Comments for Simon Hammond

Comment on Freecycle update by Ben

Ben — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:18:36 +0000

A note to commented David (if I may)…
Hi, this is Ben from GoodNewsForPolarBears.org, its interesting to hear you say about mods having franchises removed, I’d be very interested to chat more about this. Any chance you’d be happy to speak with me, I’m naturally very interested in the whole Freecycle franchise model, powers, restrictions, etc, and I’m wondering if mods don’t want a little more autonomy. Any chance of a chat.
Cheers
Ben
bigbear[at]GoodNewsForPolarBears.org

Comment on Freecycle update by Ben

Ben — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:13:05 +0000

Hi Simon

Thanks for the mention of http://www.GoodNewsForPolarBears.org.

If you wanted to see a comparison of the differences between Freecycle and GNFPB there is some stuff I put on our blog (http://goodnewsforpolarbears.wordpress.com/).

Plus if you’d like any more info on GNFPB, why we started it, what we’re aiming to achieve, etc, say for a more in depth piece or whatever, I’d be happy to chat. By all means please drop me a line.

Best regards, and thanks for a great read
Ben

Comment on Freecycle update by si

si — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 08:28:29 +0000

Thanks for the moderator’s perspective, David.

I understand that you guys have to work within the rules set by The Freecycle Network which includes protection for user privacy and observance of Yahoo ToS.

Phone numbers are easy enough to strip out and I think the Yahoo issue is not so great in practice given Yahoo’s approval of OpenFreecycle and the specific reference to ‘commercial’ services in the ToS (item 10 of http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms.html ).

However, this may all be moot as it seems The Freecycle Network also plans to move over to a web-based model with their new site http://www.freecycle.org/faq/manual/faq&topic=newsite. Maybe I should be developing freelist2web as a migration tool? I really don’t have any ego about this and will happily code wherever it has the best effect.

Comment on Freecycle update by David

David — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:36:39 +0000

Feel free to email me as I am a freecycle mod and apart from breaking Yahoo TOS by republishing content there are several other issues around this

One being sometimes our members post personal info like phone nos and may not wish them to be posted elsewhere

And I do applaud attempts to get the word out but because Freecycle is actually run from USA the local mods are restricted in what they can allow and who they cam work with so you may find mods agree with you but can not allow posts to reproduced or they will have their Franchise removed

Cheers David

(Freecycle Groups are a type of Franchise of TFN in USA)

Comment on Context Free Art by si

si — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:29:47 +0000

I’m sure I stumbled across Electric Sheep before and it’s very impressive.

The idea behind ImageBreeder is a bit more personalised where an image is the product of a single breeder rather than a crowd vote. There’s also the potential for images to be branched off to form rich lineages.

The closest thing to ImageBreeder in this respect is the ongoing PicBreeder project. That uses a non-generative representation but otherwise continues the online evolutionary approach that ImageBreeder took.

Comment on Context Free Art by nojhan

nojhan — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 08:51:17 +0000

The kind of approach you are searching for was already tested in the “electric sheep” screensaver : http://electricsheep.org/

Its not web-based, but you have the sources…

Comment on the social singularity by dp

dp — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:59:43 +0000

Sounds a lot like Foucault’s ideas about discourse, coupled with an idea that as communication increases, ways of thinking tend to flatten out: accents and dialects disappear, information gets normalised.

MAybe it will work out as you say. I’m up for things going in directions that might be construed as ‘wrong’ in the same way that Zittrain writes about generativity.

Comment on The art of freecycling by Sara Goldstein

Sara Goldstein — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:55:40 +0000

Wish I could do something to improve Freecycle!

I’m a UI designer / usability person by trade (Masters degree, 8+ years experience, blah blah) and would happily volunteer some of my time to help improve it. I was an avid Freecycler but stopped because so many people don’t show up to take things, and it’s so hard to get anything you need because a few people snap up everything. A simple reputation system would do so much to improve the whole experience.The number of Freecycle members keeps growing, but I think if you looked at active members, it might tell a different story.

If anyone out there is working on some viable improvements, email me at Sara dot G dot Goldstein at gmail.com and I’ll gladly help!

Comment on The art of freecycling by Joe

Joe — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:22:52 +0000

A yahoo group was ported(?) to PHPBB around 5 years ago. It didn’t last long but worked fine.

http://www.b13.co.uk/moseley

Hi to everyone who remembers it!

Comment on The art of freecycling by Mark Meyer

Mark Meyer — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:11:26 +0000

As one of the developers of Reyooz I’d like to say great article and thanks for the shout out!

Currently we’re undertaking a grassroots campaign to make people aware of the site and increase usage. We’re hoping that by reaching a critical mass we can make an application that’s not only useful to everyone, but that benefits the environment and fosters a greater sense of community.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for us, we’d love to hear them!