1. “I’m concerned over the irony of the net generation, which has spawned a number of anti-Wall-Street movements and sentiments, to see people in this generation intuitively picking up trading practices that carry on every bit of foul legacy that offline traders have practiced before the net generation. It seems the more things change, the… Continue reading
Date archives "September 2013"
#OccupyWallStreet Documentaries (3): American Autumn: An Occudoc (the movement two years on)
Kelly McCartney writes: Now available on iTunes, American Autumn compiled experiences from New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC, in an effort to answer two questions: What does the Occupy movement stand for? And what are the movement’s demands? Among the luminaries included are Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, and Cornel West Watch it here:
Bernardo Gutierrez on the new architecture of protest
The Hungarian sociologist Peter Pal, describing what is happening in Brazil, helps us to understand what these networked revolts have in common. Although there may not yet be categories to describe this new type of movement, these uprisings are all “more insurgent, more movement than party, more flow than discipline, more impulse than purpose –… Continue reading
Project of the Day: the Restart Project
The Restart Project Michelle Bastian: [*also see Michelle’s comments at the very bottom on the Temporal Aspects of the Restart Project] “Restart was started by Janet Gunter and Ugo Vallauri in 2012. Their mission is to help grow a more widespread culture of repair. They organise Restart Parties in London twice a month, where people… Continue reading
We need to balance our “masculine” global economy with “feminine” global governance.
Excerpted from John Bunzl, founder of the International Simultaneous Policy Organization: “The feminist movement of recent decades has certainly brought major changes for women; more equality in the workplace, more sexual freedom and control, and a more equal social standing alongside men. But one can’t help noticing that women who achieve high positions of power,… Continue reading
Current status of peer to peer microgrid implementation
The City of the Future blog listened to a recent Columbia University panel of experts: “According to Shahidehpour, what makes the new generation of microgrid applications worth paying attention to is that that the elements of a modern microgrid have themselves gotten smart, to the point where they can easily shift loads based on different… Continue reading
A review of “To Save Everything Click Here” (critique of the Quantified Self movement)
Excerpted from Tom Slee: 1. “Chapter 7 is typical of the book. Here is a collection of people who record and track their everyday lives online, and then analyze and quantify their existence, from toothbrushing to reading to fecal contents. These “datasexuals” now have a social movement, of a sort, which they call the “Quantified… Continue reading
Matthew Slater on current activism strategies
We republish a two–part editorial from the complementary currency activist Matthew Slater: “Traditional historical narratives imply that change comes from the top down, as a result of the actions of about Kings and presidents. But focusing on the characters and personal circumstances of such leaders simplifies the larger forces always at work. We all know… Continue reading
#OccupyWallStreet Documentaries (2): The 99%: Occupy Everywhere (the movement two years on)
Kelly McCartney writes: “Narrated by Lou Reed, this doc looks at the wide swath of the population burned by the economic crisis, from a 22-year-old college graduate to a 92-year-old grandmother, from a Marine veteran to a police captain. They discuss issues like health care, education, the environment, income inequality, and unemployment. Economist Jeffrey Sachs… Continue reading
Current open design projects fall far short of their sustainability promises
“There is no direct link between Open Design and the following environmental criteria: In this thesis, it is shown that promoting local production by users and easy assembly are the main potential of OD for the environment. Moreover, it is argued that these trends could be used in different phases of product lifecycle; by involving… Continue reading
Peer-to-Peer Science: The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima
Solving the Fukushima nuclear crisis will require rethinking our whole approach to science, social media, and public diplomacy. By Layne Hartsell and Emanuel Pastreich: (published previously in: Foreign Policy in Focus, this is a version without links) “More than two years after an earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on a Japanese power plant, the Fukushima… Continue reading
Project of the Day: ANOSI Volos Volunteers
ANOSI Volos Volunteers “ANOSI – Volos Volunteers – the group of people who set up and keeps running the ‘no middlemen’ food and basic industrial goods distribution in Volos. They link producers with consumers, using an online ordering system. All orders are fulfilled directly by vendors, during monthly distribution meetings, held at the parking lot… Continue reading
On the Centralized Bias of Renewable Energy Transition Plans
Lakis of the City of the Future Blog has read different transition reports and offers an important critique: “For me, the most pressing and unspoken question each of these plans raise is: to what degree is it necessary, possible or desirable to rely on a massive, state, national or global-scale infrastructure build-out to save us… Continue reading
Why the Apache Foundation should delist Accumulo, the NSA project
Excerpted from Tom Slee: “The Apache Foundation hosts the Apache Accumulo project, which is a data storage and retrieval system for big data created by the NSA in 2008 and submitted to Apache in 2011. Derrick Harris at GigaOm describes Accumulo as “The technological linchpin to everything the NSA is doing from a data-analysis perspective”;… Continue reading
Bill McKibben on the recent leaderless rebellions (2): the experience of 350.org
Excerpted from Bill McKibben in TomDispatch: “We may not need capital-L Leaders, but we certainly need small-l leaders by the tens of thousands. You could say that, instead of a leaderless movement, we need a leader-full one. We see such leaders regularly at 350.org. When I wrote earlier that we “staged” 5,200 rallies around the… Continue reading
The Government and industry have betrayed the internet: what should we do now?
I have resisted saying this up to now, and I am saddened to say it, but the US has proved to be an unethical steward of the internet. The UK is no better. The NSA’s actions are legitimizing the internet abuses by China, Russia, Iran and others. We need to figure out new means of… Continue reading