“A report on the information meeting for all interested parties at the “Knowledge Tower Linz” on 11 April 2011. With the initiative “Open Commons Region Linz” – which is unique in Europe, the city of Linz creates a new perspective for the expansion and improvement of free access of data, software, teaching and learning materials,… Continue reading
Date archives "May 2011"
Zizek: Is Charity Immoral?
Zizek always makes us think. Animated lecture at RSA:
Yochai Benkler receives Ford Foundation ‘Visionaries Award’
Yochai Benkler, Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, Harvard Law School, today received the $100,000 Ford Foundation Visionaries Award — one of 12 innovators chosen for their vision, leadership, and pioneering work. The formal announcement from the Ford Foundation follows, below, with… Continue reading
What’s the nature of the Wikipedia bureaucracy?
Interesting study on “The Nature and Roles of Policies and Rules in Wikipedia”. * Article: Don’t Look Now, But We’ve Created a Bureaucracy: The Nature and Roles of Policies and Rules in Wikipedia by Brian Butler, Lisa Joyce, and Jacqueline Pike. A commentator writes: “Many view Wikipedia as emergent, complex, messy, informal, popularly uncontrolled, non-organizational,… Continue reading
Beyond idealism: university-level training in free technology
“Software, technology, knowledge and culture should be free!” summarizes the battle cry of the activists of “free”. It’s only by by putting free technology in the hands of free and empowered people that one can achieve wider freedom in the 21st century, according to Benjamin Mako Hill. But this situation can only be achieved by… Continue reading
Cory Doctorow on techno-optimism and techno-pessimism
Excerpted from a very interesting editorial by Cory Doctorow: “To understand techno-optimism, it’s useful to look at the free software movement, whose ideology and activism gave rise to the GNU/Linux operating system, the Android mobile operating system, the Firefox and Chrome browsers, the BSD Unix that lives underneath Mac OS X, the Apache web-server and… Continue reading
Is digital technology reshaping the political landscape?
From SME Web The relationship between social media and politics will be put under the spotlight by leading international academics and activists during a three-day conference at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge from 11-13 May. Organised by Anglia Ruskin academics Dr Joss Hands and Dr Jussi Parikka, Platform Politics will focus on the role digital… Continue reading
Nigel Shadbolt – Lessons from the UK Open Data Initiative
“In June 2009, Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee were appointed as Government Information Advisors to help transform public access to UK Government information. Their work resulted in the launch of data.gov.uk.” “The Open Data Initiative is a attempt to encourage every government agency and department to open its doors and data to the public so… Continue reading
Three bottom-up eco-actions that could reduce western individual footprint by 75%
Excerpted from a proposal by Vinay Gupta: “All over the internet there are small and large communities of practice – centers of excellence in organic farming or living cheaply or doing home solar. There are professional networks for architects and designers. There is a grass roots movement which has been running since at least the… Continue reading
Bolivia’s ‘Mother Earth’ law – not an easy sell
In an article titled The Law of Mother Earth: Behind Bolivia’s Historic Bill Nick Buxton looks at the difficulties the historic law change in Bolivia will have to overcome if the intention of bringing in a different system that respects the environment in which we live is going to be successfully transformed into reality. “The… Continue reading
The politics of urban gardening
how can a garden be an attack, a flower a critique, a trowel an agent of social change? Interesting article by George McKay. Excerpt: “Notions of utopia, of community, of activism for progressive social change, of peace, of environmentalism, of identity politics, are practically worked through in the garden, in floriculture and through what art… Continue reading
Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive: a milestone book on open design
The Open Design experiments you will read about in this book — such as the 400 fab labs now in operation — are nodes within an alternative industrial system that is now emerging. These are the “small, open, local and connected” experiments that, for the environmental designer Ezio Manzini, are defining features of a sustainable… Continue reading
Kevin Flanagan on Irish hackerspaces
Good atmospheric piece on the progress on hackerspaces in Ireland:
An interview with Julian Assange
Extensive talk with Julian, on a variety of subject, such as the Middle Eastern revolutions and the role of social media such as Facebook. Assange calls Facebook the most extensive spying machine ever invented: “whenever you add a friend, you’re doing free work for the U.S. intelligence agencies”. The following is a selection of the… Continue reading
Vandana Shiva: Post-Fukushima anti-nuclear resistance in India
Watch this video, where Vandana Shiva is interviewed by Laura Flanders:
Bitcoin in the real world – supply and demand
Bitcoin is an electronic currency based on a piece of software that allows for the collaborative adoption and use of electronic bits of information as money. We have been keeping track of bitcoin since 2009, starting with this post by Michel Bauwens: Bitcoin: new open source P2P e-cash system. In June last year I reported… Continue reading