I was very privileged to be invited by Simona Conservas of the Spanish EXGAE, one of the key organizers of the Free Culture Forum (together with Wouter Tebbens of the Free Knowledge Institute and other groups such as Networked Politics), to attend and participate in this event, a founding moment for the politisation, or shall… Continue reading
On Defining a Post-Industrial Style (1): from Industrial blobjects to post-industrial spimes
Today we recognize that a new set of cultural paradigms are emerging to supplant those of the Industrial Age, driven by an emergent and progressive demassification of culture amplified by digital communications and paralleled by a similar demassification of industrial production by virtue of digitally enhanced machine tools. A 3-parter by Eric Hunting. Today: from… Continue reading
Massively collaborative science: the success of the Polymath experience
The Polymath Project differed from traditional large-team collaborations in other parts of science and industry. In such collaborations, work is usually divided up in a static, hierarchical way. In the Polymath Project, everything was out in the open, so anybody could potentially contribute to any aspect. This allowed ideas to be explored from many different… Continue reading
Cory Doctorow on Shareable Publishing
Via Shareable magazine: “In this PublishingPoint interview, Cory describes a new shareable book project he’s launching in which he serves as author, publisher, distributor and bookseller–and involves dozens of collaborators. “He also shares his thoughts about the ways in which traditional roles in publishing are becoming blurred,” says PublishingPoint. “And he touches on strategies that… Continue reading
Internal adoptions of open source practices by companies
A case study by Vijay Gurbani and his colleagues shows how companies can benefit from applying open source practices internally. Gurbani and his colleagues developed an internet telephony server at Lucent using an open source approach. Through multiple stages, the initial research project evolved into the backbone of multiple commercial products, all based on the… Continue reading
Towards a Global Emergency Infrastructure
Patrick Philippe Meier, an expert in crisis mapping, believes a global superorganism for disaster response is in the works, which would consist of a combination of the following services. Some of them are in design phase, but none of them is consciously interconnected at the present time. Read the whole presentation with explanatory graphics here…. Continue reading
Will Barnes and Noble kill the Kindle?
(via Glyn Moody) In fact, this loaning function could be the viral feature that makes the device spread. Who would buy a walled-garden machine like the Kindle when the Nook has the same titles, cheaper, and you can borrow? The Nook is already starting to look like the real internet to the Kindle’s AOL. Wired… Continue reading
“The Cosmonaut”, a new Open Movie project
The Cosmonaut in 5 steps from Riot Cinema on Vimeo. The Cosmonaut is a feature film project by Riot Cinema Collective from Madrid, Spain, that uses Internet to find funding and distribution, in a collaborative way and under free Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike licences. The Cosmonaut is a movie about memories, and as… Continue reading
The new voice of the sharing culture
A new peer-produced economy and culture is rapidly emerging where the more you share, the more respect you get from your peers. Our goal is to get more people to organize their lives around the logic of this new world where contributing to the common good is the priority. Towards that end, Shareable looks at… Continue reading
Jonas Andersson on the Emergence of Pirate Politics
The following is the nearly complete excerpt of a draft interview for a Wired article, of Jonas Andersson, p2p filesharing researcher and Swedish cultural commentator, focusing on the situation in Sweden, but the subject matter of this new force in politics easily transcends the local situation. Jonas’s blog, Liquid Culture is consistently thoughtful in its… Continue reading
Open Hardware Camp in London on December 4
Via Vinay Gupta: – Open Hardware Camp – Collaborative Strategies and Challenges of Making Things the Open Source Way Organized by: 40Fires in partnership with Nesta Location: Nesta HQ Date: 4th of December Time: 10:00 – 20:00 This is an event to bring key projects, their participants and stakeholders together in the emerging field of… Continue reading
Politics, Participation and Technics in Web 2.0
The issue of participation is the pivot between those who understand the web in the context of wider social and cultural transformations and those who see it primarily as a communication medium. In Benkler the problem of participation is construed negatively: the network is ‘freer’ than previous forms of media and this removal of the… Continue reading
Wikipedia and Research Ethics
First, some background: In the chapter of my book Cyberchiefs on governance in the English-language Wikipedia, there is a section, as in all my case studies, which deals with conflict. Within this section there is a sub-section which focuses on the management of disruptive users, particularly people who create fake identities, known in Wikipedia as… Continue reading
The revival of a P2P relationship with nature
Excerpt from a new book, A Reenchanted World: The Quest For A New Kinship With Nature, by James William Gibson, featured by In These Times. Theme: After the eclipse of modernity, the sense of kinship with an endangered natural world is returning. James William Gibson: ‘Through the 1990s and early 2000s, a new and striking… Continue reading
Documentary: The End of Poverty
A suggestion from Dante-Gabryell Monson: The End of Poverty? is a 2008 documentary film directed by Philip Diaz. The film was selected for the international critic’s week award at the 2008 Cannes Festival. Here’s a more complete description from YouTube, followed by the trailer: “The feature-length documentary The End of Poverty? won critical acclaim at… Continue reading
Book: Building a Whole Earth Economy through Right Relationship
Via Paul Fernhout: Book: Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy. by Peter G Brown. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009. “In Right Relationship, Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver use the core Quaker principle of “right relationship”–respecting the integrity, resilience, and beauty of human and natural communities–as the foundation for a new economic model. Right Relationship poses… Continue reading