Culture – Page 22 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/09/222012/09/22

Michel Bauwens: Rob Van Kranenburg on The Sensing Planet – Challenge is NOT Technology, Challenge is Ensuring Process is Inclusive and Open

220px-Michel_Bauwens_crop — Michel Bauwens

The Sensing Planet: Why The Internet Of Things Is The Biggest Next Big Thing

By: Rob van Kranenburg

Rob van Kranenburg outlines a brief history of the next big thing–the internet of things–and argues that U.S. industry and government should be taking a more active role in its evolution.

About a decade ago, I would stand in the middle of a square somewhere and imagine that everything I saw could and would one day be possibly connected.

In my mind that was not such a new idea. Animists in Africa and Asia have for centuries talked about “living” inanimate objects, believing that things had a soul and taking good care of them. Humans are meaning-making machines, so we invest inanimate landscapes and objects with all kinds of qualities that they cannot really possess.

Ten years on, that daydream is becoming a reality with the Internet of Things. Loosely defined as a global process to enhance all objects with some kind of digital address, IoT is already coming to you: to your home as the smart meter that will streamline all your electrical appliances; to your connected car that will have distance sensors and eCall to alert accidents; and to your body as a patch in an intelligent T-shirt or the Siemens hearing aid that aims to pick up the fire truck noise and soften it before you “hear” it. In terms of “the next big thing” this is as big as fire and the book.

And it’s inevitable. Why? Because a confluence of historical factors has come together to make what was once the domain of science fiction a reality. Let’s quickly take a look at those drivers.

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Rob Van Kranenburg on The Sensing Planet – Challenge is NOT Technology, Challenge is Ensuring Process is Inclusive and Open”

2012/09/172012/09/17

Dolphin: One More Veil Lifted on the Muslim Attack Film

Culture, Politics

Media for Christ and Steve Klein, a California insurance salesman — but where did he get the money?

Players behind anti-Muslim film that incited protests in Mideast linked by anger toward Islam

EXTRACTS:

“I'd say this was the most unprofessional professional film I've worked on,” said Moers, who estimated the cost of production at $100,000. “I don't think anyone took it seriously.”

He said he was paid with a check issued on the account of Abanob Basseley Nakoula, the 20-year-old son of the purported filmmaker.

. . . . . . . .

Media for Christ President Joseph N. Abdelmasih has not spoken publicly.

Tax records for the charity do not identify any donors other than Abdelmasih, who lent the organization at least $30,000. He did not return phone messages and an email sent to the charity. Kamal Rizk, listed as vice-president on federal records, did not return several phone messages.

. . . . . . .

The Media for Christ offices are located just off a freeway and next to a mall with big-box stores in the quiet Los Angeles suburb of Duarte. There is no sign on the building identifying the non-profit.

. . . . . . .

Klein has a long history of anti-Muslim activities. He founded Courageous Christians United, which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques. He also started Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, which preaches against Muslims and publishes volumes of anti-Muslim propaganda that Klein distributes. The Southern Poverty Law Center says they have been tracking Klein for several years and have labeled two of the organizations he is affiliated with as hate groups.

Read full article.

Josh Kilbourn: “Some Kind of Bizarre Intelligence Operation” Says Actor in Sam Basile Anti-Muhammad Video “Innocence of Muslims”

YouTube (13:50) Sam Bacile Muhammad Video – the Covert Action Film Inflaming Muslims

2012/09/112012/09/11

Venessa Miemis: CultureHacking, IntentCasting, & Connecting with Strangers

Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Culture

venessa black & white new — Venessa Miemis

Culture Hack: Collaborating with Strangers

The culture hacking story I want to share with you is almost ten years old now. Back then I was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science with a deep interest in social software. I was posting to my blog daily, and building a reputation as a thinker in the field.

One of my issues with the blogosphere (as we called the universe of all blogs) was that it appeared as this galaxy of nebulously-connected personal streams. As a result, people with a shared interest in a given topic had a hard time finding each other; conversation on any given topic was discouragingly scattered.

