About Us
Our mission is simple, our mission is YOU. To use art to bring you quality products featuring Science, Tech, Engineering and Mathematics (or Math if you are US-based 😊)! Alltheus (pronounced as ‘All-the-us’) is committed to producing items with unique designs that speak to your individual interest in STEM and/or celebrate people in STEM fields. To do so we review a range of media to provide informative backstories and links to material that inspire the designs.
It is our mission to enable you, STEM-loving people or people who love STEM-lovers (whether just low key affection or yell-from-the-rooftop STEAMY passionate STEM love / nerdiness / geekiness) to find the STEM products you deserve. And remember, a portion of all profits go to deserving causes that promote STEM.
Let us know your dearest STEM subject at Contact@alltheus.com
Alltheus came out of a desire to reconnect with and celebrate the amazing STEAMy output and the people whose work we experience every day in real world applications or through the many available media.
Alltheus aims then to produce quirky, humourous, interesting, thought-provoking & / or enjoyable designs inspired by their work and the shop offers them to you to wear, use, gift and share.
Ultimately our goal is to enable the evolution of the alltheus.com concept for a curated set of links to different STEAM-related material.
We also aim to donate a minimum of 10% of profits to support non-profit organisations who share a desire to enable those impacted by economic circumstances from using their talents fully to instead do so and thereby contribute to improving the next billion seconds. Our current favourite is: http://www.roomtoread.org/ whose vision closely matches our own namely “…envision a world in which all children can pursue a quality education, reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.”
“Brilliance is evenly distributed, opportunity is not” Ms Oluwatobi Otokiti, Technology Product Manager, Andela.com from BBC’s Digital Planet podcast
As a family business we value our privacy as much as you do so we won’t post pictures of our pet unicorn or tame alien. If you are genuinely interested in who we are then do please get to know us a little on our social media channels & / or reach out by email and we will be happy to get in touch personally.
Congratulations you’ve got this far - Subscribe and contact us at contact@alltheus.com to let us know you have read this far - just put “Read about” or similar in the title - and we will email you back a discount code. Just a heads up - most of our products include free standard shipping in the price.
But wait there’s more - Read on for the more complete story including where the name All-The-Us comes from.
Grab a drink, make yourself comfortable and read on :-)
The progress made in STEM fields in the last billion seconds (about 32 years) have been amazing. This has been less the result of politicians fevered imaginings of the benefits of targeted research and more the result of knowledgeable, committed and keen scientists and engineers using their discretionary energy to push the boundaries of what is possible to turn the impossible imaginings gradually into reality.
More troubling is the impact of our fossil fuel powered civilisation on our beautiful little pale blue dot over the same period and, whilst many have been lifted out of grinding poverty, the remaining enormous inequity of opportunity for the equally distributed talent across the human population.
Art always reflects contemporary society and its available tools. Now is no different as we see amazing synergies, interpretations and intersections of STEM and art to produce work that reflects and anticipates our STEAMy civilisation’s possibilities.
Now whilst Alltheus loves how STEAM enriches human lives we share concerns of many about the impact humanity is having on Earth’s commons, biosphere and biodiversity. We seek a better Spaceship Earth with greater recognition of its supporting complex systems that transcend bigotry and narrow national, sectional or hedonistic interests.
QUOTE: “It isn’t important in which sea or lake you observe a slick of pollution or in the forests of which country a fire breaks out, or on which continent a hurricane arises. You are standing guard over the whole of our Earth.” Professor Frances Arnold 2018 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry
Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) used to be intimately linked with Art (STEAM) per some interesting podcasts below:
(There is a great insight about being in the moment c31 min in and from about 46:30 min in Mr Alda references C P Snow’s two cultures of science and art).
We aspire then to grow a community of STEAM-loving people.
Some AllTheus customers and visitors may be experts in fields covered by the STEAM-related designs while others may be casual or committed “keen idiots” per the BBC’s Infinite Monkey Cage – we welcome you all!
Where Does the Name “AllTheus” Come From?
Have you ever looked up in awestruck, even numinous (look it up ☺), wonder at the heavens?
