Here's how Lamar Alexander built this cute little 400 square foot cabin for approximately $2000, and powers it with a 570 watt solar and wind power system.
Many people dream of going off grid, living close to nature, building a sustainable home, growing their own food, and taking charge of their time and money. So what stops the majority of them from
This beautiful earth bag home contains 450 ft² of space and was built for less than $5000. Recycled or salvaged materials were used wherever it was possible (i.e. the door and flooring). The rounded shape provides great stability for the entire structure, and two rows of concrete bags reinforced with barbed wire provide a solid grounding. Here's a step by step of the build... Starting on a rubble trench foundation. Railroad ballast was used for the rubble... Covering over our sediment fabric with pea gravel... Two rows of stem wall using 80 lb sacks of concrete. 2 strands of barbed wire go between every row. The
While building up my own off grid homestead, I wondered if off grid micro-hydro might be a good match for my needs. With more consistent power generation and less visibility, micro hydro can be a good power source. Let me share what I
Like most aspiring homesteaders, we moved off-grid to cut expenses and find a simpler life. We were hoping to work less, and spend more time in the garden, but we hadn’t planned ahead for a
This beautiful earth bag home contains 450 ft² of space and was built for less than $5000. Recycled or salvaged materials were used wherever it was possible (i.e. the door and flooring). The rounded shape provides great stability for the entire structure, and two rows of concrete bags reinforced with barbed wire provide a solid grounding. Here's a step by step of the build... Starting on a rubble trench foundation. Railroad ballast was used for the rubble... Covering over our sediment fabric with pea gravel... Two rows of stem wall using 80 lb sacks of concrete. 2 strands of barbed wire go between every row. The
If you’ve ever tried to draw a perspective grid by hand, you know that it totally sucks butts. Here’s a quick and easy way I use that lets me establish the basic perspective of my drawing in less than 30 seconds!
In the face of climate change and persistent droughts, a growing number of people from Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and elsewhere are adopting the traditional farming practice.
This Quick Tip will show you—in just a few easy steps—how to make a useful isometric grid. You will learn how to use the Rectangular Grid Tool with the "SSR technique", and in less than two...
In a post-collapse world, certain professions will be in high demand. Explore 10 skills that will be essential for survival and livelihood.
Want to know how to find land for living off the grid? Here's a simple 3 step process to find the perfect land for your off-grid home.
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Many people dream of going off grid, living close to nature, building a sustainable home, growing their own food, and taking charge of their time and money. So what stops the majority of them from
While Sue and Jim were collaborating with Ben Callery Architects to create their off-grid weekender, they knew they needed a landscape design to make it feel a part of the landscape.
The shift toward off-grid housing has been a topic of serious conversation in recent years, appealing to those who are looking at reducing their housing costs
When it comes to living off grid there are a lot of things to consider. Your choice in power, making sure you have access to water, and what type of shelter you are going to
Repair Soil, Increase Yield, Save Water, Save Money, with Biointensive Gardening. If you could grow 2-6 times more while using less water, wouldn't you...
Are you facing drought or water shortages? Gardening with Less Water offers simple, inexpensive, low-tech techniques for watering your garden much more efficiently -- using up to 90 percent less water for the same results. With illustrated step-by-step instructions, David Bainbridge shows you how to install buried clay pots and pipes, wicking systems, and other porous containers that deliver water directly to a plant's roots with little to no evaporation. These systems are available at hardware stores and garden centers; are easy to set up and use; and work for garden beds, container gardens, and trees.
Read the story on these easy DIY window grids we created to make our windows look way better in less than 25 minutes.
When we think about living off the grid or go camping, usually these are less than luxurious accommodations as water and electricity supply is hard to come by in areas that aren’t as developed. However Bratislava-based Nice Architects have come up with a concept called the Ecocapsule that will make living off the grid a somewhat comfortable and stylish experience.The idea behind the Ecocapsule is that it is self-sustaining. This […]
The falling cost of energy-efficient equipment means that in the not-so-distant future, we'll see more net-zero homes. But, what is that exactly? A
There's living on less, and then there's living with nothing. Here are radicall strategies to live a simple life with no money.
My end goal in life is to live off grid. I don't know if I will ever accomplish that, but I can dream. I know what it takes from my experience of living in a
Traditional Meals for the Frugal Family: Delicious, Nourishing Recipes for Less [Stonger, Shannon] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Traditional Meals for the Frugal Family: Delicious, Nourishing Recipes for Less
How much does it really cost to go off grid? $100k is a good amount. $150k is still reasonable. There's a common misconception that living off grid is cheaper, or will cost less money. Sure,
Living off the land is not for the weak or ill-prepared. It takes years of groundwork and skill-honing to get to a place where you can survive and thrive.
