LGRU July 2012

lgru@lists.constantvzw.org

12 participants
10 discussions

¿Open design?
by Aitor Méndez 12 Sep '12

12 Sep '12

Dear all, I'm Aitor, from Madrid. Maybe you can remember me from LGRU Brussels workshops. Lately I have been participating in the Open Design Conference in Barcelona. My impression was negative in many sense. I wrote the following comment about my experience and the disagreement with the main moderator (moderator, in the same sense of terminator), Alastair Fuad-Luke. All in spanish, sorry ;) Subjects: - Strategies from markets to capitalize the growing social consensus over the free culture approaches. - How a vertical structure, like FAD, can shown a horizontal behavior. - How marketing can reappropriate horizontal strategies just with the use of language. Best, aitor - Queridos todos y todas, de vuelta ya del Open Design Conference os traslado una primera impresión. Aunque quiero escribir un comentario más reposado y razonado sobre el contenido de las intervenciones he expulsado el siguiente exabrupto al calor de los acontecimientos. Adelanto ya que mi impresión ha sido la de estar ante los mecanismos que el mercado pone en marcha para rentabilizar el potencial que reside en un creciente consenso social alrededor de los presupuestos de la cultura libre. Aquí va, de momento, el relato de mi encontronazo con Alastair Fuad-Luke, moderador de la mesa redonda en la que participé que constituye un síntoma del entorno en el que se desarrolló la escena. Un análisis más serio vendrá más adelante. ------------------------- Alastair Fuad Luke, maestro de ceremonias en el encuentro, después de proclamar a los cuatro vientos que aquello era horizontal y que todo el mundo podía expresarse con libertad, introdujo un sesgo tremendamente descarado siendo moderador (no hubiera sido tan grave si hubiera sido un participante más). Yo no salía de mi asombro. En un momento dado en el que Alstair animaba al público a expresar una exaltación ingenua sobre la creatividad propuse una perspectiva contraria en la que denunciaba su instrumentalización y subrayaba la dificultad de hacer una distinción objetiva entre una disciplina creativa y otra que no lo es. Acabé con una frase, más o menos así: O bien la creatividad no existe o bien está distribuida por todos los ámbitos de nuestra vida (que viene a ser lo mismo que no existir, porque no constituye un rasgo diferencial). En ese momento Alastair se apresuró a resumir mi intervención: "ah, la creatividad está en todos los ámbitos de nuestra vida" con grimoso aire de gurú mediático y dando la vuelta al sentido de mis palabras. En otra ocasión, cuando intenté describir con un ejemplo uno de los mecanismos con los que el lenguaje gráfico produce un tipo de subjetividad coincidente con los intereses del mercado se apresuró a hacer una encuesta entre el público asistente simplificando terriblemente la cuestión hasta hacer desaparecer su sentido, preguntando, en un alarde impúdico de evidente manipulación, digno del feriante más zafio, si pensaban, las personas del público, que su subjetividad estaba condicionada por el mercado. La gente se quedó, creo, desorientada y no contestó a tal idiotez, escenario que usó para quitarme credibilidad expresando en voz alta para toda la audiencia: "el público no está de acuerdo contigo, Aitor". Francamente, no se puede e ser más manipulador. Estoy muy, pero que muy enfadado. Tras introducir la cuestión de cómo se producen los deseos, aludiendo a los mecanismos externos que nos hacen desear de una forma u otra enfunción de unos u otros intereses, se dedicó a preguntar a la gente cuáles eran sus sueños, y a decir que quizá no se trataba tanto de deseos como de sueños, bajando así enormemente el nivel de la discusión y reduciendo la interacción con el público a una serie de tópicos inservibles. Una de las 10 estrategias descritas por Chomsky para el control mediático es precisamente esta: tratar a las personas como niños para hacer desaparecer su capacidad crítica*. Lamentable de todo punto. Es importante detectar cuáles son los mecanismos que el mercado va elaborando para rentabilizar el enorme potencial del consenso social alrededor de la cultura libre. Mi asistencia al congreso ha estado motivada por una curiosidad franca sobre la forma en que el FAD, organización que no es conocida especialmente por su horizontalidad, abordaba esta cuestión y mi conclusión provisional es que, en vista de estos episodios y el tono de las intervenciones (excepto la de Victor Viña, aunque no pude verlas todas) resultaron ser meros instrumentos de subsunción del ámbito libre en el mercado. Por ejemplo, muchas de las intervenciones abundaron en un leguaje procedente del márquetin que daba por sentado que las relaciones interpersonales descansaban sobre la producción y el consumo, reduciendo al individuo a productor, consumidor o prosumidor (lo mismo da), otras ofrecían perspectivas de producción distribuida de objetos hiperdiseñados, perpetuando así los tópicos que deberían ser cuestionados desde el ámbito de la cultura libre. Lo que voy a hacer es madurarlo un poco y escribir un texto reposado, bien razonado y estructurado de forma sencilla explicando mis impresiones que, como veis, no son muy buenas. --------------------- * Las 10 principales estrategias de manipulación mediática según Noam Chomsky http://bit.ly/MWqQ6o 5- Dirigirse al público como criaturas de poca edad. La mayoría de la publicidad dirigida al gran público utiliza discurso, argumentos, personajes y entonación particularmente infantiles, muchas veces próximos a la debilidad, como si el espectador fuese una criatura de poca edad o un deficiente mental. Cuanto más se pretenda engañar al espectador, más se tiende a adoptar un tono infantilizante. ¿Por qué? “Si uno se dirige a una persona como si ella tuviese la edad de 12 años o menos, entonces, en razón de la sugestionabilidad, tenderá, con cierta probabilidad, a una respuesta o reacción también desprovista de un sentido crítico como la de una persona de 12 años o menos de edad (ver Armas silenciosas para guerras tranquilas)”.

