Via WorldChanging: What will it take to restructure our economy into a system that promotes the well-being of individuals and the environment, while encouraging a voluntary decrease in superfluous consumption? This issue is tackled in a new book by Jules Peck and Robert Phillips, Citizen Renaissance, introduced by Julia Levitt: “Peck and Phillips posit that… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2008"
Open Gaming: status report
“Computer gaming seems to be very popular among F/LOSS communities: as of October, 2008 the SourceForge repository shows 29,831 game projects. Software developed in these communities includes role-playing games, simulation games, Multi User Dungeons, first person shooters, arcades, and board/card/strategy games. SourceForge’s activity rank shows that among the 100 most active projects, 7 belong to… Continue reading
Jumping straight to post-literacy
Institute of the Book writer Dan Visel visited India, reading a book on Indian book publishing on his way, and was struck by the following passage from Mohini Rao, which tackles the possibility of jumping straight from pre-literate abilities (and problems), to post-literacy and its attending problems. “India is a country of extremes and contrasts… Continue reading
Creation of a Brussels Unofficial P2PFoundation FanClub
Dante- Gabryell Monson has created a Brussels Unofficial P2PFoundation FanClub on Facebook. I’ve always resisted the temptation to create yet another vehicle, as it is already hard enough to maintain wiki, blog, ning community and the various mailing lists, and I did not see the advantages of duplication. But done on a local basis, it… Continue reading
The Open Cafe, a way to live Peer-to-Peer locally
The Open Cafe was formed to create instant community by anyone, anywhere as effortlessly as possible. A wiki page on the web represents a Cafe location in your physical area. It can start by talking with friends, meeting at a local park once a week, and eventually opening daily as a Cafe in a commercial… Continue reading
Google/Publisher’s settlement may be a disaster for U.S. public libraries
The impact of the settlement will likely deliver the ultimate death knell to the already struggling public library institutions, writes IPgrll in her blog. And in a separate but similar analysis further below, Wade Roush says it’s not just libraries that are losing, but readers in general. Read her entry in full for an analysis… Continue reading
How cell phones could break the money monopoly
An older contribution by Douglas Rushkoff on how mobile phones can break the money monopoly, but with renewed significance in this period of financial meltdown: “Handheld wireless technology stands ready to enable what’s known as the “complementary currency” movement in ways so powerful that the dominance of national currencies such as the dollar and the… Continue reading
Franz Nahrada on the revival of networked rural hubs in Europe
An update on Franz Nahrada’s Global Village activities: This is a record of two conversations taking place over email, and which give a good idea of what is going on around rural revitalisation in Europe. 1. Conversation with Alexander Rield of Civinis Recently, a mail exchange was started by Alexander Riedl of Civinis, a networker… Continue reading
Democratization of Knowledge, P2P alternatives and more in Ecuador
I asked Marco Fioretti of the Italian Digifreedom to report on the congress on free software and education that we both attended as speakers in Quito, Ecuador, and which was organized and hosted by the Salesian teaching order, who preferentially work with the children of the poor. Before I leave it to Marco to report… Continue reading
The importance of neotraditional approaches in the reconstructive transmodern era
I wrote this for a international conference on Buddhist Economics. The 2nd International conference of the Buddhist Economics Research Platform will be held at Ubon Ratchathani University, Warin Chamrab, Ubon Ratchathani Thailand Dec. 5-7, 2008. The topic of the mini-essay, which is of course rather long for a blog posting is: is there any possible… Continue reading
Michael Wesch on Anti-Teaching
Teaching is about providing good information. Anti-teaching is about inspiring good questions. An excerpt from a contribution to the Savage Mind anthropology blog. Michael Wesch: “Teaching is about providing good information. Anti-teaching is about inspiring good questions. Since all good thinking begins with a good question, it struck me that if we are ultimately trying… Continue reading
Launch of Open Science mailing list
Via the Open Knowledge Foundation: “After discussions with Cameron Neylon of Open Wetware and Kaitlin Thaney of Science Commons we set up an open science mailing list. As far as we could tell, there wasn’t a general mailing list for people interested open science. Hence the new list aims cover this gap, and to strengthen… Continue reading
Low energy lifestyle lessons from Cuba
I watched the first fourteen minutes, nothing on Cuba yet, but this is a fascinating presentations on what needs to be done to have a sustainable economy.
Personal Fabrication for Dummies
In the article, Personal Fabrication for Dummies: 10 different techniques are explained and shown in video illustrations. Examples, with linked company sites, are given for each technique. The articles discusses: 3D Scanning, Cut and Sew Construction; CNC Embroidery ; CNC Milling ; Direct to Garment Printing ; Print On Demand ; 2D Plotter Cutters ;… Continue reading
Not just a financial crisis but a crisis of the system as a whole
Very clear exposition by by Professor Rick Wolff, Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts – given in Amherst on October 7, 2008, from a Marxist point of view. Capitalism Hits the Fan: A Marxian View from UVC-TV 19 on Vimeo.
Will Australian hyper-politics defeat censorship legislation?
In my presentations, I often present the three laws of asymmetrical competition, which drawing on the hyperproductivity of peer production, predicts that proprietary for-profit companies will lose whenever they are faced with an open business ecology drawing on a peer producing community. The same argument has been made by Mark Pesce concerning politics and he… Continue reading