An internet of packages of physical things using standard small containers
Paul D. Fernhout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy
"My method is to look at something that seems like a good idea and assume
it's true."
OK, let's assume for a moment that we have "open manufacturing" going well
somewhere (University of Texas at Austin? University of Iceland?) and it has
produced a lot of local abundance. In fact, assume it is so successful that
the problem is getting rid of all the stuff we've made. :-) How do we do get
rid of all that abundance (besides the obvious possibilities of war and
landfilling and recycling)? The next obvious answer is, we ship our excess
to someone else who wants it, and let them worry about getting rid of it.
:-) Or, "One person's junk can be another person's treasure."
This post isn't strictly about manufacturing, but it is about transporting
things, which is closely linked to manufacturing (especially the economics
of what can be manufactured where and by whom). It also suggests a way to
transition from our current economics of scarcity to a future economics of
post-scarcity abundance. In summary, it is about using standardized smart
boxes in standardized sizes moved by standardized material handling
machinery directed through the internet in standard ways to move materials
and goods around the world as an internet of packages of physical things. It
is hoped this will promote a transition to a post-scarcity gift economy by
making it easy for affluent people in the USA to declutter their abundant
lives by giving things away they no longer want (however they were made) but
which still have some value to someone else somewhere in the world.
This is taken from a section of what I wrote here, with a few edits:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
"""
A big problem in a post-scarcity society is not so much how to make
abundance, but how to get rid of it. :-)
The Freecycle network mentioned at the start is an example of that:
http://www.freecycle.org/
Or, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freecycle_Network
"The Freecycle Network (often abbreviated TFN or just known as
Freecycle) is a non-profit organization ... that organizes a worldwide
network of "gifting" groups, aiming to divert reusable goods from landfill.
It provides a worldwide online registry, and coordinates the creation of
local groups and forums for individuals and non-profits to offer and receive
free items for reuse or recycling, promoting gift economics as a motivating
cultural outlook. "Changing the world one gift at a time" is The Freecycle
Network's official tagline."
...
Obviously, long term the solution [to getting rid of abundance] in a few
decades might be general purpose nanotech 3D printers that can both "print"
(or "compile") and "unprint" (or "decompile").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age
Perhaps you don't believe that kind of 3D printing and unprinting is
possible or even desirable (perhaps due to energy costs of disassembly). Or
maybe you think 3D printing might be possible, but would take a long time.
Or perhaps you expect much production and disposal may still be centralized
at least at the neighborhood level. Or maybe you expect that people will
still have sentimental attachments to specific items they wish to store and
retrieve. So, until all those issues are resolved for 3D printing, how can
[a wealthy university] handle the embarrassment of material riches it has
now and will soon have more of? And how can it make it *easy* to do the same
as "The Freecycle Network" does -- give away items to people who want them
instead of sending them to a landfill?
Material transportation and storage systems (like Amazon uses) could play a
big role here. As could interactive computer information systems on material
goods (like eBay pioneered).
How might these be used together?
[A university] could put in place a system of kiosks around campus which had
what looked like Star Trek matter replicators. These would all be connected
underground to one or more warehouses. Whenever anyone needed anything on
campus, they would go to a kiosk and flip through the display to find what
they wanted in the warehouse. Then, using their university ID card, or
something else, or nothing at all :-), they would request the item (say, a
specific soccer ball they like) be delivered to the kiosk. Presumably, using
fast robots, and maybe pneumatic tubes (perhaps in old steam tunnels),
within minutes the item would be delivered into the kiosk's reception area.
But here is the important point -- when the person was done with the item,
rather than worry about storing the item in their dorm room, they could walk
up to any kiosk and just put the ball back into a waiting container, where
it would be scanned, identified, and moved back to a warehouse. See also the
idea of "spimes":
"When Blobjects Rule the Earth"
http://www.boingboing.net/images/blobjects.htm
Think of this as a sort of "interlibrary loan" for any physical object.
"Material Handling System"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_hd59WUZg0
"Han-Tek, Inc. Automated Conveyor, Palletizer, Wrapper"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpJCsoEzuU
"The Art of Sortation in the Conveyor Industry"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEQgGcl1ik
Books could of course be put into the system too. Here is a video of
automated handling of books:
"Automated Materials Handling (AMH) system for books"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwxu9QEVzk
An automated system can even handle huge shipping container sized objects.
like here:
http://www.goldin.com.sg/index.aspx?uc=products_prodlist&CateID=50
(Well, maybe not exactly like in that picture of collapsed containers. :-)
...
I like this title and the first part of this article which also applies to
this idea:
"How shipping containers shortened the life span of petro-civilization"
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=159&Itemid=1
"In 2005, roughly 18 million containers worldwide made over 200 million
trips (wikipedia). Containers come in many sizes, an average one is 40 feet
long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet high, the size of three 10 by 10 foot
bedrooms. There are 1,300 foot-long ships now that can carry 7,250 of them.
It's mind boggling to think about how different the world is now. My
grandparents ate what was in season, an orange was a precious Christmas
gift. Today, the Japanese are eating Wyoming beef and we're driving Japanese
cars. Before containers were used to move cargo, port cities had long piers
where boxes and bales were moved by sweat and muscle onto ships.
Longshoremen lived within two miles of the docks in cheap housing. Now the
piers are gone and the only sweat comes from yuppies on treadmills in luxury
apartments. The cost of moving products by any means, whether truck, train,
or ship, was often so high most goods were made locally. Factories were
often located near ports to shorten the distance of getting products to
ships. The idea of containerization was around for a long time, and a few
companies experimented with doing this and failed for various reasons. It
took Malcolm McLean, the founder of Sea-Land, and standardization, to make
containerization really take off. The cost of shipping goods, whether the
container was on land or water, dropped so drastically, that suddenly it
made more economic sense for a factory to be located wherever land, labor,
and electricity were inexpensive. Millions of high-paying factory jobs were
lost as containerization made it possible for factories to move overseas."
My father, a merchant mariner for about a quarter century around WWII, saw
the rise of container ships. He liked the idea, even though some of his
livelihood for a time depended on knowing how to operate things like
steam-powered cranes (when no one else around knew anymore). Still, that
article misses the big post-scarcity picture and assumes a lasting energy
crisis. :-( Guess they don't know about Nanosolar and similar renewable
energy initiatives -- or the ones [any university] might make soon. :-)
There are several variations on the idea that are easy to make. The kiosks
could be dispensed with (as well as ripping up parts of campus yet again :-)
and the system could respond to requests made anywhere on campus from a
wired or wireless computer (or even a cell phone). Delivery robots could
bring the object to where it was requested, or even to where the person was
as they moved to around campus, perhaps tracked via their cell phone or some
other way (Star Trek TNG style badges?)
"Willow Garage - RoboDevelopment 2007"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47-H0R0OCA0
Or one could make hybrids of kiosks that were serviced by above ground
delivery robots. Or, one could even dispense with the delivery
infrastructure, and just expect people to go to a fully automated warehouse
directly. Or even a partially automated one. Items could be moved between
various warehouses on campus or put in delivery robots near expected needs
to increase response time. Likely a few standard metal or plastic container
sizes would be selected and used. Items in the warehouse would either be
stored in the transport container or transferred to shelving. One container
might have lots of room if occupied with, say, half-used pencils, and so
other things could be added, with the expectation that if a container shows
up with a half dozen unrelated things -- a tennis racket, at unused bra
still in the original packaging, some marbles, a CD of Grover Washington's
music, and a saxophone, the person getting the delivery would just take
*whatever* they wanted in addition to what was requested, and the delivery
system would rescan (laser 3D imaging? RFID? stereo vision? Smell sensors?)
and put the rest back into inventory. One of the things you could request
from the system is empty containers to put things in -- these might come
directly or bundled inside other containers.
