The OLPC now available!

Posted on | November 17, 2008 | No Comments

I’ve been circling around the OLPC like a hungry lion around a caged gazelle for months now, waiting for it to be publicly available – and now it finally happened for the Americans. We Europeans will have to wait until December 16, unfortunately.

Background info: OLPC stands for One Laptop Per Child and is the laptop creation of the non-profit One Laptop Per Child Foundation devoted to bringing African kids into the digital age by developing a small, green, environmentally sustainable and low-cost laptop using open source software and a lot of grass-root community muscle and labour. The laptop is distributed to African children using a “Give one, get one”-principle, where willing Western-world consumers pay for not one, but two of the small laptops, and recieve only one of them while the other is sent and given to a child in Africa. Such a magnificent idea.

Get one yourself – and automatically give one.
Me and other Europeans – lurk here.

Creative Commons needs you

Posted on | November 13, 2008 | No Comments

Received a newsletter-communication yesterday from Stanford University professor and copyright activist – and perhaps most notably former Creative Commons chief – Lawrence Lessig leading my attention towards the Creative Commons fundraiser taking place right now. The Commons are dependent on our funding – in order to continue their tireless efforts to offer a strong alternative to proprietary thinking.

“Please help us in this. Whatever you can give is important. (…) Do what you can. Get 6 friends to do the same. We’ve been depending on small donations long before America could spell “Obama.” And we depend upon those donations still.”

Please visit http://support.creativecommons.org/join and support Creative Commons today.
Also, I recommend adding both Lessig’s news- and blogfeed to your rss-reader.

On a sidenote, another fave blog of mine, Open Media Review, also posted on this issue. While you are at it adding the Lessig-feeds, take this one too.

Last reference on this issue: Feel free to visit my own Creative Commons-licensed record label, Urlyd Records, and download the free music.

What is Creative Commons?

“Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a “some rights reserved” copyright.” (from the CC website). Read more.

Airwaves are finally voted free by FCC

Posted on | November 11, 2008 | No Comments

From the Google/FreeTheAirwaves newsletter:

“We did it. On November 4, 2008, by a vote of 5-0, the Federal Communications Commission agreed to free the unused TV airwaves for unlicensed public use.

This is a tremendous victory for Internet users.

Thank you for being one of the more than 20,000 who signed the Free the Airwaves petition to the FCC. This historic vote would not have been possible without your effort.

And many thanks to the Commission for showing great leadership on this issue.

Read Google Co-Founder Larry Page’s reaction to the vote on the Official Google Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/vote-for-broadband-in-white-spaces.html

Thanks,
FreeTheAirwaves.com”

Letter to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe

Posted on | November 6, 2008 | No Comments

Although living in Denmark, I am still on the mailinglist of the legendary Nuyorican Poets Café in New York, that I used to appreciate so much back when I lived there last year. The café is situated on 3rd Street between avenues B and C, right in the midst of the East Village, and is known as the epicentre of the New York slam poetry and spoken word scene.
Thus, it has a firm position in the cultural heritage of the village – the former counter-culture capital of the world that today, although only a shadow of itself compared to what it was a few decades back, is struggling to avoid the gentrification that is taking place in the rest of the city. Many activist groups work hard to keep chainstores out of the village and to achieve the preservation status of it’s west-side counterpart, Greeenwich Village. Something that, unfortunately, has not happened yet – and therefore the daily battle is happening on the street, lease by lease, cup of coffee by cup of coffee, between the corporations on one side and commoners on the other.

Although appreciating the monthly email updates from the Nuyorican, this last newsletter filled me with anything else than praise, as I learned that the café is acting as beneficiary of Avant-Grande, a spoken-word and visual art exhibition at the Metropolitan Pavilion – sponsored by….Starbucks! Could this really be? The mastodont chain that if anyone encapsulates the shallow mass production of culture that stands in direct opposition to everything the village stands for. In that light, even the name of the exhibition – Avant-“Grande” is disgusting (as you may know, ‘Grande’, is a cup size in Starbucks).

This is my letter to the Nuyorican:

Dear Nuyorican,

here is a little praise from two of your overseas supporters – and a little predicament.

My girlfriend and I live in Denmark and are Danes, but we lived for 6 six months on 7th Street and 1st last year and quickly came to appreciate the wonder of your great café. The lyrics, the atmosphere, the people – and the spirit, that seemed to capture the essense of the East Village so accurately. Many nights we enjoyed the greats slams, music nights and performances that took place while we were able to call ourselves New Yorkers for a brief period of time and throughout that time, the Nuyorican stood as one of the landmarks that represented the part of New York that makes it the greatest city in the world – and in our minds represented the incorruptable part of the East Village that has not yet succumbed to powers of normalization that is seen in the rest of the city, the US and the Western world.
Ever since we’ve had to go back to Europe, we’ve stayed on your mailinglist in order feel a little touch of that same feeling every time you send out newsletters. Those newsletters has helped us remember the great times we spent in your café – and they still do – but this last one touched us in another way too; only far less pleasant, when reading that the Nuyorican liaises with…Starbucks?!? Seriously? The chain of soulless and artificually mass contructed cafés that is suffocating the mom and pops cafés across the country and is known for it’s ruthless marketing strategies? The 278-on-Manhattan-strong chain that is lurking at the gate of the village with 3 outlets on Astor Place, as if ready to devour the former counter-culture capital at it’s earlist convience. Can this really be?

