Open Source Currency

Rails 6.1 Fork

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 01:48:40 +0100

The oscurrency fork at https://github.com/bace/oscurrency/ is running on Rails 6.1 and works with heroku.

Rails 5.1 Fork

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:01:27 +0100

There is a Rails 5.1 fork at https://github.com/bace/oscurrency/ which works with heroku.

The Difference between Bitcoin and OpenTransact

Tue, 21 Jan 2014 21:08:52 +0100

OK new subject: what the heck is bit coin?

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) January 3, 2014

Disclaimer: I am deliberately avoiding edge cases and other costs of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin (BTC) is a relatively new system and we often make sense of new systems by drawing on familiar experiences to describe them, so it is natural to draw on experience with dollars and gold to understand Bitcoin. Like an ounce of gold, the price of a bitcoin can be measured in dollars. As the price of a bitcoin skyrocketed in 2013, it became a famous asset like dollars or gold but the current price of a bitcoin does not have much to do with why it is useful. Over most recent interval ranges, bitcoins do not seem to offer any advantage as a store of wealth. So, what’s curious about Bitcoin is that what it seems to be famous for is not why it is useful.

OSCurrency now featuring Twitter Bootstrap UI

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 18:17:12 +0100

Mobile Responsiveness FTW! We just closed our milestone in github this week. Thanks to all contributors, Tom Brown, Ziyan, rewritten, acao.
A note from Tom Brown about the Bootstrap Process:

in issue 185 (jan 10), @acao explained "I would love to help with a snazzy
twitter bootstrap UI implementation as well...Our project is nearing
launch, and we would LOVE to have mobile responsiveness built-in, and a
nice clean bootstrap UI strategy...bootstrap/sass are sooo powerful!"

@herestomwiththeweather replied "i'm probably not qualified to set up
"bootstrap-sass and all the other assets handling all set up" though. maybe
someone else will step up to get this ball rolling."

The next day, the initial set of commits were delivered by @rewritten: "Check
the https://github.com/oscurrency/oscurrency/tree/bootstrap222 branch. I've
added external bootstrap files, font-awesome, and swapped the legacy tabs
with the bootstrap's ones (they weren't working)."

on Feb 1, the google group was given notification of this effort with the
justification that the efforst was "to improve the user interface (and
especially for mobile devices)":
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/opensourcecurrency/Fo2DM43Ohgg

the bootstrap effort was idle until the end of june when a milestone was
created for a collection of bootstrap issues:
https://github.com/oscurrency/oscurrency/issues?milestone=1&page=1&state=closed

at the end of july, the google group was given notification that the
bootstrap branch would be merged into master:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/opensourcecurrency/izHfKPrIPuU

the twitter bootstrap project page is at http://getbootstrap.com/

cheers,
tom

Moving from Blogger to Wordpress

Wed, 23 Oct 2013 18:51:22 +0100

Welcome to OS Currency on wordpress!
From the opensourcecurrency google group (10/3/13):

Over the last year or so, while github participation (issues, some 
documentation and one virtual dev meetup announcement) has increased, the 
opensourcecurrency.org blog has sadly been inactive.

While the blog has been performing solidly as an archive of old posts, with 
some help, it could also offer a more welcoming experience and opportunity 
for mutual support among people who are interested in oscurrency.  

Here is the good news.  Amy Kirschner has been using oscurrency for almost 
a year for B2B mutual credit exchange and has suggested that wordpress 
would offer more functionality (than blogger) and allow easier access for 
participation from admins (rather than coders).  As Amy uses oscurrency in 
support of vbsrmarket.com, she is especially interested in usability and 
the community around the software.

Even though there are some details to work out (e.g. wordpress.com vs. 
self-hosting), it seems reasonable to switch the blog in a week or so.  

There is no change in existing process: software development issues are 
still discussed on Github with logistical/upgrade issues promoted to this 
Google group.  Also, there is clearly a need to improve the documentation. 
 Please feel free to use Github issues to identify gaps in the 
documentation.  There are many.  If you are not comfortable with using 
Github, another alternative is to blog about any problems (or any 
experiences in general) you are having with the software.  Additionally, as 
this Google group is a low traffic mailing list, it seems likely there will 
be a need for an additional higher traffic forum like discourse.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.  Have a great weekend!

-Tom

Contributors

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 18:55:12 +0100

History

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 14:17:19 +0100

Currency, Caffeine and Codeathons
3/27/2007 - Rich Vazquez and Tom Brown present at Cafe Caffeine in Austin, Texas. Greg Foster attends. They discuss how complementary currency software should be open source. (Credit to Douglas Rushkoff for the phrase “Open Source Currency”)
4/11/2007 - Rich, Greg, Tom decide to go with ruby on rails over php. They determined that working with data was easier with rails objects, they impressed with the rails console and the codeathon was a good opportunity to learn more about rails.
4/20/2007 - Codeathon: project named austen. This was organized by Silona Bonewald and the League of Technical Voters. Part of the bylaws of LOTV is that all code must be open source. The project name is an acronym for Austin Time Exchange Network.
8/2007 - Project renamed to oscurrency.