Here are some further twists. Everything a student or alumnus put into the
system could perhaps (check with the tax lawyers) be considered a "donation"
to [the university], same as given to Good Will or the Salvation Army. The
university could supply the student or his or her parents or guardians with
a detailed receipt of everything put into the system for tax deduction
purposes. No more situations like my wife encounters at some such places,
where high quality donated items get left out in the rain from lack of room
or staff. Note that groups like the Salvation Army could make use of this
system, scanning the system's inventory for worn things that could be fixed
up with a little effort.
When people put things into the system, like any donor, they might attach
conditions. They might say anyone can order up the object. Or they might say
only [members of the university community] could order the object forever.
Or maybe for three years. Or they could say that if the object was
unrequested for a few years by [members of the university community], it
could then be distributed off-campus. There is an issue here of whether the
original donor's license follows the object forever (the Spime idea) or just
until the next person gets the object. There are all sorts of licensing
combinations. All sorts of restrictions. But ideally, rather than have a lot
of licenses, our society might settle on a few basic approaches -- like
three years for [the university] then OK for anybody. Or something like
that. Part of the problem here is that we are involved in a *transition* to
post-scarcity. So, things that might work differently in the future when
everyone moves objects around as easily as data packets on the internet
(through container boxes that are the physical analogy of digital packets),
and when everyone trusts in the abundance of the system enough not to feel a
compulsion to hoard or not feeling they have to take things out of the
system just to sell things. So, some aspects of setting licenses (the GPL is
an example) have to do with managing that transition in a way that makes
something work now, and makes future progress possible. Obviously, [the
university] doesn't want crowds on [a nearby street] sucking out all its
office supplies for resale the first day. So, maybe one has to think about a
plan with stages of licenses. As well as related social norms. This book has
some related ideas:
"The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" by Ursula K. Le Guin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed
Obviously, a variation on this is also that in some cases only the person
who put the object into the system could get it back out -- or someone he or
she allows (for a fee or not). But what would be the fun of that? :-) But
yes, perhaps there would be some of that -- people hoarding using the
system. But, one could look at reports of that, and then perhaps give these
people help in overcoming their need to hoard. The good news for hoarding is
that if a hoarder decides to become a sharer, the change only requires a few
mouse clicks. :-) Maybe to discourage hoarding, a storage fee could be
charged for such hoarded items stored with restricted delivery instructions?
And I would expect any commercial use of the system would also slowly
decline over time as a relative percentage of use, after perhaps an initial
relative flurry of commerce, same as with the digital internet after it went
beyond academia.
Eventually a lot of junk might accumulate in the system -- old shoes, broken
balloons, obsolete one-Google-equivalent laptops, :-) stuff like that. So
how to get rid of it all? One possibility is to just set up a Kiosk on [a
nearby street off-campus] and let anyone in the world pick what they want
and just take it away. Or the materials could be listed on eBay as free
(except for shipping or handling). Or, the system could be interlinked with
a similar one at [another poorer per-capita university], and presumably the
old shoes and last year's dresses would flow that way. :-) Or, let's call
it, "vintage clothing". :-) And if they did not, [a university] could set up
terminals in materially poor places like, say, the country of Malawi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavily_Indebted_Poor_Countries
or the city of Trenton, NJ
http://www.isles.org/
or wherever and periodically ship out whatever was asked for via containers.
People in materially poor countries would have to be patient to get their
used shoes or worn glasses, but many of them already are very good at patience.
Eventually this entire system could be used globally. Imagine, say, you
leave stuff you don't want in containers on the street. As the Postal
Service or UPS comes by to drop things off, they also pick up those
containers to put into the system. Essentially, at that point this
Freecycle-ish material goods version of the internet might begin to dominate
global trade. And people might also use it for business needs as well as
sending gifts to family and friends. Fees for business use might cover all
the costs of operating it, like craigslist only charges for certain ads.
But, eventually, I would expect this would all diminish the value of money
to the point where people would just maintain this system for the same
reason people operate their local garbage collection systems or mail
delivery system. Also, if you're like me you're tired of all those empty
leftover Amazon boxes piling up, so if the containers used were sturdier,
the empties even could just be left at the curb to be picked up and put into
use elsewhere, perhaps for years and thousands of trips around the world.
The system might have an aspect that allows people globally to submit
requests of things they might like. Maybe they want them for free
(preferred) or maybe they would be willing to pay for them (or bid for them)
or maybe they might by willing to trade other items for them. Amazon has
"wish lists"; this system could also have "wishes". If you live in a
materially poor country, you might put in a "wish" for, say, a good pair of
boots, size 9. Maybe someday someone at [a university] who is having a bad
day might decide to cheer themselves up by giving you their used pair, or
might buy you a new set and put it in the system for delivery -- or even buy
you a new one entirely through the system. Physical stores would likely of
course decline as this system was widely adopted -- many would become
virtual stores, their inventory just store securely in some part of the
system. (This might free up a lot of space on [a main street] for [a
university] to use for expansion. :-) In general, one would want this system
to be designed to make it easy to give gifts. Maybe it might be tied in with
a way that people could blog about their lives or make video diaries, making
this idea similar in some ways to "microcredit" but typically as a gift. As
with Heifer, maybe you might ask the recipient to pass on a similar gift
someday to someone (or a similar gift in proportion to their wealth, since a
pair of boots might be a trivial gift for the donor but most of the
recipient's wealth).
The containers to use in this system would be the subject of a lot of study
themselves. Maybe they even might expand and contract some as needed.
Perhaps they would have some kind of auto-expanding cushioning material for
preventing damage during shipment or storage. Some might even be
self-guiding. Many might have open tops or be pallets with standard
attachment systems. Boxes might come in a variety of material or formats
(cardboard, plastic, metal, wood, etc.) each with their own international
standards governing bar code placement or label format or robotic attachment
handle or RFID locator or wireless network hardware or sensors or whatever
other aspects were important. Some box styles might have active climate
control (to stay hot or cold for a time).
There might be standards for opening and closing boxes, so you might have
the house robots or receiving automation open boxes for you in advance and
inspect and repack the contents, if you were nervous about the delivery.
Routing hardware on routes within the system might do that as well for
suspicious packages. Some boxes might be sealed with tape, but I'd expect
many would have alternative ways of opening and closing, perhaps with
electronic locks (active or passive).
I'm expecting most of these container boxes might be in the range of sizes
of typical Amazon boxes. That is, about from shoe box sized to microwave
sized. But some might be smaller and some might be huge -- like for storing
your car when you arrive on campus. (See, I said I'd solve the parking
problem. :-)
"Amazing Parking System"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azUqCkov4k8&NR=1
But if you don't like that solution, just use the self-driving automobile
software [a university] will develop as above and have the cars park
themselves at a distant lot and return on demand. :-)
Parking your car in the system brings up security. You might only want your
car or other item to be released back to you or someone you authorize. You
might only want it stored in particular secure places and only handled by
certain secure processes. You might want it only contained in containers
meeting certain requirements or standards, or only transferred to similar
containers or only inspected by certain processes you agree to. You might
want the container to keep a visual record of whoever accesses it. If you
allow others to use your car, you might want to have the container scan your
car before someone else takes it out as well as when someone puts it back in
storage (like rental companies do). This way you can see if someone did not
take good care of it. In the transition period from a scarcity world view to
a post scarcity world view, people might use these features to run rental
businesses for any kind of equipment or products -- cars, lawnmowers,
jewelery, tuxedos, and so on. There are a lot of things to think about there
when looking at the system from the stand point of use for only transient
storage (the service like a parcel locker at an airport supplies).
