Yesterday I was lucky enough to hang out with a group of folks passionately interested in open culture, free software and alternative copyright frameworks. Cory Doctorow organised a breakfast followed by an excursion to Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park – it was fantastic. Cory opened with a rousing introduction to the cyclical history of establishment concern in the face of innovation that ultimate results in new and even more successful business models. This was followed by Rufus Pollock exhorting us to care about the frameworks of access. Danny O’Brien was up next with a very charismatic call to open the BBC’s archive. Unfortunately I missed the other speakers as I was off chasing pidgeons with Ada.
Becky Hogge caught some of the speeches on video here (via boingboing)
Archive Page 2
Larry Lessig has been posting inspiring views from the World Social Forum in Brazil for the last three days. I was particularly moved by his description of the youth camp.
*ponders* how to develop a project to have millions of “points of culture” around the world.
After lunch, I visited the Youth Camp at the WSF, where 50,000 tents, and 80,000 kids are participating in WSF events. At the core was a Free Software lab, with about 50 machines, all running GNU/Linux, and constant lessons about how to set the systems up, how do to audio, and video editing, how to participate in free software communities. This was organized totally by the kids who ran it. Machines in shacks, hay on the ground, wires and boxes everywhere.
I got to talk to the organizers of at least one part of the lab for about an hour. JP Barlow and I peppered them with questions as they described their “Thousand points of culture” project — to build a thousand places around Brazil where free software tools exist for people to make, and remix, culture. The focus is video and audio; no one’s much worried about Office applications, or the like. It is an extraordinary, grass roots movement devoted first to an ideal (free software) and second to a practice (making it real).
They have the culture to do it. Again, there were geeks, but not only. There were men, but plenty of women (and lots of kids). They were instructing each other — some about code, some about culture, some about organizing, some about dealing with the government — as they built this infrastructure out. Think Woodstock, without the mud, and where the audience makes the music.
This is an old theatre that has been occupied as a squat for years. It is right in the heart of St Pauli. It has been the site of an almost constant battle between the inhabitants and the local council. However, recently a private philanthropist resolved the argument by buying the building from the council and giving it to the squatters. The squatters have now turned it into a public space that gets used for parties, public meetings and activist get togethers.
Hamburg really has got the hang of reclaiming public space for public use. This is a public access climbing wall built on the side of WWII bunker in the middle of St Pauli.
Ahh..perhaps the answer to my book storage problems.
via BBC4 – The book show
OMG – this is brilliant. BBC 3 are showing a “flashmob” opera based in Paddington station – with the audience apparently just passers by. The best thing is watching them all on the phone telling their mates.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3594000.stm
“by acton she will have forgotten her lover”
“we had some good times”
“we had some great times”
“he is a stupid muppet!”
and a couple in the crowd get outed on public television!
this just gets better and better
BBC orchestra nestled in next to yo sushi
Finally a game made for me – Quinn Norton spoke about the Kingdom of Loathing today and already I am into it. I have some way to go (about 5 levels) before I am into the interesting economics that Quinn was speaking about. Already it has made me laugh and I haven’t been made to feel like a complete idiot because I can’t get my thumbs to syncopate with my index finger while at the same time using my big toe to hit the fire button.
I experience childlike glee whenever someone mentions 3D printing and copying. This is entirely fueled by the desire to fabricate at will and the very optimistic hope that it is the precusor to the words “beam me up”. So you can imagine my excitement when there are several foo sessions on the subject. Tim Anderson started this morning talking about his company Z Corp that builds 3D printers. Very cool.
However, arguably the most interesting idea was planted by Tim O’Reilly when he asked whether there was an open source community around the digital fabrication. I immediately imagined a world where the ability to fabricate a cup was dependent on your purchase of the fabrication template. In other words, things we take for granted as being in the public domain – ie. the basic notion of a cup becomes something that is licenced because the design is captured in a template.
Last night I was out at 9:20 Special – great night – brand new floors were really nice even in sticky soled trainers and catching up with Dexter, Lak and Howard is always worth the effort.
Another really cool thing was that some local dancers had made a swing version of DDR called 9:20Special. It had all the classic numbers in it as well as customised graphics and of course customised choreography. The great news is that it is possible to look cool dancing on the mats to swing, the bad news is that you have to be Kevin St Laurent – he looked great!
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