Category Archives: Industrial Change Surfing

The industrial revolution is a powerful set of waves that has crashed into our lives. We, the modern man, must consciously decide how to surf these waves. If we do not pay attention, we can drown. If we select the right waves, we can gracefully enjoy our time like no man before us. If we truly excel, our opportunities are historically unprecedented.

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All, Industrial Change Surfing

Tribal Observer of Modernity, an Allegory

Imagine you are an untouched tribesman somewhere in the Amazon in 2020. You have heard of the marvels of the modern world – along with its evils – but you have never seen this world and nobody you know has ever seen a car. Then a road is built for a mine that passes near enough to your village that you can see in the distance a shiny 2020 Jeep Wrangler drive by on the dirt road. The Jeep kicks up its dust and on down the road it goes. You don’t know where it came from. You don’t know where it’s going really. You have never seen anything like it. You tell people what you saw – or try to – but you don’t really know what you saw in reality because it’s beyond technology you have ever seen. You speculate on how it works, how it was made, but you mostly get called crazy, it doesn’t matter, or you can’t know, and start to wonder yourself if you’re crazy and if you really saw what you think you saw. Then it keeps happening. More and more cars drive by on the road and somehow others don’t see them. You’re not sure how others don’t see them, but it seems apparent they either cannot or do not want to see them and it’s no good telling people about it. It interrupts their happy lives in the tribe.

Eventually there are so many you stop wondering how somebody makes just one of those shiny modern things you are seeing and you realize there must be somebody making hundreds or thousands of them. Somehow hundreds or thousands make more sense than just one because it means they must be very valuable somehow to an entire society you have never seen and all the doubts you have about the existence of cars crumble because it is apparent that this society has teams of people to solve the complexities of building these impossible, incomprehensible machines.

(Henry Ford did not invent the car, he invented the assembly line.)

One of the shiniest and most beautiful of the cars you see, your favorite, is so beautiful it really stretches your imagination that these machines can be made by people. How could something so complex and beautiful be made by humans? You strain to see the details of it and you can barely make out the markings on the metal plate on the back and it says “TB-12”.

It’s the last one you really make an effort to see because it’s just so beautiful you want to believe God made it. There are many other reasons you stop looking but you can’t count the reasons, can’t count the questions you have anymore, fear is a factor, concern the modern mine will swallow up your tribe’s land, so many factors, but you also seem somehow sure you never want to ride in a car, cannot join this car-making society, but you do want to know what the markings mean, how many other markings like that there are, then you wonder if curiosity kills the cat and you just stop and continue living, happy to be alive and well.

If I feel like I wrote something that has been written before, is that bad because it’s unoriginal? Or is it good because everything worth writing has been written anyway so it’s possible it was worth writing again?

This tribal observer would definitely be said to be at an industrial observation post, and it’s interesting to imagine that, but I did not write this thinking of an industrial observation post.

All, Industrial Change Surfing

Statue of Responsibility, 11 Years Later

I wrote about the Statue of Responsibility 11 years ago here.

Since then, I have moved several times. Statues and globes are difficult things to store, transport, and move, but I am proud to say I have managed to arrive here in 2026 with my Statue of Responsibility and globe intact.

This full-size Statue of Responsibility continues to await incomplete but ready to be built. Before, I thought it was ironic, as a nation in debt, to spend money on a monument to responsibility, but now I see we just spent almost $30 million on Ellis Island to upgrade the Statue of Liberty. Even though we are more in debt now, it seems like we have quite enough freedom and we should commit ourselves to some responsibility. Any cost for such a commitment seems small compared to what we are spending on other endeavors as a nation.

All, Industrial Change Surfing, Time v3

Time v3 Reading List

Some great reading about timekeeping in the Industrial Revolution. Here are some examples:

The Clocks are Telling Lies by Scott Alan Johnston. Centers around the International Meridian Conference. Talks a lot about the distinction between scientific professionals’ and amateurs’ perception of timekeeping.

Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism by E. P. Thompson. Discusses the transition from natural time to using clocks to regulate labor.

Greenwich Time and the Longitude by Derek Howse. Recommended by Bjorn Kartomten.

All, Technology Implementation

The Post-Industrial House

The post-industrial house will solve the following domestic problems and maximize the following healthy ways of living.