When I was at IBM Research about ten years ago (contracting), IBM held a
future-oriented brainstorming session with high school students. One of the
sessions related to the future of packaging. They talked about things like
having a GPS in every package. And maybe digital paper as the display on the
package (run by a limited computer, and in thirty years a "limited" cheap
computer might be more powerful than one of today's supercomputers :-). Add
in a solar panel or inductor or isotope generator (or even cold fusion :-)
to the package, along with a wireless network link, and you have essentially
a complete OLPC computer system. Imagine a world so wealthy that anybody who
even got a discarded Amazon box had access to all the world's knowledge for
"free to the user". :-)
...
Maybe it's time again to ask high school students what the future could be
like? And here is another place to start, as well:
"Google search on reuseable/reusable containers"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=reuseable+containers
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=reusable+containers
Or people could ask Historical Societies (or old alumni) what life was like
back with a "milkman" and horse cart. :-)
"The Milkman"
http://www.newstatesman.com/200605290047
Some styles of boxes might have cameras or microphones or other sensors too,
enabling them to directly scan the materials put in them or identify the
person closing or opening them. Other boxes might use services at kiosks or
delivery trucks to scan their contents as they were opened and closed. The
design of kiosks, deliver trucks, delivery robots, and delivery points
outside homes would itself take some thought -- sensors, security, privacy,
climate control like refrigeration, and so on.
Of course, one can also imagine doing this without the containers. Robots of
various types (humanoid or cart-like) with dexterous manipulators could
carry items and put them on shelves -- like human slaves once did and in
some places still do. :-(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
But as with people, if we develop sentient robots to help with this task,
then we have to start thinking about rights for them too.
"Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans,
according to a study by the British government."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6200005.stm
Also, as it might be fun to help out others, somehow this system, like the
one in "The Skills of Xanadu", might make it easy for people to know when
something needed to be moved from near where they are to somewhere else they
are thinking of going, so they can deliver it just for the fun of it and the
joy of service. So, while the robots are cool to me, there are ways to look
at this system that might avoid them. Imagine people might even load a few
boxes into their car or truck to carry along as hitchhikers to move a little
closer to their destination. This used to be how letters were delivered
before centralized post offices. You'd write a letter and give it to someone
going in the general direction, and they might later pass it on to someone
else going even closer. There are aspects of that in the internet routing of
today.
Once one sees this internet of things in standard containers as an analogy
to the internet of bits in standard packets, then a lot more analogies flow
from that. You can have public repositories of objects and private ones.
Some services might start off as free, some an paid. Some packets might be
free, some expensive. People might bid on items, or they might bid to get
rid of them. :-) Or there might be fixed prices, user varying prices, or no
prices at all. You might cache things you might want soon locally, in local
storage systems, which are like local networks (LANS) but gatewayed to this
larger "Internet of things". You might have firewalls or packet sniffing
tools. :-) Packages might be periodically opened and the contents
transferred to new containers to interface with different networks (UPS, the
post office, etc.). And the contents of open-top on-campus containers or
pallets might be transferred to closed containers as the objects crossed the
campus "firewall" or vice-versa. Some packages might be split up into
multiple packets; some might be condensed together into one package. Packets
might arrive at a location and have the contents processed (by people or
robots) with the result put back into another packet. Perhaps cardboard
containers that arrive on campus might be opened in a "firewall" like mail
room and repackaged into more sophisticated containers (or not) for storage
and delivery on campus. Similarly, when materials were to go off campus,
they might be transferred to other types of containers (or not). And so on.
This twelve minute movie visualizes digital packets as real ones, so look at
it for inspiration:
"Warriors of the Net"
http://www.warriorsofthe.net/
I saw that movie a few months ago and perhaps it unconsciously inspired this
overall idea.
One might also think about the way materials stream in cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytoplasmic_streaming
To be extra clear, this idea is not exactly the same as the "Internet of
Things" currently described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things
That focuses more on putting "things" on the internet in the sense of
interacting with them remotely, as well as tagging them to track their
movements. Those may well be part of the future. What I talk about here is
more about moving real things around in a standardized way typically with
standardized physical containers or standard ways of manipulating and
tracking most objects by people, robots, or automation.
...
Note that all sorts of things might be put into the system, even bottles of
dangerous chemicals, refrigeration-required biohazards like yesterday's
chili, or the inevitable guns that campus security will end up with. :-( So,
one might start thinking about limited access to some items, perhaps based
on some personal record of certification. However, I'd expect *most* items
would not need to be restricted. Kind of like on Star Trek -- you might
expect that if a five year old asks a matter replicator for a "Hand Phaser"
that at worst they get a toy version. But if they ask for a soccer ball or a
telescope, why not oblige with a real one?
Here is an example of a delivery robot for dangerous things, especially
biohazards:
"Secure and efficient transportation of lab specimens throughout a
healthcare facility"
http://www.speciminder.com/
Certainly working on those seems better to me than all the time and money
the USA is now putting into developing this:
"Dalek"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek
But in general, the carriers would not need to be secure, since while it
might be OK to grab something going by (the system could just fetch
something similar), causing another user an extra delay would probably be
seen as very rude.
...
Naturally, such a system could also be used to route unused food to a
composting facility, or obvious garbage to a waste disposal or recycling
center. [University] people have good ideas; I'm sure they will think of
completely unexpected uses for the system. :-) ... I used to be more
interested in engineering self-reliant systems until, through studying
ecology, I came to read about Island Biogeography, and see the interplay of
self-reliant and networked systems in maximizing diversity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_biogeography
No doubt, even in expansion into space, the future will entail networks of
otherwise self-replicating space habitats, making some things locally, and
exchanging others (even if just information and people and genetic materials
and some hard to make goods). That's the way bacteria work on Earth today --
they are self-replicating but still part of a vast network exchanging
genetic material by various means.
"""
--Paul Fernhout
Bryan Bishop
<pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
> Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems suggests:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy
> "My method is to look at something that seems like a good idea and assume
> it's true."
>
> OK, let's assume for a moment that we have "open manufacturing" going well
> somewhere (University of Texas at Austin? University of Iceland?) and it has
> produced a lot of local abundance. In fact, assume it is so successful that
Alright, I like this type of game. :-)
> the problem is getting rid of all the stuff we've made. :-)
What? Do you mean that we have physically deployed factories and we
are making stuff, and for some reason we are making an excess of it,
or we make things that are static and not functional and thus have no
life cycle other than a human's fancy? Gotchya. Getting complex
already.
> How do we do get rid of all that abundance (besides the obvious possibilities
> of war and landfilling and recycling)?
Long-term solution is to figure out why we made so many static
artifacts that weren't going to have that long of a life cycle anyway.
Why didn't we have any foresight on this?
(1) Automated disassembly. I used to have a ref to a great IEEE paper
about the automated disassembly of PCBs for "e-recycling" centers.
Other options include crushing, smelting, and employing energetically
inefficient separation processes.
(2) Manual disassembly.
(3) Put it somewhere?
> The next obvious answer is, we ship our excess to someone else who wants it,
> and let them worry about getting rid of it. :-) Or, "One person's junk can be
> another person's treasure."
Having an inventory system would solve most of that. Just exposing an
inventory access layer on a server somewhere would help start that.
Too bad the freecycle people aren't implementing this for what they're
doing.