Blog

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:17:23 +0100

Contact

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:16:09 +0100

[contact-form to=‘herestomwiththeweather@gmail.com%26#x002c;vtresiliencelab@gmail.com’][contact-field label=‘Name’ type=‘name’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Email’ type=‘email’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Comment’ type=‘textarea’ required=‘1’/][/contact-form]

Get Involved

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:15:49 +0100

The OSCurrency community is composed of developers, volunteers, activists, entrepreneurs, designers, and end users. We welcome you to join us!
Ways to Contribute:
* Fix Bugs
*Build New Features
* Improve the User Experience
* Improve our Documentation: ReadMe, Wiki, Open Documentation Edit Issues
* Join the Conversation Google Group
* Improve OSCurrency by sharing your ideas + issues
* Add your system to the User List
Other Ideas:
* Host a Hackathon
* Spread the Word

Links

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:14:05 +0100

Agile Banking Google Group
Open Transact Specs
Bernard Lietaer
Beyond Money
IJCCR
P2P Foundation
What do we want to do with this page?

About

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:34:37 +0100

Open Source Currency is community currency software that uses the OpenTransact Protocol.

It is always open source and always free to download.

Fast Links:

Our community includes developers, volunteers, activists, entrepreneurs, designers, and end users.

We welcome you to join us!

OpenTransact on Android

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:25:00 +0100

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZefmK1tndc&w=560&h=315]
Update (June 15): Cyberwire on Google Play App Store
Cyberwire is an open source proof-of-concept for OpenTransact on Android. In the screencast, we see the Android app used to transfer 10 imaginary coffeebucks using one OpenTransact provider implementation. Even with a different OpenTransact provider implementation, we see the same functionality accessed by the same Android app.
OAuth Dynamic Client Registration Protocol is used to allow the Android app to start communicating with a new OpenTransact provider. A custom application_type request parameter is set to “noredirect” to indicate to the provider that instead of the client providing its own redirect_uri, the provider should choose a uri within its own domain and after authorization, the client will snarf the authorization code parameter from that uri instead of its own.

OpenTransact: Testing OAuth Scopes with Artifice and Cucumber

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:02:00 +0100

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AYLP3wMA width=“480” height=“405”]

In this screencast, we’ll improve the code introduced in the previous post OAuth Scopes with UMA Action URLs with the help of our friends Artifice and Cucumber.

Calls to Net::HTTP can be intercepted by Artifice and sent to your rack application instead of the network. If you are developing an OAuth provider, Artifice makes testing the api a lot easier. Since the OAuth ruby gem uses Net::HTTP, we can wrap Artifice blocks around our client calls in tests and Artifice will intercept the calls and route them to our Rails app.

OAuth Scopes with UMA Action URLs

Fri, 20 May 2011 22:02:00 +0100

In a recent South Park episode, Kyle is kidnapped and subjected to product prototyping (made of people) by employees of a large, cult-like tech company who explain that it is all justified: Kyle failed to read the complex terms and conditions he agreed to. Unfortunately, the risks of consenting to the agreement were not clear to Kyle.

There is a new hope. Earlier this week, Twitter announced more precise controls over permissions granted to third parties. Twitter wants to make the risks of consent more clear. Access to your direct messages should be on a need-to-know basis. Twitter says that by mid-June, when you grant a third-party permission to your twitter account, it will no longer be able to access your direct messages unless you have explicitly granted that particular type of access.

What's new with oscurrency

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:18:00 +0100

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AYKm5RsA]

See this video on blip.tv.

This is a 10 minute explanation of the feature changes in the groupy branch. The motivation and design was discussed in RSpec And CanCan Authorization for Intentional Economics three months ago.

The Health Class: Dr. Ted Norris interviews Sheila Gordy, Austin Time Exchange

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:21:00 +0100

[vimeo 19407702 w=400 h=300]

The Health Class: Dr. Ted Norris interviews Sheila Gordy, Austin Time Exchange on Vimeo.

RSpec and CanCan Authorization for Intentional Economics

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:52:00 +0100

Not long after moving the Austin Time Exchange to Ruby on Rails, we started receiving requests for a groups feature since some local groups were interested in having their own currency but did not want to run their own instance of the software and their members were already on the existing system.

Since we’re a fork of insoshi, merging the groups feature from another fork is easy. Add some code to make simple payments per-group…Boom! Done.

Grassroots Economy Festival - Oakland, CA.

