An interesting round table discussion from the e-STAS: Symposium on Technologies for Social Action held in Málaga, Spain, on March 26-27th, 2009, posted on the blog of Ismael Peña-López. Read the whole post here to see the Q&A Round Table, Conducted By Ismael Peña-López, Open University Of Catalonia John LeSieur, People CD It’s out of question… Continue reading
Date archives "March 2009"
Regression and progression as responses to the crisis
Jeff Vail: I have little doubt that some vestige of the state will remain for the foreseeable future. However, in terms of geography, penetration, and time, the reach and control of the state will increasingly be limited. It will present voids in these various dimensions that will be filled by other power structures. And that’s… Continue reading
Barcelona discussion on the role of the new hybrid centres for art, science and technology
Art, science and technology are intertwined in new hybrid centres, in light of the “new culture” generated by the network society. This is the idea which will be discussed in “Networks, Nodes and Bridges”, part of the Now Festival which takes place this week in the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). At 19:00… Continue reading
Alarming energy inefficiency in new manufacturing
Under the rubric, “we are not yet making progress”, this is an important study in the context of distributed manufacturing and the need for a steady-state economy. David Chandler: “Modern manufacturing methods are spectacularly inefficient in their use of energy and materials, according to a detailed MIT analysis of the energy use of 20 major… Continue reading
Predatory power after the meltdown
John Robb: “A central theme of this blog over the last five years has been that nation-state is caught in the grip of two aggressive groups of super-empowered global guerrillas — the global barons of financial capitalism attacking from above and tribes/gangs/terrorists thrusting from below. The results of the early returns indicate that the nation-state… Continue reading
Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary shake-up
Polly Curtis, education editor of the Guardian, wrote yesterday about new plans for primary education in the UK highlighting • New curriculum will give teachers more freedom • Second world war and Victoria not compulsory Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary… Continue reading
P3P, the new Holy Grail of online content?
Citilab published a post today about the implications of the P3P protocol: P3P is a protocol which permits websites to declare the use of information which they collect about the users who visit them, and is designed to give users more control about personal information when using the Internet. P3P was developed by the World… Continue reading
The participatory way to food for all
Via Dave Pollard: Frances Lappé describes a simple initiative in Belo Horizonte, Brasil that eradicated hunger and reduced poverty by making adequate and healthy food a right for all, and then acting accordingly. Excerpt from Frances Lappé: “To begin to conceive of the possibility of a culture of empowered citizens making democracy work for them,… Continue reading
Places to Intervene in the Meltdown process
Thanks to Dave Pollard for this crucial reminder: “Dana Meadows published what is probably her most famous work, Places to Intervene in a System, in 1997. In that article, she listed, in reverse order from least to most effective, the ten ways (later expanded to twelve) to bring about change in an organization, group, project,… Continue reading
How the EU is bargaining away the Internet
Monica Horten writes on the IPTEGRITY.com website: Political deals are being done which remove users rights to distribute Internet content, impose conditions on Internet access and which could permit broadband providers to limit access to a specified list of websites or a premium paid-for Internet. Net neutrality, and millions of Internet businesses, are under threat… Continue reading
Freeing Yoga from both tradition and enclosure
It’s … a collective, mutable practice that has neither a specific point of origin nor a single, static form. In essence, then, it’s owned by everyone who practices yoga, and it’s also owned by no one. And it’s certainly not owned by Beverly Hills Bikram Choudhury or 200 cataloguing experts in India. The above quote… Continue reading
Transforming the Relationship Between Citizens and Government: Making Content Findable Online
Vanessa Fox writes today on O’Reilly Radar: “The most important feature government web sites can add isn’t really feature at all. But it would absolutely transform the relationship between citizens and government and make an amazing array of public data available. What’s this magic feature? Make government web sites search engine friendly.” Read the full,… Continue reading
Open Money systems are not about market making
Yesterday, I presented the insights and projects of Eric Harris-Braun, who is working on a meta-currency platform. I already knew Eric as the author of a wealth typology, which explains the urgent need for wealth acknowledgement systems that can recognize the kind of not-directly monetizable wealth that is created by open communities, driven as they… Continue reading
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Announces Availability of Schedule and Route Data
DIYcity has posted: WMATA just announced the availability of its schedule and route information on its website: http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/developer_resources.cfm The Metro webite explains on a page called Developer Resources: Metro has resources available for developers to build their own mobile apps. Download our official schedule data in the open Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) or get… Continue reading
HEALTHCAMP PHILADELPHIA 2009
From the HealthCamp Philadelphia website WHAT IS IT? HealthCamp is a new kind of healthcare conference, an “un-conference”, where participants make the agenda. HealthCamp is about putting Web technologies, open standards, mobile and social media, and process innovation to work for better healthcare and health technology. It brings health providers, health industry experts and technology… Continue reading
Open Money as a necessary next step for democracy
To me it is crystal clear that a single form of currency, debt-issue federal currency, cannot represent the varieties of wealth that we must be able to acknowledge to thereby guide our activities as a global civilization. Just below is a brilliant argument by open money designer Eric Harris-Braun, summarized in a graph: To understand… Continue reading