The Apollo 8 space flight first showed us our lovely blue marble Earth against the immense inky blackness of space rising over the lunar surface {and see The Day The Earth Smiled here}. It put our planet - our Starship Earth - into a vast, visual cosmic context. {See our Eco collection – “Be Wild And Love The World You’re On”}
Chris Hadfield (the Canadian astronaut who enthralled many with his cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity in 2013) outlined this perspective by contrasting the experience of a view inside a tall building versus being suspended outside the same building. Both Chris Hadfield and Dr Alexander Gerst (German astronaut) mentioned they started referring to everyone as “us” whilst in space - honouring our common humanity. Dr Gerst also noted a changed perspective of what the German word heimart (roughly equivalent to home although the German is richer) means.
Our precious planet is, according to Carl Sagan, where our hearts are. We all want some laughter, some grace, a better chance for us and our children as well as perhaps hope to understand the universe (or multiverse) a little better.
The Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell also encouraged a more global outlook saying “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that you son of a bitch.”
The Canadian astronaut Juliette Payette had a different response to seeing Earth albeit “just” from near Earth orbit:
Q: Did looking down on Earth change the way you view the world?
A: We get this question so much. People are hoping we’re going to say, “Yes.” I think it’s a myth. Most astronauts are very down-to-earth people. Many of us, three-quarters, have an engineering degree, and we have a very Cartesian, rational approach to things. You don’t go and get swept off your feet. That’s not your job and that’s not why you’re hired. So if you get so mesmerized that you forget to do what you’re supposed to do, whether it’s to open the cargo door of the space shuttle or configure something inside, then you should not be there as a professional operator.
When I saw the Earth from above, personally, as a spacecraft operator, it certainly reinforced and drove home the fact that there’s one place where we can live right now. The seven billion of us are sharing a wonderful planet, and it’s an absolute privilege to see it from above.”
This “us” is The-us: AllTheus is the past, present and future crew of Starship Earth.
At its widest it includes us all from the tiniest bacterium (sorry virus’s and prion’s - the court is still out on you!) to the largest blue whale and tree. AllTheus conveniently resonates with deus – we all carry our ‘god(s)’ inside us, around Starship Earth and through space-time as we live and travel!
Only a lucky few of AllTheus have enjoyed a panoramic view of Spaceship Earth from above and a smaller subset still seen Spaceship Earth shrink to a small disc. The fun aspects of space flight are being touted by Virgin Galactic and others.
The research, development and technology supporting space flight has many side benefits. Get a reward by emailing us a link or reference to your favourite space-derived invention at contact@alltheus.com.
Space programs almost by definition operate at the frontier of what is possible built on the contemporary accumulated knowledge and wisdom but that still needs new discoveries and knowledge to be developed to provide engineered solutions.
Economics frequently assumes perfect information and its frictionless information flow. The advantages of improved information collection, dissemination and analysis and, critically, cross-disciplinary collaboration still has huge societal upside. The potential for the internet and other social, scientific and technical advances to reduce the frictional costs of data collection, information formation and collaborative sharing in a more complete way arguably far exceeds that consequent to the introduction of printed books, electricity or fertilisers. Arguably too a big benefit is the more intangible aspirational energy and excitement driving new discoveries, methods and ideas.
It is unfortunate then that Science, Technology, Engineering and supporting Mathematics (STEM) subjects seem unpopular with many of today’s students and even some teachers. The false perception that STEM subjects do not require creativity and a perception that art mixes poorly with STEM disciplines is tragic. A STEAM powered societal revolution will be even more enriching than art or STEM alone. Some green shoots do thankfully signal a gradual change in attitudes.
It is even more tragic to think of how many Einstein-like intellects we have failed to enable to reach their potential given our failure to provide global access to effective and efficient education resources. How many problems remain unresolved because of this underdevelopment and poor usage of the capabilities of Starship Earth’s human crew? We measure the costs of education but not the costs of ignorance.
Join us on the journey by following our website and/or following us on Facebook, Instagram & / or on Twitter @alltheusonlbd (Alltheus On Little Blue Dot) or even if you don’t do please consider donating to www.roomtoread.org.