Through their website at furtherfield.org, the Netbehaviour mailing list and gallery space in London our friends at Furtherfield have supported a thriving community of artists, techies and activists since 1997. Please support their work by making a donation and by helping spread the word about this appeal. Furtherfield needs to raise £10,000 by the end… Continue reading
Report: The SPREAD European Sustainable Lifestyles Scenarios for 2050
“SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 is a European social platform project running from January 2011 to December 2012. Different societal stakeholders – from business, research, policy and civil society – have been invited to participate in the development of a vision for sustainable lifestyles in 2050. This process will result in a roadmap for strategic action… Continue reading
Research: How Commons Grassroots Activists Are Shaping the Future
* PhD Thesis: Reclaiming the Commons: a discourse for new politics . How grassroots activists are shaping the future. By Sophie Ball. A summary from the abstract “This thesis draws together a number of examples of activism and protest in order to shine a light on some of the discourses and practices that have emerged… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The ethics and aesthetics of hacking
* Book: Coding Freedom: the ethics and aesthetics of hacking. E. Gabriella Coleman. Princeton University Press. 2013 From the Summary: “Who are computer hackers? What is free software? And what does the emergence of a community dedicated to the production of free and open source software–and to hacking as a technical, aesthetic, and moral project–reveal… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Peer-Producing Alternative Futures
* Article: Foresight in a network era: peer-producing alternative futures. By Jose Ramos, Tim Mansfield, and Gareth Priday. Journal of Futures Studies, September 2012, 17(1): 71-90. This essay is part of the special edition of the Journal of Futures Studies on the Communication of Foresight. A summary from the abstract: “The advent of the network… Continue reading
Climate Justice through the proposed Fee and Divided Carbon Tax
Excerpted from John Bellamy Foster: “It is Hansen who has provided the starting point for a realistic climate-change exit strategy aimed at keeping the increase in global average temperatures well below 2°C. He proposes the creation of a “fee-and-dividend” system whereby fossil-fuel companies would be charged an easily implemented carbon fee imposed at the well… Continue reading
A status update on the advancement of the Bitcoin ecology
Excerpted from Nicolas Mendoza: (the original has many interesting links) “The context in 2013 looks dramatically different to the one during the huge rally-and-crash of 2011. During the last year, the pace of development and adoption by merchants and the NGO sector has steadily accelerated, and the Bitcoin ecosystem in general advanced in many fronts…. Continue reading
An overview of the collaborative economy (in French)
An French-language interview conducted while I was invited by Communautique last year to speak in Montreal, produced by the great video production team of Remixthecommons. It is entitled “Vue d’ensemble de l’économie collaborative avec Michel Bauwens” Watch the video here:
Who cares of Google Reader? Let’s use the P2P alternatives
These days half the Internet is upset because Google Reader is about to quit. I am not. I am really happy about these news, because this is a wonderful occasion for everybody to consider again something that I have been suggesting for a while now. There are open alternatives to services like Google Reader, Gmail,… Continue reading
Research on Co-working: Making Space For Others
“This report tries to understand how the socio-economic factors that spawned coworking will continue to affect our workspaces for the better – and with this create tools to make it happen.” This is well done Master’s thesis on Coworking by Kathy Jackson. Here are a few excerpts. * From the introduction: “The purpose of this… Continue reading