Event: 22-24 July 2016 Hackers on Planet Earth – First Call, 100 $100 Tickets First Come First Served

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Greetings! We trust everyone has fully recovered from the excitement of HOPE X by now. It's once again time for us to begin planning for our next conference, which is set for July 22-24, 2016 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. Many more details will be released in the weeks and months ahead. But for now, we wanted to make sure you were aware of our special initial ticket release, set for tomorrow (11/11) at precisely 11:11 AM Eastern Time. We're only offering 100 tickets for $100 each with a maximum of 4 tickets per order. This is a big discount from what the normal price will be when ticket sales officially begin next year. Tickets are non-refundable but they are transferable in case your plans change. Here is the link for the initial ticket sale. Good luck tomorrow and we hope to see you in July! The HOPE Staff

Jean Lievens: Jeremy Rifkin on Leapfrog Technologies

05 Energy, Advanced Cyber/IO, Mobile
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Jean Lievens
Jean Lievens

How Developing Nations Can Leapfrog Developed Countries with the Sharing Economy

Electricity is now coming to remote areas in Africa, which never before had access to a centralized power grid. Not surprisingly, the introduction of cell phones has helped precipitate the development of a nascent Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure. Virtually overnight, millions of Africa's rural households have scraped together enough money — from selling an animal or surplus crops — to purchase a cell phone. The phones are used as much for carrying on commercial activity as for personal communications. In rural areas, far removed from urban banking facilities, people are increasingly relying on cell phones to facilitate small money transfers. The problem is that without access to electricity, cell phone users often have to travel on foot to get to a town with electricity in order to recharge their phones. A single solar panel affixed on the tin roof of a rural hut would provide enough electricity to not only charge the cell phone but also power electric lights.

Continue reading “Jean Lievens: Jeremy Rifkin on Leapfrog Technologies”

Eagle: Open Source Textbooks

Access, Education
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300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

Open source textbooks not flunking out

Finally, a bit of good news on the college costs front: A study out of Brigham Young University finds that free open source textbooks do the job pretty darn well. The study of nearly 17,000 students at 9 colleges found that open source textbooks (or open educational resources — OERs in academic lingo) found that students learn the same amount or more from the free books across many subjects. (Here's a sampling of the sorts of texts available, via a University of Minnesota site.) What's more, 85% of students and instructors said open textbooks were actually better than the commercial ones.

Collective Evolution: Putin on Terrorism as a Western Construct

04 Inter-State Conflict, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime
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logo collective evolutionPutin: The Russian President Says Something About ISIS That Western Media Won’t Air

A great example right now is the ongoing situation between the United States and Russia. Here in Canada, newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently called Putin, Russia’s President since May of 2012, a bully, and the United States did the same. HERE is what Putin had to say after Russia was accused of being a bully.

EVENT: 10 NOV 2 PM East 11 AM West Reinventing US Foreign Policy – Sheer, Porter, Hurlburt, Naiman, Knight, Leyden

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Gareth Porter
Gareth Porter

Redefining the Broad Goals and Priorities of a New American Foreign Policy

What are America’s core national security interests, and what are the real security threats we face in coming decades?

Free Online Streaming Video: Robert Sheer, Gareth Porter, Heather Hurlburt, Robert Naiman, Charles Knight, Peter Leyden

Chuck Spinney: Center for American Progress Outed by Glenn Greenwald — Guns & Butter in Moral and Intellectual Vacuum

Civil Society, Corruption, Idiocy
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Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

Reinventing Guns and Butter Politics for the 21st Century

Ms. Neera Tanden thinks we should make the countries we bomb use their oil wealth to reimburse us for the cost of bombing them.  That way we don’t have to cut Head Start, food stamps, or Medicaid.

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