Oolsi

October 25, 2005 1:35 PM

"We believe everything should be free!" Oolsi is a new zine about free tools, self-learning and living free. Won't somebody just make a new Whole Earth Catalog already?
posted by mingusmingus (31 comments total)

This just occured to me, about the Altoids Survival Tin. If you were trying to be frugal, wouldn't you be less likely to have a tin of Altoids around? Who are these fresh-breathed survivalists?
posted by VulcanMike at 1:45 PM on October 25, 2005

urban comandos of the dating scene? Watch as i use my swiss army pick up line generator?
posted by sourbrew at 1:47 PM on October 25, 2005

Oolsi isn't half as well-meaning nor as philosophical as the Whole Earth Catalog. Tips on how to free-load off Chinese businesspeople through deceit? Please. I'm with mingusmingus, bring back the Whole Earth already!
posted by tidecat at 1:54 PM on October 25, 2005

To pick nits...

Tips for Saving Gas... When approaching a light, take your foot off the gas and let gravity slow down the car down for you. You should try it, its amazing.

Erm. That's engine breaking. Gravity is certainly involved but I'm not sure of the fuel efficiency of this idea...
posted by Kiell at 2:06 PM on October 25, 2005

the oolsi post regarding the college degree is harder than it sounds because to get a degree from most universities you have to have completed something about 75% of your credits at that university. I don't see anyway to post a comment there, so i'm posting it here.
posted by wumpus at 2:06 PM on October 25, 2005

I remain nonplussed, though I appreciate the economy of the design of their site.
posted by Captaintripps at 2:13 PM on October 25, 2005

wumpus : "the oolsi post regarding the college degree is harder than it sounds because..."

Well, that, and:

A College Degree the Easy Way

...Work hard, excel in your classes

I don't think the author has noticed that hard is the opposite of easy.
posted by Bugbread at 2:19 PM on October 25, 2005

non•plussed |nänˈpləst| (also nonplused)
adjective
1 (of a person) surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react
posted by ijoshua at 2:25 PM on October 25, 2005

Emphasis on "confused", I'm sure. I say that because I am too.
posted by snsranch at 3:56 PM on October 25, 2005

That's not engine braking, you knob; it's coasting.

Engine breaking is done by downshifting.
posted by keswick at 3:56 PM on October 25, 2005

That's not gravity, you knob; it's friction.


Not the worst science mistake I've seen. Crackpots like IDists aside, I once had a realitor tell me the settling of the foundation of a house was due to the shift in tectonic plates.
posted by Smedleyman at 4:06 PM on October 25, 2005

That's not engine breaking. Unless your engine is breaking, it's engine braking. It is air resistance. Kind of a weak site, though.
posted by fixedgear at 4:10 PM on October 25, 2005

Engine braking is a result of the engine's compression. If you let off the throttle, the compression will still slow the engine down. This is usually done in conjunction with downshifting, which slows the car down mechanically, but the two are not one in the same.
posted by mullacc at 4:22 PM on October 25, 2005

I thought true engine braking was specific to specially equipped diesel engines - namely large trucks. Anything else is downshifting, compression and friction. I don't mind being corrected, however.


Bring back the Whole Earth Catalog! With so many new tools, it's high time for a new "Access to Tools" compendium. It doesn't even have to be a dead-trees version.

However, back when the Whole Earth Catalog was first published, there was a problem finding any of this stuff in the first place. There wasn't a consumer internet, much less personal computers in general. Libraries were stuffier places - with less of an anti-establishment free-information bent.

Now there's way too much information available and not enough organization or first-hand subjectivity - making something that is compiled like the Whole Earth Catalog even more relevant from the other side of the fence.

I would especially like to see an updated version of "The Kid's Whole Earth Future Catalog". So much stuff in that book was so spot on it's ridiculous. (Cell phones/communicators, fax machines, networked personal computers, new medical technology. Heck, they even had an article about instant messaging and text chats, complete with a sort of proto-emoticon language.)