> This post isn't strictly about manufacturing, but it is about transporting
> things, which is closely linked to manufacturing (especially the economics
> of what can be manufactured where and by whom). It also suggests a way to
> transition from our current economics of scarcity to a future economics of
> post-scarcity abundance. In summary, it is about using standardized smart
> boxes in standardized sizes moved by standardized material handling
> machinery directed through the internet in standard ways to move materials
Cargo containers, which you see being hauled around 18 wheels these
days, as well as being shipped on giant boats, are an international
standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization
"Containerization (or containerisation) is a system of intermodal
freight transport cargo transport using standard ISO containers (known
as shipping containers, ITUs (Intermodal Transport Units) or
isotainers) that can be loaded and sealed intact onto container ships,
railroad cars, planes, and trucks."
January 1968 - R-668 defined the terminology, dimensions and ratings
July 1968 - R-790 defined the identification markings
January 1970 - R-1161 made recommendations about corner fittings
October 1970 - R-1897 set out the minimum internal dimensions of
general purpose freight containers
See also: ISO 6346.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#ISO_standard
Now let's see these containers shipped around on open source algae
bioreactor fuel-powered vehicles, or solar powered electric vehicles
using some sort of battery drop-off and pick-up service for routes,
etc.
> and goods around the world as an internet of packages of physical things. It
> is hoped this will promote a transition to a post-scarcity gift economy by
> making it easy for affluent people in the USA to declutter their abundant
> lives by giving things away they no longer want (however they were made) but
> which still have some value to someone else somewhere in the world.
Freecycle is already doing this, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on
how to get the right set of standardization going so that it just
doesn't become a super-freecycle.
> This is taken from a section of what I wrote here, with a few edits:
> http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
> """
> A big problem in a post-scarcity society is not so much how to make
> abundance, but how to get rid of it. :-)
>
> The Freecycle network mentioned at the start is an example of that:
> http://www.freecycle.org/
>
> Or, from Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freecycle_Network
> "The Freecycle Network (often abbreviated TFN or just known as
> Freecycle) is a non-profit organization ... that organizes a worldwide
> network of "gifting" groups, aiming to divert reusable goods from landfill.
> It provides a worldwide online registry, and coordinates the creation of
> local groups and forums for individuals and non-profits to offer and receive
> free items for reuse or recycling, promoting gift economics as a motivating
> cultural outlook. "Changing the world one gift at a time" is The Freecycle
> Network's official tagline."
Well, drat. You beat me to it.
> Obviously, long term the solution [to getting rid of abundance] in a few
> decades might be general purpose nanotech 3D printers that can both "print"
> (or "compile") and "unprint" (or "decompile").
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age
> Perhaps you don't believe that kind of 3D printing and unprinting is
> possible or even desirable (perhaps due to energy costs of disassembly). Or
> maybe you think 3D printing might be possible, but would take a long time.
> Or perhaps you expect much production and disposal may still be centralized
> at least at the neighborhood level. Or maybe you expect that people will
> still have sentimental attachments to specific items they wish to store and
Another option is that "you think it might be possible, but you're not
interested in sitting around waiting to find out" :-).
> retrieve. So, until all those issues are resolved for 3D printing, how can
> [a wealthy university] handle the embarrassment of material riches it has
> now and will soon have more of? And how can it make it *easy* to do the same
> as "The Freecycle Network" does -- give away items to people who want them
> instead of sending them to a landfill?
Some of the unused cooking oil here at the University of Texas at
Austin will be going back into the biofuel for the campus' vehicle
fleet.
> Material transportation and storage systems (like Amazon uses) could play a
> big role here. As could interactive computer information systems on material
> goods (like eBay pioneered).
>
> How might these be used together?
We already know how they might be used together, the trick is
convincing the people upstairs to implement them, or to convince the
thousands of people on freecycle to implement the API layer, etc. etc.
Other areas of implementation:
* CNC machines with automatic tool switching
* Walgreens and other pharmacies have pneumatic tube systems.
* Warehouses, although now I'm unsure how many have automated box moving.
Interestingly enough, cargo freight is not automatically unloaded,
even though the containers are algorithmically placed on the ship.
This is odd to me. I would think that you could even set up some
guiding magnets to make sure a crane could properly pick up each
container.
> There are several variations on the idea that are easy to make. The kiosks
> could be dispensed with (as well as ripping up parts of campus yet again :-)
> and the system could respond to requests made anywhere on campus from a
> wired or wireless computer (or even a cell phone). Delivery robots could
> bring the object to where it was requested, or even to where the person was
> as they moved to around campus, perhaps tracked via their cell phone or some
> other way (Star Trek TNG style badges?)
That sounds a little more likely to happen rather than a super secret
underground dungeon warehouse, yes.
> Or one could make hybrids of kiosks that were serviced by above ground
> delivery robots. Or, one could even dispense with the delivery
> infrastructure, and just expect people to go to a fully automated warehouse
> directly. Or even a partially automated one. Items could be moved between
> various warehouses on campus or put in delivery robots near expected needs
> to increase response time. Likely a few standard metal or plastic container
> sizes would be selected and used. Items in the warehouse would either be
> stored in the transport container or transferred to shelving. One container
This sounds analogous to the last mile problem of internet broadband.
At what point do you start expecting the users to make an effort to
not live too far away, and to what distant extreme are you willing to
go out to? And even in delivery and other service-industry operations
requiring you to physically show up at the residencies of clients.
> Here are some further twists. Everything a student or alumnus put into the
> system could perhaps (check with the tax lawyers) be considered a "donation"
> to [the university], same as given to Good Will or the Salvation Army. The
> university could supply the student or his or her parents or guardians with
> a detailed receipt of everything put into the system for tax deduction
> purposes. No more situations like my wife encounters at some such places,
> where high quality donated items get left out in the rain from lack of room
> or staff. Note that groups like the Salvation Army could make use of this
> system, scanning the system's inventory for worn things that could be fixed
> up with a little effort.
I've looked around and there's no open source optical character
recognition packaged with an open source hardware barcode scanner,
which was one invention that apparently significantly helped with
inventories that grocery stores and shopping centers like having
around. Supposedly making one of these shouldn't be too difficult, the
barcode system was made to work with quick-and-dirty scanning machines
that might not get it all. I don't know who showed me the video, but
one inventory management system involved little robots picking up
boxes from underneath (by standing underneath) and then wheeling away
to the destination; another method would be to use automated carts and
have an on-ceiling sliding robotic arm to pick things off the shelf
and place on the carts, etc. That might involve too much in terms of
overhead metal for slides and axises. Anyway, a simple-to-deploy,
cheap, open source inventory retrieval system, like for a high tech
tool shed, is certainly called for.
> Obviously, a variation on this is also that in some cases only the person
> who put the object into the system could get it back out -- or someone he or
> she allows (for a fee or not). But what would be the fun of that? :-) But
> yes, perhaps there would be some of that -- people hoarding using the
> system. But, one could look at reports of that, and then perhaps give these
> people help in overcoming their need to hoard. The good news for hoarding is
> that if a hoarder decides to become a sharer, the change only requires a few
> mouse clicks. :-) Maybe to discourage hoarding, a storage fee could be
> charged for such hoarded items stored with restricted delivery instructions?
> And I would expect any commercial use of the system would also slowly
> decline over time as a relative percentage of use, after perhaps an initial
> relative flurry of commerce, same as with the digital internet after it went
> beyond academia.
http://heybryan.org/infohoarding.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers
"Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley
Collyer (October 3, 1885 – March 1947) were two American brothers who
became famous because of their snobbish nature, filth in their homes,
and compulsive hoarding.
The brothers are often cited as an example of compulsive hoarding
associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as
disposophobia or 'Collyer brothers syndrome', a fear of throwing
anything away. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the
rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at
the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively
collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many
other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to
protect against intruders.
Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they
had lived as hermits, surrounded by over 100 tons of rubbish that they
had amassed over several decades."
Compulsive hoarding and caching of basically everything describes a
lot of people on the spectrum. Ever wonder who runs the Internet
Archive?
> (except for shipping or handling). Or, the system could be interlinked with
> a similar one at [another poorer per-capita university], and presumably the
> old shoes and last year's dresses would flow that way. :-) Or, let's call
> it, "vintage clothing". :-) And if they did not, [a university] could set up
> terminals in materially poor places like, say, the country of Malawi
I think you're describing the mail service.
> The system might have an aspect that allows people globally to submit
> requests of things they might like. Maybe they want them for free
> (preferred) or maybe they would be willing to pay for them (or bid for them)
> or maybe they might by willing to trade other items for them. Amazon has
> "wish lists"; this system could also have "wishes". If you live in a
If everyone would start using global ontologies for listing materials
and using real identification numbers, that would go much more
smoothly. Even Amazon has an internal ID system for all of their
products; maybe they will be willing to expose their internal ontology
for product names and ID numbers? I've seen on Amazon, and other
websites, that they commonly have duplicates in their database for the
same item, usually because what they are doing is directly importing a
catalog from whoever they are getting the product from. So inside
their database it's probably this huge mess. I doubt it's even
NAICS-complaint (North American Industry Classification System) for
the companies they are importing from. (but I would like to be proven
otherwise 'course.)
> I'm expecting most of these container boxes might be in the range of sizes
> of typical Amazon boxes. That is, about from shoe box sized to microwave
> sized. But some might be smaller and some might be huge -- like for storing
> your car when you arrive on campus. (See, I said I'd solve the parking
> problem. :-)
> "Amazing Parking System"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azUqCkov4k8&NR=1
> But if you don't like that solution, just use the self-driving automobile
> software [a university] will develop as above and have the cars park
> themselves at a distant lot and return on demand. :-)
Another reference would be the "I, Robot" system for parking cars in
garages. I'm not sure how they solved the gravity problem by having
everything at a 90-degree angle, but whatever. The folding bicycle
also gets bonus points in my playbook.
Paul D. Fernhout
Collyer brothers.
Three difference from such a system than the current mail are:
* packages might be delivered continuously through the day (imagine if the
mailperson walked by where you live 1000 times a day, you might use the mail
service differently)
* there is a lot more of a pull component here, as in it intergrates making
a request more with the delivery system
* there are internet-computing equivalent services like storage and
retrieval which the mail system does not directly supply (although I guess
having a PO Box is related, but you can't retrieve arbitrary letters
remotely from it, and you don't generally put letters in it yourself).
On optical scanners, these were easy to find for a time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat
(I have a few stashed away I never used. :-)
But surely they must be easy to make these days? Or one can use a web cam?
You're right that big containers are a standard, but I don't think there are
any for small containers? Other than maybe gas cylinders or such?
That's an interesting point you raise on cargo freight. I wonder if it is
union rules? Or is it that the task has been to hard to automate (internal
load shifting in boxes)? Or is it that there is so much value being moved
around that the cost of a human in the loop is trivial? Perhaps in a way the
human also serves a "guard function"? Either guarding the cargo or guarding
that the crane is operating correctly? But, how hard these days could it be
to automate cargo freight crane operations? With automation, it seems like
there is often a worry at first that the automation will mess up because the
automation is dumb and unproven in a variety of situations (at first), but
at some point, the worry shifts over to the human messing up because humans
get tired, have bad days, and make random mistakes.
An example from 1998:
"Automated visual screening systems promise faster testing—someday "
http://www.devicelink.com/ivdt/archive/98/07/002.html
"Although Papnet is not currently approved for primary screening in the
United States, NSI executive vice president for U.S. operations, Jack
Henneman, says that "clinical trials for FDA approval are under way." ...
Because of the tedium and operator error associated with manual screening of
Pap smear slides, this area has been a natural first target for companies
that are developing automated screening technologies. ..."
Six years later in 2004:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20040715/tips/17.html
"Bottom Line: PAPNET is as accurate as manual readings by cytologists for
abnormal diagnoses. The choice of using PAPNET or a manual reading by a
cytologist should be based on cost."
Four years later (now) I expect the software is better than a person, or at
least a lot faster and cheaper because computers are faster and cheaper.
I'd imagine crane operations will face the same thing one day: "Although
CargoNet is not currently approved for primary cargo loading in the USA..."
And then, ten years later, "Bottom line: CargoNet is as accurate and safe as
manual crane operations. The choice of CargoNet or a manual crane operation
should be based on cost."
By the way:
http://shannahanergotech.com/gorbel_automated_cranes.htm
"Gorbel's Automated Cranes fill the gap between completely manual and
completely robotic materials handling solutions."
And also, it looks like OSHA regulations probably prohibit unattended big
crane operations:
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=25904
"Before leaving his crane unattended, the operator shall: 1. Land any
attached load, bucket, lifting magnet, or other device. ..."
Yes, you're right on the difficulty about "convincing the people upstairs".
Look at all the facts Amory Lovins put together about rebuilding the
energy industry years ago, and did Congress act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
No. Will CEOs act now about cars?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10112893-54.html
Probably not. Bucky Fuller said essentially that new ideas tend to do best
just growing on their own, rather than trying to displace or tear down
something existing. Once they are big and successful, then sometimes people
switch. In the USA auto industry case, the companies have all but failed,
the cash won't prop them up long, the main reason they continue to fail is
other companies have better products (Toyota, Honda, even VW), and nothing
they are willing to try comes close to fixing the problem (they tend to
blame everything on the unions and the retirees). Sooner or later they will
fail entirely and we will be left with newer companies making better
products. But Toyota did not start out competing head to head with GM on
high end pickup trucks (they did cheap small cars). And Tesla is staking out
the high end sporty roadster ($100K).
Why won't they act? I put it this way elsewhere: where Amory Lovins won't
go, but I will, :-) is that even if the new approach saved trillions of
dollars per year across America, some few people in the auto industry might
risk millions of dollars in annual compensation in the short term by trying
something radically new, which is unacceptable from their point of view.
They would likely still come out ahead by taking that risk if it succeeds as
it likely would, but when you are already making $20 million a year in
salary, and tens of millions of more in stock options, why rock the boat to
save the country or the planet?
Besides, you don't get to a position like that by taking informed calculated
technical risks (or at least, not many do). The position selects for
conformity of a certain type. And the whole social dynamic of such companies
probably reinforce that. The same is true even at a place like IBM. He
probably doesn't even notice it, but see here later in the video how IBM CEO
Sam Palisano puts down the R&D staff with his tone:
"IBM CEO Sam Palmisano's speech at the Council of Foreign Relations on "A
Smarter Planet""
http://www.cfr.org/publication/17696
It's pretty obvious what he thinks about innovation and R&D there. (Of
course I know a little about internal IBM politics, so I look for stuff like
that.) And IBM is one of the world leaders as far as corporate dollars spent
on R&D.
Noam Chomsky on this (you've seen this before):
"What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream"
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
"There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a
pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through
college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding
conformity and obedience; if you don’t do that, you are a troublemaker. So,
it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really
honestly (they aren’t lying) internalize the framework of belief and
attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society."
Now, to be fair, conformity can often be a *good* thing. :-) Everybody
driving on the same side of the road makes us all safer. A standardized
small cargo box as proposed here might make us all wealthier. And so on.
Manuel de Landa again:
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Certain standardizations, say, of electric outlet designs or of
data-structures traveling through the Internet, may actually turn out to
promote heterogenization at another level, in terms of the appliances that
may be designed around the standard outlet, or of the services that a common
data-structure may make possible."