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:23:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDrMkQFsQTQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

“An alternative grassroots economy already exists in the Bay Area.” - Mira Luna

Comments

Author: rick

Date: 2010-11-07 19:35:20

Thanks for posting this video Tom. We plan on repeating this festival in 2011. Check us out at http://JASecon.org/ and http://timebank.sfbace.org/

A simpler alternative to rel-payment

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:16:00 +0100

The previous screencast may have tried to use too much technology to enable user-centric simple web payments.

After looking around some, it occurred to me that the rel-payment microformat is not sweeping the world wide web. Using the Internet Archives, I found a blog post from July 2005 that announced support for rel-payment on blip.tv. I’m guessing not many people used this before it was abandoned.

An alternative to rel-payment is to simply use a convention. For instance, the path /blog is a convention to quickly find the blog for a site. On Twitter, this would normally represent the person with the Twitter handle “blog” but Twitter follows the convention and redirects to blog.twitter.com.

OpenTransact: rel-payment and OpenID

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 06:36:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orEe9dg5gRI&hl=en&fs=1]

Warning: I boosted the microphone amp on this one. :)

A blog is a great place to accept web payments. Livejournal, blogger and wordpress allow bloggers to make their blog url their OpenID. In this screencast, we see that when a blogger on Wordpress.com adds links, she can easily associate the type of link (through microformats). One microformat is rel-payment:

RelPayment is a microformat for making exchanges of support (be it financial or otherwise) possible. By adding rel=“payment” to a hyperlink a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink provides a way to show or give support for the current page. For example to give financial support to the owner of the current page.

Simple Web Payments with OpenID and OpenTransact

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:01:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2szB-qyWeA&hl=en&fs=1]

This screencast shows how simple web payments can be using OpenTransact. Instead of making a payment to an email address, we can make a payment to a URL, particularly if it is an OpenID.

The person making the payment simply adds a delicious-style bookmarklet and as you can see below, I simply re-used the javascript code for bookmarking a url on delicious and pointed it to a oscurrency financial service provider hosted on heroku.

Easy Heroku Install and Cheepnis

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:48:00 +0100

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AYHa62oA]

The last post was a proof of concept. Proof of concept has matured to a working system on Heroku thanks to our friends at the Bay Area Community Exchange (BACE). These improvements allow a lower cost, easier to deploy system. With these benefits, it was a no-brainer for the Austin Time Exchange to abandon the edge branch and merge changes from the BACE fork in master.

This screencast shows the new 3 step heroku installation:

OsCurrency Heroku Deployment

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:50:00 +0100

Click To Play

“Anyone can run their own financial system.” - Bernard Lietaer at the Naropa Intentional Economics workshop.

Thanks to Lee Azzarello, oscurrency can now be deployed to heroku with the master branch. For production use, the edge branch is preferred as previous testing in development and production has been done with edge. Also, two more items need to be worked on for heroku deployment. In edge, search is done with sphinx which heroku does not support. Since a community currency system generally does not need industrial strength search, perhaps this can be replaced with standard database queries. Also, the edge branch uses workling and starling for background processing of newsletter and forum post emails. Heroku uses DJ workers.

CapCard: Opentransact with OAuth

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:46:00 +0100

Click To Play

The previous two screencasts demonstrated using Opentransact for simple web payments without using OAuth. Now we see how Opentransact web payments can be made with OAuth. Watch the original larger screencast to make reading the typing easier on the eyes.

To get OsCurrency to work with CapCard, I made this checkin.

Part 2: Greco's The End of Money

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:49:00 +0100

Welcome back! In the previous entry, the evolution of money was explored to the extent that we could see how its essence changed at every step in the ladder of economic civilization. The essence of modern money is credit. This time, I cover the second half of Thomas Greco’s book where he shares an abundance of wisdom and guidance.

After thinking about The End of Money and the Future of Civilization some more, it occurred to me that the money system is like Windows 95. In the same way Windows 95 didn’t know whether it was an archaic 16 bit operating system or a modern 32 bit operating system, our current money system doesn’t know whether it is using commodity money or credit money. Windows 95 tried to reform Windows 3.11. This effort generated billions of dollars for Microsoft which produced two more commercially successful versions (98 and Me) but this effort was eventually abandoned. Today, it’s easy to forget what it was like losing all of your work. Cue Barbara Streisand singing Memory.

Précis of Greco's The End of Money and the Future of Civilization

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:44:00 +0100

To mix things up, I thought it would be fun to share some knowledge gained from Thomas Greco’s The End of Money and the Future of Civilization across two blog posts. This first post will cover the challenges facing us (ch. 1-10). The second post will cover how we can navigate into the future (ch. 11-20).

I apologize in advance for any misinterpretations of the material and look forward to corrections. I can think of no better executive summary than to quote Greco directly.

