These are my links for January 21st to January 24th:

• Kids First Trust – Kids First Trust, formerly Woolworths Kids First, aims to change children's' lives through play. Since the cessation of the Woolworths business Kids First is now actively seeking new corporate funders to enable us to continue our work aiming to enhance children's lives through play.
• GLOBAL NETWORK FOR GROWTH OBJECTION – Lots of people are beginning to realise that economic growth is not always good. About time too!
• Private firm may track all email and calls | UK news | The Guardian – The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.
• Community Engine – CommunityEngine is a free, open-source social network plugin for Ruby on Rails applications. Drop it into your new or existing application, and you’ll instantly have all the features of a basic community site.
• GISS (IS NOT) TV – G.I.S.S GLOBAL INDEPENDENT STREAMING SUPPORT free streaming services for free media.
  free as in cost, free as in software.

These are my links for January 21st:

• CHIEMGAUER: Aktuell – Chiemgauer is the name of a REGIO community currency started on 2003 in Prien am Chiemsee, Bavaria, Germany. It is named after the Chiemgau, a famous region around the Chiemsee. Christian Gelleri, a high school teacher, started this project with his students who are in charge of designing and printing vouchers, administration, accounting, advertising and other services. Now it is supported by a German regional currencies' network called Regiogeld e. V. (regiomoney-association).
• Digital Money Forum: Local money for local people – In Germany and Austria, a new type of voucher is in use since 2003. Instead of aiming at customer loyalty for commercial enterprises, these vouchers aim at creating customer, producer and trade loyalty for a region. The “Regional Currency Complements” for which the term "Regio" is being used by about 50 initiatives, which belong to the Regiogeld Verband (Regional Money Federation) have a number of common features.
• Chiemgauer – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Chiemgauer is the name of a REGIO community currency started on 2003 in Prien am Chiemsee, Bavaria, Germany. It is named after the Chiemgau, a famous region around the Chiemsee.

  Christian Gelleri, a high school teacher, started this project with his students who are in charge of designing and printing vouchers, administration, accounting, advertising and other services. Now it is supported by a German regional currencies' network called Regiogeld e. V. (regiomoney-association).

• Regiogeld e.V.: Regiogeld e.V. – Regional Money Federation, Germany is a network of community/ local/ regional currencies.
• SOL Project – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – The SOL Project is an innovative French complementary currency designed to promote a "solidarity economy". The project is being financed by the European Commission and pilot tested in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Ile-de-France and Bretagne. Instead of paper money it uses an electronic currency system with IC cards. SOL was initiated by Patrick Viveret and Dominique Picard and received praise from then president Jacques Chirac. Supporters believe that SOL will raise the standard of living for low income participants while building the local economy.
• [sol-reseau.coop] – The SOL Project is an innovative French complementary currency designed to promote a "solidarity economy". The project is being financed by the European Commission and pilot tested in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Ile-de-France and Bretagne. Instead of paper money it uses an electronic currency system with IC cards. SOL was initiated by Patrick Viveret and Dominique Picard and received praise from then president Jacques Chirac. Supporters believe that SOL will raise the standard of living for low income participants while building the local economy.
• http://ec.europa.eu/ employment_social/equal/data/ document/200604-se-etg2-t1b. pdf – A report about the SOL Project in France (community/ local currency network)
• Germans get by without the euro – Telegraph – There will soon be 65 regional currencies in operation alongside the EU's, but the financial authorities are not worried yet, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
• Earth Intelligence Network – Public intelligence in the public interest.

These are my links for January 14th to January 20th:

• Media | drupal.org – The Media module offers a drop-in replacement to the basic Upload form element provided by Drupal. It provides an API for modules to hook into, so that the element can become a Rich Media GUI, offering tabs and drawers of Local files, Remote files (from S3, a cdn, YouTube, Flickr, etc), in addition to the standard 'Add file' upload button. It includes modules to override the core Drupal Upload and User Picture forms, and is supported by several multimedia handling modules, such as FileField, ImageField, Embedded Media Field, and more.
• George Monbiot: If the state can’t save us, we need a licence to print our own money | Comment is free | The Guardian – About time Monbiot got up to speed with this issues. As he says: "It bypasses greedy banks. It recharges local economies. It's time to think seriously about an alternative currency"
• St. Lukes: About – We are the longest running independent creative agency in London. Set up as an experiment in creative management over 13 years ago, we’ve lasted waves of happy highs and heady lows to get where we are now.
• Governance and Participation Organisational Structure Case studies – From Co-ops UK, see also http://uniteddiversity.com/desiging-open-organisations/
• HUB MADRID – HUB MADRID – EL espacio que inspira, conecta e impulsa al inovador social

These are my links for January 8th to January 9th:

• BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Israeli envoy to Caracas expelled – Venezuela has ordered the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Caracas in protest at Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. A number of diplomatic staff have been expelled along with Shlomo Cohen.
• Factor E Farm Weblog » Blog Archive » Steam Age meets the Digital Age: Open Source Steam Engine – Adding it all up it seems the steam engine deserves a modern small-scale attempt. So one option to move forward with the project is to simply dig through some old engineering books and duplicate a simple steam engine for a solar thermal boiler tube or biomass-fired flash steam generator.