I especially liked the link you made between shared ontologies and an
automated materials handling system. Another conformity in the service of a
higher level of heterogeneity. :-)
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
Everybody
driving on the same side of the road makes us all safer.
>>
In other words, I'd rather have my adaptive circuits (in my brain) fully developed and always working than to rely on conformity/stability for safety and then when _shit_ happens I won't have that adaptive muscle to rely on
;)
Paul D. Fernhout
task, it is not there for another.
For example, many of Volvo's latest safety efforts are becoming more human
factors oriented. Here is on reason why:
"Volvo Invests in Technology That Increases Drivers' Attention"
http://www.tnn.co.uk/Technology/plonearticle.2007-12-20.4444821330
"Experiences from the Volvo Group’s accident investigations and general
traffic safety research show that accidents are a combination of the human
factor, vehicle problems and/or the traffic environment, in which the human
factor accounts for 90% of accidents. This was confirmed by new research
conducted at the Virginia Tech Transport Institute that demonstrates even
more distinctly that inattentiveness, due to tiredness or distraction, is
the single largest and most significant cause of accidents."
But they work on other things, like making radio tuning easier.
Another example is Tinkertoys. Sure, you can make anything you want out of
wood yourself. But, if you use the standard Tinkertoy struts and hubs and
other pieces, you can build a lot of interesting things quickly. So, being
standard on one level lets you have diversity on another which you otherwise
might not have enough time and attention if you had to custom craft each
part. A complex example:
"The Tinkertoy Computer"
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/12/the_tinkertoy_c.html
"This brilliant Tinkertoy digital computer was built by a team of students
at MIT in the 1980s. It's a marvel of mechanical design that apparently
plays a "mean game of tic-tac-toe.""
With that said, I prefer my computers these days to be mostly made out of
silicon crystals instead of wood. :-)
But I still think Eric has a great point with the suggestions for
standardized framing for all sorts of manufactured things (including machine
tools).
But really, people need both. You want to ideally make handling a lot of
things that are of less variability into habits that represent routine
standard behaviors, so you can preserve your higher level attention for the
unexpected.
Or in the manufacturing realm, ideally, maybe you want some standard ways to
easily make a lot of common objects (3D printing with only a few types of
materials? Things built with Eric's T-slot suggestion? And so on...) so you
can focus your attention on the ones that need to be unusual or complex or
from special materials (maybe requiring more complex processes or slower
machining or timeshared equipment or imports from somewhere else)?
But I may be wrong, at least for manufacturing. One can hope that something
like 3D printing improves to the point where you can place each particle
very precisely and in an infinite variety of materials all controlled by a
computer, to use one process to make anything, thus providing always the
adaptiveness you refer to. Though even then, perhaps the software that runs
that may be structured into routine and unusual parts. :-)
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
Since I developed heightened level of ADD I have noticed that I can drop things and catch them in mid air reflexively, and when driving I've noticed myself many times looking through the side or rear mirror reflexively, out of the blue, e.g. while talking or tuning the radio, a second or two before a potential unhappy situation. The ability to distract oneself out of being distracted gives me more safety because I know that sooner or later, at some point, I'll get distracted, no matter how hard I try to focus.
When it comes to parts and pieces (e.g. erector set, legos, etc), you're absolutely right; standardization and use of smallest number of pieces that can generate the greatest diversity is a good thing.
But when it comes to human beings, it depends on the neurophysiology and event raising/handling apparatus, so some people benefit from conformity/stability while others benefit from non-conformity/instability. We can't think of human beings as building blocks in a greater model.
30 years ago, my friends and I, as kids, would sit in the garage and build stuff. We had no problem coming up with what to build, designing and building it, then testing it. We had great attention spans. Nowadays, most of the people I recruit for projects have ADHD/ADD, so the word "manage" and "process" and "plan" takes a whole new meaning.
Eric Hunting
Transit -automated personal package transportation- which relates to
the notion of Personal Rapid Transit -automated personal
transportation- and which can sometimes be integrated to PRT as an
additional system application. The concept originated with pneumatic
tube transport technology and notions of expanding the pneumatic tube
systems employed in large office buildings in the early 20th century
to cover entire towns or cities so as to automate the handling of
mail. At one time there were plans to implement this in New York City
starting with pneumatic links from major corporate buildings and up-
scale apartment buildings to the city's central mail handling center
and expanding incrementally until it as able to link to every home and
business. Some have suggested this plan would have been the beginning
of a nationwide physical Internet. But before the extensive system of
tubeways could be completed, the plan was killed by a new corrupt
postmaster with extensive personal investment in General Motors. There
were similar systems pursued in other major cities in the same period,
such as Paris, but they all suffered similar fates.
Largely forgotten, the concept resurfaced in the late 20th century
with the emergence of automated warehouse systems employed in the
automobile and electronics industry and the appearance of a few
entrepreneurs trying to revive pneumatic tube technology at a lager
scale for use as energy-saving mass transit for long distance inter-
urban shipping -pipelines for products. With their chronic problem of
limited urban space, Japanese inventors were particularly interested
in the notion of 'virtual closets'; automated dumbwaiter systems that
could transport containers the size of a small closet and take digital
snapshots of their contents as the doors were closed. This idea was
particularly attractive to the many Japanese book collectors who have
a great deal of difficulty storing their large collections at home.
However, the systems were never implemented on more than a solitary
home or building scale.
In the original Millennial Project, Marshal Savage described the use
of a pneumatic tube based personal packet system as one of the
convenience benefits of life on the Aquarius marine arcology.
Normally, such technology is hampered by the capital costs of
implementing these systems over very wide areas where existing
infrastructure gets in the way. But the structural density and newness
of the marine colony and its nature as a single conjoined building
structure meant that implementing such things would be no more
challenging than it was for office buildings in the early 20th
century. However, since digital communications has largely eliminated
the communication role of this, on Aquarius this system would be used
primarily for the transport of small articles and packaged foodstuffs.
Savage envisioned such things as a tool libraries shared by the whole
community.
Building on this notion and realizing that pneumatic systems wouldn't
be quite adequate, with TMP2 I devised a much more sophisticated
system that combined a dumbwaiter-like transport system with a
Personal Rapid Transit System and a series of automated warehousing
facilities called SuperStores. The dumbwaiter-like system would be
used for short-haul transit to locations within people's homes or
within offices, factories, labs, etc. Based on a one meter cubed
standard container (optionally compartmentalized for smaller packets),
it would link to the PRT system using specialized packet carrier cabs -
one of several forms of specialized automated cabs in addition to
those simply ferrying people around. In addition to the 1m container,
there would also be a couple sizes of walk-in containers accessed from
the normal PRT terminals rather than the smaller PPT terminals. This,
in turn, would link to the SuperStores which would function like data
servers for material goods organized into refrigerated and non-
refrigerated areas. Also linked to the system would be waste
processing stations and external shipping stations that link the
system to ISO container handling for ship and airship transport. In
addition, in my description the Aquarian digital infrastructure, a
variant of the SuperStore assumes the role of a cloud cluster server
installation within a sealed nitrogen-filled environment that is self-
maintaining, adding or replacing hot-swap processor and storage
element modules on its own, using other SuperStores as its bulk parts
storage facilities. (this is based on a proposed Distributed Computer
platform for Ubiquitous Computing where the elements of the
conventional personal computer are reduced to collections of net
appliances in self-configuring VPNs optionally hosted within a cloud
computing environment. In other words, personal domain clouds rather
than personal computers)
The whole system is intended to be more-or-less passive and open like
an internet. All the elements are generic in terms of storage and
transport but the system hosts multiple applications; personal packet
delivery, intercontinental shipping, the community tool library,
manufacturing systems spread over different parts of the colony,
casual personal storage, virtual stores, automated resupply systems
for fabbers and home food processors, automated colony maintenance
systems, prescription drug distribution, trash collection and
recycling (including independent handling of compostable organic
waste), so on and so forth, all based mainly on software and the
generic transit and storage of the PPT network.
