Open Source Ecology Forums

JackMcCornack

>Yeah...maybe you should retire. He seems to be looking
for "retired professionals.

I read that. In my latest request to work on the OS
Car (emailed direct to Marcin) I clamed to “…fit well with your current
recruitment strategy (with the sole exception of not being fully
retired--engineering is just too darn much fun to give it up completely).”
However, I’m deep in Retirement Emulation Mode; I have low standards of
financial success and have royalty payments trickling in from earlier design efforts,
so I’m free to chose work that I want to do. Some times it pays but it’s not a
prerequisite, and the majority of my output lacks a personal profit motive.

Joe Dominguez’ and Vicki Robin’s Your Money or Your Life is
a good read; their basic premise is that life is too valuable to spend it
earning money. I haven’t had a paycheck since the ‘70s, so maybe that qualifies me
as retired.

>I suggest running with the "open source" thing
and just doing whatever it is you want to do

Yep, that’s what I do, all right. Right now what I want to
do is support Open Source Ecology. I may not be a True Fan, but I am a True
Believer.

>Hell, maybe somebody will design a car and document the
process, and the knowledge gleaned from that experience can be used by whoever
marcin wants to use to engineer GVCS.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/blogs/blog.aspx?blogid=1500&tag=MAX

I hope that experience can be used by whoever Marcin chooses next to manage the OS
Car project. I never heard from the Project Manager who's listed in the wiki, but he seems to have been
inactive since April 2011 so maybe there's someone else waiting in the wings.

>Just get out and do it, people! There's no reason to
wait for anybody's permission.

Depends on what “it” is. I’ve offered to design and build
Marcin an OS Car prototype to GVCS specs, but the car specs on the wiki are all
over the place. On one page it gets 100+ mpg, on another page it’s a leaning trike, on another page it’s driven by a
modern steam Power Cube, but the steam
engine specs are all over the place too and one target is a 3' x 3' x
4' Steam Power Cube…and where do you put that in a tandem trike and retain “The two
main benefits of the reverse trike design are lower cost and weight due to one
less wheel, and lower wind drag due to the rain drop shape of the body.”? Since
“it” is the car that Marcin wants, Marcin needs to define it before I “Just
get out and do it, people!”. I don’t need permission, but I’m not going to
spend 500 hours and fifteen grand building what I hope will satisfy Marcin
enough that he’ll pay me back for the parts.

I’ve more to say, but I await a response from Marcin re my
latest pitch, and it wouldn’t take much to Better Harness My Enthusiasm and get me off the grumpwagon. I'd rather talk about what's working, management-wise, than grouse about what's not.

Matt_Maier

How about we work together to refine the OS car requirements. It's been reinforced from several sources, at least one of which was Marcin, that while OSE is building a traditional hierarchical organization a key goal is still to not "own" the GVCS. They want it to be shaped by anyone interested in contributing.

The current shape of the GVCS is a scientific wild-ass guess, and that's being charitable. It covers far too large a group of disciplines for a couple people to clearly and coherently define all the requirements ahead of time.

I've never built my own car. Marcin's never built his own car. Practical high-mileage cars barely even exist as a thing. You are a high-mileage DIY car expert...at least as much of an expert as seems to be actively interested in the project. From my perspective, that makes your opinion on the OS car's specs more valid than anyone else's.

The wiki was specifically chosen because it's a group knowledge platform. Anyone who has something to contribute can contribute it. We don't even have to change what's already there. Just edit the main OS car page to direct people to Jack McCornack's definition of what the OS car should be and then work on that page. I guarantee your design will make far more sense than what's up on the wiki now, but the group can't agree on that, and use your definition, until it exists.

I'd like to work with you on it because I'm working on defining the modular building blocks for the whole spectrum of vehicles, from a 1-person car to a telehandler. Wikispeed is a great example of the benefits of designing a mehicle with modular components. I suggest we just start with a discussion and see if we can reach any kind of consensus.

danielravennest

@Matt - I am not waiting for anyone to give me permission, I just went ahead and built a drill press, and now am working on modular building panels (kind of slowly at the moment because it's winter and I don't have an indoor workshop space yet - that's what the panels are for). I would love to find other people in my area to work with, but OSE is pretty opaque on that subject. There are 540 or so trufans. Are any nearby me? Is there any way to find out, send a message to them? Not that I have found yet.

hafeez

I would love to see a thread for Open Source Car. I believe there is a website out there but the forum and documents section is inactive and throws error when you try to go to the links (http://www.theoscarproject.org/ ). If nothing else we can all learn a thing or two about it from Jack based on what his thoughts are on the design specifications. That in itself is a big enough reason to have that discussion.

JackMcCornack

Hafeez, that thread is now live--titled "2012 Specs for Open Source Car"--it's had a few views but no comments yet. I heard back from Marcin via Mark Norton (mjn) who also put up a wiki page, titled "Car/Kinetic Vehicles Proposal", and Matt_Maier has been active on its Discussion sub-page...but I think the forum is the easier format for quick conversation.

Matt_Maier

Do you mean one of these threads
http://forum.opensourceecology.org/categories/open-source-car

I can't comment on any of them. I dunno if they're closed to commenting or if I just don't have permission.

I'm not a fan of the way this forum works. I think the wiki is best for information that needs to be captured and a mailing group is best for transient information.

elifarley

@Matt_Maier, I've edited the OS car category permissions so that anyone can post.

JackMcCornack

My apologies, @Matt_Maier,I could have sworn I put that thread into General Discussions--and thanks for your comments and links on the Car/Kinetic Vehicles Proposal wiki page. I agree re wiki vs. forum for captured vs. transient info...the difficulty of editing the Discussion page on a wiki makes me far less spontaneous than I am in a forum.

elifarley

Jack, I've moved that discussion to the OS car category - please see my (publicly visible) comment regarding this on your comments tab: http://forum.opensourceecology.org/profile/1652/JackMcCornack

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JackMcCornack

Thanks elifarley, I missed your comment and thought I'd has a senior moment and posted on the wrong forum. To quote Woody Allen in Sleeper, "Not my brain! That's my second favorite organ!" Thanks also for making it possible for everybody to leave comments.

jesspinto

If it's open source, anyone can use it. And if you want to harness that, there is a way of tracking which members are doing what activity on the site.

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