  • Fresh air should be maximized.
  • The “un-building” house: start all planning with the assumption that we live outside and favor outdoor living unless necessary to be indoors. Assume that the outdoors is a good thing and try to not block it if possible, for example:
    • Need heat in the winter. Best kind of heat is a small cozy space with body heat. Can heating be compartmentalized into a small center of the house?
    • Keep bugs out. Screens do this without blocking the rest of the outdoors. A breeze is pretty effective against bugs but too much breeze could be annoying all the time.
    • Houses with opaque well-insulated walls are great if you assume you want to completely control the indoors and live in a controlled environment, but they almost totally sacrifice fresh air. Walls block breezes. Walls get hot in the sun and bake the indoors all night long even when it is cool outside. Roofs prevent sunlight from sanitizing and drying the indoors.
    • How to minimize how “indoor” the house is?
    • Completely compartmentalize the “indoor” aspect of the house?
  • Disinfecting sunlight should be maximized especially in bathrooms.
  • There should be so much airflow in bathrooms and laundry areas that anything in those areas dries quickly.
    • Should be outdoor space for a clothes line near the laundry, preferably with some cover that allows sunlight but not rain.
    • Shower curtain against bath tub mold build-up: how has this problem not yet been solved?? (besides dripping the shower liner onto the floor outside the tub or replacing the shower liner every few months). There must be airflow and sunlight or there will be mold!!
    • Outdoor shower is nice but good to do something to control mosquitos around it.
  • All sides of the house should receive some direct sunlight.
  • During the winter day, the house should be able to collect and store as much heat from the sun as possible when available.
    • Wood stove? (more efficient than wood-burning insert into existing fireplace).
    • Address humidity if possible. Dry air is usually just accepted in the winter, but is there a way to naturally or easily have the air a little bit more humid in the winter?
      • Personal humidifiers, OK.
      • What about compartmentalizing the house somehow so the human warmth collects in a cozy way, i.e. cozy small room effect? At least for sleeping areas.
  • During the summer night, should be able to cool off as quickly as possible and drain heat reservoirs to collect excess heat during the day. House should feel like a large shade tree on a breezy summer afternoon – (NOT like the inside of a refrigerator).
    • Remember to address humidity. Humidity is half of the comfort and convenience equation but is usually treated as an afterthought.
  • Should be able to completely shade itself on the exterior, independent of trees.
    • Or using strategic trees.
    • Large eves are nice and simple design for shade and protect the side of the house. Movable eves?
    • Canopies over windows?
  • Should be able to leave the windows open during summer rainstorms, while still addressing the following issues:
    • Security of having windows open.
    • Screens should prevent bugs from entering, plus a system to eliminate the bugs that get through.
    • Convenient window coverings should not get in the way of opening and closing the windows. Automated windows would be nice (cars have them!) except when they fail, which they would, so they should just be easy to open and close.
  • There should be outdoor space on the roof, or above the house somewhere. Like a rooftop bar with a view of whatever is around doesn’t matter rooftop is cool.
  • There should be ample shade / rain cover just outside the house near the kitchen for meals outside.
    • Build house around a central courtyard area? Build in a horseshoe shape?
  • The hot water tank should be near the hot water faucets. Waiting for hot water is hot water wasted and time wasted. (I am opposed to tank-less water heaters, they just aren’t that great.)
  • Independent water treatment system for healthy drinking water, nice skin, and prevent mineral deposit build-up.
  • Completely separate heated exterior space with garage door, ~14 x 22 feet ~ one-car garage size. Bicycle storage plus.
  • Carport! A simple cover over the car keeps the snow off in the winter, prevents most of the rust from being rained on all the time and prevents sun damage. A garage is unnecessary but a carport is necessary.
  • Location location location. There should be good people, good government, good parks, libraries, town center within biking distance.
  • ~1407 sqft. 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom. Kitchen, dining, living room. Large closet in the master bedroom. Laundry, clothes line area, outdoor shower all connected.
    • 2-story with bedrooms upstairs, or ranch?
    • 2-story pros: rooftop bar higher. Bedrooms separate from living area. Smaller footprint / basement requirement. More cube-like for less exterior walls (more efficient?)
    • Ranch pros: no stairs. Everything connected.
  • Maintenance convenience:
    • All (or most) plumbing and electric – especially plumbing – should be accessible from a basement or with known and marked access points.
    • While some things will be automated, automation should be limited and control should be centralized with systems accessible for maintenance and upgrades.
  • There should be a large Time v3 timekeeping device prominently displayed in the post-industrial house.
  • Other sources:
    • Consult Tim
    • Consult The Landlord’s Operating Manual
    • Consult architect(s).
    • Consult “Snowmass house”
  • Alternative materials.
    • Absorptive and radiative materials
    • Hemp? Consult Kreg.
    • Consult “Earthship” internet search rabbit hole.
      • Earth-filled tires?
All, Time v3

Time v3 and Daylight Savings Time

There is a certain a group of people who hates the daylight savings time change because it “arbitrarily disconnects us from nature.” One day we wake up and the sun is up. The next day we wake up at the “same time” and it is dark (or vice versa when we go off daylight savings time).

To my timekeeping-conscious friends out there, we have something in common: a dislike of brutish machine timekeeping. However, I believe what we really dislike is industrial timekeeping as a whole, not just daylight savings time. The daylight savings time change is like a tiny semiannual glitch in the matrix of industrial timekeeping that draws our attention just enough to feel something is wrong but passes before we really focus the energy to investigate the true enormity of the problem.

The problem is industrial time – since the 18th century – and the solution is Time v3.