Posted on

Worth a Look: Public Laboratory DIY Environmental Mapping

Knowledge, Worth A Look
0Shares

publiclabThe Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab) is a community which develops and applies open-source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. By democratizing inexpensive and accessible “Do-It-Yourself” techniques, Public Laboratory creates a collaborative network of practitioners who actively re-imagine the human relationship with the environment.

The core Public Lab program is focused on “civic science” in which we research open source hardware and software tools and methods to generate knowledge and share data about community environmental health. Our goal is to increase the ability of underserved communities to identify, redress, remediate, and create awareness and accountability around environmental concerns. Public Lab achieves this by providing online and offline training, education and support, and by focusing on locally-relevant outcomes that emphasize human capacity and understanding.

Download a PDF overview of Public Laboratory's work here: public-laboratory-overview-11-22-11.pdf

Join now at: publiclaboratory.org/join

We're developing new tools in the spirit of Grassroots Mapping, meaning:

  • low cost
  • data legibility (including a preference for maps and other rich visual means of representation)
  • ease of use/low barrier to entry
  • public participation
  • high quality, environmentally and socially relevant data
  • creative reuse of consumer technology
  • open source and user modifiable design

Learn more.

Posted on

Rickard Falkvinge: Chapter Two for Swarmwise Tactical Manual to Changing the World

Crowd-Sourcing, P2P / Panarchy
0Shares

Rickard Falkvinge
Rickard Falkvinge

Swarmwise – The Tactical Manual To Changing The World. Chapter Two.

Swarm Management:  Launching a swarm is an intense event, where you can get hundreds or thousands of new colleagues in less than a day. You have a very short window for appreciating their interest, or they will take it elsewhere.

[Chapter one of the book is here. Chapter two picks up after having done due diligence whether the numbers work out to create a swarm.]

EXTRACT:

My point here is, if you’re thinking hard about how to gather a swarm for your idea:

Don’t worry about advertising.

Word of mouth is much more efficient than any campaign can ever be, but that requires that your idea – or rather, your presentation of it – meets four criteria: Tangible, Credible, Inclusive, and Epic.

  • Tangible: You need to post an outline of the goals you intend to meet, when, and how.
  • Credible: After having presented your daring goal, you need to present it as totally doable. Bonus points if nobody has done it before.
  • Inclusive: There must be room for participation by every spectator who finds it interesting, and they need to realize this on hearing about the project.
  • Epic: Finally, you must set out to change the entire world for the better – or at least make a major improvement for a lot of people.

If these four steps are good, then the swarm will form by itself. Quite rapidly, in the twenty-odd cases I have observed firsthand. Very rapidly. On the other hand, if these four components are not good enough, no amount of advertising or whitewashing is going to create the volunteer activist power that you want.

Learn more.

Posted on

Michel Bauwens: Social Collaboration Platforms for Local to Global Enterprises

Architecture
0Shares
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens

Why open social collaboration platforms will disrupt the enterprise market in 2013 and beyond – Brian Solis

Guest post by Sarah Evans (PRsarahevans), chief evangelist, Tracky, social correspondent at Sarah’s Faves and author of [RE]FRAME: Little Inspirations For A Larger Purpose

The majority of businesses aren’t run efficiently and employees lack the tools and equipment necessary to do their jobs. Quite a wide sweeping statement, I know. But I’ve also been in the trenches. And I realize it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve worked with companies who hired consultant after consultant to help with productivity recommendations, workflow suggestions and overall team building — all in the name of doing better business. These investments never quite had the impact leadership hoped for.

Why?

Because they lacked a fundamental commitment to launch an entire culture overhaul (more about this later). Not necessarily “cleaning house,” but changing the WAY people work individually, collaboratively and publicly. The key lies in this trifecta, partnered with the right people on board.

Now, predictions and estimates show that social collaboration tools will start to rule the roost in 2013. This comes after worldwide enterprise social software revenue surpassed $769 Million in 2011. That only hits one area of professional workflow — those who manage social media. Social software doesn’t include the rest of the work force, requiring some companies to use multiple collaboration tools that:

1. Don’t “talk” to one another or interdepartmentally;

2. Require massive amounts of training, and staff to upkeep software; or

3. Aren’t available for customers and clients to use.

It’s estimated that 75 percent of enterprise-level organizations will adopt a social collaboration platform in 2013. That adoption rate could very well be accurate, but long term use could be hindered if these tools and platforms are implemented ineffectively.

Learn more.

