Urban Ghosts

October 28, 2008 1 Comment Paul B. Hartzog read

In early 2008 at the University of Michigan, drawing on inspirations like www.spacing.org, www.talkingstreet.com, and Malcolm McCullough’s work on “networked cities”, Lauren Myers and I created a presentation/idea on “Urban Ghosts” which asks the question: How can we make visible in the landscape the invisible geography of loss? Our urban history is replete with buildings… Continue reading →

Cognitive Capitalism P2P Legal Dev. Peer Property

Debating copyright law in Giessen, Germany

October 28, 2008 No Comment Adam Arvidsson read

The morning discussion of the second day of the conference Das Internet. Zwischen egalitärer Teilhabe und ökonomischer Vermachtung, focused on Intellectual Property legislation. A qualified panel consisting of Professor Lawrence Solum, University of Illinois, John Henrik Weitzman, Creative Commons, Berlin, Alexander Peukert, Max Planck Institute and Giorgios Gounalakis, Universtät Marburg discussed the future of IP… Continue reading →

P2P Science

Open Genomes: voluntarily sharing your health data

October 28, 2008 1 Comment Michel Bauwens read

The International Herald Tribune reports on a research project where people share information about their personal genomes: the Personal Genome Project. Excerpt from a 3-page profile and report: PGP is “a study at Harvard University Medical School aimed at challenging the conventional wisdom that the secrets of our genes are best kept to ourselves. The… Continue reading →

P2P Education P2P Epistemology

The flattening of knowledge by the simulacrum of “information”

October 28, 2008 2 Comments Michel Bauwens read

Charles Hugh Smith, of the recommended Two Minds blog (October 18), has a review of what makes the web so positive as a human tool, but also covers the drawbacks. His main argument is that the use of the web requires deep knowledge, in order to sift through quality. C. Smith writes: “If you already… Continue reading →

Commons Open Standards P2P Action Items P2P Movements

Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network: Commons in the air…

October 27, 2008 No Comment Vasilis Kostakis read

Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN), launched in 2002, is a social, non-profit initiative that aims to connect people and services through the wireless technology in cooperation with educational institutions, state authorities and other wireless communities in Greece. The participation in AWMN’s network is open: it is a network of people for the people. According to its… Continue reading →

P2P Ecology

Open-Source Wind Farm Design Software

October 27, 2008 No Comment Michel Bauwens read

Via CleanTechnica: “”A New York software company has announced the scheduled release of its open-source wind farm design software. Albany-based AWS TrueWind designed the openWind software so that a range of end users, from individuals to wind energy developers, could apply and adapt the software their own particular set of data. The openWind application is… Continue reading →

P2P Action Items

Open Everything in London on November 6

October 27, 2008 No Comment Michel Bauwens read

From the organizer’s wiki: On 6 November 2008, London will host an Open Everything event, a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of ‘open’. The conversation will cover, well, everything. Qualifier: the ‘thing’ in question is built using openness, participation and self-organisation. There are people coming to talk about open technology, media, education,… Continue reading →

Open Hardware and Design

Thesis on Open P2P Design

October 27, 2008 No Comment Michel Bauwens read

The Italian student Massimo Menichinelli has put his excellent thesis online, in English and in a pdf format. You can find it here. Summary: “This short book represents a summed up and multilingual version of my thesis, and also as an introduction to the openp2pdesign.org website (with its 1.1 version). My research behind openp2pdesign.org, in… Continue reading →

P2P Governance

Update on the Bagley Wikipedia controversy

October 26, 2008 1 Comment Michel Bauwens read

A contribution by Zbigniew Lukasiak: “The wikipedia governance drama unfolds with new facts: I don’t know how should I treat The Register – is it a trustworthy source? The connection to the current financial crisis looks rather sensationalistic – but the alleged facts are interesting. Especially this: Though Bagley went to extreme lengths trying to… Continue reading →

Open Hardware and Design

Open hardware as the next wave

October 26, 2008 No Comment Michel Bauwens read

“In a sense, hardware is becoming much more like software, up to the point where you actually fabricate an object,” von Hippel says. “That’s why you’re starting to see open source techniques in hardware. Design is largely going to shift out from manufacturers to the communities.” To thrive in this next wave, hardware manufacturers will… Continue reading →

Open Standards

eBay should opensource Skype

October 26, 2008 2 Comments Michel Bauwens read

A call from Glyn Moody in Linux Journal: “So here’s a thought for eBay: why not open-source Skype and its protocols? There are many advantages. First, it would largely avoid nasty surprises of the kind that China provided (Skype said that the snooping occurred “without our knowledge or consent”.) It wouldn’t be possible to prevent… Continue reading →

P2P Theory Peer Production Videos

Most recent P2P lecture and video

October 26, 2008 1 Comment Michel Bauwens read

This one was done in Barcelona, Saturday October 11, for Citilab’s “UrbanLabs” conference. It’s a more explicitely political intervention than usual, thanks to the Wall Street crash.

P2P Movements

Practical advice on surviving a meltdown

October 25, 2008 1 Comment Michel Bauwens read

A contribution by Thomas Greco: “Mike Adams provides some pretty good advice on his website, NaturalNews.com. Take a look at his comprehensive special report, How to Build Your Financial Safety Net. The thing that’s missing in Adams’ report is how to protect a nest egg. How do you protect the value of the assets you… Continue reading →

Crowdfunding Open Hardware and Design Open Standards P2P Collaboration Peer Production Peer Property

Open Source Ecology Compressed Earth Block Proposal

October 25, 2008 1 Comment Sam Rose read

Marcin writes: We have released v0.1 of the OSE CEB Proposal, which is a summary of our product release plan for the CEB press. This helps put the entire CEB project in perspective to supporters. The abstract reads: Herein we provide a short overview of the Open Source Ecology (OSE) enterprise development model and deployment… Continue reading →

P2P Technology

DistriBrute: P2P Powered Desktop Deployment

October 25, 2008 No Comment Michel Bauwens read

Possibly significant for showing the commercial uptake of p2p-oriented technical solutions. Via Torrentfreak: “Keeping large networks up to date can be a costly practice. Large corporations or government institutions often need dozens, if not hundreds of servers to distribute updates and patches, for which they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.” More details:… Continue reading →

P2P Books P2P Governance P2P Hierarchy Theory

New book: Egalitarian and Hierarchical Impulses in Institution Building

October 25, 2008 2 Comments Michel Bauwens read

Book: Organising and Disorganising: A Dynamic and Non-Linear Theory of Institutional Emergence and its Implications. Dr Michael Thompson. Triarchy Press, 2008. Via the author, the following description, of what I think should be a very significant book from a p2p point of view: “Following his previous seminal work in this area (see panel on right),… Continue reading →