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Re: [LGRU] ¿Open design?
by John Haltiwanger 11 Sep '12

11 Sep '12

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Haltiwanger <john.haltiwanger(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 5:32 PM Subject: Re: [LGRU] ¿Open design? To: Aitor Méndez <aitor(a)e451.net> On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Aitor Méndez <aitor(a)e451.net> wrote: > Thanks John, for your time and attention. I'm sorry I bothered you with > the question "best". > No it was not a bother at all! I just wanted to expand the scope of best, and continue interrogating it. > > I agree with you. In fact, the argument you hold is "the evidence" and > what I propose is something that could be operating behind the scene and > should be taken as another element to think the model. For this reason I > use conditional words like "often" or "could hide." > > My intention is to show that the imperative of speed is (among other > things) a condition of the competitive environment and deserves to be > incorporated into the design approaches. > > Certainly! And it is precisely this aspect of speed that hinders the transition from interfaces: when you have a physical memory, a combination of mouse movements and keyboard shortcuts, that quickly change the canvas to more fit your imagination, it is difficult to transition to an alternative approach which drags you all the way back to a turtle pace. However, we have success stories here as well. For instance the vim text editor is notorious for putting first time users back to the first time they ever tried to use a word processor. Only more complicated ;) But new vim users appear all the time, and it continues to grow more popular. So there is also an aspect of the "reward" for the work. And, of course, with vim you can move so fast that you will be frustrated to ever have to use another editor. Also, is there a reason to take our discussion offlist? or perhaps LGRU would be interested in this next round of thoughts?

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CALL: Piksels & Lines Orchestra Residency (PLO)
by Piksel infobot 11 Sep '12

