Subtitled in english and worth watching: A Shift: a documentary on FabLab in The Netherlands. from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo. (via)
Date archives "June 2010"
Notes on a Plural Future Spirituality with Plural Identities
What a future religion may gain from this concept of “fluid gods”? By making the multiplicity the hallmark of perfection, such an ontology may provide narrative for a future psychology where the frontiers of the “body” and the self are increasingly blurred. This include of course, the idea of future uploaded superintelligences able to copy… Continue reading
Ethical Economy Summer School
+ info at http://www.societing.it/summerschool/
Icelandic Modern Media Initiative press release
On June 16th the Icelandic Parliament unanimously passed a proposal tasking the government to intoduce a new legislative regime to protect and strengthen modern freedom of expression, and the free flow of information in Iceland and around the world. There is full government support for the initiative and its objectives. Birgitta Jonsdottir, the chief sponsor… Continue reading
Henry Jenkins: defending the value of fan-based peer production
Excerpt from Henry Jenkins: “When we read reports of fans developing online reference works for Lost, say, there’s often a dismissive response that says they had too much time on their hands. I don’t want to undercut the value of this grassroots production of knowledge and culture on its own terms, but also want to… Continue reading
Commons-based Urbanism (2): introducing the Komunal approach
The Post-Capitalist city conference, mentioned yesterday, brought together a group of urbanist citizens and architects that favor a common land based approach to urbanism. They call this the Komunal approach and have a social charter highlighting its principles. Below the text, a list of groups that are related to the initiative. 1. The Komunal Charter… Continue reading
There is an alternative: “Coop Video”
Short video which features our friend Phoebe Moore: A video short of over 30 peoples views on what it means to be co-operative. Produced for Co-operatives Fortnight 2010 “There is an alternative”.
The Commons in a taxonomy of goods
Republished from January 2010, on the occasion of the launch of our new wiki section on Open and Free Business Models: The Commons has the potential to replace the commodity as the determining form of re-/producing societal living conditions. Such a replacement can only occur, if communities constitute themselves for every aspect of life, in… Continue reading
Secrecy is hurting drug research
This article outlines many examples of a change of heart at pharma, which is learning to share its research. Excerpt from Matthew Herper: “The big question in the drug industry is why nobody seems to be able to invent any new drugs. Big Pharma is going to lose billions of dollars to patent expirations over… Continue reading
Vinay Gupta: Changing the culture of violence and speaking truth to power
I found this to be a very very powerful lecture by our friend Vinay Gupta. It was given at the UNCIVILISATION, Dark Mountain Festival 2010 in Llangollen, Wales (29.5.2010). This in-depth interview by Dougald Hine on Vinay’s ideas is well worth reading. vinay gupta is reachable on twitter: @leashless
Open Source: Value Destruction vs. Value Creation
I would go so far as to say that very few open source startups will ever get anywhere near to $1 billion. Not because they are incompetent, or because open source will “fail” in any sense. But because the economics of open source software – and therefore the business dynamics – are so different from… Continue reading
P2P Urbanism (1): Three ways of exclusion, three ways of autonomy
We just recently discovered the work of the Croation Pulska Grupa, organizers of the post-capitalist city conference in 2009. Their take on the local situation widely transcends these limitations, as in the following text, which counterposes urban alienation and self-building autonomy. “Such political decisions created a precarious situation in which the population of the coastal… Continue reading
Policy proposals for making the public (wireless) airwaves more useful to the public
I would love to see a day come where we are no longer having to worry about whether we have capacity or whether we have a mobility, not just to connect from anywhere, but to connect in the most efficient and effective manner. Cell phones as an example, there is no reason, if you and… Continue reading
“2nd International Congress of E-Learning and Free Culture: MoodleMoot 2010” with Michel Bauwens
The Latin America Faculty of Social Sciences in Argentina – FLACSO Argentina – is organazing the “2nd International Congress of E-Learning and Free Culture: MoodleMoot 2010”. The meeting will take place during the days 18th and 19th of November in FLACSO Argentina and the main contents will be: four main conferences, workshops about Moodle 2.0… Continue reading
From rurban to urbal: how to make cities more sustainable
Cities need to be ruralized again, argues Tom Bliss: (urbal is a contraction of urban + rural, i.e. ruralising urbanity, instead of ‘rurban’ which is the influence of cities on the rural)
The “Incredible Edible” free food project at Todmorden town
Incredible Edible Todmorden aims to increase the amount of local food grown and eaten in the town. Businesses, schools, farmers and the community are all involved. Vegetables and fruit are springing up everywhere. Public flower beds are being transformed into community herb gardens and vegetable patches. Thanks to Synnove Mathe who alerted is to this… Continue reading