The Transnational Institute (TNI), in cooperation with the Brazilian research centre CIDADE and the Latin American Programme for Distance Education in Social Sciences (PLED) is offering a web-based course on Participatory Democracy, Urban Management and Crisis Capitalism. The course will begin on 10 September 2012 and will comprise a series of twelve weekly sessions. We… Continue reading
Permaculture, Nature & Civilization
Source: Permaculture Research Institute of Australia Permaculture was first a contraction of the words permanent agriculture, later being widened to include all permanent culture. The problem is, however, that culture is seen as opposed to nature, its contradiction. Ross Wolf writes: The concept usually opposed to “culture” is “nature,” as structuralist anthropology taught us long… Continue reading
Trend: Backyard Biology
Sara Tocchetti writes about “Backyard Biology and the backyard as a place of production”: “MAKE Backyard Biology was published the 24th of August 2006. Its title, more importantly the cover’s composition, marks a first and important distinction. A zoomed-in image portrays two impersonal hands: one holding a lily while the other holds a pair of… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Namecoin
Namecoin is Bitcoin’s little brother. It’s a decentralized peer to peer currency and name database system. It basically allows you to register .bit domain names Here is an explanation: “Namecoin gets its name from its parent project, BitCoin. In fact, much of the code that is used within the Namecoin project is taken from the… Continue reading
Trend: Tool Libraries
Shareable writes that: “40 community tool libraries already exist throughout the United States, from Philadelphia to Seattle and south to Oakland and New Orleans. Each has its own unique flavor but most operate roughly the same way by accepting tool donations from the community and then lending those tools out for free—or nearly free—to anyone… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Earth OS
EARTH OS is a system orchestrating all the existing free & open ideas so that all aspects of life are served by free, open, P2P tech and services only Matthias Ansorg writes: “This document constituates an early version of EarthOS (“Earth operating system”), which is a system apt for dealing with all natural resources in… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Massimo Banzi on How Arduino Is Open-Sourcing the Imagination
“Massimo Banzi helped invent the Arduino, a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that’s inspired thousands of people around the world to make the coolest things they can imagine — from toys to satellite gear. Because, as he says, “You don’t need anyone’s permission to make something great.” Watch the Ted Talk video here:
Peter Vander Auwera on the Personal Event Networks
P.E.N.’s are “distributed nodes of personal data content talking to each other“, writes Peter Vander Auwera. Peter further explains: “Based on “event-signals”: It does not ask for something, it just says “something’s happened”, and any entity in the network can subscribe to the event and decide itself to do something with it. … For those… Continue reading
Project of the Day: United Transnational Republics
UTR is a global grassroots movement to establish democratic participation within globalisation They write: “Our Positions: We have global problems but only local governments. We need global citizen representation in order to tackle global issues. Running the world on national and corporate goals will only aggravate global problems. If we the people want to participate… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Franz Nahrada on Global Villages
Video of an excellent interview by Franz Nahrada at the WSIS Forum 2012. Watch the video here:
On the p2p driven transformation of our productive forces
Source: Ideas for a new society Interview with Karl Fitzgerald for the Renegade Economist radioshow on the p2p driven transformation of our productive forces.
Movement of the Day: The Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
The Ronin Institute is devoted to facilitating and promoting scholarly research outside the confines of traditional academic research institutions. Jon Wilkins explains: “The Ronin Institute … is … hoping to revolutionize academia by connecting unaffiliated scholars to research funding and giving them credibility at the same time—no university required. “We want to change that perception,”… Continue reading
Trend: The Micro-Everything Revolution
Andrew Zolli defines it: “An interconnected series of innovations in low-cost manufacturing, information technology, design, and distribution are making it possible to deliver goods and services that were scarcely imaginable a few years ago, at price points that were similarly inconceivable, to consumers who were previously excluded from accessing them. This micro-everything revolution is transforming… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Bruce Lipton on Why Natural and Human Evolution is Communal, not Individual
Fascinating conversation: “New Realities with Alan Steinfeld interviews evolutionary biologist Bruce Lipton about our biological destiny and how our future is not in individual evolution, but in coming together as One Voice to form a wholeness known as Humanity.” Watch the video here:
Video of the Day: Derek Lomas on Open Source Learning Games
Via: “2009 PopTech Fellow Derek Lomas is director of the Playpower Foundation, a global network of developers, designers, academics, NGOs and businesses. Playpower leverages the availability of ultra-low-cost computers to create and distribute affordable, effective, and fun learning games for under-privileged children worldwide.” Watch the video here:
On the Failure of the Environmental Movement
Excerpted from Rex Weyler: 1. The failures “Forty years have passed since the founding of Greenpeace and the first UN environment meeting in Stockholm, fifty years since the groundbreaking Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, and 115 years since Svante Arrhenius warned that burning hydrocarbons would heat Earth’s atmosphere. Today, we have more environmental groups and… Continue reading