In this talk, Dries Buytaert (original creator and project lead of Drupal) shares his experiences on how he grew the Drupal community from just one person to over 800,000 members over the past 10 years. Today, the Drupal community is one of the largest and most active Open Source projects in the world, powering 1 out of 50 websites in the world. The concept of major projects growing out of a volunteer, community-based model is not new to the world. Volunteer networks and communities exist in many shapes and sizes. Throughout history there are examples of pure volunteer organizations that were instrumental in the founding and formation of many projects. For example, the first trade routes were ancient trackways which citizens later developed on their own into roads suited for wheeled vehicles in order to improve commerce. Transportation was improved for all citizens, driven by the commercial interest of some. Today, we certainly appreciate that our governments maintain the roads. However, we still see road signs stating that a particular section of a highway is kept clean and trim by volunteers — at least in some countries. When new ground needs to be broken, it’s often volunteer communities that do it. But a full-time, paid infrastructure can be necessary for the preservation and protection of what communities begin. In this presentation, Dries wants to brainstorm about how large communities evolve and how to sustain them over time.

Some questions to think about ahead of the presentation:

Do you know examples of large organizations that have grown out of volunteer communities?
Why do some communities keep growing while other communities come to a halt?
Is the commercialization of a volunteer-driven community part of a community’s natural life-cycle?
Is it inevitable that over time the operation and/or leadership of volunteer communities are transferred to paid personnel?

Tuesday, May 29, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor
RSVP required for those attending in person via the form below
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.

Via Berkman Center for Internet & Society

The exhibits are strangely hypnotic. So here they are, although, small as they are, we don’t have room to list the whole collection of 26 leftovers.

Prince of Wales, heir to the throne – tiny piece of bread and butter pudding, no mould

Pete Doherty, musician – piece of cheese and pesto toastie, a little brittle, no mould

David Bailey, photographer – crust from cheese and tomato sandwich made from Cornish speckle bread, no mould

Hugh Dennis, comedian – fragment of egg shell from egg used in his egg sandwich, retrieved from bin, slightly battered, no mould

John Woodvine, actor – flake speck from a croissant; smallest exhibit in the museum, no mould

Jan Leeming, ex-newsreader – crystallised ginger from Cornish ginger ice-cream, no mould

Michael Winner, film director and restaurant critic – piece of lemon drizzle cake, no mould

Paul Heiney, TV presenter and journalist – Anchor butter wrapper, contents used on toast with scrambled egg, scrunched

Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, first sea lord from 2006 to 2009 – raisin from fruit cake, no mould

Steve Swindells and Jerry Richards, from UK rock group Hawkwind – coffee grounds and crumbs from shared chocolate brownie, no mould

William Tyler, musician from the US band Lambchop – baked bean from cooked breakfast, deteriorated, black and some mould

Stephanie Creek, former member of cafe staff who came fourth on The Weakest Link – chickpea from a mixed salad enjoyed during her lunch break, desiccated

Excerpt of an article written by Emma’s Eccentric Britain, BBC. Read it HERE

“A proper name is a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about but not of telling anything about it”. ― John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1. ii. 5.)

A name. Everybody has one. Individuals, artists and academics from all over the world share their thoughts about the meaning and purpose of one’s name from both private and public perspectives. The problem of homonym and other reasons for changing one’s name are explored as the film draws references from history, popular culture and individual experiences, leading us to the case of a name change that caused a stir in the small country of Slovenia and beyond.

In 2007 three artists joined the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and officially changed their names to that of the leader of that party, the Prime Minister of Slovenia, Janez Janša. While they renamed themselves for personal reasons, the boundaries between their lives and their art began to merge in numerous and unforeseen ways.
Signified as an artistic gesture, this particular name change provoked a wide range of interpretations in art circles both in Slovenia and abroad, as well as among journalists and the general public.

The film that inspires you to google your name again.

