers are there for skepticism besides the very common moralizing personal attacks? When I see a lot of nonprofit leadership improving their own lot much more reliably than the people “they serve”, I wonder if the handouts are just being politically diverted to the best and most politically valuable promoters. If UBI is off th…

https://www.cartercenter.org/programs/guinea-worm/#by-the-nu...

> Since our efforts began in 1986, the incidence of Guinea worm has fallen by more than 99.99% to 10* human cases in 2025

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#122

Post by WillAdams »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #119
benj111 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I politely covered BSOs "very cheap bikes that aren't really designed for long term use" You want cheap and reliable, not cheap with a load of doodads to make it seem expensive.

Well you strip all the crap off, don't you? Just run the barest frame possible. You still have the problem that the bits that you cannot just knock up out of old Morris Minor steering columns or AK47 barrels are the bits that break. I know one person who has legitimately worn out a bike frame, in 40-something years of cycling, and it wasn't me. It was a guy who rode his bike about 50 miles *every single day* and rode…

The problem is BSOs tend to have weird/non-standard parts which complicate repair/replacement and the tools necessary for working on them.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#124

Post by buildsjets »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #65
benj111 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm not African so I don't know. I'm thinking that in the west we either have very cheap bikes that aren't really designed for long term use, and more expensive bikes tend to use fancier parts. Off the top of my head. Steel frame, can be repaired / modified with any old welder. Designed so it can be taken apart with the minimum of generic tools. Standard bearings, brake blocks etc (probably brake blocks that you…

> Off the top of my head. Steel frame, can be repaired / modified with any old welder. Designed so it can be taken apart with the minimum of generic tools. Standard bearings, brake blocks etc (probably brake blocks that you can shove some piece of old tyre in). So basically just your average cheap crappy Halfords Bike-Shaped Object type "bike"?

You do know that it is possible to buy a durable, heavy duty steel bicycle that is not department store trash, right? We have hundreds of these were I work.

https://www.worksmancycles.com/indbikes.html

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#125

Post by novaleaf »

xmprt wrote: post #3

I like the idea behind this. I feel like far too often, the solutions we build for poor communities involve specific materials that can't be manufactured locally, so it just creates more dependence rather than self-sufficiency. It's one thing to build and ship 1000 bicycles to a poor village, but it's another to teach a village how to make bicycles with random spare pipes and materials they can find anywhere. That wa…

I used to live in Thailand, and over the last 10 or so years it seems that the kind of DIY content you find on Youtube has had a positive effect. Before then it was difficult to find a building maintenance team that understood the purpose of a waste water P-Trap (unfortunately I'm not exaggerating)

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#126

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

MisterTea wrote: post #101
xmprt wrote: post #3

I like the idea behind this. I feel like far too often, the solutions we build for poor communities involve specific materials that can't be manufactured locally, so it just creates more dependence rather than self-sufficiency. It's one thing to build and ship 1000 bicycles to a poor village, but it's another to teach a village how to make bicycles with random spare pipes and materials they can find anywhere. That wa…

> If you go to villages in developing nations, you'll see these kinds of innovative solutions all over - ... Years ago I remember reading an article about Russians making a living in the USSR. A man in a town wanted to mow his lawn but could not afford a mower (or maybe he could not easily obtain one?) His solution was a scavenged washing machine motor mounted to an old kids tricycle spinning a home made blade.

There are many, many, many solutions like this on YouTube from all over the world. I have to admit that there do seem to be more Russian ones than anyone else, but maybe they're just better at posting video. I've seen an insane amount of homebuilt tractors and offroad vehicles coming out of russia.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#127

Post by JuniperMesos »

nchmy wrote: post #4
CurtMonash wrote: post #2

I recall predecessors to this idea from the 1970s, which probably implies I heard about them from Futurist Magazine and/or the book Small is Beautiful. It has always been suggested that engineers could do something worthwhile by inventing very simple yet useful things that could realistically be made in poor/underresourced countries or villages.

What do you figure happened, such that people largely haven't done this?

There's not actually all that many useful things that can be made in poor, underresourced countries and villages. It's cheaper to buy them from a Chinese factory that is highly specialized at making those useful things in huge quantities and send them via container ship to the place where they're needed. This is as true for random poor people in Africa as it is for me when I buy stuff cheap on AliExpress.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#128

Post by nchmy »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #120
nchmy wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And hence, AS I SAID, people should collaboratively work together. There's no presumption - despite you recognizing that incompetence is all around us, you'd be amazed at how many completely obvious things are not done, and other things done very poorly

Which is a misunderstanding of the premise that locals know best. No one thinks that going to someone and offering them ideas is bad. The thing people actually object to is imperialism, and they object to it because it's common. All over the place you see not just governments making rules from an ivory tower, but even well-meaning non-profits providing grants or resources with the requirement that things be done in a…

Actually, plenty of people - including the person I was replying to - explicitly argue that locals know best and you're being imperialist by even suggesting that outsiders might have anything useful to contribute other than money.

And, yes, you do need to "coerce"/convince/persuade/retrain people across many dimensions - people are generally extremely resistant to change, and instead stick with whatever theyre already doing. Not all interventions are just immediately self-evidently beneficial. Eg. "Hey stop destroying your topsoil by every means imaginable - removing and burning all waste from the harvest, not planting in contours to prevent erosion" and much much more. That takes time to prove out and even then requires a leap of faith.

I do strongly agree, though, that "well meaning" non-profits are quite often completely clueless and, arguably, destructive. Often through the very gifts they give, which often don't even work, or at least go counter towards the necessary goal of developing self-sufficiency.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#129

Post by nchmy »

xmprt wrote: post #114
Konnstann wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.buffalobicycle.com/storage/documents/Buffalo_com... The buffalo bike is one that was specifically made for developing nations and the project prioritizes local assembly and repair, while the bike is designed to sacrifice weight and aerodynamics, instead offering heavier-duty parts like thicker rims, puncture-proof tires, high-capacity racks, etc. This bike has two chains to reduce the likelihood of a crit…

Buffalo bicycles cost around $150 at least. That's frankly way too expensive to be a good bike for developing countries no matter how well suited it is for rough terrain. The best bikes I saw were ones that a kid from a family could buy for maybe $20 in local currency and the repairability comes from the cheap cost - if something breaks down, you can find the replacement part from a spare bike that broke down months…

oh wow, yeah, $150 is far too expensive. Its unsurprising, given how flashy their site is and their like 100 employees - what are they all even doing, other than patting themselves on the back?!

The site shows all the telltale signs of self-important, low-impact NGO.

Re: Open Source Low Tech

#130

Post by soperj »

nchmy wrote: post #69
Palomides wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's very easy to verge into OLPC type thinking with this, you probably should just give them normal bikes instead of trying to come up with some bespoke DIY-able system

It's extremely expensive to ship bikes around - even old unused ones.

isn't this what bike thieves do though?
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