Worth a Look: Ushandi Open Source Crowd-Sourcing

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Geospatial, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Technologies, Threats, Worth A Look
Ushandi Home Page
Ushandi Home Page

The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.

Usahndi Visual Concept
Usahndi Visual Concept

This is a huge development, one that could lead to a more rapid creation of the World Brain with embedded EarthGame as a means of connecting all human minds with all information in all languages all the time.

See our briefing given in Denmark to think about how this might apply to the global harmonization of gifts from the one billion rich to needs of the five billion poor at the household and item level.

Reference: Open Innovation vs. Dinosaur Defenses

Articles & Chapters, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process

Abstract & Download
Abstract & Download

The Imperfect is the Enemy of the Good: Anticircumvention Versus Open Innovation

Wendy Seltzer, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 25, 2010

Digital Rights Management, law-backed technological control of usage  of copyrighted works, is clearly imperfect: It often fails to stop  piracy and frequently blocks non-infringing uses. Yet the drive to  correct these imperfections masks a deeper conflict, between the DRM  system of anticircumvention and open development in the entire  surrounding media environment. This conflict, at the heart of the DRM  schema, will only deepen, even if other aspects of DRM can be  improved. This paper takes a systemic look at the legal, technical,  and business environment of DRM to highlight this openness conflict
and its effects.

. . . . . . .

In the full cost-benefit analysis of anticircumvention, the loss to  open innovation would outweigh the gains from this imperfect mechanism  of copyright enforcement. Treating code literally as law leaves the law with too many harmful side effects.

Continue reading “Reference: Open Innovation vs. Dinosaur Defenses”

Journal: Honduran Democracy Triumphs

08 Wild Cards, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government

Night Watch For the Night of 29 November 2009

As Mary O’Grady reported in the Wall Street Journal, the conduct of today’s presidential and Congressional elections is a tribute to the fortitude of the leadership in standing up to the United States and the anti-US front led by Hugo Chavez.

Preliminary official results showed Porfirio Lobo, of the opposition National Party, with 56% support with more than 60% of the tally sheets counted. Ruling party candidate Elvin Santos conceded defeat to Lobo. Election officials said more than 60% of registered voters cast ballots Sunday.

Neither Zelaya nor Marcheletti were candidates. The fact of the elections without Zelaya is the crowning achievement of Honduran democracy.

Continue reading “Journal: Honduran Democracy Triumphs”

Journal: ClimateGate Meets Yamal Divergence

03 Environmental Degradation, Academia, Analysis, Commerce, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Key Players, Media, Methods & Process, Policies, Reform, Strategy

ClimateGate and Yamal Evidence
ClimateGate and Yamal Evidence

Phi Beta Iota: ClimateGate has outraged us for two reasons–first, the lack of integrity among the scientists and the selected United Nations officials concerned; and second, the naivete, ignorance, or corruption of government officials  all too eager to create a new Global Warming Complex that profits from carbon trades (another form of phantom wealth) while imposing severe social costs on the five billion poor.  ENOUGH.  Below the fold are the original comments of Contributing Editor Chuck Spinney, relating past Pentagon data manipulation with the data manipulation that charactizes the Climate Change movement.  It is our view that the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should be disbanded, while the UN High Level Panel and the UN Environmental Program, both of which kept their integrity intact, are asked to create a World Brain with embedded EarthGame that can address all ten high level threats (environmental degradation is third, after poverty and infectious disease) by providing the world with information that allows the harmonization of spending across all twelve core policy areas in a manner attractive to the eight demographic challengers (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards such as the Congo, Malaysia, and Turkey).

Yamal: A “Divergence” Problem by Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, September 27th, 2009
Continue reading “Journal: ClimateGate Meets Yamal Divergence”

Journal: Earth Intelligence, Climate Gate, Queen of England, and the Climate Change Fraud Network

03 Environmental Degradation, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Key Players, Non-Governmental, Policies

Earth Intelligence
Earth Intelligence

Earth Intelligence (46), as with all of our categories for journal entries, references, or reviews, can be bookmarked or selected from the menu in the middle column to follow postings on Climate Change and ClimateGate and the related fraud network.

ClimateGate is, in the words of one scientist, a mushroom cloud rather than a smoking gun.  We agree.

Queen of England has been had.  She has been made a fool of in Trinidad & Tobago.

Updates:

(UK) Climategate: the whitewash begins

Breaking news from the splendid Bishop Hill. It seems the AGW establishment has launched an urgent damage limitation exercise in order to whitewash the Climategate scandal in time for Copenhagen.

Continue reading “Journal: Earth Intelligence, Climate Gate, Queen of England, and the Climate Change Fraud Network”

Journal: Afghanistan & Iraq–Opportunity Knocks for an Afghan Airlift and a Six-Month Muslim-Centered Multinational Multiagency “Advise & Assist” Transition Toward Departure from Both Countries

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Policy, Real Time, Reform, Strategy, Threats

NIGHTWATCH Special Report:  October in Afghanistan 27 November 2009

Taliban and other anti-government fighters have begun to go to winter quarters, in Pakistan or in Afghanistan. The fighting will drop somewhat during the winter, but in the core provinces of the Pashtun south, weather is not a factor.

Based on Taliban public statements, their attacks will remain focused on disruption of the overland truck lifeline for Afghan and NATO forces, mainly by using improvised bombs. In the face of renewed NATO resolve, the Taliban also will wait for the next opportunity to attempt to take power.

Taliban cannot defeat NATO forces, but NATO forces cannot defeat Taliban, especially without combat air support. The government in Kabul cannot survive without NATO forces, but by this time next year the Afghan forces will need more logistics and air support rather than combat soldiers, if the US and European NATO trainers are competent.

Continue reading “Journal: Afghanistan & Iraq–Opportunity Knocks for an Afghan Airlift and a Six-Month Muslim-Centered Multinational Multiagency “Advise & Assist” Transition Toward Departure from Both Countries”

Journal: Right on the Left and Left on the Right

09 Justice, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process
Incoherence Left and Right
Obama, Palin, and Paul

Phi Beta Iota: The incoherent insanity of BOTH the left and the right, of both those in power and those without power, is cresting.  While the Obama Administration does everything it can to emulate and extend the Constitutional violations of the Cheney-Bush regime, the far right is losing its mind completely.  Below are two items, just a taste of what happens when gerbils learn to read and write.

What Is Sarah Palin?

It seems that Palin– the attractive, outdoors-loving “hockey mom”-is popular solely because of her personality, not any specific policy positions. Notes columnist Steve Chapman “Who needs policy? In her world – and the world of legions of conservatives who revere her – the persona is the policy. Palin is beloved because she’s (supposedly) just like ordinary people, which (supposedly) gives her a profound understanding of their needs.” When dissecting political cults of personality, it would seem that Palin has become the Republicans’ Obama–handsome, charming and a human comfort blanket for partisans.

Continue reading “Journal: Right on the Left and Left on the Right”