Where each city will have it’s fab-labs to build open source everything for its people

Image source: stephanengl.com

Call me a romantic but I am trying to stray away from corporate world domination rat race and envision a life where communities will take their freedom back by democratizing most, if not all, of their needs and open source is a big part of that world. Fortunately its happening all over the globe, with innovative startups showing that it can be done.

Although we can’t escape the money incentive economic system yet

Resize Picture in Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)

No need to install more apps to do a simple image resizing in Android. I had a hard time figuring out a way to do this without going to the mighty play store to install all kind of junk in my phone to expose my data via bugs and poorly written apps (yes, I don’t have Angry Birds installed).

I have searched on the web and didn’t find a solution so I took a step back

Hacking Consumerism and Mass production way of living

In a perfect world there would be no need for minimalism, for CO2 reduction and coping with the adverse effects of intoxicating the environment, there would be no need for any tweaking and hacking. Heck there would be no need for law enforcement and insurance companies and there would be far less need for the health and administrative institutions as blown up as we see them today.

Today I feel cheated, ignored, manipulated, exploited at a level I’m not aware of myself. I know there are so many brilliant people working together to hack into my mind and drain every drip of my working strenght in order to slave up for people that can’t get enough. I know most of them don’t know it, they are just as deceived as I am and it all starts with education and media and growing up with such an altered set of life principles and such a distorted view of reality that right now the Matrix seems very plausible.

So where am I?

Minimalism: getting rid of stuff vs upcycling (and not buying new stuff in the first place)

You are not a minimalist if you are generating so much waste you need to throw away to be left with little stuff. Being a minimalist is about having as little material possessions as possible to live a happy life as much as buying as little stuff you wouldn’t have to dispose of to have less. Being an environmentalist person you know that upcycling beats recycling at energy costs and is of greater value as thinking, craftsmanship and sweat are also involved. Also you should know by now that “there is no away” to throw or dispose of your waste.

I’ve read some time ago that not the minimalism as a lack of possessions state should be pursued but the minimalism in the sense of having the minimum amount of stuff that works for you and helps you achieve your maximum personal growth and spiritual evolution to the degree you want it.

Trying to balance is the tricky part here.

Minimalist. Just another word for people’s thirst to reach nirvana.

I’ll  begin making my point by a small retrospective. I started my self-discovery journey by denying everything I’ve been taught with regards to religion. Religion was a main area of education pretty much encompassing all other disciplines with its far reaching arm. But I didn’t want to go to church because I had to. That only sparkled my resentment against it. So I had a break. A long one. I had to discover myself who I was, what to believe in and to what extent my moral state would be inclined toward good/moral and evil. Then I studied the religion I’ve inherited and filtered it through my engineering mind. I am the analytical type with logic dictating my reasoning. I also enjoy philosophy and to a certain extent psychology.

After a few years I’ve stamped “green” on my ethical resume. It was pretty obvious for a person with certain morality to think of the planet, of the land we’re intoxicating, of the air we’re polluting. But there had to be a Word for it. We needed tagging, we needed something else rather than what we already had. We needed a new

Homing Mission

It’s been quite some time since my beloved blog hasn’t been updated with fresh news on value-added design and environmentally conscious products. Main reason for this was a busy life and for a non-native English speaker it’s pretty difficult and time consuming to reflect his mind and soul in another language so my posts became rarer and rarer.

But my interest in design hasn’t faded, my consciousness regarding the environment hasn’t weakened. On the contrary I had time to evolve, to develop, trying to become wiser and ever more detached from the plague of consumerism. I became interested in minimalism, no-waste design, up-cycling to the highest degree and start improving oneself from within rather than increasing one’s value with material possessions.

So my blog will become a little more  introspectively-inclined, with emphasis on less possessions for a happier life. Value-added design both in functional and aesthetic areas is still very important. We need to be surrounded by beauty, let’s make sure that it comes from within first.

Starting as a fishing chair. Quite like a director chair. But ending up a little more.

director chair with a twist (not the one in the pic)

Designed by Spanish studio Mr. Simon, these chairs can be stacked into a sideboard (they refer to it as a desk), thus serving as a multi-purpose piece of furniture.

Cóm-oda is made from wood and cotton, the chairs detach from the whole and provide additional seating for impromptu guests.

Cheap and fast and modern(ified) decor

Ever wondered how could you add some interest to your collection of figurines or some wooden/china animals? Perhaps you just don’t want to trash them up or store them somewhere only to add clutter to your already crowded living space. I once wrote about a

Straw Collective piece of lighting design that won my admiration

Simple like it grew there by itself, very natural looking (it makes me think of a bird nest and tree branches), the design from Straw Collective is really an inspiring  design. Congratulations, I’m loving it.

DIY air-dried porcelain

Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon one of my previous articles on ceramic lamps and if you read my blog you know that I always try to find great designs which are functional and eco-friendly. That’s why I bash petroleum-based plastic and other toxic materials. Clay/Porcelain  is easier to obtain than glass or metal but it’s still energy intensive while making. Air-Dried Porcelain would be a dream come true for DIYers. Consumerism is a plague these days so anything self-sufficient and sustainable is a blessing.

Originating from Argentina, this Cold porcelain, aka “porcelana fria”, is a

Ever dreamed a late dinner cooked with solar power? It might just become real…

Sun Leftovers for late dinner cooking

After spending some time in Nigeria, where people rely mostly on wood to cook their meals, which  leads to all kind of respiratory illnesses as well as pollution,  MIT professor David Wilson designed a solar cooker that stores the sun’s power in the form of a melted mineral salt which can then deliver the heat for 25 hours at a time with constant  temperatures of above 450 degrees

Good news on the mushroom green materials from Ecovative front

green packaging, compostable car parts

Just want to quickly point this out: ecovative, the company that has developed the green packaging and insulation materials made using mushroom mycelia, and which I have already covered in a couple of blog posts, have made some significant steps to go into mainstream products.

First they have teamed up with

Snapkeys seem to be the holy grail of keyboardless devices

Snapkeys Virtual Keyboard

I was so amazed by this technology that I had to write about it on my blog. After seeing it briefly on an article that came in my feed reader, it fixed itself into my brain and wouldn’t let go. I’ve spent so much time trying to find an ergonomic keyboard that can be used with one hand or allow typing when jogging or

Like DIY? Get (make) one of these

keep it clean

All DIY lovers out there, this one won’t have any fancy description, just the picture.

Admired it? Ok, now go clean up the table and see what difference this might make.

Laptop stand for the frequent traveller

Traveler's "office" - a better way than bed-working

A while back I changed my job  (which involved a lot of traveling) in order to have a few years (no plans to go back to hectic traveller’s life but who knows) of quietness, stability, sense of belonging to a place. I was even asked at the interview why switch, as the current position didn’t suppose traveling. All good. A few months. Too few.

The project I was on was just kicking off and the company needed a boost so they proposed a