11 Sep '12

yo, here's the PLO commision call. Please fwd... ---------------------------------------- OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS Piksels & Lines Orchestra Residency (PLO) The Libre Graphics Research Unit is a traveling lab where ideas for creative tools are developed. Its diverse activities range from the practical to the theoretical via writing, research meetings, experimental prototyping, conferences and workshops. The Research Unit is an initiative of four European media-labs actively engaged in Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Free Culture. At the core of the LGRU project is a series of research commissions that allow artists and software developers to work together at the same level, imagining and building future graphic and performative tools. In this context, Piksel is offering a collaborative research residency for one artist and one developer, to jointly explore the interoperability and expansion of functionality in self-produced and/or existing libre graphic tools, placed in a performative setting. The free/libre graphics tools can include, but are not limited to the following technologies: GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, MyPaint, FontForge, Pure Data, Open Frameworks, Py-Cessing, Processing, The Underweb, Blender etc. Artists and developers may submit proposals individually that suggest what compentences and perspectives they look for a residency partnership, or an artist/developer duo may jointly apply for the residency. The collaboration should result in an artwork that extends existing Libre graphics software, following the guidelines of the Piksels & Lines Orchestra, a prototype developed during the third LGRU research seminar hosted by Piksel in Bergen June 6-9, 2012. The guidelines are: - Turn tools into instruments - Explore the performative potential of Libre Graphics tools - Use API interoperability between software for unexpected connections - Experiment with format interoperability between software Presentation and video of the Piksels & Lines Orchestra prototype: http://blogs.lgru.net/ft/theme/piksels-and-lines/turning-tools-into- instruments https://vimeo.com/44751183 The residency shall result in an artwork that will be shown at the Piksel festival November 22-25, 2012. We offer: - a residency period of up to 3 weeks at Piksel in Bergen, Norway during the months of October and November 2012. Specific dates to be determined in collaboration with the selected artists. - an artist fee of up to 4000 EUR per person - a production budget to be discussed - support from the Piksel community and LGRU community, in the further technical development of the selected project throughout the residency period - presentation of the commission and the resulting artwork at the Piksel festival in Bergen, Norway from November 22-25, 2012 - presentation of the commission at the LGRU Conference in Porto, Portugal in June 2013 - Support for the documentation of the research and final work, and dissemination of this documentation (i.e. code repository, web publication resources) Requirements: - the artist/developer must be willing and able to travel to Bergen for a residency period of up to 3 weeks, and to the Piksel festival in Bergen from November 22-25. - the artist/developer must have advanced technical knowledge allowing him or her to experiment with the above-mentioned technologies - the artist/developer must be willing to work in a close collaborative setting with a second person - the artist must be willing to openly and thoroughly document the artistic process Proposal: - an outline of the concept underlying the work that you wish to develop (200 words max) - a general outline of the scope of the final work (200 words max - can include visual sketches) - a motivation for why you would like to work in the context of this particular residency as well as an overview of your interest in the technologies mentioned above (250 words max) - an outline of the research and development plan for the work (250 words max) - an up-to-date CV including links to previous work Please send your commission proposal to info [at] piksel.no Deadline for submission is Wednesday 26. September 2012. The candidate is chosen by representatives from Piksel and the LGRU team. Applicants will be informed by 10. October 2012. About Piksel and LGRU: Piksel (Bergen, Norway) http://www.piksel.no Piksel is an annual event for artists and developers working with free and open source software, hardware and art. Part workshop, part festival, it is organised in Bergen, Norway, and involves participants from more than a dozen countries exchanging ideas, coding, presenting art and software projects, doing workshops, performances and discussions on the aesthetics and politics of free and open source software. The development, and therefore use, of digital technology today is mainly controlled by multinational corporations. Despite the prospects of technology expanding the means of artistic expression, the commercial demands of the software industries severely limit them instead. Piksel is focusing on the open source movement as a strategy for regaining artistic control of the technology, but also a means to bring attention to the close connections between art, politics, technology and economy. Libre Graphics Research Unit (LGRU) http://lgru.net/ The Libre Graphics Research Unit is a traveling lab where ideas for creative tools are developed. Its diverse activities range from the practical to the theoretical via writing, research meetings, experimental prototyping, conferences and workshops. The Research Unit is an initiative of four European media-labs actively engaged in Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Free Culture. This cross-disciplinary project involves artists, designers and programmers and is developed in dialogue with the Libre Graphics Community. The unit is co- organized by Constant (Brussels, BE), Medialab Prado (Madrid, (ES), WORM (Rotterdam, NL) and Piksel (Bergen, NO).

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Re: [LGRU] ¿Open design?
by John Haltiwanger 24 Jul '12