So, one Wednesday in October I wrote in a blog post tiled “Making group-forming ridiculously easy“:

“I’d like to explain an idea that I have been bouncing around for a while. It might well be a reformulation of what others have said previously. I believe that implementing this properly would give a nice boost to the blogosphere’s social aggregation capability. ”

I then offered a short blueprint of a system for pulling together blog posts from all over the blogosphere with a shared topic into a single stream, thus helping people connect around shared interest. I then wrote, “I haven’t worked it out in detail, but wouldn’t it be possible to hack a beta of this together as follows?” and spelled out how the thing might be built. The idea was slightly peripheral to my focus, and I didn’t have time to learn all that was needed for me to implement it myself.

What followed exceeded my expectations many-fold. On the other side of the planet, in New Zealand, a programmer named Philip Pearson came across my post and read it. He had been working blog-based systems for a while and must have thought the idea had merit, because over the weekend he hacked together a complete working prototype version of the system I had dreamed up, and unassumingly sent me an email telling me about it.

Read rest of article.

2012/09/112012/09/11

Chuck Spinney: Russian Land, Chinese Labor – The North Evolves

01 Agriculture, 02 China, 03 Economy, 06 Russia, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Economics/True Cost

Interesting evolution of Russo-Chinese relations

Nation Rich in Land Draws Workers From One Rich in People

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

The New York Times, 10 September 2012

OSTANINO, Russia — When a Chinese investor bought a farm outside this village a few years back, he was pleased enough to name it Golden Land. The soil was rich, the sunshine and rain bountiful.

The land, deep in rural Russia, was also largely devoid of people.

No more. Today, row upon row of greenhouses here teem with dozens of Chinese farmhands picking tomatoes. And in a season with a bumper crop of tomatoes, the foreman said he would happily have employed hundreds more.

The influx of Chinese farm labor in Russia reflects the growing trade and economic ties between the two countries, one rich in land and resources, the other in people.

For years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, both countries have struggled to convert these complementary strengths into real business opportunities. A few mining ventures are succeeding. And state companies have struck big oil, coal and timber deals that form the backbone of the economic relationship.

Read full article.

2012/09/092012/09/09

Michel Bauwens: P2P Mode of Production – An Indiano Manifesto

Culture, Economics/True Cost, P2P / Panarchy

Published under the Public Domain, freely downloadable in HTML, epub or PDF, “The P2P Mode of Production: An Indiano Manifesto” is the first collective Indiano work translated into English.

This document is a call to action, based on Las Indias’ analysis that the reduction of the optimal scale of production is the root of the current crisis — in Spain particularly, but also worldwide. This is a grave threat for huge corporations (and to a lesser extent, national governments), but very promising for small enterprises. That’s because the core of the P2P mode of production is a “knowledge commons” available to all. Abundant information on every topic imaginable, but especially on small-scale production, means that local producers can freely choose the most effective, efficient and accessible processes, without the shackles of intellectual property. This will lead to a blossoming of local enterprise. And that’s where you can take action.

There’s a lot more to it — see for yourself!

The translation and formatting of this book is US$1000 worth of work. The content is available for free, as a webpage, epub or PDF, but please consider donating one half of one percent of that — or as much or as little as seems right to you. This will go a long way toward encouraging future translations of the works of Las Indias.

Phi Beta Iota: Michel Bauwens is one of the iconic figures of the transitional period from past to future, from Industrial Era stove-pipes and greed, to Information Era open source everything and sharing to create collaborative economies.

See Also:

Collaborative Economy Coalition

Tom Atlee, Empowering Public Wisdom: A Practical Vision of Citizen-Led Politics (Evolver, 2012)

Michel Bauwens, Report: A Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy (Orange Labs and P2P Foundation, 2012)

Robert Steele, THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Truth (Evolver, 2012)

2012/08/212012/08/21