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Thomas Thwaites

Designer Thomas Thwaites is attempting to make an electric toaster from scratch; digging up the raw materials at various disused mines around Britain, processing and refining them in his back garden in south London, and forming them into components for his toaster.

He will talk about this journey, economies of scale, smelting iron in your microwave, alarming specialisation, the limitations of plastic made from potatoes, scale, and the history and possible futures of human society embodied in the electric toaster.

A shorter version of this talk is now available as a TED talk at How I built a toaster from scratch

 

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