24 Jul '12

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Aitor Méndez <aitor(a)e451.net> Date: Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 10:42 AM Subject: Re: [LGRU] ¿Open design? To: John Haltiwanger <john.haltiwanger(a)gmail.com> Thanks John, for your time and attention. I'm sorry I bothered you with the question "best". I agree with you. In fact, the argument you hold is "the evidence" and what I propose is something that could be operating behind the scene and should be taken as another element to think the model. For this reason I use conditional words like "often" or "could hide." My intention is to show that the imperative of speed is (among other things) a condition of the competitive environment and deserves to be incorporated into the design approaches. Greetings. aitor El 24/07/2012, a las 09:51, John Haltiwanger escribió: On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 12:04 AM, Aitor Méndez <aitor(a)e451.net> wrote: > El 11/07/2012, a las 10:58, adam escribió: > > just to pip in quickly. I think the the Open Design Now (book) model is > very interesting. They are trying to work out how the space between open > and proprietary cultures can be bridged by publishing with this slow drip > free model. Its possibly not the most ideal way to go, but we live in a > less than ideal world where free culture has to be dripped back in in order > to displace proprietary thinking - in that context it is an interesting > value shifting strategy. Possibly one for designers to think about before > signing over exclusive copyright of their work to commissioning orgs. > > Also I wanted to throw this article in the mix for the reader: > http://www.booki.cc/collaborativefutures/the-case-for-open-source-design/ > > Again, Im not sure I agree with it (the article) but it is thought > provoking. > > adam > > > [spanish bellow] > > Hello Adam, thank you very much for the text. It is very interesting. I'm > thinking about it but in the meantime, I would forward some ideas. The text > have, in my opinion, hits and misses: > > *Semiotic perspective* > > First, the approach is from the field of programming language and the > symbolic function seems too simple. An approach from semiotics could solve > some issues more accurately. > > The programming language, which is a closed and discrete, derived from > formal logic, natural language differs greatly, as the graphic language. > Language features have been studied from semiotics and, therefore, an > approach that ignores all the accumulated knowledge in this field seem > naive. Not go into details not to bore (if there is interest in the > details, please let me know). In short, semiotics could give a view of > language as an evolving system that would be impossible without > "collaboration." The description of the process of meaning suggested in the > text is very poor or outright wrong. > > *A "best" interface * > > The idea of "quality" that emerges from the comparison between a > proprietary interface design and other open source could hide a trap. > Often, the quality of the metaphors of an interface is associated with the > speed of comprehension and use, however, quicker understanding metaphors > are often simplifications that hide processes. Neal Stephenson proposed in > his essay "In the Beginning Was The Command Line" that an ideal operating > system should include a graphical interface and SSH access in parallel (OSX > came a few years later, I've always related this facts). > He was writing it in BeOS, which already had it :) and of course OS X was only NeXTSTEP with a new skin (Quartz) and some bolted on Apple "solutions" like QuickTime and Carbon. Anyway, just wanted to clarify that the grail was already grabbed and Apple was not following Stephonson's advice. (Of course, Linux did too, but I've been looking at pictures of Linux ~2000 (Gnome/KDE 1.0 and before) and have been shocked to realize that I had forgotten how ugly it was back then). > Often confused a successful (popular) interface with an interface "best". > But What is better? The interface quickly understood builds a dependent and > awkward. Indeed, I explained this issue in my previous email (above the > offset from the subject towards the object and how simple > tools build people clumsy. I'm sorry, I'm unable to translate that text). > I'm not sure that dependence and awkwardness are directly related to quick understanding of an interface. Photoshop and Illustrator users seem quite literally crippled when invited to use GIMP or Inkscape or any other "same idea different interface", but I would not say that Photoshop or Illustrator are quickly understood. This question of "best" has really been bothering me, especially in light of screenshots like these: vs. That's roughly 12 years of difference, but if you read the "community's" comments on gnome 3 its the worst piece of shit ever designed. "Nothing has changed" wrt Linux desktop, Windows and OS X are the best and GNOME 3 is a cheap imitation. Which is all ridiculous. I mean, look at the difference between these two. Has OS X changed so significantly in the last decade? Or Windows? These two pictures remind of the jumps between Windows 1.0 and 95, or between NeXTSTEP 3.3 and OS X public beta. In short, they represent a huge redistribution of aesthetics and workflow. Except this redistiribution is almost entirely non-commercial, no Jobs at the top to make it perfect (or Ballmer to do.. what he does..). In 12 years a community, which depends on many other communities (graphics drivers, kernel devs, language designers, etc), has managed to effect that sort of 'huge leap forward'. And are people excited about this? No, we get statements that "GNOME 3 is worse than GNOME 2 which is way worse than the best, which is OS X". Yet when I sit someone in front of the GNOME Shell, they are up and running without any instructions. Best seems to be couched both by popularity, and above all, price. There is a lot of bike shedding (I didn't think much of GNOME Shell before I used it) and the best is for the most part that which comes out of Cupertino or Adobe. If it's not clear, what I mean is that this question of "best" is very much alive not only in the contrast of libre to proprietary but also (and perhaps more destructively) between libre and libre.

