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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
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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.

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Worth a Look: EcoInvent Life Cycle Inventory Data

Earth Intelligence, Worth A Look
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EcoInvent Home Page
EcoInvent Home Page

Created in 1997, the ecoinvent Centre (originally called the Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories) is a Competence Centre of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH Zurich), the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa), and the Swiss Federal Research Station Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon (ART).

Our core product is the database ecoinvent data in its current version v2.1 – the world’s leading database with consistent and transparent, up-to-date Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data. With more than 4’000 LCI datasets in the areas of agriculture, energy supply, transport, biofuels and biomaterials, bulk and speciality chemicals, construction materials, packaging materials, basic and precious metals, metals processing, ICT and electronics as well as waste treatment, we offer one of the most comprehensive international LCI databases.

On the technical level, the ecoinvent Centre is trusting since the year 2000 in the technical knowledge and the savoir-faire of the German company ifu Hamburg GmbH, under the lead of Jan Hedemann – company that developed and is operating the ecoinvent software.

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Worth a Look: Earthster Ecological Supply Chain Innovations and Life-Cycle Evaluations (LCA)

Earth Intelligence, Worth A Look
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Earthster Home Page
Earthster Home Page

This project, an initiative of New Earth, aims to give life cycle evaluation and publishing power to all companies, along with other ways to document and market their environmental and social performance. And it equally aims to enable buyers around the world to evaluate and identify the products and producers that meet their environmental and social goals. This website is the home of a new system that is web-based, free, and open source (non-proprietary).

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Reference: Open Innovation vs. Dinosaur Defenses

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

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Reference: Creating a global knowledge network

Briefings (Core)
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Creating a Global Knowledge Network
Creating a Global Knowledge Network

Abstract: If we were to start from scratch today to design a quality-controlled archive and distribution system for research findings, would it be realized as a set of “electronic clones” of print journals? Could we imagine instead some form of incipient knowledge network for our research communications infrastructure? What differences should be expected in its realization for different scientific research fields? Is there an obvious alternative to the false dichotomy of “classical peer review” vs. no quality control at all? What is the proper role of governments and their funding agencies in this enterprise, and what might be the role of suitably configured professional societies? These are some of the key questions raised by the past decade of initial experience with new forms of electronic research infrastructure. In the below, I will suggest only some partial answers to the above, with more complete answers expected on the 5-10 year timescale.

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Journal: Afghanistan, Options, Anti-War Rally, Cynthia McKinney, Michael Moore, Event Report

08 Wild Cards
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Obama’s Options in Afghanistan

But whatever the weight given to those historical analogies, it seems clear, from the sampling of American opinion we can take from the blogs that have reached this Web site since we posted “Obama’s Options in Afghanistan” as our latest topic, that many Americans have already concluded that the American enterprise in Afghanistan is doomed; and that President Obama, by “doubling down on a bad bet”, as Sandra from Kent, Wash., put it, only ensures that the price in lives lost and billions of dollars expended will be much higher when the moment comes, as these critics believe it will, for American forces to follow the Russians in abandoning an unwinnable war.

EMERGENCY ANTI-ESCALATION RALLY
Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009 • 11am-4pm • Washington DC
Lafayette Square | White House Metro: Farragut West or Farragut North

Come hear Cynthia McKinney; Sen. Mike Gravel; Kathy Kelly; Chris Hedges, David Swanson; Coy McKinney, Debra Sweet, Mathis Chiroux, Lynne Williams, Hon. Betty Hall, Elaine Brower, Marian Douglas, Michael Knox, Ralph Lopez, Ron Fisher, and a message from Granny D (turning 100).

Continue reading “Journal: Afghanistan, Options, Anti-War Rally, Cynthia McKinney, Michael Moore, Event Report”