Stupid Currency Tricks: OpenTransact with OsCurrency

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:32:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiakCvGXMZQ&hl=en&fs=1&]

Here’s another OpenTransact demo. Last time, Nubux, a simple reference implementation, was the financial service provider. This time, OsCurrency is the FSP.

Comments

Author: Guillaume Lebleu

Date: 2009-07-27 23:05:53

Great Tom. Was wondering where the translation from “credits” to hours happens? If I remember correctly the OpenTransact spec, you post to a currency-specific URI. Do you have a /hours for OSCurrency?

Author: herestomwiththeweather

Date: 2009-07-28 02:44:24

That's right. Assuming the FSP site only has one kind of asset type, then it can just use /transacts (spec draft) like the demo did. However, in reality, demo.opensourcecurrency.org allows members to create their own currencies so i need to make friendly urls for each currency.

Stupid Currency Tricks: OpenTransact Simple Web Payment

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:32:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvlPTPUhHGU&hl=en&fs=1&]

There’s been some good discussion on the Agile Banking list which includes simple web payments. This is like what we did on the previous screencast but simpler (mostly because we’re not using oauth).

The use of the callback to confirm the payment can be trouble. The callback could timeout or maybe the merchant is inside a firewall for some reason and can’t be contacted from outside the firewall. In either case, If I’m selling pizzas, I’m not going to make the pizza if I don’t get the callback.

Stupid Currency Tricks: Payment Dropbox with OAuthActiveResource

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:56:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r-1MiN3lY4&hl=en&fs=1&]

OAuth support with the OsCurrency API was first demonstrated in January. Ruby on Rails developers may have noticed that I didn’t use ActiveResource with OAuth. Instead, in both the January screencast and the Twitter OAuth Consumer screencast, we coded in raw JSON. This was a bummer because, as easy as it is to write JSON, it is difficult to test, maintain and support. It would be much better if we could use ActiveResource.

Stupid Currency Tricks: Group Currencies and Heroku

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:32:00 +0100

Like the last screencast, this one is a result of a feature request. About 9 months ago to the day, I met Johnny & Eva Barnett at Spiderhouse Coffee through Karen Gifford, a board member of ATEN. Johnny suggested a groups feature be added to oscurrency. This happened one week after Rich and I presented the idea of using insoshi for a currency server at One Web Day Austin and first started checking in code. Multiple improvements made to oscurrency have been a direct result of Johnny Barnett’s help.

Life Inc: The Movie

Mon, 11 May 2009 22:21:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOBWhVe68os&hl=en&fs=1]

Life Incorporated via BoingBoing

Columbia Exchange Circle on KOMU TV

Tue, 05 May 2009 18:59:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R71jjP_0NR4&hl=en&fs=1]

The Columbia Exchange Circle was on TV yesterday…

“The idea of the exchange circle is to connect community members and get people to share the skills and resources that they have in a way that does not rely on the current economy,” said Maggy Rhein, another organizer for the C.E.C.

And members say that taking the program online is the easiest way to connect.

“People can post the request and people can see it instantly,” said Vince Foley, another organizer for the group and the Web site manager.

Stupid Currency Tricks: Matching Unmet Needs with Available Resources

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:17:00 +0100

The previous five screencasts have been experimental. Anyone who knows Ruby on Rails can install the code and, since it is open source, anyone can make improvements to it. We have seen how the application programming interface (API) allowed for an independently developed killer app to be built. However, until today, to my knowledge, none of the new features shown in these “Stupid Currency Tricks” screencasts are actually enabled on real systems. Why? Because real people in real communities have not asked for them!

Stupid Currency Tricks: Twitter OAuth Consumer

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:28:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtIiECRbHqs&hl=en&fs=1]

3/27/09 Update - Twitter announced today a new method that apparently allows one to follow someone in one-click from another website but it is a negligible step forward. It seems to take two clicks and doesn’t return the follower back to where he came from as is done in this screencast with OAuth.

Twitter recently started rolling out OAuth support in a private beta for developers. Previously, as described in the Twitter Development Talk group, there was no way to automate a member of your website to follow your website’s twitter account, for instance. Now, with OAuth, today’s screencast shows that this can be done in a usable manner.

Stupid Currency Tricks: Identica

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:10:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2u8sSqwkqU&hl=en&fs=1]

In the last screencast, requests were posted to Twitter and members were automatically followed when they associated their Twitter ID with their OSCurrency account. In this episode, we see how minimal changes to the code allow us to do the same with Identi.ca instead of Twitter.

Besides all the advantages of being open source, Identi.ca also accepts OpenID. So does OSCurrency (since it is derived from Insoshi). Wouldn’t it be great if microblogging messages could be routed like email messages?

Stupid Currency Tricks: Request Notifications with Twitter

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:43:00 +0100

Staying with the same theme as the previous screencasts, this one again shows how you don’t have to navigate back to the portal site to participate.

