Cybernetics: A Fatal Flaw

...out of the idealistic ecotopian movements of the 1970s was cybernetics not composting toilets. Counterintuitively, I think that instead of abandoning idealism and utopian thinking, we actually need to walk away from the dystopian stories we’ve been telling each other for so many post-Mad Max years and begin to tell utopian stories again, just different utopian stories than the last round. I’ll have to develop this idea further in future posts, but...

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Lady Urine, Water Conservation and Halfway Humanure

...psychological leap. (It’s actually a great stepping stone to full humanure composting, if that’s your goal). The material you collect can go straight onto your regular compost pile–no special treatment required–and it’s a valuable resource. So, to sum up this meandering post, while Erik is “watering” the straw bales, I think I’m going to be collecting my nitrogen inputs in the dry toilet. (That it, unless I trot myself down to the AutoZone and get...

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Homegrown Revolution at the Silver Lake Film Festival

...uild a Self Watering Container” will premiere at the Silver Lake Film Festival, as part of the Sustainable LA program on SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY May 6th at 11:30 a.m. at the LosFeliz 3 (1822 North Vermont Avenue-map). We’ll be sharing a program with composting Culver City comrade Elon Schoenholz, the Fallen Fruit dudes, and even the illustrious Midnight Ridazz, who have agreed to wake up before noon to attend. Join us for the after-party, and the aft...

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Hexayurt

...between $200 and $500 to build, and requires only six cuts for each unit. The Hexayurt stacks flat for easy deployment in emergencies. Gupta has a suggested “Infrastructure Package” which includes heat, lights, water purification, and a composting toilet bringing the cost up somewhat, but still much less than FEMA’s $30,000 trailers. While not the most thrilling video (at least as compared to this), thanks to the wonders of youtube you can watch G...

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Save the World–Poop in a Bucket

Learn about composting your own poo by checking out our new post, How to Save the World by Pooping in a Bucket, at the consciousness shifting blog Reality Sandwich, for which we write a regular column. And should you want more potty talk you’re in luck due to a minor sewage synchronicity going on in the magazine/internet world. As we wrote our meditation on human waste, a number of other stories on the subject came out at the same time: Wasteland...

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