Bob

Bob,

Thanks for your response and interest, please excuse my hurried typo in the previous mail. Regarding our location Open Source Ecology exists exclusively on the web, but Factor E Farms where we currently set up shop is near Kansas City, Missouri. The farm is very much a work and experiment in progress, Marcin Jakubowski the founder purchased 40 acres of tired corn and soybean land a couple of years ago and has been building up his open source approach to sustainable living since then. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that Marcin has a PhD in Physics at UW-Madison in Nuclear Fusion. After becoming dissillusioned with current approaches to solving our energy solutions his thoughts evolved towards the concept of developing a fundamental set of easily reproducible technologies that address the basic needs of any simple society. He has dubbed this the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS).

Our progress so far towards this GVCS so far is documented in an on going series of videos we call distillations. All other information is also available on the wiki. To speed up the development of our technology set we are experimenting with a fundraising concept we call community supported manufacturing. Essentially we are asking the crowd at large who is interested in this technology to chip in $10/month for the next 2 years with the obligation that we will finish the the core technologies within this period. This concept has raised one or two of our readers eyebrows who think this sounds like an easy money scam. However we openly document every step of product development and where every dollar goes. Aside from a $100 per month per person overhead to supplement our food costs, it all is for purchase of materials and necessary capital to build the technologies. Furthermore not only will the supporters benefit by having their necessary technology be developed within a much quicker rate than our own funds allow, but also we will be offering all of our supporters discounted prices on assembled products and open use of the facilities that their dollars developed. This includes open use of the CNC machine shop and foundry and greenhouse.

In any case we fully embrace any feedback, postive or negative on our approach and we appreciate your time in reviewing our work.

Best Wishes, Nick Raaum

> Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 16:03:59 -0500 > From: jetpig@earthlink.net

> Hi Nick; > Thanks for writing. I'll check your blog out, and will see what I can > do to contribute some of my ideas and projects to your effort. I've > really like the experience of the Oil Drum, as an eclectic conversation, > but it would be REALLY nice to be able to develop some ideas and > knowledge in a format that lets the work be easily found and used by > many people, over and over. After a week, almost anything posted at TOD > is surely not seen by more than a few eyes.

> Best, > Bob Fiske > Portland, Maine