Sometimes requests are very time sensitive so it’s important to contact others ASAP about a need. This is a perfect application for Twitter or Identi.ca. When someone creates a request, either through the main website or through another site using the OsCurrency API, the request can immediately be sent out to Twitter.

QR Codes

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:15:00 +0100

Brandon Wiley invented an ATM machine this week for complementary currency using QR codes. Writing python code on Google App Engine, he wrote code which can generate a QR code using Google Chart API and an oauth consumer to allow someone to redeem the currency without giving the ATM site the username and password to their account. The transaction was made with the OSCurrency API. Some more API support needs to be done to make the transaction more resistant to counterfeiting, but it already makes a cool demo.

Stupid Currency Tricks with OAuth

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:31:00 +0100

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program with a screencast for software developers.

If you are not a software developer, the screencast may not be useful, but it’s good to understand why OAuth is critical to online complementary currency. When you buy something online, you don’t log into your bank’s website to do the transaction. You may click on a PayPal purchase button or some other one-click button. So, a member may not want to log into a community currency website to make a payment to a peer. The community currency website needs to expose an application programming interface to third party applications (like Facebook) to make payments and execute other functions. How is the third party authorized to make a payment on behalf of the member? The OAuth protocol allows a member to seamlessly grant the third party application authorization to perform specific actions on his accounts, for instance. It’s kind of a big deal.

An Improvement to Employee Discounts with Network Effects

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:00:00 +0100

At the Next Economy Workshop, Donald Jackson said he was interested in considering currency designs that would support small businesses since they are especially vulnerable during an economic crisis. Yesterday, Donald wrote Alternative Currencies and Independent Business Wages. In Donald’s analysis, a fundamental problem small businesses have is paying competitive wages compared to large corporate firms. The solution:

Let us suppose that on top of existing base pay, local employers added an extra $3-4 dollars worth an hour for their employees. However, instead of being issued in dollars, let us suppose this wage boost is issued in a local currency that is only accepted by those very same firms. All of the local, independent firms in a network issue the wage increase, but those increased wages can only be spent within that local network.

Next Economy Potluck Lunch and Workshop

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:34:00 +0100

Next Economy Potluck Lunch and Workshop
Saturday, December 13, 2008 10:30AM - 2:30PM
Ruiz Branch Library, 1600 Grove Blvd, Austin 78741
Register here: http://nexteconomy.eventbrite.com (free)
The resilience needed to absorb hard times can be provided by regional loyalty currencies. Why isn’t anybody doing it, then?
In fact, they are:

300 businesses in Berkshire County, Massachusetts accept Berkshares (launched on September 29, 2006).
600 businesses in South East Bavaria accept the Chiemgauer (launched in 2003)
60,000 businesses in Switzerland accept the Swiss WIR (launched in 1934 by 16 businessmen)
The Swiss WIR was created in response to the scarcity of credit during the depression. The WIR is responsible for the economic resilience of the Swiss economy.
Collective responses for economic relocalization are springing up like mushrooms in Austin. This could have a positive impact on very small businesses, which are particularly vulnerable during economic downturns. Brian Kelsey, economic development coordinator for the Capital Area Council of Governments, is quoted in this week’s Austin Chronicle: “businesses with fewer than 10 employees experienced negative growth in 2001, which implies they may have been disproportionally hurt when the last recession hit.”
This downturn may not be a “normal” recession, but a symptom of the collapse of economic models that no longer work because they’re not sustainable. Our economic assumptions may be transformed over the next months. It’s time to explore alternatives. This is the first in a series of discussions that will consider solutions for the next economy.
Bring a covered dish or drinks, plates, etc. and join fellow weekend economic warriors to talk, learn, and plan.
Onsite childcare available.

OsCurrency Demo Site and Github Repository

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:15:00 +0100

At One Web Day Austin on September 22, the idea was offered (see video in previous entry) that it would be relatively straightforward to build a complementary currency system on Insoshi. Shortly after that, Rich and I began a new project in github. The latest code can be found in the edge branch of Oscurrency.

Two weeks ago, the Austin Time Exchange made the switch to running this code. Most of the changes you see in github since then are the result of feedback from the members. This site runs on one 256M slice on slicehost.

One Web Day Austin

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:09:00 +0100

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/Ac+DBY_Iaw]
We had the opportunity to talk about community currency at One Web Day. There is an archive of talks. It was neat to see Cafe Caffeine’s customers stop in for coffee throughout the evening and stay awhile to listen in on the compelling talks about privacy online and the war for peace. A big thanks to Jon Lebkowsky, Maggie Duval, Paul Walhus and Dusty Reagan for organizing a great event.

Comments

Author: mat

Date: 2008-11-08 15:14:00

Lawrence Lessig at Netroots Nation 2008

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:46:00 +0100

The lunch for Lessig’s keynote at the Austin Convention Center yesterday (NN08) was the standard sandwich box. Each choice had a fancy name. I chose the Wellington. It was pretty good. I’m eating the apple as I blog.

