openMaterials

2009 AAAS/Science Dance Your Ph.D. Contest It started with the purest form of scientific communication-research papers that supposedly leave little room for more than one interpretation, but was transformed into modern dance, a medium in which individual interpretation is the essence. The results are in from the Science Dance Match-Up Challenge. From 17 April and [...]

WikiChains is an initiative “to gaze backwards through the chains of production in order to gain knowledge about the sites of production, transformation, and distribution.” WikiChains is a website that aims to encourage ethical consumption and transparency in commodity chains. Contemporary capitalism conceals the histories and geographies of most commodities from consumers. Consumers are usually only [...]

Our friend Michel Bauwens fabs it up at Reality Sandwich by breaking down the rising activity in open design and manufacturing. The article outlines the barriers to creating truly open materials non-commercially. Michel, perhaps wisely,  does not suggest we’ll have a non-commercial environment, however. [T]o produce physical goods, there are inevitable costs of getting the capital together, [...]