Date archives "April 2009"

Defining the core principles of P2P-based collaboration

A message from Ryan Lanham, announcing a new project which attempts to define the core collaborative principles of p2p: “The project relates indirectly to the partnership Michel Bauwens announced early this April in association with the University of Hull as coordinated by Athina Karatzogianni. I contended, somewhat cynically, that universities do not know how to… Continue reading

Cooperatives more resilient in the meltdown

Via the Solidarity Economy blog, with Hagen Henry, chief of the ILO’s Cooperatives Branch: “ILO Online: Why does the ILO promote cooperatives? Hagen Henry: The ILO views cooperatives as important in improving the living and working conditions of women and men globally as well as making essential infrastructure and services available even in areas neglected… Continue reading

Hack-Up.org

Hack-Up is an informal meeting for people sharing a common passion for technology and hacking devices. It works like this: people propose different ideas and groups are self-assembled. Each group has to develop a project in 4 hours. All projects are published in an open wiki allowing anybody to use or implement them. No long… Continue reading

Citizen reporting in Quebec

Lyne Robichaud: “Zonegrippeaviaire.com, based in Quebec, Canada, is a DIY story (I suppose in French we would say «Débrouille-toi-tout-seul». This site, run by common citizens, provides open information about pandemic surveillance. Quebec Government hired the firm BCP – among several projects – to set up a secret ‘Pandemic Watch Portal’, only accessible to 20 officials… Continue reading

Failing business models for user-generated content

With Adam Arvidsson, I have outlined on several occasions the Crisis of Value facing capitalism, because the exponential rise in use value production (value produced by ourselves, outside of a market setting), is outpacing the linear capability of monetizing them. A special subcase of this concerns the proprietary platforms, only Google being an exceptional case… Continue reading

The new reality of statelessness: the state form is becoming a burden

Jakub Grygiel has written a very cogent “John-Robb-ian” essay at the Hoover Institution, written from the standpoint of power itself. It’s main thesis is that the state form is no longer something that is being aspired to by the new type of insurgents, whether they are worldchangers or criminal organizations. A must read, some brief… Continue reading

Transitioning, resilience, and participation in Sandpoint, Idaho

John Robb comments and quotes from a long reportage on the Transition Town movement, based on the experience of Sandpoint in Idaho, stressing the participatory aspects of the process. John Robb: “the real value of the Transition Towns approach isn’t its emphasis on energy descent (which may neither be sufficient nor ultimately valuable for resilience),… Continue reading

A culture critique of the primitivist wing of the permaculture movement

Eric Hunting in the Open Manufacturing discussion list: “Permaculture is a valuable and practical technology whose inspiration probably has its roots (pun intended…) in Taoist gardening and cultures like that of the Chagga tribes of the south-eastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro where, until recent times, the purposeful concerted co- cultivation of nearly a thousand plant… Continue reading