tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51636616642328155642010-09-01T06:28:47.191-07:00Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-30777547545320906132010-06-16T18:15:00.000-07:002010-08-18T02:12:46.452-07:00

Humblefactory founder Dominic Muren has been named a 2010 TED Global fellow for his work on open manufacturing! I can't wait to get this group of fellows and TEDsters from around the world thinking about the possibilities of a truly open, shareable, flexible manufacturing infrastructure! Even cooler, Neil Gershenfeld, author of FAB and head honcho of Digital Fabrication at MIT's Center for Bits

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-82267946080750920672010-08-18T01:47:00.000-07:002010-08-18T02:11:56.303-07:00

Humblefacture might sound like a great idea, with two conditions. First, it will be possible in the future, but not now. And second, it only works for things like furniture, and maybe bikes, but nothing complex. In fact, the principles of Humblefacture can be applied to even the most complicated types of products, and using existing fabrication technologies. A perfect example of this is how the

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-87674996502172159042010-02-15T17:29:00.000-08:002010-02-17T08:52:34.826-08:00

A couple weeks back, I gave a talk at the Dorkbot Seattle chapter meeting about the ecosystem of digital manufacturing. You can check out the video of the event below. You can also check out the slides, and links for the presentation in this previous post. Click through for part two after the break.

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-9077225055114213762010-02-13T12:24:00.000-08:002010-02-13T12:34:13.586-08:00

  Last week, I gave a talk to Seattle's local Dorkbot contingent. The meeting was awesome: around 90 dorks, all ages and backgrounds, all talking fab. What more could you want? The talk was about the state of the Digital Fabrication Ecosystem today, and I think that this topic is hugely important to the development of Humblefactories in the future, particularly because digital fabrication

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-23344175495980357762010-01-12T20:11:00.000-08:002010-01-13T00:06:37.245-08:00

Seems like every week there is some new type of punk steering aesthetics or technology. From punk rock, to post-punk, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, even Biopunk, these gritty ways of life have tried to gain your interest and allegiance. Humblefacture, thought also an ethos which could result in a distinctive styling of product, will hopefully escape the fadish fadings of these movements. But in order to

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-18232091045140807232009-12-17T23:08:00.000-08:002009-12-17T23:09:29.554-08:00

Make magazine is the Jefferson or Lenin of the open hardware movement, and this week, they didn't disappoint with an end-of-year roundup of open source hardware projects. Make has always emphasized the fun side of making, so as you can imagine, the list is more about blinkeys and videogames than real marketplace game-changers, but there are some gems in the mix. Perhaps the most exciting of the

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-92156654547656372462009-11-28T01:58:00.000-08:002009-11-28T01:58:39.299-08:00

What can a puzzle that is not really a puzzle teach us about the future of product design? Actually, maybe a lot. The above image shows a Jigazo puzzle -- like so many things, only available in Japan -- which has been assembled to display the face of a child. This isn't anything special, since puzzles already are able to faithfully depict any face, or any other image, for that matter. What makes

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-62168340450451561972009-09-24T15:51:00.000-07:002009-11-22T22:02:31.888-08:00

Maybe it's the smell of pencils and college-ruled paper in the air, but politicians in the U.S. are going positively education-crazy. Arne Duncan, education secretary, gave an interview and speech disclosing radical overhauls of our current "No Child Left Behind" policy. President Obama urged students to stay in school, and work hard to learn the skills that would help them compete in a global

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-6273546233998199552009-09-15T17:26:00.000-07:002009-11-22T22:02:05.113-08:00

You may have read that Dr. Norman Borlaug passed away over the weekend. He was an incredible scientist, and gave modern agriculture (and society) the core of technologies that allowed it to grow into what it is today. This afternoon, I was emailed this message from the Breakthrough Institute, to who's newsletter I subscribe. I thought that this email demonstrated a number of key errors and

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-58674517239019786332009-08-15T10:59:00.000-07:002009-11-22T22:00:01.787-08:00

There is a persistent dream (or self delusion) among eco-minded product designers that somehow, manufacturing before the industrial revolution was "better"; Cottage industry was safer, or cleaner, or fairer, or used fewer resources -- or all of the above. Often, this ideal is backed up with anecdotes of textile mills replacing home-spinners, or IKEA replacing cabinet makers. Certainly, these

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-1757641850312000582009-08-12T22:52:00.000-07:002009-11-22T21:59:25.505-08:00

It's all well and good to say that making is speech. It is something else entirely to work toward truly "free" making -- a goal made more difficult by the fact that the primary "oppressors" of freedom of making are systemic and economic, rather than individual or governmental. Simply making a law, like we did for speech, won't work. Instead, we need to identify new methods and research directions

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-44425202044020369032009-07-13T17:42:00.000-07:002009-11-22T21:58:35.653-08:00

Our readers in the United States will have recently spent a weekend evening grilling, relaxing, and lighting off fireworks in celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents if the United States. Along with The Constitution, and its amendments, collectively the Bill of Rights, this document served to align and direct the efforts of the newly born

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-37104513447007664992009-05-15T22:35:00.000-07:002009-11-22T21:53:57.662-08:00