Who do we call? Stewart Brand? Lee Felseinstein?
posted by loquacious at 4:49 PM on October 25, 2005

"one and the same"

pedantry is fun!
posted by flod at 4:51 PM on October 25, 2005

Sorry, that should be "The Kid's Whole Future Catalog".
posted by loquacious at 4:55 PM on October 25, 2005

Oh, c'mon flod! For all intensive purposes, it means the same thing.
posted by mullacc at 4:56 PM on October 25, 2005

You people are actually trying to drive me insane and into an early grave, aren't you? Suddenly the talking-head cliche of a "hail of bullets" sounds positively appetizing.
posted by loquacious at 5:00 PM on October 25, 2005

loquacious: Diesel engines actually have less engine braking ability, but because of the weight of the big deisel trucks a "jake" brake is added to enhance engine braking.

Sorry to link to a Hummer-related website, it makes me feel dirty. But also, it answers the question.
posted by mullacc at 5:00 PM on October 25, 2005

nonplused
posted by maryh at 5:03 PM on October 25, 2005

Jake Brake is a registered trademark of Jacobs Vehicle Systems. They might take exception to that Wiki article.
posted by fixedgear at 5:20 PM on October 25, 2005

Oh, c'mon flod! For all intensive purposes, it means the same thing.

Let's not beg the question of how far beyond the pail that mistake was. I've said my peace.

I actually have fond childhood memories of killing whole afternoons flipping through the Whole Earth Catalog. Pure hippie goodness.
posted by flod at 6:01 PM on October 25, 2005

"We believe everything should be free!"

Everything except the really good broadband connection you need to download all this shit I guess. And while a geodesic dome made of cardboard might not cost much it's also pretty worthless in the helping-you-live department.

And there's that damn Altoids tin again people! It's useless I tell you, useless.
posted by fshgrl at 7:19 PM on October 25, 2005

FPP was worth it by me. I hadn't heard of teleflip and may try it someday. Also, I'm now seriously thinking of taking a vacation to China.

I don't know about the whole earth catalog - I got all my hippie goodness from old editions of Foxfires I-IV
posted by prettyboyfloyd at 8:30 PM on October 25, 2005

Metafilter: pedantry is fun! couldn't resist.
posted by theora55 at 8:35 PM on October 25, 2005

this has potential--i hope it takes off.
posted by amberglow at 8:59 PM on October 25, 2005

mullacc: Thanks. You've actually answered a few questions I had with the humvee link and the engine braking info.
posted by loquacious at 9:54 PM on October 25, 2005

Re: Foxfire, from the Wikipedia link. "The magazine was named after foxfire, the bioluminescent glow sometimes seen in a forest."

Woah. I mean, woah. I've seen huge bioluminescent displays during "red tide" blooms in the Pacific Ocean, but I've never even heard about them happening in forests. Woah.
posted by loquacious at 9:59 PM on October 25, 2005

Loved the Whole Earth Catalog? See former WEC editor Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools site.
posted by Marky at 12:29 AM on October 26, 2005

engine breaking

you have to have completed something about 75% of your credits

one in the same

first-hand subjectivity

Woah

Let's not beg the question of how far beyond the pail that mistake was. I've said my peace.

Thank you, flod. Mefites, you're spelling and usage errers are apauling.
posted by scratch at 12:15 PM on October 26, 2005

"We believe everything should be free!"

Everything except the really good broadband connection you need to download all this shit I guess.

That may change soon:

A team of Stanford electrical engineers has discovered how to modulate, or switch on and off, a beam of laser light up to a 100 billion times a second with materials that are widely used in the semiconductor industry.

The group used a standard chip-making process to design a key component of optical networking gear potentially more than 10 times faster than the highest-performance commercial products available today.

The team reported its discovery in the current issue of Nature, which was published on Wednesday. Such an advance could have broad applications both in accelerating the already declining cost of optical networking and in potentially transforming computers in the future by making it possible to interconnect computer chips at extremely high data rates.

Engineers Report Breakthrough in Laser Beam Technology
posted by y2karl at 12:28 PM on October 26, 2005