Read First Before Buy The Toaster Project Appliance ebook
The essential premise behind Thomas Thwaites' The Toaster Project is that in this modern world of ours, we take a lot for granted. Like toasters, for instance.
The 20-something Thwaites decided to create a toaster from scratch for a college project. And by "from scratch", I mean going all the way back to the raw materials from the earth. He used as his model a toaster from a local department store in England that cost the consumer just under four British pounds, or around six American dollars. Deconstructing this toaster, he determined what the various parts were made of, and set out to mine and refine the minerals and whatnot he would need to make his own. He set certain rules for himself to make the experience authentic, and had nine months in which to complete it all. Along the way, Thwaites shares his project with numerous experts in the fields of mining and refining, as well as friend, relatives, and helpful drunks, meeting with various levels of enthusiasm. There is a toaster at the end of the book. I'll just leave it at that.
A fan of the late British sci-fi/humor writer Douglas Adams, Thwaites cites as part of his inspiration a quote from Adams' novel Mostly Harmless, wherein one of his main characters, a modern man from planet Earth, is dropped onto another world with only a very primitive civilization. At first, the man has big dreams of totally transforming these "backwards" people with the technology he knows from home. However, as Adams puts it, "Left to his own devices he [the modern man from Earth] couldn't even build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich, and that was it." Instead of becoming a great transformer for their society, the primitive people make him their official sandwich maker. I suspect many of us would be lucky to even get that title if put in a similar situation.
The Toaster Project was a fun, fast read. Thwaites manages to be consistently informative and funny, folding in his views on the consumer culture and its environmental impact without ever being preachy or long-winded. His humorous, self-deprecating style permeates the account, and the technical portions are never dry and boring. On top of it all, he makes you stop and think about all of our "stuff", where it comes from, the people and resources involved in creating it, and what happens to it when we are through. Thwaites posits that if we were actually paying what our possessions were truly worth in terms of the overall labor, transportation, environmental impact, etc involved in their creation, price tags would be much heavier. Even by his admittedly ramshackle accounting, his final version of a toaster cost nearly 1,190 British pounds, or 1,880 American dollars.
A book that will make you both chuckle and think, The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites is one I highly recommend.
One disappointment for me, a problem with the publisher and not the author, is that the photographs on my Kindle e-ink reader were distorted and nearly indecipherable. These photos were fair important in documenting the project. They looked fine in the Kindle Cloud app on my computer, however. Amazon, don't leave your e-ink reader users behind!
I am shop geek. I weld. I cast metal. I design and build electronic devices. I have machine tools that weigh more than your car.
BalasHapusAfter hearing about this book on NPR and reading a few reviews I bought it. I was prepared to read about a complete goof ball trying make a relatively complex device without any regard for the science and technology involved. Just some college guy downloading crap off the Internet and blowing up his Mom's microwave.
What I found was an informative, accurate, if brief, accounting of the experience by Mr. Thwaites.
In the spots where long boring technical passages could have been written, he spares the non-geek by stepping through them in pictures. He also does a nice job of bringing in a sense of the people he found who are stewarding what is left of old if not ancient mines. Other people too. College professors thinking hm a bit off, dismissive oil company reps, wise locals in distant pubs. The interleaving of people, the land, and the recreation of technology by one guy in London makes for a quick, fun, informative read.
You can follow Thomas Thwaites on his quest to find out if this statement is true when he decides to find out what it takes to build a $12 toaster from scratch.
BalasHapusOn face value, one would think this is only of interest to the obsessive engineer; it obviously is. However, the book also offers much to ponder about sociology and world economy -- and it's also an extremely fun read thanks to the author's humorous style.
A wonderful, well documented, eye-opening read. Highly recommended.
Before you hang out with makers (tinkers, artists, engineers, designers ) read this book first to catapult your imagination and jump start your own build it world!
BalasHapusI gave this book as a gift to my brother who is an engineer. I have yet to find anything he could not repair, restore or revamp. He is always called upon to fix things at my house! It seems in this disposable life, folks under-appreciate how things are made. I heard the author on NPR and immediately knew my brother would like this book, and he says he did. He mentioned that he found a huge technical error, not sure what that is, but he emailed the author, so time will tell who is right. (a betting person would go with Uncle Pete)
BalasHapus
BalasHapusThe essential premise behind Thomas Thwaites' The Toaster Project is that in this modern world of ours, we take a lot for granted. Like toasters, for instance.
BalasHapusThe 20-something Thwaites decided to create a toaster from scratch for a college project. And by "from scratch", I mean going all the way back to the raw materials from the earth. He used as his model a toaster from a local department store in England that cost the consumer just under four British pounds, or around six American dollars. Deconstructing this toaster, he determined what the various parts were made of, and set out to mine and refine the minerals and whatnot he would need to make his own. He set certain rules for himself to make the experience authentic, and had nine months in which to complete it all. Along the way, Thwaites shares his project with numerous experts in the fields of mining and refining, as well as friend, relatives, and helpful drunks, meeting with various levels of enthusiasm. There is a toaster at the end of the book. I'll just leave it at that.
A fan of the late British sci-fi/humor writer Douglas Adams, Thwaites cites as part of his inspiration a quote from Adams' novel Mostly Harmless, wherein one of his main characters, a modern man from planet Earth, is dropped onto another world with only a very primitive civilization. At first, the man has big dreams of totally transforming these "backwards" people with the technology he knows from home. However, as Adams puts it, "Left to his own devices he [the modern man from Earth] couldn't even build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich, and that was it." Instead of becoming a great transformer for their society, the primitive people make him their official sandwich maker. I suspect many of us would be lucky to even get that title if put in a similar situation.
The Toaster Project was a fun, fast read. Thwaites manages to be consistently informative and funny, folding in his views on the consumer culture and its environmental impact without ever being preachy or long-winded. His humorous, self-deprecating style permeates the account, and the technical portions are never dry and boring. On top of it all, he makes you stop and think about all of our "stuff", where it comes from, the people and resources involved in creating it, and what happens to it when we are through. Thwaites posits that if we were actually paying what our possessions were truly worth in terms of the overall labor, transportation, environmental impact, etc involved in their creation, price tags would be much heavier. Even by his admittedly ramshackle accounting, his final version of a toaster cost nearly 1,190 British pounds, or 1,880 American dollars.
A book that will make you both chuckle and think, The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites is one I highly recommend.
One disappointment for me, a problem with the publisher and not the author, is that the photographs on my Kindle e-ink reader were distorted and nearly indecipherable. These photos were fair important in documenting the project. They looked fine in the Kindle Cloud app on my computer, however. Amazon, don't leave your e-ink reader users behind!