Posted on

12 Mar to 30 Apr 2013 Online Consciousness Conversations ($249)

Knowledge
0Shares

The Consciousness Conversations

March 12, 2013 ,05:00 PM – April 30, 2013 ,06:30 PM

 A Visionary Dialogue with Ervin Laszlo, Claire Zammit, Craig Hamilton, Lynne McTaggart, Marilyn Schlitz, Pim van Lommel, John Hagelin and Fred Travis.

Hosted by The Intelligent Optimist’s Jurriaan Kamp

The coming expansion of consciousness will change the world beyond anything we can imagine. That’s the premise and promise of our first Visionary Dialogue featuring some of the leading minds—and souls—in the field in conversation with each other and with you about topics like:

• Is a new era of consciousness really on its way? How do we know?

• What will it look like? What effect will it have?

• How can we be active participants in its emergence?

In past centuries, humanity has pursued the discovery of everything that could be seen and touched. The overwhelming question regarding the “why” of our existence—the understanding of consciousness—was shoved aside for the sake of convenience. But that doesn’t mean evolution can escape the question. Physicists are discovering ever-smaller particles. It seems that matter ultimately dissolves in energy. At the same time, brain research shows that our thoughts—proof of our consciousness—are energy as well. So the science of matter may be leading to the question of consciousness, bringing us closer to our biggest “why?”

Learn more.

Posted on

Chuck Spinney: Kelly Vlahos on the Militarization of Yale Neuroscience

Academia, Military
0Shares
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

.. Or Escalating the Old Boot On Campus Game

Below is an important, excellent and scary report by Kelley Vlahos.  But the MICC's infiltration of elite campus's is even worse that Ms. Vlahos says, because it builds on deep historical roots and tradition.

Yale, a main focus of her report, has a long history of its alumae being being linked to espionage operations by the US government, dating back to the mists of the Revolutionary War.

Or, consider this entry in the wikipedia from former CIA director Richard Helms‘ bio.  It refers to a 1956 report written for President Eisenhower that criticized the out-of-control covert operations by the CIA, especially wrt to its overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mosasdegh in 1953:

The report “sharply denounc[ed] ‘King Making' by the CIA. It warned that all those bright young men being recruited by the CIA out of Yale were becoming freewheeling, well-financed buccaneers. Lovett and Bruce cautioned Eisenhower that the agency was out of control, that it needed formal oversight… .”[138]

Kelley makes it quite clear that new and even more dangerous skills  are being added to the old boots-on-campus game.  Too bad James Jesus Angleton, is not around to remind us of where this kind of inbred secret coziness leads.

Boots on Campus

Kelley B. Vlahos – Antiwar – 25/02/13

Have American university campuses become so inured to the militarization of policy, culture – our thought – that they can’t see the Trojan horse sitting in the quad, its occupants pouring out and passing out sweets and credits to all the Ivy Leaguers passing by with goggled eyes and open arms?

A caricature for sure, but is it so off base? How else does one explain the muted response to news that the Department of Defense may have been funding the “U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) Center of Excellence for Operational Neuroscience,” at the Yale Medical School in New Haven? The proposed program, according to a report by ABC News last week, would teach special operations personnel the art of “conversational,” and “cross cultural” intelligence gathering, and pay volunteers from the community’s vast immigrant population (mainly poor Hispanics, Moroccans and Iraqis) to serve as the guinea pigs test subjects.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Kelly Vlahos on the Militarization of Yale Neuroscience”

Posted on

Marcus Aurelius: Badley Manning Merits Execution — What He Did Has Brought DoD Information Handling to Its Knees

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement, Military
0Shares
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

(1) Tragic that this is being tried as non-capital case; IMHO, Manning deserves to be executed; (2) for those readers not currently in government and thus not dealing with government computer systems on daily basis, it's impossible to adequately convey how much Manning's treachery has cost us in terms of lost functionality, lost access to information, and increased hassle; (3) further IMHO, Manning is worse that Jonathan Pollard and deserves the worst law permits us to do to him, which is maybe consign him to solitary confinement in supermax facility for rest of his life.

Soldier to Face More Serious Charges in Leak

By

New York Times: March 1, 2013

EXTRACT

Perhaps the biggest battle in what is expected to be a 12-week trial will be over the prosecutors’ attempt to prove the rare charge of aiding the enemy — in the words of the charging document, that Private Manning did “without proper authority, knowingly give intelligence to the enemy, through indirect means.” That charge can carry the death penalty, but since prosecutors have ruled that punishment out, he would face a maximum sentence of life without parole if convicted.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Badley Manning Merits Execution — What He Did Has Brought DoD Information Handling to Its Knees”