I have gotten more out of this list's active contributors than any other list I have browsed that I can remember. Thank you.
Where I think we are headed is toward a world brain and global game, which is where 24 of of us including Medard Gabel, the co-creator
with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, have been focused since 2006. It boils down to facts, things, minds, and opinions.
Reference: World Brain Institute & Global Game
There are two others whose work I would mention, the first for his interest in Open Hypertextdocument System (linking at paragraph level), and the second for Internet Economy Meta-Language.
so you make a quasi-social facebook game that you play in the real
world via your mobile device, but what the game is is performing
microwork tasks that get rewarded via facebook credits. (like....
instead of picking vegetables in farmville, you pick vegetables at a
local farm or CSA.)
so casual gamers get to get paid in credits so they can keep playing
their games, and also are saving the world while they do it.
MORE PLEASE. This is of very high interest to me. UNICEF has done some incredibly good things in a narrow range (kid arm circumference at age of 12 is superb health indicator, fills a back office database). What works for me is a digraph or trigraph panel that folks can call in. I really like with the Crisis Mappers are doing, below is a link after three SMS links.
I tend to agree here. Games are great, but are one tool within a
spectrum There's also datamining, complex systems models, and actually
digging in and carefully working with people on the ground.
> Most of the people I would try to address are in basic need of water,
> food, shelter and security from harm.
>
Where are you doing this work currently?
> Examining these realities and working toward solutions doesn't need a
> game interface IMO but there is a lot to be gained from the simplicity
> that they present.
Sometimes complex systems models can be an alternative (coupled with
researching existing data from history).
> Sometimes things are serious and require serious effort. We have a lot
> of levels of need and response, but it has been frustrating to watch a
> wide population of humanitarian projects become 'gamefied' because it
> is the cool thing to do. This is the 'top down' hubris seen with so
> many Agencies.
> WorldGame is different, conceptually, as it was an exercise to
> brainstorm and shift thought-reality. Play really is excellent for
> doing that.
> On the ground however, the marginalized hungry or threatened person
> needs a rapid response.
> I reckon 'bottom-lateral-then-up' thinking would be easier to build
> for and do more good.
>
Yes, this seems to call for a whole different approach. Basically,
looking where there is need, and getting commitment of resources, and
coordinating the delivery of those resources. I have worked in the
past on projects that were getting cell phone minutes to people in
Africa who would otherwise be robbed if cash was wired to them by
relatives, for instance.
> Groundcrew is unique in that it has a trust mechanism built in that
> uncovers positive actors based upon participation and feedback.
> Ushahidi won't scale but has a lot going for it.
> Frontline SMS is another example of really effective platform being
> used to great effect.. mostly in the medical sector.
--
--
Sam Rose
Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samue...@gmail.com
http://futureforwardinstitute.com
http://forwardfound.org
http://hollymeadcapital.com
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan
sort of. needs to be in 183 languages, and organized by need and location. here is a graphic
Venessa & Robert
Craigs list, Free Cycle, and all micro needs-surpluses matching efforts
suffer to some degree from the problem I have with them: the effort and
cost of posting/searching listings and then making phone calls and car
trips for minor things. In my opinion, better to drop off all ones'
surplus and fill multiple needs in one stop without having to coordinate
meetings or conversations with other people -- around here we call it a
thrift store. The only thing our local thrift stores don't have (but
should) is a free department.
PR
Seems like the posting of listings of things is at least a requirement
in order to create any kind of database. What could make that easier?
yes, I know Paul Hawkin and Peggy Duvette, and admire what they tried to do,
Kaliya,
Although the distributed p2p YaCy search engine can do a pretty good job
of search (with many independent crawlers working 24/7, and only a
compressed index residing on each node), a large database application is
very difficult to do in a p2p fashion with fully independent peers. It
is difficult to get good database performance on a pc-class server at
all. Concurrency control (record locking, etc.) and forcing integrity
over a network would be a nightmare, not to mention the amount of
storage each node would need to mirror the database and indexes. At the
very least, I would think the nodes would have to be dedicated servers
with high-speed internet connections, and there might need to be one or
more "master nodes" for resolving integrity issues.