Text via MY NAME IS JANEZ JANSA

Photographer Paolo Patrizi has documented the daily routine of a wrestler and the strict codes of behavior associated with it. Click HERE for more.

You can also watch a documentary produced by National Geographic called Sumo Kids (full documentary)

Volunteers and professionals at the Austrian Space Forum are testing a prototype Mars space suit in a series of ice caves that provide conditions similar to those on the Red Planet. Humanity is still far away from a manned mission to the planet, but the enthusiasts here believe it will actually happen one day.

Spiegel Video: Mission To Mars: Austrian Ice Cave Serves as Stage for Red Planet Voyage

Click HERE for a day by day report of the activities.

On 28th of April 2012, the Austrian Space Forum (OEWF) invited 20 Twitter followers to the Dachstein Mars simulation.

A Tweetup is an informal gathering of people who are using the micro-blogging platform Twitter. This MarsTweetup is a unique opportunity to follow live the Dachstein Mars simulation, to meet the spacesuit simulator Aouda.X and to discuss with scientist and space experts about analog missions.

Via Karst Worlds

The contents of one of the most important and eclectic modern music collections in the world – John Peel’s personal record collection, is starting to be made public for the first time through an online archive.

John Peel’s personal record collection consists of over 26,000 LPs, 40,000 singles and many thousands of CDs.

Text and Images via JOHN PEEL’S RECORD ARCHIVE

“Roots To Resistance is an Art and Activism Project in which I am painting twelve Women Activists on a large scale, doing groundbreaking, risky and extremely important work here on the planet. In addition to the portraits, the Roots Project has created a Global Postering and Postcard Campaign that displays each of the Women Activists and the issues they fight for and against, and sends them across the world via global partnerships with organizations and individuals. These Campaigns seek to build social engagement and support systems through international and local partnerships, working together to empower people and communities. People are Postering and passing out Postcards in Kenya, Russia, Guatemala, Australia, South Africa, Afghanistan, New Zealand and across Europe and the United States. A School in Portland Oregon is using the Postcards and posters as part of its curriculum and Prison Book Projects across the U.S. are partnering with the Roots Project to bring the postcards to folks living inside of the prison system. It is so deeply inspiring to see that people out there in our communities care about these issues, and so powerful to raise our voices together in support of these women and in support of each other as we engage in such profoundly important resistance work on the planet!

I am remembering that while we are helping to share the histories of these women, the present times we are living in like many times past, will be the histories of the future. As we watch entire countries and communities around the globe risking so much to rise against oppression, I am reminded that in these times we are writing our histories and the histories of others with what we do and say and with our actions vs. inactions. I give profound thanks for the work that these 12 women are engaged in, under tremendous pressures and at great risk to themselves, and I encourage everyone to consider the histories we are each writing here today. With our support of and partnership with each other, we will help to lift up the voices of many as they continue to lift us up. Thank you!”

–Denise Beaudet

Unfinished Modernisations will be carried out through a variety of activities: 14 researches, 5 conferences (Zagreb, Skopje, Beograd, Split, Maribor), exhibitions, publications, and interactive web-site/blogs. All these efforts will culminate in a final exhibition in Maribor (Slovenia), the 2012 Cultural Capital of Europe, which will give the project broad European exposure.

Text and Image via Unfinished Modernisations

Arvind Gupta is an Indian toy inventor that popularizes science. His series of films by Arvind Gupta Toys is absolutely wonderful.

FILMS and PHOTOS

Books on Education from Arvind Gupta

Garbageman Hans-Dieter Braatz is taking a picture with a 1.100 liter garbage container transformed into a pinhole camera. It will take 2 minutes of framing and one hour waiting. Picture taken by Mirko Derpmann with a fuji gw690 on Fuji Velvia.

