On monday I posted a short biography of E F Schumacher. Today I want to look at what happened to his ideas, and how his thinking has continued to evolve. Schumacher’s work did not end with his death. It has carried on through numerous organisations, societies and individuals, some directly inspired by him, others incorporating [...]
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People Fund.it
The second of today’s two new crowd-sourcing projects is PeopleFund.it, which aims to raise funds for innovative projects. If you’ve got a good idea, a small business or a community project, you can register it and invite people to chip in to make it happen. Users can then browse projects and contribute, donating as little [...]
Whale.fm
Two crowd-sourcing projects today, both very different in aims, but similar in their online community-based approach. First up, Whale FM is a marine research project dedicated to deciphering whale song. Orcas, or killer whales, appear to be able to communicate with each other in a fairly sophisticated fashion. If you’ve seen the BBC’s Frozen Planet [...]
The Institute of Brilliant Failures
Here’s a website with an interesting counter-cultural perspective. The Institute of Brilliant Failures believes that our best learning experiences come from our failures, and that we should not fear them. We should celebrate those who have the courage to try something, even if it doesn’t work. I agree. I’m an ideas man, and I’ve always [...]
Positive News
Just a quick shout out to Positive News, which for some reason I hadn’t come across until very recently. It’s a quarterly newspaper “dedicated to promoting environmental sustainability, peace, social justice and equality, cultural diversity, political co-operation, individual fulfilment, and community empowerment.” The title of the paper reflects a desire to focus on solutions, which [...]
Crowdsourcing the weather of the past
Did it rain on the 12th of March, 1863? It’s a good question. In order to better understand our climate and its weather systems, we need as much data as possible. The more we know about the weather in the past, the better we can predict the weather in the future. But where do you [...]
I paid a bribe: the wiki approach to fighting corruption
Here’s something I heard on the radio yesterday and found rather inspiring. A website in India has harnessed the power of the citizen reporting to fight endemic corruption, through a website called Ipaidabribe.com. The website provides people with an opportunity to anonymously report where and when they were forced to pay a bribe. For example, [...]
Bitcoins: the peer to peer currency
A couple of years ago I read a book called The End of Money, by Thomas Greco. In it, the author predicted that at some point, some internet application would do for money what Skype has done for the telecommunications industry. It’s only a matter of time before someone blows the whole thing open, re-writes [...]
Some draft commenting guidelines
Okay, in the light of the recent flurry of commenting, I’ve decided to draw up a few guidelines. They’ll live here as a permanent link, but I’m posting them on the blog too to get things started. They’re a little tongue in cheek and I’m not going to take them overly seriously. These aren’t for [...]
Why I don’t accept advertising
Here’s an email I received this morning: Hello, I am ……. with ………. My company represents a leader in currency trading. They would like to purchase ad space on your site’s page: http://makewealthhistory.org/2009/01/07/the-tobin-tax/. It would say “Forex” — with a link to our client’s site. We can pay you $60 via PayPal as soon as [...]
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