Lessig spent most of the keynote describing the motivation for Change-Congress. On one of his early slides, Lessig noted the problem of socialized risk and privatized profit. In fact, on the day before at the subprime mortgage session, I asked the panel the question I submitted for Nancy Pelosi. Panelist Hale Stewart, who seems like a straight shooter, answered that there’s nothing Congress can do about the conflict of interest of the CEO of JP Morgan Chase making decisions on the Federal Reserve Board to make the public take the risk of the Bear Stearns acquisition.*

unMoney Convergence Day 3 of 3

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:56:00 +0100

A list of all the sessions is here. Here’s a brief recollection of the sessions I attended.

A Currency Definition Language by Arthur Brock was the first presentation I attended. Arthur identified the problem (borrowing from John Rogers analogy of taking flight) as our having this dashboard of knobs and dials but we don’t know what they are or there’s no agreement on what to call them. On the previous day, John Rogers noted how the complexity of our financial system corrupts our language. (Language corruption also seems like a consequence of private money creation. Who wants to play a game where someone else gets to change the rules? Truman: “if you can’t beat them, confuse them.”)

unMoney Convergence Day 2 of 3

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:12:00 +0100

Brownies for breakfast! Yes!…I walked up Pike Street from the hostel (on 1st) and took note of the Kinkos as I made the right turn on 8th street to the Town Hall on Seneca. Kaliya explained the open space format and we signed up to lead sessions. For the first session, I decided to attend Michael Linton’s presentation “Get the Money Moving.” In the video, Ernie Yacub walks in to assist Michael. I was fortunate to join Ernie and Lori Heath for lunch.

unMoney Convergence Day 1 of 3

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:53:00 +0100

[flickr video=2416072066 secret=159e0fd6ed w=400 h=300]

It was a surreal experience today as I’m seeing at least a dozen people for the first time that I’ve only known from the Internets. People came from as far as Germany, England and Australia. Since we didn’t start checking in until 3pm, it was mostly introductions and a dinner that was worth the wait. See you after a little bit of sleep.

unMoney Convergence in Seattle April 14-16

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:08:00 +0100

This is great! Kaliya Hamlin and Chris Lindstrom are putting together a conference you do not want to miss. Two different communities of practice will finally converge: the complementary currency folks and the web identity folks! If you’re one of the few regular readers of this blog, you know both Kaliya and Chris. Here’s the announcement.

Update 1/31: Hazel Henderson will give the keynote.
Update 2/6: Added unMoney Convergence to the blogroll…
Update 2/9: Wiki for the unconference: unmoney.wik.is

Dark Side of the Rainbow

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:00:00 +0100

Last night, I joined a couple of friends at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown for a midnight showing of the Dark Side of the Rainbow. Since I’ve been reading a book that starts each chapter with a quote from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and references David Parker’s The Rise and Fall of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, there were more than a few sublime moments.

The members of Pink Floyd deny that they intentionally synchronized Dark Side of the Moon to the movie. Anyone who has read excellent books like How We Know What Isn’t So or Fooled by Randomness are well acquainted with the phenomenon of seeing patterns where none exist by discarding data that doesn’t fit. So, if it’s true that last night was a Type I error, consider Dark Side of the Rainbow the biggest “rhymes with blind duck” in history.

Contingencies

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:42:00 +0100

Last week, Rich and I gave a talk at OWASP Austin, the open web application security group. Social network security was the title. The main idea is how the health of social networks and communities can be compromised by attacking the identities - replacing identities known to the community with ones that are less functional. When identities are degraded or made more anonymous, then the community is at risk.

Of course, we talked about complementary currency and among RSnake’s several good questions was how does a complementary currency system keep someone from taking too much. Of course, we mentioned the idea of putting a credit limit for each person in the code, but as everybody knows, it is less about the code than it is about the people and if the community is healthy and all the transactions are transparent, then people will police it themselves. If the community is sick, they won’t. Even for the hackers at the OWASP meeting who are immersed in code every day, this idea seemed agreeable.

Ellen Hodgson Brown

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:31:00 +0100

Update 12/2: Here is the website (with blog) for the book.

A week ago, I ordered Ellen Hodgson Brown’s new book Web of Debt. Since I’m still waiting for it (alas, the order is bundled with Toni Price’s yet-to-be released cd), a podcast announced on the IJCCR mailing list is a welcome gift in the meantime.

She notes that money is just a receipt (or as Thomas Greco often says credit) that the community agrees on, so there’s no need for a private issuer. She clarifies that silver versus gold wasn’t William Jennings Bryan’s main issue. The main issue was that the government and not a private bank create the money.