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Re: [LGRU] ¿Open design?
by John Haltiwanger 24 Jul '12

24 Jul '12

I accidentally replied to only to Aitor, but I thought that our discussion might be of interest to the rest. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Haltiwanger <john.haltiwanger(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 9:51 AM Subject: Re: [LGRU] ¿Open design? To: Aitor Méndez <aitor(a)e451.net> On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 12:04 AM, Aitor Méndez <aitor(a)e451.net> wrote: > El 11/07/2012, a las 10:58, adam escribió: > > just to pip in quickly. I think the the Open Design Now (book) model is > very interesting. They are trying to work out how the space between open > and proprietary cultures can be bridged by publishing with this slow drip > free model. Its possibly not the most ideal way to go, but we live in a > less than ideal world where free culture has to be dripped back in in order > to displace proprietary thinking - in that context it is an interesting > value shifting strategy. Possibly one for designers to think about before > signing over exclusive copyright of their work to commissioning orgs. > > Also I wanted to throw this article in the mix for the reader: > http://www.booki.cc/collaborativefutures/the-case-for-open-source-design/ > > Again, Im not sure I agree with it (the article) but it is thought > provoking. > > adam > > > [spanish bellow] > > Hello Adam, thank you very much for the text. It is very interesting. I'm > thinking about it but in the meantime, I would forward some ideas. The text > have, in my opinion, hits and misses: > > *Semiotic perspective* > > First, the approach is from the field of programming language and the > symbolic function seems too simple. An approach from semiotics could solve > some issues more accurately. > > The programming language, which is a closed and discrete, derived from > formal logic, natural language differs greatly, as the graphic language. > Language features have been studied from semiotics and, therefore, an > approach that ignores all the accumulated knowledge in this field seem > naive. Not go into details not to bore (if there is interest in the > details, please let me know). In short, semiotics could give a view of > language as an evolving system that would be impossible without > "collaboration." The description of the process of meaning suggested in the > text is very poor or outright wrong. > > *A "best" interface * > > The idea of "quality" that emerges from the comparison between a > proprietary interface design and other open source could hide a trap. > Often, the quality of the metaphors of an interface is associated with the > speed of comprehension and use, however, quicker understanding metaphors > are often simplifications that hide processes. Neal Stephenson proposed in > his essay "In the Beginning Was The Command Line" that an ideal operating > system should include a graphical interface and SSH access in parallel (OSX > came a few years later, I've always related this facts). > He was writing it in BeOS, which already had it :) and of course OS X was only NeXTSTEP with a new skin (Quartz) and some bolted on Apple "solutions" like QuickTime and Carbon. Anyway, just wanted to clarify that the grail was already grabbed and Apple was not following Stephonson's advice. (Of course, Linux did too, but I've been looking at pictures of Linux ~2000 (Gnome/KDE 1.0 and before) and have been shocked to realize that I had forgotten how ugly it was back then). > Often confused a successful (popular) interface with an interface "best". > But What is better? The interface quickly understood builds a dependent and > awkward. Indeed, I explained this issue in my previous email (above the > offset from the subject towards the object and how simple > tools build people clumsy. I'm sorry, I'm unable to translate that text). > I'm not sure that dependence and awkwardness are directly related to quick understanding of an interface. Photoshop and Illustrator users seem quite literally crippled when invited to use GIMP or Inkscape or any other "same idea different interface", but I would not say that Photoshop or Illustrator are quickly understood. This question of "best" has really been bothering me, especially in light of screenshots like these: vs. That's roughly 12 years of difference, but if you read the "community's" comments on gnome 3 its the worst piece of shit ever designed. "Nothing has changed" wrt Linux desktop, Windows and OS X are the best and GNOME 3 is a cheap imitation. Which is all ridiculous. I mean, look at the difference between these two. Has OS X changed so significantly in the last decade? Or Windows? These two pictures remind of the jumps between Windows 1.0 and 95, or between NeXTSTEP 3.3 and OS X public beta. In short, they represent a huge redistribution of aesthetics and workflow. Except this redistiribution is almost entirely non-commercial, no Jobs at the top to make it perfect (or Ballmer to do.. what he does..). In 12 years a community, which depends on many other communities (graphics drivers, kernel devs, language designers, etc), has managed to effect that sort of 'huge leap forward'. And are people excited about this? No, we get statements that "GNOME 3 is worse than GNOME 2 which is way worse than the best, which is OS X". Yet when I sit someone in front of the GNOME Shell, they are up and running without any instructions. Best seems to be couched both by popularity, and above all, price. There is a lot of bike shedding (I didn't think much of GNOME Shell before I used it) and the best is for the most part that which comes out of Cupertino or Adobe. If it's not clear, what I mean is that this question of "best" is very much alive not only in the contrast of libre to proprietary but also (and perhaps more destructively) between libre and libre.