This concept is intended to epitomize the standard of living benefits
of arcology habitation but it would be largely impossible to implement
outside the arcology context without the advent of much more
sophisticated construction and excavation technology than we currently
have. However, I anticipated its further evolution in the context of
nanotechnology in the form of a much physically simpler and more solid-
state system called the NanoSoup Pipeline. As fabber technology
evolves, one of its chief likely bottlenecks will be the handling of
large diversities of materials. The chief limitation on the scale of
home fabber systems will not be the fabbers themselves but this bulk
material storage which will take such specialized forms as sticks,
tapes, wires, cartridges of powder or granular material, tubes, and
fluid suspensions in recycled PE or foldable boxes very much like
Parmelat milk containers. Early nanofabricators will use primarily
fluid suspensions for their bulk materials -leading to a situation
where people end up filling whole rooms with these milk box containers
plugged into manifolds on the walls. (I've suggested that early
adopters of home nanofoundries will be easy to spot as they will be
the folks who put out masses of milk boxes and barrels of diamond sand
in the trash...) To simplify this likely situation, I imagined that
future nanotech engineers would seek to be able to consolidate the
discrete fluid mediums used. Instead of having a vast assortment of
raw materials in discrete fluid suspensions, they would seek to
molecularly package raw materials in a standardized way, keep them all
in a shared common hydrocarbon fluid suspension, and rely on nanochip
sorters to monitor their respective concentrations and unpackage them
for use. Thus I arrived at the notion of NanoSoup, and the companion
notion of NanoAspic. (NanoAspic in a solid carbon matrix with a more
orderly packaging of raw materials using molecularly-encoded indexing.
NanoAspic would be used for very long term storage and long distance
transport -as with asteroid exploitation. Asteroid mines could extrude
these huge sticks of solid NanoAspic complete with propulsion and
control systems attached to their surfaces and they would then
transport themselves to other destinations and dock with storage ports
in factories like enormous versions of the solid dye sticks in a dye-
sublimation printer) Fluid suspensions are a bulky way to store stuff
even if you have consolidated them into one medium. A large industrial
facility -if there are still any by the time- may need oil refinery
style tanks of NanoSoup and home systems may need tanks akin to 55
gallon drums or home heating oil tanks. To overcome this problem,
communities could implement a community-wide pipeline to handle this
bulk NanoSoup allowing one to simply plug-in home fabbers,
nanofoundries, and recyclers into this pipeline and continuously
extract and inject materials as they're used or recycled. The entire
materials infrastructure of the civilization could plug into this
NanoSoup Pipeline, creating a materials internet collecting and
distributing raw materials and certain prefabbed nanocomponents as a
free public service and creating a very simple basis for a resource
based economic system very much akin to the model of municipal
electricity in a cogeneration grid-intertie situation. Thus people
could have a free personal materials budget managed as bandwidth on
this pipeline.
Eric Hunting
erich...@gmail.com
> Date: Wed, Dec 10 2008 5:15 pm
> From: "Paul D. Fernhout"
>
>
> Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems suggests:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy
> "My method is to look at something that seems like a good idea and
> assume
> it's true."
>
> OK, let's assume for a moment that we have "open manufacturing"
> going well
> somewhere (University of Texas at Austin? University of Iceland?)
> and it has
> produced a lot of local abundance. In fact, assume it is so
> successful that
> the problem is getting rid of all the stuff we've made. :-) How do
> we do get
> rid of all that abundance (besides the obvious possibilities of war
> and
> landfilling and recycling)? The next obvious answer is, we ship our
> excess
> to someone else who wants it, and let them worry about getting rid
> of it.
> :-) Or, "One person's junk can be another person's treasure."
>
> This post isn't strictly about manufacturing, but it is about
> transporting
> things, which is closely linked to manufacturing (especially the
> economics
> of what can be manufactured where and by whom). It also suggests a
> way to
> transition from our current economics of scarcity to a future
> economics of
> post-scarcity abundance. In summary, it is about using standardized
> smart
> boxes in standardized sizes moved by standardized material handling
> machinery directed through the internet in standard ways to move
> materials
> and goods around the world as an internet of packages of physical
> things. It
> is hoped this will promote a transition to a post-scarcity gift
> economy by
> making it easy for affluent people in the USA to declutter their
> abundant
> lives by giving things away they no longer want (however they were
> made) but
> which still have some value to someone else somewhere in the world.
>
> This is taken from a section of what I wrote here, with a few edits:
> http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
> """
> A big problem in a post-scarcity society is not so much how to make
> abundance, but how to get rid of it. :-)
>
> The Freecycle network mentioned at the start is an example of that:
> http://www.freecycle.org/
>
> Or, from Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freecycle_Network
> "The Freecycle Network (often abbreviated TFN or just known as
> Freecycle) is a non-profit organization ... that organizes a worldwide
> network of "gifting" groups, aiming to divert reusable goods from
> landfill.
> It provides a worldwide online registry, and coordinates the
> creation of
> local groups and forums for individuals and non-profits to offer and
> receive
> free items for reuse or recycling, promoting gift economics as a
> motivating
> cultural outlook. "Changing the world one gift at a time" is The
> Freecycle
> Network's official tagline."
>
> ...
>
> Obviously, long term the solution [to getting rid of abundance] in a
> few
> decades might be general purpose nanotech 3D printers that can both
> "print"
> (or "compile") and "unprint" (or "decompile").
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age
> Perhaps you don't believe that kind of 3D printing and unprinting is
> possible or even desirable (perhaps due to energy costs of
> disassembly). Or
> maybe you think 3D printing might be possible, but would take a long
> time.
> Or perhaps you expect much production and disposal may still be
> centralized
> at least at the neighborhood level. Or maybe you expect that people
> will
> still have sentimental attachments to specific items they wish to
> store and
> retrieve. So, until all those issues are resolved for 3D printing,
> how can
> [a wealthy university] handle the embarrassment of material riches
> it has
> now and will soon have more of? And how can it make it *easy* to do
> the same
> as "The Freecycle Network" does -- give away items to people who
> want them
> instead of sending them to a landfill?
>
> Material transportation and storage systems (like Amazon uses) could
> play a
> big role here. As could interactive computer information systems on
> material
> goods (like eBay pioneered).
>
> How might these be used together?
>
> [A university] could put in place a system of kiosks around campus
> which had
> what looked like Star Trek matter replicators. These would all be
> connected
> There are several variations on the idea that are easy to make. The
> kiosks
> could be dispensed with (as well as ripping up parts of campus yet
> again :-)
> and the system could respond to requests made anywhere on campus
> from a
> wired or wireless computer (or even a cell phone). Delivery robots
> could
> bring the object to where it was requested, or even to where the
> person was
> as they moved to around campus, perhaps tracked via their cell phone
> or some
> other way (Star Trek TNG style badges?)
