May, 2008

• Google AdWords: A Brief History Of Online Advertising Innovation - Publishing 2.0
  Google’s search advertising model didn’t spring forth fully formed. It was iterated, and many of the key concepts were borrowed — something many people don’t realize. But a few key market-defying decisions, and one stunning insight, made it all wo

continue reading "Links for 2008-05-31 [del.icio.us]"

Kevin Carson is continuing his work on Organization theory , and has published added drafts and excerpts for chapter 13 and 15.

I have always liked Kevin’s work because, though it is libertarian and in his own words, ‘free market fundamentalist’, his brand of mutualism is not based on a justification of the exploitation of the weak by the strong, but on small producers freely associating in open markets. His fundamentalism is really a misnomer as he consistently has shown an open mind, despite his virulence against the exploitation-justifying ‘royal libertarians’. Of course, we also have differences, but the common ground is very interesting and fruitful as well.

continue reading "Kevin Carson on peer production as a crisis of capitalism"

• Platform for healthcare 2.0
  a technology platform that's designed to open intelligent channels between patients and doctors. Hello Health aims to improve the delivery of medical services to consumers by incorporating video, voice and data communications across multiple platforms and
• Crowdfunding fashion designers
  

  continue reading "Links for 2008-05-30 [del.icio.us]"

Michel Bauwens recently sent this link in an email to the p2plist:

http://research.cibcwm.com /economic_public/download /feature1.pdf

Along with the question: “Are higher transportation costs reversing globalization?”

continue reading "Are higher transportation costs reversing globalization?"

Bill

I have moved this discussion to its own topic because it kind of outgrew the topic on human trafficking.  In the title I have listed some words that have been redefined in our thinking.  The last descriptive "Sacred" was  particularly of interest to me, since it seems to relate very closely to what I have been calling "Soul."  I think you can help me to understand how its meaning fits in.

continue reading "Life, Meaning, Soul, and the Sacred"

Do you also have the impression that we are witnessing the great unraveling of the neoliberal period, and that we are entering a period that is akin to the long crisis period that came after the Great Depression in the 20’s and 30’s of the last century?

If this would be true, then a further analogy would be what happened then, i.e. a great bifurcation between on the one hand the forces of even greater evil, social regression and permanent war, then exemplified by fascism and Stalinist Russia, and on the other side a reforming capitalism that would eventually lead to a more fair redistribution of wealth, and would lead to the long boom and the post-war welfare state? (the problem then of course is that it took a world war to achieve the latter, an option which is no longer open to us)

continue reading "What happens next after the great neoliberal unraveling?"

I am suggesting a new series in this blog, describing Anti P2P Practises in various industries, exploiting users ideas, times and efforts in ways that are clearly immoral, while taken for granted and legal by their promotors. To begin with, I found a little note on a site of a commercial software company (The Omni Group) that is outstanding for its short and direct chutzpah:

continue reading "Bits and Pieces from the Idea Predators (part 1)"

• OLPC's capitulation to Windows: A community failure?
  Is Nicholas Negroponte's capitulation to Windows last month due largely to a lack of open-source community involvement in the One Laptop Per Child project?
• OLPC Decision Not Final, RMS Asks: Can We Rescue OLPC from Windows?

continue reading "Links for 2008-05-29 [del.icio.us]"

Another important teaching of the Qur’an for people all over the world today is that God chose not to create human beings as one nation and bestowed upon them free will to believe or not to believe. As it is written in the Qur’an (Maedah 5:48): “For every one of you did We appoint a law and a way. If God had pleased He would have made you one people, but (He didn’t) that He might test you in what He gave you. Therefore compete with one another to hasten to virtuous deeds; for all return to God, so He will let you know (after Judgment Day) that in which you differed.” This is a wonderful further development of the teaching of the Biblical prophet Micah (4:5) that in the end of days—the Messianic Age—”All people will walk, each in the name of their own God, and we shall walk in the name of the Lord our God forever.” continue reading

continue reading "A Reform Rabbi Learns from Muhammad"

We begin our lives satisfying physical and material desires. But eventually most of us will begin an ancient journey searching for Meaning. The first is material, while the second is immaterial—or spiritual. Brian McLaren describes the material quest as “boiling down to earning and buying and selling…eating and drinking and having fun…respiration, digestion, elimination, ovulation, ejaculation, gestation, reproduction, antiquation, expiration.”¹ The search for Meaning cannot be so easily described.

continue reading "Searching for Meaning"

Discussion en coin de table avec Le Rav Laitman sur l’amour :

Yael: « Aime ton prochain comme toi-même » est la règle spirituelle essentielle. Que veut dire « comme toi-même »? Dois je m’aimer en premier lieu? 

continue reading "Moi, les autres et l’amour"

“Interview by Vinay Gupta for the first of the Global Swadeshi Dialogues weekly interview series. This interview is perhaps the most clear description to date of the essence of our experiments with Open Source Ecology, and its implementation lab - Factor e Farm. If you can bear the 54 minutes of time, this will definitely be insightful regarding the forthcoming peer-to-peer economy - and provide much insight into the threads of thought and motivations behind our work. At Factor e, we grow ideas, and winnow for the truth.”

continue reading "Video: Open Source Ecology Project"