Kind regards (and immense astonishment),
Christian Villum & Diana Lythje
Denmark

Find more time

Posted on | October 15, 2008 | No Comments

Isn’t it scary how more and more appearent it becomes that in the information society the most valuable commodity is time? How many of us will agree that our greatest frustration is not being able to find the time to do the things we really want? I myself have a long list of things that I want to do as soon as I find the time – but the list has items that I put on there several years ago and still haven’t found the time to do. Terrifying!

So what do we do? We try to cut corners, become more efficient, outsource things, buy gadgets, buy books (that end up half-read by our bed)…and freak out when our laptops stalls for a few seconds and we are on a deadline. Ever tried that?

Anyway, let’s cut the gloomy pessimism and get constructive: Ever heard of the open source Quicksilver launching software? Getting started on that has been on my to-do list (Yes, that to-do list again) for months and I finally found the time – and, as all the others that recommended it to me, found out how brilliant it is. What a time- and computer-power saver. It doesn’t solve overall problem of the fact that our society bogs us down in an ever-increasing stressful time stretch, but it sure is neat.

Download it for free here – and I recommend using Dan Dickinson’s excellent 10-minute tutorial.

Support the spectacle

Posted on | September 27, 2008 | No Comments

Just donated 5 bucks to these guys (the following communication is from the Nonsense NYC newsletter):

“Dear Friends, If you live in or near New York City, or plan on being here in early October, please sign up to be part of a very special event that we’re planning with some amazing activist groups. We can’t tell you the details right now, but it will be about the Iraq War, and will involve doing simple public performances individually or in groups. It will be easy, outrageously fun, and will culminate in what promises to be a super-fun outdoor dance party. If you can devote an hour or more of your time on the big day, please visit your profile and select the “Because We Want It” list. If you can also shoot video, help with legal support, or liaison with the press, please check those boxes as well. You can also visit http://www.BecauseWeWantIt.org/ to sign up under a different email address, and to sign up for cell phone alerts so that if anything changes the day of the event you’ll know right away. In 2003, the thugs in charge of Washington began destroying a country they knew posed no threat. Five years later, that country is still the most dangerous place on earth, and ours isn’t doing so well either. This action is about trying to change the political discussion around this, the biggest crime of the twenty-first century.

– Onwards! The Yes Men and friends.

P.s. If you can’t attend, but would like to help with a donation, please visit http://theyesmen.org/donate/. Many of you already have, which is why this is moving forward!”

When The Yes Men are involved, it’s gonna be a spectacle of healthy thought.
I sure wish I was still in New York.

Arbejde som sikring eller udvikling?

Posted on | September 20, 2008 | 1 Comment

I dagens Information har jeg netop læst en interessant artikel af Lise Nielsen, der handler om omgangstonen indenfor vores dagpengesystem, hvor Lise Nielsen argumenterer for, at man i de seneste tiltag inden for dagpengesystemet kan aflæse en udvikling hen imod et menneskesyn, der tager udgangspunkt i, at folk helst vil undgå at arbejde, og at der ikke er plads til forskellige måder at gå til livet på. Et udsagn jeg levende kan forestille mig er korrekt i vores i stigende grad ensrettede samfund.

Allermest interessant er dog en formulering Lise Nielsen bruger deri, nemlig at “arbejde skal ikke sikre mig. Det skal udvikle mig”.
Denne formulering er værd at tage med sig, synes jeg. Jeg har tit argumenteret for, at man i Danmark arbejder for at kunne holde fri. At man med andre ord tager arbejde som et nødvendigt onde for at kunne holde weekend. Men sådan behøver det ikke at være – hvilket Lise Nielsens formulering så præcist indrammer. Hvilken af de to kategorier hører dit job til for dig?

autofunk.dk/freeform101_web launch

Posted on | September 16, 2008 | No Comments

Welcome to the autofunk.dk/freeform101_web blog, an contemplative online presence aimed at commenting, scrutinizing and discussing a wide range of topics in the sphere of media, politics, technology, social justice, art, civil dissent and other inspiring and/or troublesome subjects in our increasingly globalized world and network society. The blog is bi-lingual and posts are written in either English or Danish, depending on the subject at hand – and mood of the editor.

Velkommen til autofunk.dk/freeform101_web-bloggen, en online platform rettet mod eftertænksomt at kommentere, undersøge og diskutere en bred vifte af emner indenfor sfæren af medier, politik, teknologi, social lighed, kunst, kritisk civil stillingtagen og andre inspirererende og/eller vanskelige temaer i vores i stigende grad globaliserede verden og netværkssamfund. Bloggen er to-sproget og indlæg skrives på enten engelsk eller dansk, afhængigt af emnet – og redaktørens lune.