If I'm wrong, and these problems have been solved, I hope to be corrected.
PR
Wiserearth looks like it overlaps with social networking and database methodology we are discussing.
I signed up. They passed 50k members in March 2011
Couchdb. NoSQL movement. MUMPS/Vista.
This is Bowo from WiserEarth. Jumping in after Suresh forwarded me
this thread :-)
First of all, I need to do more reading on the topic of this thread:
"world brain and global game"... and I haven't read through this whole
thread. So, will just respond to some points related to WiserEarth for
now.
>> Robert said: "yes, I know Paul Hawkin and Peggy Duvette, and admire what they tried to do, but it never took off as an enabler that I know of. They are featured
in the collective intelligence book I published. "
Fair enough. But you know... working for WiserEarth, I prefer to say
"it hasn't took off yet"... we're taking a hard look at why it
hasn't... http://www.wiserearth.org/article/WiserEarth_Goals_2011
...and it'll be wonderful to get some more feedback.
>> Kaliya said: "They didn't listen to the advice we (Planetwork) gave them about
distributed digital identity and people's empowerment along with
giving organizations tools to connect to people with these kinds of
"digital identity tools"."
We're not there yet. Sounds like a good idea though. Need to do some
more reading on that.
>> Kaliya said: they also overbuilt their directory of organizaitons... they should have populated it with 1000 groups and then opened it up. Instead it was "done" when they opened it with 300,000 groups in it. Why edit that?
Well... we make mistakes. I guess it's sort of a chicken and egg
kind-of-thing... and we decided to go with the egg. Probably not the
best kind of decision, but FYI, the directory is still growing by the
day... albeit slowly. We also do annual directory update campaign, and
organization representatives (some of them) are coming back to update
their listing.
>> Kaliya said: Groups had no ability to organize their members on the platform
either. (it shouldn't be a platform either :) - it should be a
distributed network of tools for people and matching ones for orgs
that do VRM (vendor relationship management) and CRM in a mutual way.)
Not sure what you meant by "no ability to organize their members"...
here's an overview of the current groupware:
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/wiserearthgroups
VRM and CRM sounds like a whole different ball game though :-)
>> Poor Richard said: "I signed up. They passed 50k members in March 2011 but blog activity is low and there is no update on site development since Jan 2011. Maybe the groups are more active. I haven't looked into that yet. "
Tech development is ongoing. Have a look at the latest at
http://www.wiserearth.org/group/WEtech In the coming month, we'll have
status update and newsfeed a la facebook... brewed with some
WE-specific features. v1 of it is already live on the site.
>> Poor Richard said: "...It might be interesting to propose
something to them if we had a better description/specification of what we
wanted. "
Talk to me some more on that. Not sure we have the technical capacity
to handle it anytime soon though... email me at bo...@wiserearth.org
... meanwhile, we do have an API that you can use (read only, write at
request): http://www.wiserearth.org/group/API
>> Jon Lebkowsky said: "Like Kaliya, I talked to the Wiser Earth folks (via my role at
Worldchanging). They weren't engaging users, weren't sure why, but weren't
open to advice. I had the sense that they weren't very collaborative -
though this is from brief conversations some time ago. "
Not sure who you talked to in WiserEarth, on what, and when... good to
know nevertheless... :-) ... and do clarify here if you want.
>> Kaliya said in response to : " Wiserearth looks like it overlaps with social networking and database methodology we are discussing. I signed up. They passed 50k members in March 2011" --> "A joke... How many people are members of enviro and social change groups around world - millions! "
Fair enough :-)
We're not planning to stop at 50k though... :-)
We've secured funding to keep the platform alive for the next 5 years:
http://blog.wiserearth.org/fundraising-reflections/
... and hope to secure another 5 years of funding at the end of this year.
More on our plans this year:
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/WiserEarth_Goals_2011
Hope that clarifies things a bit.
