The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
What Makes or Breaks Startups in the Sharing Economy? Insurance Rates
EXTRACT
Insurance represents both the lifeblood and the biggest threat to the sharing economy. As I explore in this month’s WIRED cover story, companies like RelayRides — or Airbnb, Lyft, or any other sharing company — depend upon its customers’ willingness to trust one another. These businesses have devised numerous mechanisms to engineer that trust, but perhaps no one feature has been as important as insurance.
The right to infrastructure: a prototype for open source urbanism
Alberto Corsín Jiménez
Abstract. This paper develops an analytical framework to place the rise of open source urbanism in context, and develops the concept of the ‘right to infrastructure’ as expressive of new ecologies of urban relations that have come into being. It describes, first, a genealogy for open source technology, focusing in particular on how open source urban hardware projects may challenge urban theory. It moves then to describe in detail various dimensions and implications of an open source infrastructural project in Madrid. In all, the paper analyses three challenges that the development of open source urban infrastructures is posing to the institutions of urban governance and property: the evolving shape and composition of urban ecologies; the technical and design challenges brought about by open source urban projects; and the social organisation of the ‘right to infrastructure’ as a political, active voice in urban governance. In the last instance, the right to infrastructure, I shall argue, signals the rise of the ‘prototype’ as an emerging figure for contemporary sociotechnical designs in and for social theory.
Keywords: open source urbanism, infrastructures, urban ecologies, urban commons, right to the city, prototypes
Corsín Jiménez A, 2014, “The right to infrastructure: a prototype for open source urbanism” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32(2) 342 – 362
PDF (21 Pages): 2014 Open Source Urbanism Right to Infrastructure
Open Review Brings Peer Review to the Scientific Masses
This seems like a step in the right direction for the world of academic publishing. ResearchGate News announces, “Peer Review Isn’t Working—Introducing Open Review.” We know that increasingly, papers based on shoddy research have been making it into journals supposedly policed by rigorous peer-review policies. Now, ResearchGate has launched a countermeasure—Open Review brings the review process to the public. The write up happily tells us:
“We’re excited to announce the launch of Open Review today. It’s designed to help you openly voice feedback and evaluate research that you have read and worked with, bringing more transparency to science and speeding up progress.
“With Open Review you can:
New York Public Library Posts Maps
The New York Public Library has a massive collection of beautiful maps, but instead of keeping them locked in an archive Motherboard reports, “The New York Public Library Releases 20,000 Beautiful High Resolution Maps.”
All of the 20,000 maps are available via open access. What is even more amazing is that the NYPL decided to release the maps under the Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. If you are unfamiliar with a Creative Commons license, it means that users are free to download content and do whatever they want with it.
Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: New York Public Library Posts Open Maps”
Justic Ferriman+
LearnDash, 27 March 2014
Mobile learning is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace. There are a variety of reasons for this, but many have to do with the accessibility of mobile devices, the savings associated with a mobile enabled learning program, and the convenience mobile learning affords the learner.
In fact, today if there is a learning management system (or courses) that do not perform on mobile devices, it is borderline in-excusable. In five years time, it will be flat-out archaic.
The infographic below (originally created by Upside Learning) presents some very compelling facts about the shift to mobile learning in the workplace, and the opportunity that is there for organizations that take action.
The section of the infographic that rang true for me were the points around the way work is changing – particularly in reference to no office, device freedom, and the desire for greater flexibility on the job.
Continue reading “Yoda: Mobile Learning (M-Learning) the Future + InfoGraphic”
We Need to Rethink Access to Scientific Research
Aaron Moritz
One of humanity’s greatest technological triumphs is today’s potential for widespread and unrestricted access to all of our collected knowledge. As we march towards this noble goal, there is something crucial we need to talk about. That is, some of the most vital information we have is our scientific research, and much of it is still widely unavailable to the public. At least, without paying prohibitively high costs.
Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Aaron Moritz on Rethinking Access to Research”
There are legal ways to download books on the Internet without having to resort to Pirate Bay or other P2P networks. If you visit Open Culture, you will discover that there are over “550 Free eBooks: Download Books For Free.” Before you get on your soapbox and explain that most books available for free on are usually in the public domain, thus old and less than exciting to read. While that is true for these books, there are also more contemporary authors listed, such as Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, Neil Gaiman, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
If you are also interested in studying up on the Harvard Classics, because of this idea:
“During his days as Harvard’s influential president, Charles W. Eliot made a frequent assertion: If you were to spend just 15 minutes a day reading the right books, a quantity that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. The publisher P. F. Collier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assemble the right collection of works.”
You will find that all of these classics are available for easy reading and download on the Internet. That Internet has made it easier to educate yourself with the amount of free classes, books, movies, and other content that can be obtained legally.
Whitney Grace, March 31, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