St. Georg is a part of Hamburg where one can find clear signs of gentrification and quite an organized oppositional movement. This site should be occupied by a massive glass and steel cube by now. But somehow the process seems to have slowed down mostly due to the financial crisis. Photographed with a pinhole garbage container by garbageman Roland Wilhelm, Christoph Blaschke and Mirko Derpmann. Shot on a 106×80 cm sheet of ilford multigrade with 10 minutes exposure time. In the front you can see the shadow of the bin.

The Fleetschloss in Hamburg photographed with a pinhole garbage container by
garbageman Hans-Dieter Braatz, Christoph Blaschke and Mirko Derpmann. Shot on a 106×80 cm sheet of ilford multigrade with 45 minutes exposure time.

Text and Images via The Trashcam Project

Text and Images via VeloWala

Official designation: State of Sabotage, Abbreviation: SoS

SoS is a secular, sovereign and democratic state.
All citizens of the SoS state are to adhere to these principles.
The Constitution is the highest law of the SoS state and is binding for all SoS state authorities. The SoS State Constitution was publicly recited and resolved on September 4, 2005 and has been valid and legally binding since that time.
The SoS state symbols are the colors black and white, the coat of arms in the state flag, as well as the state anthem. The two official SoS state and diplomatic languages are German and English. The assets of the SoS state are the creation, protection, mediation, and positioning of art and culture. SoS is the first sovereign cultural state according to international law. SoS fulfills all criteria required of a sovereign state (territory, population, and state organization), as well as education and training in terms of artistic freedom.

State of Sabotage

State of Sabotage CONSTITUTION – A Free Fall Address.
Airfield Ottenschlag, Austria 2005
Video by Harald Hund, 2006

They say: “The Instant Favelas Project means the constant research and dialog between disciplines and Art. We base the project in our own exploration and concerns. Those confluences create, and this provoked the first pilot project (Piloto Kamikaze) where we explored interdisciplinary/ multidisciplinary elements such as urbanity, culture, esthetic, music, environment, etc.

Instant Favelas as an open Art-Lab Experiment collaborated with interventions inside of our constructive structure. While building and networking our city-within-a-city, we try to understand cities. Our simulation becomes a laboratory where we invite other people to make an intervention—in the sense of a collaborative response to our project—so that we can reflect together about different aspects, such as space, economy, society, demography, spirituality and so on, that shape and define a city.”

instantfavelas.org

‘The Dirty Art Department offers itself as an open space for all possible thought, creation, and action. It sees itself as a dynamic paradox, flowing between the pure and the applied, the existential and the deterministic, and the holy and the profane. It is concerned with individuality, collectivity, and our navigation of the complex relationship between the built world and the natural world, and other people and ourselves. It’s a place to build objects or totems, religions or websites, revolutions or business models, paintings, or galaxies.
The Dirty Art Department comes from a common background of design and applied art, it seeks however to reject the Kantian division between the pure and the applied arts. Since ‘god is dead’ and ‘the spectacle’ is omnipresent, it sees the creation of alternative and new realities as the way to reconsider our life situation on this planet.
The Dirty Art Department is open to students from all backgrounds including designers, artists, bankers, skeptics, optimists, economists, philosophers, sociologists, independent thinkers, poets, urban planners, farmers, anarchists, and the curious.’

Jerszy Seymour

Dirty Art Department

FabFi is an ambitious project which is creating Internet networks for eastern Afghanistan whose main components can be built out of trash. It’s low-tech, it’s simple–and it works.

FabFi is an open source project that maintains close ties to MIT’s Fab Lab and the university’s Center for Bits and Atoms. At the moment, FabFi products are up and running in both Jalalabad and at three sites in Kenya, which collectively operate as an Internet service provider called JoinAfrica. Inside Afghanistan, FabFi networks are used to aid local businesses and to prop up community infrastructure such as hospitals and clinics.

Three generations of a teaching family near Jalalabad, shown in 2009, discovered Wikipedia on a laptop from the One Laptop Per Child program. Their Internet access was facilitated by a FabFi network. Credit: Keith Berkoben/Fab Folk. NYT

Via Co.Exist. Click HERE for more info.