I wasn’t going to write this. I really wasn’t. Nobody likes a whiner—and carping at overpaid CEO’s seems like whining. What could I possibly add to the conversation? Just one more crackpot who doesn’t understand the hard realities of business. It started off as a rant about the fact that there is only one woman (number 98) in the recently released compensation ranking of our Top 100 Minnesota CEO’s. The pay packages including salaries, bonuses, stock gains and shares, range from $350,000 to $116 million. The median is $1 million. Wow. And this in humble little Minnesota. Like they say, if you want to run with the big dogs you’ve got to get off the porch. We have to pay these guys what everybody else does or we will lose our competitive edge, right?

continue reading "Birthdays, Business and the Modern Mom"

• Participatory Media Education Resources
  webliography
• Wiki / Participatory Media Literacy
• New survivalists prepare to live without oil - World - theage.com.au
  

  continue reading "Links for 2008-05-28 [del.icio.us]"

Car cette sagesse n’est ni plus ni moins qu’une séquence de racines qui découle d’un système de causes et de conséquences, selon des règles fixes et déterminées, s’entrelaçant en un but unique et exalté décrit comme «la révélation de Sa Divinité à Ses créatures en ce monde»

C’est la définition que le Baal HaSoulam donne de la sagesse de la Kabbale : une méthode pour dévoiler le Créateur.

continue reading "Citations de kabbalistes - étude de la Kabbale"

Something strange happened to me today, and I wonder if any of you can explain to me how this could possibly happen.

Yesterday, I undertook a google search on the topic of summer camps in Italy, for a friend of mine in Italy. I did not contact any of the people behind the pages I found.

Today, I got an email advertisement in my yahoo mailbox, entitled “Summer camps in Italy” but with content about a general seminar organization.

continue reading "Some ethical concers regarding Google searches and subsequent email advertisement"

• The Sad State of U.S. Broadband
  no easy solution to bridge the gap?? really?
• A Crisis of Attention and Intention
  Take those Facebook-surfing students, missing out on a potentially life-changing lecture about war and courage. Their diffused attention isn't criminal, but it certainly doesn't do justice to their own potential for learning

continue reading "Links for 2008-05-27 [del.icio.us]"

“On March 28, 2008 Reality Sandwich/Evolver sponsored a panel discussion on the capacity of digital technology to transform our reality. As moderator Ken Jordan put it, “What’s going to emerge from this digital soup?”

continue reading "Video: Evolving the network: Politics, Culture and Consciousness"

The emerging commons movement reminds many people of environmentalism in its early days. In both cases, a familiar set of concerns is united into one broad cause under a new name.

Environmentalism addressed issues as varied as smog, roadside trash and wildlife conservation together in one movement to save the planet. The commons too stretches across many fields that people once considered separate: public spaces, internet democracy, climate change, economic justice.

continue reading "Throttle the Bottle"

• Media X Reveals Transformative Insights for the Next Social Revolution
• Europe vs the super-rich - Europe, News - The Independent
  Globally,estimates of the total funds in offshore havens vary from $7trn to $12trn. Such sizeable funds could yield around $250bn for legitimate public spending. That ought to be enough to achieve many of the UN's Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

continue reading "Links for 2008-05-26 [del.icio.us]"

One of the great insights of science fiction author Bruce Sterling, is how intelligent objects, i.e. that know and can telll you where they come from, are necessary to create a world of zero waste. Before presenting that argument, a recap of the vocabulary of the P2P-Objects, and a summary history of their evolution.

This entry is inspired by a great speech by Bruce Sterling, recently rediscovered.

continue reading "Objects with consciousness are necessary to the survival of our planet"

Qu’est-ce que le mal ?

(note: also proposed as a discussion on our Ning network site)

Though there are many kinds of networks , they all seem to have a hierarchy

This seems to be the logical conclusion from recent research reported in Nature

continue reading "Hierarchy and peer to peer - a recap"

J’ai reçu de nombreuses questions à propos du concept de « prière », qui peuvent se résumer en une question générale : « Qu’est-ce que la prière selon la Kabbale ? »

La prière est une demande pour une chose impossible, que seule le Créateur peut réaliser (autrement, pourquoi se tourner vers Lui ?). La demande pour une chose qui n’est pas naturelle – une demande pour qu’Il nous change, qu’Il nous fasse évoluer d’un habitant de ce monde, égoïste, en habitant du monde supérieur, altruiste, malgré le fait que nous ne pensons pas mériter une telle chose.

continue reading "Prière"

(note: I rediscovered this in our archive, it was mistakenly labeled private and does never saw the light of day, back in 2006)

Some interesting quotes to think through, selected from this essay by Evan Thompson:

“When we consider ourselves, taking what is usually called a first-person perspective, just what do we see ? We describe ourselves with words, with concepts, identifying our ideas. But where do these come from, what is the source of all the descriptive categorization we thus employ in, say, our phenomenlogical approach ? At birth no such abilities exist, so these must arise by experience, and for humans such experiences are always highly social - our entire ‘human’ mind is almost created culturally, in other words from a second-person ‘we’ perspective, even our view of the material or animal worlds are formed from the prior beliefs of the society that teaches us about such ‘things’ and their ‘labels’. Thus when we abstract a separate ‘I’ all we are doing is breaking out from the collective whole a delusion. The ‘I’ still contains the essence of ‘we’, our very thought processes are ‘we’ processes. We think as our culture taught us to think, our thoughts suffer from the very same limitations and possibilities as the culture that incubated us. We often think that we escape such pressures in our ‘I’ perspective, but we only can challenge our upbringing to the extent that our culturation permits.

continue reading "On the primacy of intersubjectivity"