UTOPIA CROWD

Usually when we hear talking about think tanks, it have a sense of something possitive attached to it. Not this time! Check the Wikipedia article on this particular organization. Project for the New American Century, may be the organization standing behind the war on Iraq and most of American imperial interventions. I  think it really deserves some negative press. Click here to check the wikipedia article.

or/and watch this great lecture of Michel Chossudovsky called “War and Globalization – The Truth Behind September 11 ”

Yesterday I reported about a very interesting site called wideeyecinema.com full of great documents, speeches and lectures on the hottest global issues. Today I found another mind-blowing documentary made by Journeyman Pictures.

“Life Running Out of Control” is one of  those great documentaries, that will make you to understand the wast scale and the enormous dangers of  contemporary genetic engineering. I was aware about those dangers even before I saw this particular movie, but I think only now I truly understood the full scale of it. And I think everybody should, before it’s too late.

Click here, to watch the document on Wide Eye Cinema

Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you about this site, because I think the people behind this project did much better what I’m trying to do with this blog.

But of course my aim is to inform about everything I consider to have a positive effect in process of  forming a new paradigm and changing the overall belief system of current global population. WideEyeCinema.com,definitely is one of those things. A very nice collection of documentary movies that will indeed open your eyes.

I really recommend to start wit this little link. I is a fairly mind-blowing speech of  Michel Chossudovsky, explaining the mechanics of current global economic depression. http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=865

I’m just a bit afraid,that now that you know about WideEyeCinema you will not come back to Utopia Crowd.

I was looking forward to see this movie with a lot of expectation, but somehow there was no time left to do it during the last few weeks. Now, I finally did and I can say; “I am not disappointed”. Great images from fascinating places all over the world. Mostly aerial view of wast landscapes. Both natural and transformed by mans hands. The movie gives a stunning perception of human kinds influence on its natural environment. On planet Earth,Its only “Home”.

Rather than seeing human history from typically human anthropocentric  viewpoint we can see ourselves integrated into planets natural biosphere. It is a story of  natural history of  man. A story that as we can see may not have an happy ending. This is definitely one of those great movies, that every human being should see to understand his place in this world and  to become aware of ones responsibility  to it.

As mentioned many times during the course of the movie; “There’s no time to be a pessimist !” We have got a very short time to stop and reverse the human impact on this planet. And as also mentioned in the movie; “We still have a lot of resources to do so!” The clock is ticking on and our time is shorter everyday. I am one of those rare optimists and dreamers who think that we can still do it. We can still turn around and start acting, not only intelligent, but also wise and compassionate. But we have to start acting together and now! Most of our social and ecological problems are caused by inappropriate technological solutions and unethical business practice. And solutions to those problems does not only exist, but they are already implemented. It depends on us, how wide spread are those solutions going to be implemented and if they are going to make the necessary difference. Every one of those little ant-like creatures that you can see in the movie can become a part of change. Everyone can add up to the equation with his creativity and his behaviour.

The movie is freely available on Youtube. Just one click away.

So this is something completely different. I am really fascinated about the possibilities of crowd-sourcing since I became a member of Cambrian House, but with Quirky I am becoming Über-fascinated. Finally a good idea on how to make products imagined by networked communities make rolling off the production lines. Ben Kaufman (the man behind Quirky, Kluster and NameThis)  is a very talented young entrepreneur and he understand very well, what a “crowdsourcer” needs.

And what a crowdsourcer needs is very simple; “Somebody who will make the product for him and bring his idea to reality!”  I am not saying there’s no place for all that crowd of crowd-sourcing sites, but this can really be a breakthrough. In the end of the day the best ideas are always the simple ones.

I would like to see more and more products developed in this way in the future. Quirky let you propose a project idea for just 99$. It allows other people to participate on its development and finally it manufactures and market the product on its own. Leaving all the contributors with a significant chunk of profit gained.

I think the winner of the first round of the competition is not the best option. It is a kind of wire-retractor called SlingBack, but who is saying you got to be perfect. I just think that more marketable product, could kick-start the whole endeavour of Quirky.com a bit quicker.  It’s a pity no electronic products are allowed. I think I got some ideas waiting in my drawer. Good Luck Ben.

http://www.quirky.com/

A month ago I posted a very inspirational speech of Alex Steffen, about the  20 necessary steps to move toward more sustainable civilization. The speech was made on a conference on Sustainable Cities in Danish architecture centre. Alex had a very good point in his speech. “Many times we just hear about  how bad things may become if we continue on current curse, but actually we are not listening that much about, how good may thing become, if we will start to change and begin to do things in different manner. Of course there is a lot of  content around the web, that is inspiring us to make a positive change to the world, but as far as I know, non of them so comprehensive as two annual events I want to post about today.