Feel free to shoot additional question here or directly at bo...@wiserearth.org
Thanks for listening :-)
Bowo
Online Community Manager at WiserEarth.org
http://www.wiserearth.org/user/bowo
bo...@wiserearth.org
More about WiserEarth:
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/about
Wikipedia: "CouchDB was designed with bi-direction replication (or synchronization) and off-line operation in mind. That means multiple replicas can have their own copies of the same data, modify it, and then sync those changes at a later time. The biggest gotcha typically associated with this level of flexibility is conflicts."
Just what I said. It can work at some scale. But as data volume, number of nodes, and volume of distributed commits increase, it goes haywire.
Even though that's exactly what it is designed for, it will hit the wall pretty quick. Like I also said, its hard enough to run a big database (I mean the data and transaction volume, not the engine) on a pc at all, much less keep it in sync with 10,000 or 100,000 other copies in homes and offices around the world.
I have found no significant solutions to the basic problem of scalable integrity of distributed stores in any NoSQL description. Stores can be distributed over server farms, yes, but with relatively high stability of connections, configurations, and node availability.
-- Charles N Wyble cha...@knownelement.com @charlesnw http://blog.knownelement.com Building tomorrows alternate default free zone
Yeah I have Yacy running. Need to play with it some more.
> a large database application is
> very difficult to do in a p2p fashion with fully independent peers. It
> is difficult to get good database performance on a pc-class server at
> all.
Hadoop + hbase does it quite well. Many 10k+ hadoop clusters
out there. I built a 500 node hadoop cluster once. Was fun.
> Concurrency control (record locking, etc.) and forcing integrity
> over a network would be a nightmare,
Throw it all out. Use hadoop + hbase.
> not to mention the amount of
> storage each node would need to mirror the database and indexes.
Nope. Just the portion it needs to know about. Small amount
of centralized nodes to know where things are located.
> At the
> very least, I would think the nodes would have to be dedicated servers
> with high-speed internet connections, and there might need to be one or
> more "master nodes" for resolving integrity issues.
I should do some experiments with Hadoop over consumer WAN
connections, once we have a few thousand nodes in a distributed
setup.
If someone throws me 10k I'll get the FreedomBoxes setup and
distributed. Of course I would have the image finished before this
for people to setup their own test labs. Perhaps we could have
http://labs.ripe.net/Members/dfk/active_measurements/hosting-a-probe-for-active-measurements/?searchterm=None
help with the administration of the program?
Yes I've designed, built, deployed and defended multiple nation wide
content delivery systems for brands you have most certainly heard of.
Some of them used heavily centralized approaches, others massively
distributed. Each with pros/cons. Whee!!!
> If I'm wrong, and these problems have been solved, I hope to be corrected.
You aren't wrong. Just looking at the problem space from one particular
perspective.
Hello All,
I am working with a lawyer to draft by-laws for a new non-profit, and
I thought that I might get all of your feedback. I've attached a draft
as plain text. Please let me know what you think. It's pretty
standard, dry, stuff, though I've tried to incorporated 'rough
consensus' as a governing principle wherever possible. I'm
particularly interested in how this principle can be better
incorporated into the governance structure of the entity. Right now
it's basically defined as two-thirds majority of the directors, with a
caveat that the directors should probably amend that with a more
robust definition as soon as possible.
Also, please let me know if you are interested in serving on the
board, becoming a member, or otherwise supporting such a foundation.
PR, I know you're down.
I'm about to sink all the money I saved for college into this, so
definitely holler if you think I'm making a big mistake. I don't think
so, but I value all perspectives.
Okay,
take care,
imw
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Hello All,
I am working with a lawyer to draft by-laws for a new non-profit, and
I thought that I might get all of your feedback.
I've attached a draft
as plain text.
Please let me know what you think. It's pretty
standard, dry, stuff, though I've tried to incorporated 'rough
consensus' as a governing principle wherever possible. I'm
particularly interested in how this principle can be better
incorporated into the governance structure of the entity. Right now
it's basically defined as two-thirds majority of the directors, with a
caveat that the directors should probably amend that with a more
robust definition as soon as possible.