> "Willow Garage - RoboDevelopment 2007"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47-H0R0OCA0
> Or one could make hybrids of kiosks that were serviced by above ground
> delivery robots. Or, one could even dispense with the delivery
> infrastructure, and just expect people to go to a fully automated
> warehouse
> directly. Or even a partially automated one. Items could be moved
> between
> various warehouses on campus or put in delivery robots near expected
> needs
> to increase response time. Likely a few standard metal or plastic
> container
> sizes would be selected and used. Items in the warehouse would
> either be
> stored in the transport container or transferred to shelving. One
> container
> might have lots of room if occupied with, say, half-used pencils,
> and so
> other things could be added, with the expectation that if a
> container shows
> up with a half dozen unrelated things -- a tennis racket, at unused
> bra
> still in the original packaging, some marbles, a CD of Grover
> Washington's
> music, and a saxophone, the person getting the delivery would just
> take
> *whatever* they wanted in addition to what was requested, and the
> delivery
> system would rescan (laser 3D imaging? RFID? stereo vision? Smell
> sensors?)
> and put the rest back into inventory. One of the things you could
> request
> from the system is empty containers to put things in -- these might
> come
> directly or bundled inside other containers.
>
> Here are some further twists. Everything a student or alumnus put
> into the
> system could perhaps (check with the tax lawyers) be considered a
> "donation"
> to [the university], same as given to Good Will or the Salvation
> Army. The
> university could supply the student or his or her parents or
> guardians with
> a detailed receipt of everything put into the system for tax deduction
> purposes. No more situations like my wife encounters at some such
> places,
> where high quality donated items get left out in the rain from lack
> of room
> or staff. Note that groups like the Salvation Army could make use of
> this
> system, scanning the system's inventory for worn things that could
> be fixed
> up with a little effort.
>
> Obviously, a variation on this is also that in some cases only the
> person
> who put the object into the system could get it back out -- or
> someone he or
> she allows (for a fee or not). But what would be the fun of
> that? :-) But
> yes, perhaps there would be some of that -- people hoarding using the
> system. But, one could look at reports of that, and then perhaps
> give these
> people help in overcoming their need to hoard. The good news for
> hoarding is
> that if a hoarder decides to become a sharer, the change only
> requires a few
> mouse clicks. :-) Maybe to discourage hoarding, a storage fee could be
> charged for such hoarded items stored with restricted delivery
> instructions?
> And I would expect any commercial use of the system would also slowly
> decline over time as a relative percentage of use, after perhaps an
> initial
> relative flurry of commerce, same as with the digital internet after
> it went
> beyond academia.
>
> Eventually a lot of junk might accumulate in the system -- old
> shoes, broken
> balloons, obsolete one-Google-equivalent laptops, :-) stuff like
> that. So
> how to get rid of it all? One possibility is to just set up a Kiosk
> on [a
> nearby street off-campus] and let anyone in the world pick what they
> want
> and just take it away. Or the materials could be listed on eBay as
> free
> (except for shipping or handling). Or, the system could be
> interlinked with
> a similar one at [another poorer per-capita university], and
> presumably the
> old shoes and last year's dresses would flow that way. :-) Or, let's
> call
> it, "vintage clothing". :-) And if they did not, [a university]
> could set up
> terminals in materially poor places like, say, the country of Malawi
> The system might have an aspect that allows people globally to submit
> requests of things they might like. Maybe they want them for free
> (preferred) or maybe they would be willing to pay for them (or bid
> for them)
> or maybe they might by willing to trade other items for them. Amazon
> has
> "wish lists"; this system could also have "wishes". If you live in a
> I'm expecting most of these container boxes might be in the range of
> sizes
> of typical Amazon boxes. That is, about from shoe box sized to
> microwave
> sized. But some might be smaller and some might be huge -- like for
> storing
> your car when you arrive on campus. (See, I said I'd solve the parking
> problem. :-)
> "Amazing Parking System"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azUqCkov4k8&NR=1
> But if you don't like that solution, just use the self-driving
> automobile
> software [a university] will develop as above and have the cars park
> themselves at a distant lot and return on demand. :-)
>
Paul D. Fernhout
Thanks for the historical background and the other ideas, especially the
elaborations.
One issue is that packets on the internet have a standard format even if the
transport layer may differ (ethernet, wireless, telephone, token ring,
optical fiber, etc.). So I feel having standardized packaging is much more
important than, say, a standard pneumatic tube system. Once people agree on
standard packets, then there can be a lot of innovation on how to move them
around.
--Paul Fernhout
Eric Hunting
have to standardize containerization to facilitate automated handling.
So both packaging standardization and transport automation go
together, the latter creating the practical impetus for the former.
Without that the virtues of standardization are more abstract and
harder to get people to accommodate. Transport tends to be the
dominant factor in compelling form-factor standardization. It's what
compelled the trend to Flat-Pak furniture design. Marshal Savage's
interest in the PPT concept related to the desire to eliminate the
material waste of diversified packaging with reusable containers. Most
packaging is cosmetic and intended for store shelf appeal. After that
it functions as protection in shipping. But even back in the early 80s
when Savage wrote TMP the future of shopping was looking like it was
heading on-line with shelf appeal being supplanted by screen appeal.
So he imagined what that would mean if it became ubiquitous in a
community. If shopping on-line in one fashion or another was the only
way people shopped, if production was relatively localized, and you
had a means of 'back-flow' to facilitate packaging reuse.
And now we're starting to see some of this emerge with Amazon. Amazon
now deals in a world where screen appeal has replaced shelf appeal so
it is, incrementally, evolving standardization in packaging driven by
its compulsion to automate, its desire to economize on packaging mass
and thus save shipping and handling costs, and its desire to be
perceived as 'green'. It can readily adopt standards in shipping box
forms but beyond that it relies on the scale of its customer base to
coerce manufacturers into producing goods suited to its packaging
standards. Wal-Mart similarly uses its customer base to coerce similar
concessions in packaging and shipping from its suppliers, recently
forcing them to adopt standard RFID use. Amazon may be just a year or
two from the cognitive leap of 'returnable' packaging; packaging made
of durable materials like corrugated polypropylene, molded
polyethylene, and tyvek designed to disassemble and fold flat to be
returned in the mail. It's probably been discussed but they couldn't
find a solution to it off-the-shelf. For the frequent Amazon customer
this could be most practical and convenient -it's becoming an
increasing hassle to deal with cardboard boxes these days. However,
recent slumps in the market values of recyclables could delay such
experiments.
I explored another aspect of this a while back with a concept called
BEN -Box Exchange Network- which was intended as a potentially global
social experiment in barter economics and independent production. The
idea was to use a unique cube shaped glass box or clamp-sealed jar -
possibly an origami clear sheet plastic form as well- as both a
standardized form of reusable packaging suited to a very wide range of
goods and a standardized unit of exchange such that the relative value
of the contents of any box was the same. The boxes themselves were
also equal in value and a floating number of them would be equal to
the contents of one box -allowing for trade in accumulated and newly
manufactured empties. This value system would not be absolute. It
would be worked out by the people making the exchanges. This
facilitated simple barter over long distances even if one didn't share
the same language -they could arrange trades by pictures alone,
perhaps through a web site- and would facilitate the creation of
barter stores where people could deposit boxes of goods for credit to
'buy' any equivalent number of boxes left by other people.
Participants in the BEN would be admonished to trade primarily in
simple goods they produced themselves, which would both encourage
independent production and also help keep the bureaucrats at bay since
such goods are harder to assign a 'market value' to. I also
anticipated that people would turn the boxes themselves into products -
lamps like those solar sun-jars and other things. Not a perfect system
by any means but it was not intended to be. It was intended to be game-
like, actively 'tuned' by participation, and result in a fad that
encouraged people worldwide to think about independent production and
economics.
Eric Hunting
erich...@gmail.com
On Dec 17, 2008, at 6:13 AM, openmanufacturing group wrote:
> Date: Tues, Dec 16 2008 12:02 pm
> From: "Paul D. Fernhout"
>
>