First of them is the well known TED Conference. The annual conference  brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). TEDs website is packed with great inspirationa speeches made by interesting personalities from all walks of life. And you can get lost on the site for hours and days. Definitely worth checking if you dont know about it already.

www.ted.com

Second of them is a similar annual project held in Amsterdam.

“PICNIC brings together and disseminates the ideas and knowledge of the world’s best creators and innovators, through a top-class conference, a broad selection of participative sessions, interactive experiences, matchmaking events wrapped in a festival experience.”

Again, the website is just bursting of great content and positive energy.

www.picnicnetwork.org

I got to say I really like the idea of this kind of branded conferences/festivals, which are in the end of the day inspiring not only the participants that are present in the conference hall, but thousands ( and hopefully millions) of people around the world. I hope there will be more stuff like that coming in the near future. One for every significant town and the city on this planet.

I was a bad-bad blogger during the last few weeks. You can call it “harsh personal circumstances”. Lack of time and inspiration, caused by the stress of our modern times. This is what blogging is all about,no? It is about  investing  your time and communicate your personal inspirations and passions to the world.This is what I was doing all the time. Collecting the documentaries all over the internet, writing all my articles. I was just trying to get a bit of myself (…the better bit as I believe) outthere. Becouse words are moving mountains. Becouse I enjoy to live in this great times,when I can shout-out,when I disagree and applaud when I do. Where I can communicate my ideas, when I got them.

So I think I will try to take this to a different level. A blogger is in first place a logger and if you do not log in daily, there is no blog. So today I created a “Logs” tag on my blog, to tag all the small posts (like thisone)  that I will be posting from now on. I promise I will be persistent as Captain Picard from now on.

Just a short news. Today is a launch-day of  Wolfram Alpha. All the process of launching the service to the public for the first time will be broadcasted on-line. It is the first time somebody is launching such  service to general public. Even-thou, it will be probably first welcomed by scientific community!  This is the most intelligent reality show I saw by now. I wonder if they could do something like that with CERN?

Yeah, and my computer is officially broken, so I was organizing my google bookmarks, with one nice little service called Speedtiles.

www.speedtiles.com

Nice thing to get organized, before starting something new. Nice little piece of software, but what you really need to get things done is a bit of inspiration. I had that little folder hidden in my bookmarks. A little folder full of  quotes,koans and short stories. And there was that wonderful poem of Rudyard Kipling.

“IF”.

If,If,If. If, I could be like RK`s man from “IF”.

[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Alex Steffen is American writer, blogger, futurist, editor and self proclaimed  “bright green environmentalist”.
Bright green environmentalism is a wing of sustainability movement that is promoting social and technological change through development of smarter designs, technologies, infrastructures and business practices, rather than by more traditional protests and political pressure. He has written for magazines such as Business Week or Wired. He is a founder of an influential  WorldChanging.com blog which is taking a big-picture approach on sustainability. What follows is a very inspirational speech that was given by Alex in Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen and it is a very extended answer of question I asked in the title of this article. Contemplating about 20 necessary steps to move toward more sustainable civilization he make us aware that sustainability is not just windmills, organic carrots and electric cars.  Enjoy the speech as much as I did.

www.worldchanging.com

Despite the fact that P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) looks a bit like Steve Urkel’s BMW Isetta I got to say that I really love the concept. I completely understand the rain of negative comments that appeared all over the net after General Motors and Segway announced that they teamed up for PUMA Project. Without any doubt the safety of the vehicle is definitely an issue to consider. Mainly if  you realize that its speed is 3 times higher than that of original segway and that it is expected to run alongside more traditional (bigger) vehicles.

I do understand all that moaning and reasoning! But still!  P.U.M.A  is  a great alternative to traditional vehicles for two reasons:

1.It protects the driver from exposure to weather conditions (Well not yet, but I believe soon we will get a machine looking more like the original  concept and less like a dune buggy), unlike other car alternatives like Bicycle and small motorbikes.

2.Segway works! And you can moan and argue as much as you like to, but I just can’t see all that flashy urban mobility vehicles around our towns and cities as much as I do see segways.

To go around the question of security of this type of vehicles forever is frankly getting trapped in chicken and egg situation. We cannot have lighter, more practical and more ecological vehicles, becouse there is no infrasturcture and safe roads to drive them. And there is not enough infrastracture, becouse there is not enough lighweight  vehicles. So what’s  next?

PUMA is a nice concept adding to ever increasing  spectrum of similar personal mobility solutions and unlike many others it is not just a CAD animation, but a working machine.

And talking about the security; “Do you prefere to be hit by a traditional car or by this little thingy?”