MetaFilter posts tagged with Commons

Freely available education resources -- The OER Commons

cog_nate — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:44:06 -0800

The OER Commons exists to help educators "find free-to-use teaching and learning content from around the world." Thousands of primary, secondary and post-secondary activities, labs, lecture notes, assignments and other educational materials are available by searching or browsing the OER site.

The Commons' Photostream

netbros — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:31:23 -0800

The Commons' Photostream from the National Library of New Zealand is a collection of late 19th and early 20th century photography. Includes a selection of stereographs from the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington-based photographer William Hall Raine, and panoramas of New Zealand from Robert Percy Moore. There is lots, lots more, and the NLNZ is continuing to update regularly. While visiting the National Library (previously) don't miss Papers Past, containing more than one million pages of digitized New Zealand newspapers and periodicals from the years 1839 to 1932.

a new politics of the common good

kliuless — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:11:35 -0800

Markets and Morals -- "without quite realising it, without ever deciding to do so, we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society" -- is the first of the 2009 Reith Lectures delivered by Michael Sandel. (previously) cf. Yglesias on free markets... which kinda reminded me of clay shirky's LSE lecture (mp3; 43 mb; approx 93 minutes) esp the bit in the Q&A around 56.50 wrt money, motivation and ed deci :P bonus!

Ayo Ghurkali

Happy Dave — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:30:19 -0800

In a landmark defeat for the UK Government, the House of Commons has voted to allow all former and existing Ghurkas the right to live in the UK. The Ghurkas are Nepalese soldiers who fight for the United Kingdom, a legacy of officers of the East India Company impressed by their tenacity in battle during the 1800s. Designated a Martial Race (along with Scottish Highlanders) by colonial administrators, the Ghurkas have been involved in nearly every conflict and military action by Britain of the past 150 years. Previous to today's vote, Ghurkas who completed service before the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 were denied the right to live in the UK. Following a long-running campaign, fronted by Joanna Lumley of Absolutely Fabulous fame, a coalition of Liberal Democrat, Conservative and even a few Labour back-benchers won the vote today 267 to 246, recognising the fundamental right that "a person who has pledged to defend a country with their life deserves the right to live in it." The campaigners await a government statement on their victory.

The Commons

finite — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:30:45 -0800

It's the commons, our right of birth
And to you who would own everything all around the Earth
Our future is your downfall, when we cut this ball and chain
You who'd sacrifice the public good for your private gain

Serein v3

hama7 — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:18:08 -0800

Serein v3

HOMOPHONI

hama7 — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:19:19 -0800

HOMOPHONI

Sorry, kids. We're stealing your work and selling it

Unregistered User — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:34:49 -0800

Commercial exploitationTube? Creative Commies-Tube? Plagiarism® ? "…you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels…" moc.ebutuoy

whata circlejerk... Now where's my aeroflot and reversed copyright Tee-Shirt! and Negativland, Tape-beatles, EEC records. I'm ready for a copyfight !

RIAA's gonna cry yeah?

Sijeka — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 03:25:00 -0800

Today might be a good day to look at the bright side of 'teh internet' life. Lawrence Lessig (author of Free Culture), Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), various advocates of the Free Culture network organisation and others are all meeting at the iCommons Summit in Rio to discuss Creative Commons, open networks, non-restrictives licenses, global Digital Commons and the fact that maybe, in 2006, 'Sharing is Daring'. A similar summit has been taking place earlier this month in Thailand, under the name of Asia Commons. I for one thinks it's extremely exciting to see all kind of artists, collectives and record labels using the CC licenses for the work they publish. After all, we now all live in a 'Remixed Culture', since everything we ever use was once part of something else, wasn't it? openDemocracy has been publishing a solid set of articles & a debate about the topic.

Ourmedia needs your help

Caviar — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 07:08:13 -0800

Ourmedia needs volunteer moderators. Ourmedia, which provides "free storage and free bandwidth for your videos, audio files, photos, text or software" is doing well. Too well. The current volunteer moderator team of 40 is faced with the overwhelming task of reviewing the submitted content of 40,000 users for copyright and other policy violations, on which their open submission policy depends. If you'd like to get involved, now would be the time.

Geothermals make me sleepy...

lucien — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:05:22 -0800

Sci-fi writer and Marine Biologist Peter Watts puts his first two novels, Starfish and Maelstrom online under Creative Commons license. Behemoth to follow shortly. The most original and starkly vivid account of a dystopian future that I have read for years, made all the more enthralling by Watt's scientific background and knowledge. You will find some of his short stories at the link as well. Via BoingBoing

CommonTunes

signal — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:05:45 -0800

Lobsters! Lobsters Everywhere!

jscalzi — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:38:46 -0800

Charlie Stross releases his new book Accelerando as a Creative Commons e-book, thereby buying in to the open source idea that offering up one's intellectual property (under certain circumstances) will result in greater sales of the physical object, not fewer (see: Cory Doctorow). In a time where promotional opportunities for new and "mid-list" authors seem to be continually shrinking, is offering up a complete work the current equivalent of the author interview or newspaper puff piece? Or is it simply a recognition that here in the 21st century anything can be pirated -- better to offer up your work in good will (and in a form where you have some control), and hope some of the kids will realize that behind the free content is a guy who needs to eat? And what happens if/when all books become digital books?

Freesound Project

signal — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:02:22 -0800

The Freesound Project - a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds.

Open Source Biology

OmieWise — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:10:23 -0800

BIOS-Biological Innovation for Open Society is an open source biotechnology initiative based in Australia. Along with its parent organization CAMBIA, it aims to foster a "protected commons" for scientific information and technology. Tools and techniques are shared, and can be improved and repackaged, just like in open source software.

State of the Commons

homunculus — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 11:06:50 -0800

Reviving the Commons. The commons are the range of resources that the American public collectively owns, but which are often mismanaged by government or privatized ("enclosed") by corporations. An excellent report on "The State of the Commons 2003/04" (PDF) was prepared for the Friends of the Commons by the Tomales Bay Institute. The principle of the commons in Western common law was first codified in the Magna Carta, and was previously discussed on MeFi here. [Via I-Merge.]

Estovers of common

homunculus — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:24:21 -0800

The Secret History of the Magna Carta. This is a fascinating article on the Magna Carta and the lesser known Charter of the Forest, and the early establishment of the rights of commons.

dejah420 — Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:49:31 -0800

Reclaiming the Commons "One of the great questions of contemporary American political economy is, who shall control the commons? "The commons" refers to that vast range of resources that the American people collectively own, but which are rapidly being enclosed: privatized, traded in the market, and abused." This is a fairly long, but incredibly well researched article about the "silent theft of our shared assets and civic inheritance".

rushmc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 17:05:56 -0800

A five-year-old kid from Minnesota has patented a way of swinging on a child's swing. More proof, if anyone needs it, that the government is veering from an institution of reason to an institution of control. At what point is a sufficient degree of absurdity reached that legitimacy is widely recognized to have been abandoned?

mokey — Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:59:24 -0800

UK Parliament now offering live webcasts of debates. Fascinating. Don't miss Prime Minister's Questions every Wednesday at 3pm GMT, it's always good for a few laughs. Would give some of the slower debates a miss though. Via The Register.