In the age of cheap facts, we now inhabit a world where knowing something is possible is practically the same as knowing how to do it. Cory Doctorow, in the science fiction magazine Locus. Excerpt: “Invention is now a lot more like collage than like discovery. Bruce Sterling’s new Imaginary Inventions project is seeking to… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2009"
Updating our insights on the deepening meltdown
I haven’t covered meltdown related issues for a while. Here are a few must-read items, followed by a summary of John Hagel’s new report outlining some of the underlying changing fundamentals in the form that capitalism is taking. The first must-read is Matt Taibbi’s essay which appeared in Rolling Stone, about the pernicious role that… Continue reading
The Switch to Local Manufacturing
Good summary by John Robb: (of course, I fundamentally disagree with the first premise, that people will by designs, rather, I believe they will share the designs and pay only for the adaptation and for the finished product, as is now the case with open source software and hardware) John Robb: “It is likely that… Continue reading
Open source hardware and entrepreneurship
David A. Mellis, co-founder of the Arduino open source hardware circuit boards, wrote the following in 2008, but it is still of interest. David Mellis: “Open-source hardware requires money. This fundamentally distinguishes the nature of its participants from those of open-source software. In open-source software, the fundamental contributor is the developer, many of whom collaborate… Continue reading
Coming food crises and falling states
As many of my readers already know, I now teach in a Thai business university in Bangkok, i.e. Dhurakij_Pundit_University, where I work with and for Richard Hames at the Asian Foresight Institute. Richard recently forwarded a disquieting article in his Plaxo blog, from Lester Brown, one that you cannot afford not to read. Lester Brown:… Continue reading
Reporting on the Crottorf Consultations on the Global Commons
Two weeks ago, I participated in a great four-day long conversation on the Future of the Commons. One of the participants, Andreas Exner, reports on the content, but most of all the ‘commoning’ magic, of this encounter in the German mountains and the wonderful historic castle of Crottorf. (version with internal links at the original… Continue reading
Russia and the next long wave
Full title of an article just published in Russian: Russia and the next long wave, and why its agricultural villages are important By Michel Bauwens, http://p2pfoundation.net, May 25, 2009 Introduction Here is a text I just wrote with the assistance of Franz Nahrada and Gleb Tyurin, a later version of which has been translated into… Continue reading
The pope and the ethical economy
Here are excerpts from the Pope’s latest encyclic, Caritas in Veritate, from: – CHAPTER THREE FRATERNITY, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY Pope BENEDICT XVI: 34.“Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of gift. Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which often go unrecognized because of a purely consumerist and… Continue reading
Wikipedia and Google
We all know the famous saying attributed to Jimmy Wales: “If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist”. It originates in a New Yorker article on Wikipedia. What is less known is that the Wikipedia founder was apparently was not in fact advocating that online sources are the only ones that matter, but, rather, something… Continue reading
Pope Benedict’s encyclical denounces excessive assertions of IP rights in knowledge
Via KEI online: “Pope Benedict XVI today issued a statement saying that “On the part of rich countries, there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care.” The criticism came in a section of his most recent encyclical letter… Continue reading
Microgrids more efficient than large national electric superhighway?
An interesting Fast Company article starts with a description of a typical renewable energy project in California, that uses a centralized mindset (the Green Path North). It writes that: “There’s nothing especially efficient or high tech about heavy-duty aluminum-steel cables; “line loss” — the power lost during transmission — runs as high as 10% on… Continue reading
Toward a Public Alternative in Digital Archiving and Search
Is there an alternative to the Google search monopoly? Frank Pasquale: With inimitable clarity, Cory Doctorow made the case for an open alternative to Google in The Guardian earlier this month. He focused on the secrecy of search: Search engines routinely disappear websites for violating unpublished, invisible rules. Many of these sites are spammers, link-farmers,… Continue reading
Participation Camp Report
Democracy is a game in which we all make the rules. How do we make this serious game more inclusive, more fair, and more fun? This was the core question of Participation Camp <http://participationcamp.org>, an unconference organized in New York City on June 27th and 28th. The scene for conferences and unconferences around Open Government… Continue reading
Freeters and their political impact
A contribution by Andy Robinson: “A Freeter (“a Japanese expression for people between the age of 15 and 34 who lack full time employment or are unemployed, excluding homemakers and students” – Wikipedia). Although the Japanese have coined a term for the group, they exist all over the world, and are a social force of… Continue reading
Search Engine Secrecy and the Public Sphere
The following was published before the U.S. election, but the arguments are still up to date. Frank Pasquale: Should we worry about search engine bias? Consider some Republicans’ fears that Google, a culturally liberal company, is skewing search results to favor Barack Obama and marginalize the right. Fox News yesterday reported conservative discontent at Google’s… Continue reading
Peter Sunde on the Pirate Bay sale
TorrentFreak interviews one of the PB founders on the controversial sale to a private company. Interview excerpts: “It’s been nearly a week since the sale to GGF was announced so TorrentFreak took the opportunity to catch up with departing Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde to look back at the last few turbulent days and to… Continue reading