The Money Fix

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:09:00 +0100

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trl5_BCL0qs]
Update 9/20: Extra interviews are generously being made available by themoneyfix.org through this RSS feed. As they become available, I’ll add direct links to the videos from the feed here for those who don’t use a newsreader:

Hazel Henderson m4v, youtube
Bernard Lietaer m4v

Comments

Author: necronomy

Date: 2008-03-30 13:25:00

Alternative possibility means freedom of choice: < HREF=“http://cromalternativemoney.org” REL=“nofollow”>Crom Alternative Money<>

BarCamp Houston Slides

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:18:00 +0100

Great Q/A and discussion at BarCamp Houston as the presentation was in the smaller of the two rooms. After the session, I had a conversation with someone who had a degree in economics and he asked if any economists had written anything about complementary currency. I mentioned to him that the London School of Economics had published a paper of Edgar Cahn’s. I’m reminded of Lietaer saying that the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics* will never be awarded to an intentional economist.

Solidarity Economy at USSF

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:03:00 +0100

Unfortunately, I haven’t blogged much on my experience at the US Social Forum. in short, it was great and I recommend attending any one you can get to. Hopefully Iĺl follow up on that statement. I have multiple social interests, so my time was divided. I also attended as part of a family vacation, so my attention was divided.

I took part in a workshop on Solidarity Economy. There were representatives from the US, Canada and Peru speaking about very active programs. Canada and Peru
have very developed programs worth learning about.

Ithaca Hours on NPR

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:04:00 +0100

This morning, a few friends brought to my attention the NPR story on Ithaca Hours. There seems to be an upswing in media coverage. Amy also notes the NPR story and that she paid for her yoga class in time dollars. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to use the Austin Time exchange for cooperatively-owned beer. I think an hour of work is worth a beer or two. I didn’t realize so many people listen to NPR in the morning.

Almost a million Berkshares in circulation

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:35:00 +0100

There are about 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 at the fixed exchange rate of 1 BerkShare to 90 U.S. cents, according to program organizers. The paper scrip is available in denominations of one, five, 10, 20 and 50.

In their 10 months of circulation, they’ve become a regular feature of the local economy. Businesses that accept BerkShares treat them interchangeably with dollars: a $1 cup of coffee sells for 1 BerkShare, a 10 percent discount for people paying in BerkShares.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070619/lf_nm/usa_economy_berkshares_dc

Barcelona Time Banks on "The World"

Thu, 31 May 2007 02:09:00 +0100

PRI’s “The World” ran a great story on a Time Bank experience in Barcelona.

The World’s Gerry Hadden reports that a barter system is catching on in Barcelona, Spain. People register with what’s called a time bank to trade services. They might teach a language or do home repairs. The hours they work become time bank credits they can spend. Time banking saves people cash. And for many, it provides a sense of community.

Austin Time Exchange 1st Anniversary Celebration

Sat, 26 May 2007 02:01:00 +0100

Austin Time Exchange 1st Anniversary Celebration

Please come celebrate with us!!! You are invited to attend an event marking the 1st anniversary of the Austin Time Exchange.

On Sunday, June 3rd from 6pm-9pm, we will be hosting a gathering at Monkey Wrench Books. We will be enjoying beer and light refreshments from 6pm-8pm and will be screening the documentary, “The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” at sunset. You can view more information on the film at http://www.communitysolution.org/cuba.html . A pay what you can donation is suggested to help cover the cost of the refreshments. Additional funds collected will help cover ATEN operational costs. This is a family friendly event.

Gift Economy of a mystic

Sun, 13 May 2007 05:07:00 +0100

A recent article about Paulo Coelho (a Brazilian writer whose works are filled with mysticism) describes how his bookshelves collapsed one day and he realized he was hoarding things he didn’t need. So, now his shelves are empty and he regularly leaves his books on park benches and other places when he is done.

In another way to play with “free as in libre” and profit, Coelho has had a third of his upcoming novel posted on his blog, only removing the text when the book was released in print.

Software and patents

Fri, 11 May 2007 13:40:00 +0100

A lot of people who understand and enjoy Open Source Software don’t necessarily realize one of the main problems with the way the Software industry entrenches itself in a way to remove the ability to innovate form the general public and society as whole..

Software is a mutant in the sense that it can be both copyrighted and patented. The article Software ain’t patentable, damn it! (2) points out the difference fairly well while discussing a legal case putting junk patents at risk.

Economia Solidária

Thu, 10 May 2007 02:41:00 +0100

Economia Solidária

I have trouble blogging frequently because I use to write fully researched articles and was called a journalist before bloggers came along.

Instead of infrequency, I think I’ll settle for short bursts like others do. This time, I’ll point out the remembrance that I understand Spanish and Portuguese. I often enjoy story that aren’t all over Slashdot, because they are all over barrapunto.com (the Spanish Slashdot). At some point a week ago, I ran into a Brazilian page, which led to Spanish pages. Outside of Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez is personally promoting community currencies, there is a very large community of people dealing in various kinds of social currencies. Some of them from banks dealing in national money as well.