Also, please let me know if you are interested in serving on the
board, becoming a member, or otherwise supporting such a foundation.
PR, I know you're down.
I'm about to sink all the money I saved for college into this, so
definitely holler if you think I'm making a big mistake. I don't think
so, but I value all perspectives.
In your research have you come across any group that can steward a new/open/decentralized internet? With all of the complexities that requires?
Along these lines, we're still proposing this framework:
http://blog.futureforwardinstitute.com/2011/04/01/a-nextnet-proof-of-concept
Although this is a proof of concept, it's also a set of guiding
principles for many machines, many resources, many protocols. This
minimal test case is also a scalable. We can build an RFC around this
minimal test case, and one could write utilities in most programming
languages that could accomplish the checking and switching proposed
here.
>
> On Apr 21, 8:10 am, Venessa Miemis <venessamie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 2:58 AM, Charles N Wyble
>> <char...@knownelement.com>wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > In your research have you come across any group that can steward a
>> > new/open/decentralized internet? With all of the complexities that requires?
>>
>> > i suppose not, but that doesn't mean it's not out there. maybe i just
>>
>> haven't come across it yet.... either way, as you mentioned in the other
>> response, it'll be important to assemble a good diverse team who understand
>> various aspects of this challenge and with experience in navigating the
>> system.
--
--
Sam Rose
Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samue...@gmail.com
http://futureforwardinstitute.com
http://forwardfound.org
http://hollymeadcapital.com
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Maybe the key is not to seperate ourselves out into
distinct organizations, but to wait, be patient, and come together as
a unified organism.
Venessa, you asked me if there was any particular moment when it all
came together for me. The answer is yes. I travelled to Havana, Cuba
this past summer with three of my closest friends from school. They
studied at the university there, but I chose to stay at our guest
house and see if I couldn't write my first novel. It took me just over
two weeks, and what came out is a story called 'Malady.' It is the
story of the global MIND, a vision of how it might come to be, and the
seed of the Free Network Movement. That's when it all clicked for me,
and I've been working pretty feverishly ever since. I have alienated
some of my friends, and inspired others. I've built an organization
here at my school, but I feel stifled and constrained by this
environment. I haven't had time to pick Malady back up since the
summer, and I know that it needs much work. I think that it could help
spread the message, our message, this message. I was thinking that
maybe I could be a messenger, too.
This brings me back to the point: Free Network Foundation, trying to
find patrons, trying to get money to do the good work that needs to be
done. Ultimately, I need to find a way to support myself while I work
on Malady. I know that, realistically, I will probably just have to
get another kitchen job and write in what time I can make for myself.
It is only my sense of urgency that motivates me to seek some
alternate path - one where I could set concertedly about the task of
telling people what is coming. Perhaps that path will yet emerge.
I'm going to take what seems like sage advice, and hold off on
incorporating the FNF, at least until May. It is always good to
re-evaluate.
- v
i'm interested in an intelligent knowledge infrastructure,
where i would simply be able to state my intention and have the
resources i'd need for effective decision-making and follow-through
pulled back to me.
You're right.
I've been convinced that planting a flag is not the right thing to do.
I do still think that it's important to hammer down the meaning of
consensus, though. I think that we're going to have to do that.
Interesting range of conversation...
Am i still assuming the conversation is talking about how to build a
global game, which interfaces with the real world, to empower people
to integrate on and offline together, re-patterning how we exchange
information and value in our world?
Our team was working with Edwin Loo to build just this, but it didn't
come from a 'trying to solve every problem in the world' perspective'
I believe when you come at it from this angel, you actually get
steeped in so much detail, that people will not actually have fun
playing it..
You have to be much sneakier. Think about the engaging elements first,
make the game as addictive as World Of Warcraft, create a new fantasy
land with Avatars, and integrate people together through the
technology.
Our USP's were
New Time Calender
New Open Money Exchange
New Knowledge Economy
And an intelligent system for getting people to do 'missions' in the
offline world, which translated into feedback and points in the online
world, which were part of larger exchange mechanism and network.
