Published Date 3/17/16 6:05 PM Climate change and our basic environment are running away with our future. The technology network that could help to save us is splintering. We are fucked, the open web, the thing all progressive geeks build on has plateaued and is visible fading. A project to play a small role. It’s…
Why did the #openweb flower and die over the last 30 years
Published Date 2/22/16 1:17 AM Why did the thousands of open internet projects fail? despite the state, foundation, #NGO funding. The were early successful atavist tech projects, all proved to be pointless or withered with success. In all cases I would argue that the underlining failer was one of ideology, almost all projects worked against…
Some questions came out of the last grassroots media gathering about OMN
Published Date 10/19/15 8:54 PM Questions and draft answers in terms of what I don’t understand it is what do sites specifically have to do? * At a basic level very little. – output an RSS feed of their articles/videos/podcasts (most sites do this already) – grab a sidebar embed code (or CMS plug-in) then…
Media Democracy Festival at Goldsmiths review
The alt-media gatherings have been suffering from the tyranny of the funders for more years than I care to remember. The is a big problem of the chattering classes in alt-media. This is a DRAFT over view of the gathering from a working grassroots perspective. Comments in italics are by me. === Festival === To…
Worthwhile grassroots openspace projects
Published Date 6/12/15 2:35 PM The are two current worthwhile grassroots “openspace” projects am involved with. Both have a lot of potential but both are more likely to fail for obverses and avoidable reasons. Lets look at both in turn: The Hive Dalston is an interesting hybrid project crossing the activist and corporate divide. Its…
Lets look for a moment at sanity in grassroots terms
Published Date 2/23/15 3:24 PM The are a lot of “insane” people in activism and counter-culture, its what makes it exciting, dynamic and affective. However with everything its a question of balance, lets look at how a movement stagnates, fails or growes and blossems. A short off the top of head list NGO’ists push limited…
Real Media Gathering how not to reboot grassroots media
Published Date 2/11/15 4:46 PM Draft Firstly, I don’t have any ill will to the people I know organising this event and would love it to succeed in being a part of the kindling to (re)light the fire of alt-media. But we have 3 main problem groupings/failures blocking grassroots media (culture) from rebooting Let’s look…
Were are we
Published Date 11/21/14 3:20 PM Its important to understand the perspective/world view am coming from to understand what am saying about the state of the alternative. Anarchist/socialist/libertarian/liberal leaning on the start and tapering off the end… am reacting against Hierarchical/conservative/authoritarian. This is a classic enlightenment divide so we should all be well aware of living…
A Year Long Summer
(DRAFT) 1989-1992 A Year Long Summer I spent the summer of 1989 travelling in Ireland. I can’t now remember why Ireland? The first step was a lift to Barnsley with my parents to help put up the Exhibition 100 Years of Woman’s Banners in the City Art Gallery. Then I hitchhiked through the Lake District…
Balcombe anarchist and conservative
Published Date 8/26/13 6:55 PM (DRAFT) Interesting to think about the things you are involved with and the things you do. Important to understand am not talking about the sciences or polatics of fracking here, am lifting the lid to see what I can see under the hood of both camps. I had been staying in…
Hard or Soft is the question
Published Date 6/22/13 6:03 PM The are two types of security in activism (DRAFT) The is the outline of what am talking about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_security Hard security “hard security for traditional mechanisms like authentication and access control, and soft security for social control mechanisms.” Encryption and anonymity, hiding communication so that people can trust that there…