Upcoming Time Exchange Orientations

Tue, 01 May 2007 16:24:00 +0100

Austin Time Exchange
http://www.austintimeexchange.org
These are the dates for upcoming Time Exchange orientations.

Orientation Dates

Tuesday, May 8th at 7:00pm — Ventana del Soul Cultural Center, 1834 E. Oltorf

Saturday, May. 12th at 11:30am — Terrazas Branch Library, 1105 E. Cesar Chavez St.

Monday, June 4th at 7:00pm — Terrazas Branch Library, 1105 E. Cesar Chavez St.

Tuesday, June 12th at 7:00pm — Ventana del Soul Cultural Center, 1834 E. Oltorf

Monday, July 2nd at 7:00pm — Terrazas Branch Library, 1105 E. Cesar Chavez St.

Codeathon Participants Earn Time Exchange For Their Volunteer Time

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:21:00 +0100

Participants earn time to receive services for their work building open source software to benefit the nonprofit community.

(Austin, TX) The Austin Time Exchange Network (ATEN) helps people trade an hour of work for another hour of work within a community. Instead of bartering between just two people and placing different values on the service, our network allows equal sharing of an hour for an hour within the whole community.

Consensus and the Commons

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:14:00 +0100

In the Future of Ideas and Money and Lessig and Lietaer posts, a community currency is compared to the Internet. Both of them form an innovation commons.

Associated with community currency design is protocol. Contrast this with national money where laws generally regulate use.

Protocols on the Internet are generally established by the IETF. Jeanette Hofmann describes this process:

The IETF is open to anyone who is interested, provided they have the necessary technical competence and practical engineering skills. The exclusionary effect of this prerequisite should not be underestimated. The IETF has traditionally understood itself as an elite in the technical development of communication networks. Gestures of superiority and a dim view of other standardisation committees are matched by unmistakable impatience with incompetence in their own ranks.

Austin Penguin Day, April 28th

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:01:00 +0100

We are looking for nonprofits to attend, but also for technology professionals willing to present or just participate in sessions to add to the information presented.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Penguin Day Comes To Austin
www.austinpenguinday.org

Popular One Day Conference Showcasing Open Source Technology Use For Nonprofits And Communities Makes Austin Debut

Austin, a city well known for its technology-centric offerings, festivals and a motto of keeping Austin “weird” can add one more item to its growing list–Penguin Days. The popular day long convening of software developers, activists and nonprofits will take place on April 28 from 9 am to 5 pm at Ventana del Soul.

Codeathon 2.0

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:08:00 +0100

CODEATHON 2.0

PRESENTED BY KNOWBILITY AND LEAGUE OF TECHNICAL VOTERS

Create open source software to benefit nonprofits. Two events! Two chances to participate! Free food, prizes, unique entertainment. All types and skill levels of designers needed. Collaborate on issues of usability and accessibility, graphical interface and high-level software architecture.

More info and to sign up:
http://codeathon.pbwiki.com/

Kick off party at Triumph Café
Friday, 4/13, 8 p.m. - 11 p.m.

Tangled Up in the Future - Lessig and Lietaer

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:14:00 +0100

This is a followup to The Future of Ideas and Money.

Bernard Lietaer reveals the difference between money and currency. What a central authority requires in payment of taxes, thereby imposing it as legal tender, is money. Taxes lock us into money. Money is the Yang. It promotes competition and scarcity created through hierarchy. Currency is whatever a community chooses as a means of payment, thereby accepting it as common tender. Social currency is the Yin.

The Future of Ideas and Money

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 05:55:00 +0100

Kellan suggested that some books are read better together and asks “Do you have favorite pairings?” Following Rich’s post on the Creative Commons, I’ve been thinking about Lessig’s The Future of Ideas and ever since the Naropa Workshop on Intentional Economics, I have thought it would be great to pair Lessig with Bernard Lietaer, author of The Future of Money.

I talked to Bernard about Lessig’s code/architecture as the fourth category of ways to regulate. When a complementary currency is introduced, does it merely fall in the economic incentive category or is it a lower level change to code and architecture?

Creative Commons in Austin

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:47:00 +0100

In trying to think of the first post, it seemed strange to mention a workshop introducing creative commons because surely everyone knows what that is. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. One common experience that emerged from those attending the workshop was that so many people who should know about creative commons don’t.

Even while so many people kvetch about the horrors of patents and copyrights, creative commons grows by being incorporated into Yahoo, Flickr, Google and many others. Many blogs we visit every day have the creative commons logo and license attached. Yet the average person doesn’t know about this solution to sustaining cultural creativity while still protecting artist rights.