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Fwd: [OpenDesign] OKFestival 2012: Travel Bursaries, Early Bird Tickets, Keynotes and Schedule
by Femke Snelting 19 Jul '12

19 Jul '12

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [OpenDesign] OKFestival 2012: Travel Bursaries, Early Bird Tickets, Keynotes and Schedule Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:01:10 +0100 From: Kat Braybrooke <kat.braybrooke(a)okfn.org> To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list <okfn-discuss(a)lists.okfn.org> CC: okcon-discuss(a)lists.okfn.org, Open Knowledge Foundation Local Coordinators Mailing List <okfn-local-coord(a)lists.okfn.org>, open-government(a)lists.okfn.org, ogdcamp <ogdcamp(a)lists.okfn.org>, open-development(a)lists.okfn.org, opendesign(a)lists.okfn.org, euopendata(a)lists.okfn.org Hello all, A few quick (yet exciting!) updates about this autumn's Open Knowledge Festival <http://okfestival.org>, happening in Helsinki from September 17 - 22. Please share this information with interested colleagues if you get a moment, and we look forward to seeing you all this fall in Helsinki! You may have heard that OKFestival's team of over 100 Guest Programme Planners from around the world have been hard at work, and this rumour is quite true! Planners are now finalising their diverse programmes for all 13 of the Topic Streams for 2012 on the festival schedule <http://okfestival.org/schedule> which includes keynote speakers like Gapminder's Hans Rosling, the EFF's Karsten Gerloff, Stanford University's Tanja Aitamurto and Urbanscale's Adam Greenfield, as well as a variety of intriguing workshops, sessions, lectures, hackathons and coding jams from "The Art of #OpenData Cooking" to Open Government Partnership meetings to hackdays on Open Science and Building the Cultural Commons. #### EARLY BIRD TICKETS NOW OPEN OKFestival 2012 Early Bird Tickets are available at discounted rates until the first week of August at <http://okfestival.org/early-bird/tickets>. This year we offer both day and week tickets, with week-long tickets covering all of OKFestivals action-packed core conference days from Tues Sept 18th to Thurs Sept 20th, with a summary and debrief day on Fri Sept 21st. A diverse variety of Satellite Events are also running before and after the event. #### LAST ROUND OF TRAVEL BURSARIES & FREE WEEK-LONG TICKETS We are also very happy to announce another round of Travel Bursaries for development practitioners, coders and new international guests thanks to Sida (the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), the Sunlight Foundation and other programme partners. Deadlines are the 1st and 8th of August, so we recommend applying soon. Applications can be found at <http://okfestival.org/travel-bursaries/>. #### #OKFEST CREW AND OTHER WAYS TO GET INVOLVED For students and other participants who want to get more involved in the festival itself in return for a free weeklong OKFestival ticket, we also offer the #OKFestCrew Volunteer Scheme, which provides the opportunity to engage with the backstage planning that goes into the organisation of a major international festival <http://okfestival.org/okfestcrew>. There are also many more ways for you to get involved. For development practitioners, there has recently been a post about why those interested in international development should come to Helsinki this fall <http://twitter.com/MarijaNovkovic/status/220079657020702720>, and for those working on academic research in Open Data, there is a Call for Papers open here <http://blog.okfn.org/2012/06/29/call-for-papers-open-data-academic-research…>. #### CONTACT US Have questions for our Topic Stream planners or the Core Organising Team, or want to get more involved by proposing a satellite or evening event? Feel free to contact us at <http://okfestival.org/contact>. Also, for future reference, you can find a published version of this information in today's blog post on the OKFN Blog here: http://blog.okfn.org/2012/07/18/okfestival-goes-global-tickets-and-bursarie… ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Kat Braybrooke | London, UK | The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/> | Coordinator of OKFestival 2012 <http://okfestival.org/> & Regional Groups <http://okfn.org/chapters> | Twitter @kat_braybrooke <http://twitter.com/kat_braybrooke> | Skype @ardent_coeur

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More experimental tool demos
by Tom Lechner 19 Jul '12