About the Book "From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a ... history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, ... [networks] of mathematically determined choices that ramify into the development of city grids and music playlists alike. To have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question. Over the last decade, Kyle Chayka has studied the homogeneity of this curation of reality. ... Chayka ... examines how this deeply filtered aesthetic--spanning digital and physical spaces--creates an uncanny blend of work, home, and social life. As the algorithm determines our choices, other important questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity--the very nature of being human? What does the notion of choice mean when the available options have been so carefully arranged for us?"-- Book Synopsis A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK - From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself. "[Filterworld] is about how algorithms changed culture...[Chayka asks] what is taste? What is a sense of aesthetics? And what happens to it when it collides with the homogenizing digital reality in which we now live."--Ezra Klein From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed--informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch--as we've grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal. This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called "Filterworld." Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires--and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences--human lives--for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question. In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity--the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet? To the last question, Filterworld argues yes--but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it. Review Quotes A Most Anticipated Book of 2024: Foreign Policy - Lit Hub - The Millions - i-D Magazine - Town and Country - Elle Magazine One of Esquire's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 (So Far) "Trying to quiet 'algorithmic anxiety' and 24-7 digital overwhelm, Chayka posits, we tend to take refuge in the average. [Filterworld] urges us to throw off the blanket some influencer has convinced us is a necessity...Unlike the cascade of content from strangers on the internet, Filterworld, as a proper book will, evokes less transient impulses than genuine, lingering feelings: depression about our big-box corporate dystopia and admiration for Chayka's curiosity and clear writing style." --Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review "[Filterworld] brings stark clarity to the formulas that guide our behaviors online...it does the near impossible: It makes algorithms, those dull formulas of inputs and outputs, fascinating...This is a book about technology and culture. But it is also, in the end--in its own inputs and outputs and signals--a book about politics." --Megan Garber, The Atlantic"Chayka's logic is seductive. The internet of today, where Filterworld's impact is most keenly felt, is both less weird and more corporate than anyone who lived through the GeoCities era could have possibly imagined. There's a palpable sense of grief in Filterworld when Chayka describes the walls of the internet closing in as it consolidated onto privately owned platforms." --The Washington Post "If our old tech anxiety amounted to well-founded paranoia ('Are they tracking me? Of course they are.'), the new fear in Filterworld is more existential: 'Do I really like this? Am I really like this?'....[With Filterworld] Chayka offers an alternative to the numbing flow of the feed." --Esquire "[Filterworld] explores the tension between our perceived online freedom and the increasing homogeneity of our Instagram-saturated world. . . Chilling. . . Evocative. . . Incisive." --The Wall Street Journal"Filterworld nearly vibrates...Chayka brings his background as an art critic and curator to the fore. He positions curators as a potential salve for our current cultural malaise, a sort of anti-Mechanical Turk that rejects computational sleights of hand in favor of deep, patient research." --The Los Angeles Review of Books "[Filterworld] provides a robust survey of many of the essential issues [of digital technology], in six brisk chapters that strike a readable balance between cultural theory, feature-style reporting, and hot takes. . . [Chayka is] a well-informed critic and thinker." --Bookforum"Chayka is an astute observer of the ways the internet and social media affect culture." --MIT Technology Review "Filterworld is the kind of book worth wrestling with, critiquing, and absorbing deeply." --Elle Magazine "Intriguing--and distressing. . .Chayka's timely investigation shows how we can reject the algorithms of the digital era and reclaim our humanity." --Kirkus Reviews *starred review*"Chayka's frank discussion of his own digital detox, full of anxiety before arriving at an algorithmic homeostasis, will inspire readers to believe there is a way out, returning to human tastemakers. . .[an] astute historical analysis and philosophical rumination on the subject, all 'filtered' expertly with his own biography as a millennial who grew up amid the explosion of the socially fixated web." --Booklist *starred review* "Necessary reading for anyone who has wondered just how, in expanding our world, the internet has ended up emptying our experience of it. Chayka's wide-ranging anatomy of algorithmic curation--which, he argues, is increasingly the cultural substitute for human choice itself--makes a bracing case not only for creativity exercised beyond the confines of digital constriction, but also against the dehumanizing sameness algorithms have introduced into our societies and lives. Timely, erudite, important." --Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Homeland Elegies "Filterworld incisively diagnoses a problem that I've long felt but struggled to name and is the most convincing explanation I've encountered for why so many of our cultural products carry an uncanny whiff of familiarity. Amidst cheers for the death of the monoculture, Chayka offers a sharp and necessary counterpoint, demonstrating how mass culture, even as it diffuses into niche datastreams, trends toward a vacuous mean." --Meghan O'Gieblyn, author of God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning "Filterworld is a vital interrogation of algorithmic technology and its unrelenting power in shaping both our online and offline experiences. Chayka deftly explains how today's social media ecosystem operates and, more importantly, reveals a way out of the ever-tightening grip of this stifling digital filtration." --Taylor Lorenz, author of Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet "Kyle Chayka is a vital observer of how digital technology shapes our culture, and Filterworld will change how you think about the internet." --Ben Smith, author of Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral "Filterworld skillfully examines how the giant project of measuring humanity using the internet turned into an unfortunate modification of humanity. The story told here is instrumental to your own, even if you do not realize it." --Jaron Lanier, author of Dawn of the New Everything "Filterworld is a smooth and fascinating read." --Hyperallergic "Great." --The Verge "Compelling....What Filterworld does wonderfully is deconstruct our current scroll culture with precision to make it less appealing. If Filterworld is not just a technology but a mindset, this alone is an accomplishment." --The Rumpus About the Author KYLE CHAYKA is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes a column on digital technology and the impact of the Internet and social media on culture. His debut nonfiction book, The Longing for Less, an exploration of minimalism in life and art, was published in 2020. As a journalist and critic he has contributed to many publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The New Republic, and Vox. He was the first staff writer of the art publication Hyperallergic. Kyle is also the co-founder of Study Hall, an online community for journalists, and Dirt, a newsletter about digital culture. He lives in Washington, D.C.
How about a professional style fabric honeycomb grid that is easy to attach, simple to store, and hardy? Yes, it can be made for less than $10. In fact I made two for $15.