Fundamentally, we are patterned inside of a matrix of Time and Value,
held together by the codification of our collective cultural
consciousness (law)...
99% of people do not understand how any of these systems work to a
sufficient enough degree to change them.
All that is needed is for people to play a new game..
> for people to setup their own test labs. Perhaps we could havehttp://labs.ripe.net/Members/dfk/active_measurements/hosting-a-probe-...
On Apr 18, 11:25 pm, Charles N Wyble <char...@knownelement.com> wrote:
> On 04/18/2011 11:00 PM, Poor Richard wrote:
>
> > On 4/18/2011 3:58 PM, Kaliya Hamlin wrote:
> > Kaliya,
>
> > Although the distributed p2p YaCy search engine can do a pretty good job
> > of search (with many independent crawlers working 24/7, and only a
> > compressed index residing on each node),
>
> Yeah I have Yacy running. Need to play with it some more.
>
> > a large database application is
> > very difficult to do in a p2p fashion with fully independent peers. It
> > is difficult to get good database performance on a pc-class server at
> > all.
>
> Hadoop + hbase does it quite well. Many 10k+ hadoop clusters
> out there. I built a 500 node hadoop cluster once. Was fun.
>
> > Concurrency control (record locking, etc.) and forcing integrity
> > over a network would be a nightmare,
>
> Throw it all out. Use hadoop + hbase.
>
> > not to mention the amount of
> > storage each node would need to mirror the database and indexes.
>
> Nope. Just the portion it needs to know about. Small amount
> of centralized nodes to know where things are located.
>
> > At the
> > very least, I would think the nodes would have to be dedicated servers
> > with high-speed internet connections, and there might need to be one or
> > more "master nodes" for resolving integrity issues.
>
> I should do some experiments with Hadoop over consumer WAN
> connections, once we have a few thousand nodes in a distributed
> setup.
>
> If someone throws me 10k I'll get the FreedomBoxes setup and
> distributed. Of course I would have the image finished before this
> help with the administration of the program?> Charles N Wyble char...@knownelement.com @charlesnwhttp://blog.knownelement.com
>
> Yes I've designed, built, deployed and defended multiple nation wide
> content delivery systems for brands you have most certainly heard of.
> Some of them used heavily centralized approaches, others massively
> distributed. Each with pros/cons. Whee!!!
>
> > If I'm wrong, and these problems have been solved, I hope to be corrected.
>
> You aren't wrong. Just looking at the problem space from one particular
> perspective.
>
> Building tomorrows alternate default free zone
>
> signature.asc
> < 1KViewDownload
I'm really glad to hear about what's going on in Rome. Are you aware
of any other similar co-ops that are forming? Ideally, we could get
co-oppers into global conversation with one another, via the FNF or
another venue.
> What we are [about to be] doing here in the Rome area in Italy is, to bring people together around the idea of constructing their own local network and linking up with each other.
This is exactly what needs to happen. I'd love to hear more about the
architecture.
I was talking to Charles the other day about a sort of tripartite
ecosystem that might emerge in the Free Network problem space: First,
a hardware vendor (VillageTelco, etc), whose radios run open source
software, and whose hardware designs are open source. Second, a
non-profit support organization, such as the Free Network Foundation,
that helps people get coops up and running, provides legal support,
helps fund R&D, and promotes the cause. And third, a service
corporation (which hasn't emerged yet, but might be called 'meshworks
ltd., or something like that) that groups could hire to install and
maintain their network if they don't possess the technical expertise.
Of course, this is at a theoretical elevation high above the level of
a single cooperative, but it is still worth thinking about. As far as
the local level goes, and how I might manage to eat off of
mesh-building, I hear you loud and clear.
For now I don't know any active ones off hand, but I have been and will be keeping an eye out for developments and for linking up any initiatives that do form. There is someone in the US who says he'd like to stimulate just that kind of development, and that he's making a site, but it has been quite a while, and he doesn't seem to be getting off the ground with this. He's got a good name for it ('the connective') and a blog/twitter feed