19 Jul '12

Just released a new "stable" [sic] version of Laidout, together with 3 new tutorials of further interface experiments: 1. Current state of the alignment tool, a bit more smoothed out than what I presented at LGM and LGRU. Now maybe it's ready to begin investigating how best to port to Inkscape. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs8k4KUSkJw 2. Meshes. Maybe some useful mesh manipulation tactics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YT5JIFEqm0 3. Paths. The only odd thing here is a clickable path direction indicator. Add points to the middles of existing lines, or drag the direction indicator to start adding a subpath, or new path object. Jump to about 1:00 to see that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPhzrUc6bq0 -Tom tomlechner.com laidout.org

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a new person from Trondheim/NTNU
by Letizia Jaccheri 19 Jul '12

19 Jul '12

Hi, I kindly ask you to add Irene Domínguez to the lgru list and welcome her to the project. She will represent NTNU in the next meetings. Irene Laura Domínguez Márquez E-mail address: irene.dm(a)online.no Irene Domínguez Mobile number: +47 48 35 71 01 My best regards and wishes of a good summer, Letizia Jaccheri www.letiziajaccheri.com

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The SKOR Codex
by Aymeric Mansoux 17 Jul '12

17 Jul '12

(libre relevant src here: https://gitorious.org/skor) /// July 12th, 2012, Earth, FIRST ARCHIVE TO HOST "THE SKOR CODEX" BOOK. /// On the chance that someone will be out there, La Société Anonyme has approved the placement of 8 books on 8 locations on Earth. The book, called The SKOR Codex was placed on Thursday (July 12, 2012) aboard the first of eight locations to host the portrait of the diversity of life and culture at the Foundation for Art and Public Domain (SKOR). The 1156 gram book contains greetings from the SKOR staff in 4 languages, samples of artworks from different artists and eras, and field recordings of the SKOR premises. The Codex contains binary information that an advanced technological civilization could convert into diagrams, pictures and sounds, including a message from SKOR managing director Tati Freeke-Suwarganda. Messages in the record were designed to enable possible decoding by future civilizations who might encounter the book in hundreds of years, hence the integration of some pictures of 21st century SKOR. "The book will be encountered and decoded only if there are advanced civilizations on earth," said La Société Anonyme. "But, as the beautiful message from managing director Tati Freeke-Suwarganda and web curator Annet Dekker indicate," Société Anonyme added, "the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about art." La Société Anonyme chose the medium of book as a way of preserving the portrait because it can carry much more information in the same space then for example an engraved stone. Each book is made of acid-free paper, the sections have been sewn onto 4 bands of rameh, the spine is enforced with Japanese paper and the book is wrapped in an acid-free protective cover. It contains, in symbolic language, information on how the book is to be decoded. The book begins with photographs and diagrams in binary form, depicting the SKOR buildings, surroundings, artifacts, objects, office spaces, and some hint of the richness of SKOR's civilization. Included are schematics about SKOR, its location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, photographs of Ruysdaelkade 2, bicycles, a large fax machine and desks. This is followed by spoken greetings in 4 human languages, including a spoken message by Annet Dekker, web curator of SKOR. The SKOR Codex next includes field recordings made at Ruysdaelkade 2. The artwork selection represents the cultural diversity of SKOR. The entire book counts 304 pages. The book is likely to survive more than a thousand years. Thus it represents a message into the future, a point referred to in managing director Tati Freeke-Suwarganda's message. Among the members of La Société Anonyme's committee and others who played a major role in devising The SKOR Codex are Dušan Barok, Danny van der Kleij, Aymeric Mansoux, and Marloes de Valk, the book was hand bound by the Wilgenkamp bindery. The book was commissioned by SKOR, and produced by La Société Anonyme. The first book will be archived at the SKOR archive hosted by Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The other books will be hosted at seven different locations on the planet. /// More information, photos and downloads: http://societeanonyme.la /// :* a. -- http://su.kuri.mu

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pdf preflight scripts
by adam 11 Jul '12

11 Jul '12

hi anyone know of any good pdf preflight scripts (open source) adam -- -- Adam Hyde Founder, FLOSS Manuals Project Manager, Booki Book Sprint Facilitator mobile :+ 49 177 4935122 identi.ca : @eset booki.flossmanuals.net : @adam http://www.flossmanuals.net http://www.booki.cc http://www.booksprints.net

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LGRU July 2012