Wired Magazine had a recent Op-Ed from excellent Human Landscapes blogger and scientist Erle Ellis (he also directs the Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology at the University of Maryland. The article -- "Stop Trying to Save the Planet" -- seems great from the outset, right in line with Humblefacture's ideals, particularly in passages like this one: And it’s time for a “postnatural”

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-51774726070024616972009-03-03T17:03:00.000-08:002009-11-22T21:53:09.261-08:00

We humans have it pretty good. Blessed by evolution's wheel of fortune with binocular vision, seriously honkin' brains, and opposable thumbs, we've turned ourselves into the uncontested tool leaders of the animal world. Those tools enhance our capabilities more than any claws, fur, or antennae could. We move faster, fly higher, change the courses of rivers and even affect the temperature of the

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-21605759172323358402008-12-29T09:50:00.000-08:002009-11-22T21:52:47.549-08:00

What is the difference between a sweater and a pile of yarn? Nothing is added to the yarn to make a sweater; the yarn weighs the same before knitting as after. Yet the sweater is obviously different than the pile. The energy of knitting might seem to be the difference, but we could make make just as many random knits in the yarn -- expending the same energy -- and end up with a knotty pile of

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-24081050400224140492008-12-22T21:21:00.000-08:002009-11-22T21:52:14.119-08:00

Localism is precious. American Apparel's "locally made" t-shirts command a premium and are worn by hipsters the world over. "Locavore" has joined the ranks along with "vegan" and "vegetarian", and even has the approval of Oxford's. Local production has huge benefits, from reducing energy required in transport, to allowing consumers to form connections with their producers, to limiting negative

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-12536652263165913522008-12-16T10:25:00.000-08:002009-11-22T21:51:54.280-08:00

Pick up something off of your desk. That something was manufactured -- made -- using a process or series of processes. Maybe it was carved out of wood, cast in metal, or fired in ceramic. More likely it was molded in plastic or assembled by a robot in a pick-and-place electronics assembly line. Manufacturing and manufactured objects define our cultures and resource usage strategies, and influence

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-83506809562467589992009-08-24T12:25:00.000-07:002009-08-24T13:33:21.335-07:00

In the lead-up to the last presidential election in the United States, Tom Brokaw asked Thomas Friedman about what it would take to make real green energy a reality in the united states. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the EconomySpecifically, Brokaw asked whether we need a "manhattan project, or 100,000 garages", referring to the way the problem might be approached.

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-26375486100477795652009-08-17T18:51:00.000-07:002009-08-17T19:22:57.457-07:00

All this talk about fabricator tools has got me fired up about exploring some fabrication of my own, potentially using a Makerbot, or a send-away service like Shapeways. Though these aren't close to fully humble methods of making, they are useful steps to master on the path to a true humblefactory. As free cad packages go, Google's Sketchup is pretty great. You have decent control over meshes,

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-17182355447215833782009-07-14T23:35:00.000-07:002009-07-31T19:45:12.097-07:00

Salon has a great review of Ellen Ruppel Shell's new book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. The Salon piece, by Stephanie Zacharek, looks particularly at design giant IKEA, and the real costs of using low cost as the metric by which we judge all value in products. IKEA is a good case for exploration, because on the one hand it is so well loved (compared, say, to Walmart), while on the

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-50877762529928944932009-07-21T16:25:00.000-07:002009-07-31T19:42:51.538-07:00

The Colony, the newest project from Original Productions (creators of Deadliest Catch, among others) presents a group of "survivors" with the task of rebuilding civilization in the face of a viral plague and massive infrastructure breakdown. Realistically, it seems like junkyard wars with a slightly campy storyline (there are gangs of motorcycle thugs who periodically harass the group, among

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-38957889329916868012009-07-31T18:01:00.000-07:002009-07-31T19:40:45.910-07:00

Humblefacturing the future has positive implications for all kinds of things, from improving economic stability, to greater personal freedom. But one more crucial added bonus of working toward a more humble, visible, local way of making will be the effect on the people involved in that making. In the recent bestselling book "Shop Class as Soulcraft", author Matthew Crawford explores the real

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-28280164056819439782009-05-08T19:18:00.000-07:002009-05-08T19:31:08.940-07:00

I gave a talk introducing Humblefacture to the world at last week's Ignite Seattle conference. You can see the video of the talk above, and link to the slides on slideshare here. The manifesto has since grown by at least one point, and a thorough exploration of the ins and outs of defining this movement is forthcoming, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we at Humblefacture would love to hear any

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-28270157181972126772008-11-16T22:43:00.000-08:002009-04-12T22:48:03.730-07:00

Dominic received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, and a Master's Degree in Industrial Design from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He has worked as a toy inventor at Meyer/Glass Design, architectural systems researcher at Kieran Timberlake Associates, and most recently, as product designer at Michael Graves Design Group. He has also

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5163661664232815564.post-8533530401925681512009-04-09T18:32:00.000-07:002009-04-12T10:34:56.146-07:00

Fellow humility advocate Jamais Cascio at the Institute for the Future has written a great article on future economies of resilience. It got us thinking: what makes for resilient making? Resilience means sacrificing some efficiency in order to have reserves and flexibility so that when circumstances change, instead of collapse, a system can sustain itself long enough so that it can change. In

Dominic Murenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18268620780873177982noreply@blogger.com0