  After considering this option initially, I realized that there appears to be some mechanical baggage that we don’t need in the digital age. Control of yester-year’s steam engine was done mechanically with a variety of steam valves and a centrifugal governor. These parts make a simple steam engine much more complicated than just a simple cylinder with an oscillating piston. Given the availability of low cost, open source control boards, optical sensors, and solenoid steam valves – why not try to improve?

• The Distributed Social Networking Puzzle: Putting The Pieces Together – ReadWriteWeb – Distributed social networking – where users can connect their profile, friends and other data across multiple sites – is still a relatively new concept and not fully developed. There are plenty of companies and projects vying to be a major piece of the distributed social networking puzzle. The big Internet companies have initiatives such as OpenSocial (Google), Facebook Connect, MySpace Data Availability, Yahoo! Open Strategy. There are also smaller company and open source projects such as DiSo and Noserub (we explain these below).
• NYC Resistor » Electronics, Hacking, Classes, and Workspace. – NYC Resistor is a hacker collective with a shared space located in downtown Brooklyn. We meet regularly to share knowledge, hack on projects together, and build community.
• THE LEGACY XXI INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL ACTION FILM FESTIVAL DAY – In February, 2009 in movie screening venues all around the globe, The First International Social Action Film Festival will be launched and celebrated. Coordinated to coincide worldwide, and organized locally within in each participating country, The International Social Action Film Festival will be a global opportunity to recognize the good thatis being done to serve and benefit others throughout the world.
• Beginners permaculture garden – Appropedia: The sustainability wiki – This How To has more questions than answers. Please help to fill in the missing information. Here is the basic scenario. One or two people do not know much about permaculture. They know some of the basics about growing carrots, tomatoes, etc. They want to get started with a permaculture vegetable garden, but they don't want to spend a lot of time researching and studying up on it. Their set up budget is in the range of $200 to $1,000. They want some flexibility on what techniques to use to get started, and how much to spend. They are busy people, so they need a low effort solution. Preferably the set up can be done in one day with the help of a friend or two. They have already decided that they want a 4' x 8' plot and a raised bed. There is currently a grass lawn where the garden will go. They don't want to rototill. Instead, they want to put down cardboard and have soil delivered that will go over the cardboard.
• Plangarden Vegetable Garden Software Online – Welcome to Plangarden, the Web-based software tool made exclusively for vegetable gardeners! Say goodbye to graph paper and colored pencils. With Plangarden, you can quickly lay out your “virtual” garden, know the right time to plant your veggies, and track gardening activities and harvests. Plangarden is fun to use and is also available as a “widget” to share with your friends on your blog or Web site!

These are my links for December 9th to January 8th:

• Mind42.com – Collaborative mind mapping in your browser – Mind42.com is a browser based online mind mapping application. With Mind42.com installing mindmapping tools is no longer needed – for a hassle-free mindmapping experience. Just open the browser and launch the application when needed.
• Chronology of Money Timeline – What lessons does monetary history offer that are relevant to today's economic, political and social problems?
• Chelsea Green » Blog Archive » As Money Goes, So Goes the Soil (Part 2 of 3) – The following is an excerpt from Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered, by Woody Tasch. It has been adapted for the web. This is part 2 of a series of 3.
• New Recipe Version for GetPaid Released — GetPaid for Plone – You can get the new version on pypi:
  http://pypi.python.org/pypi/getpaid.recipe.release/1.2 (see this link for readme on using the recipe to make it easy to add ecommerce to your Plone site).
• Vela Creations – HOME – Vela Creations is a documentation of our experiences and projects living off the grid. We are a young couple striving to fulfill our lifestyles through sustainable means. Our hope is that our experiences will serve as guidence to those interested in the technologies and methods illustrated on this site.
• betterplace: Marketplace for social projects – 100% of your donations are forwarded. – betterplace connects.
  People in need of support, meet others who want to help. One to one. Worldwide.
• Changing the World (and other excuses for not getting a proper job…): Back (and looking forwards) – I spent a fascinating evening hanging out with Josef Davies-Coates, a one-man serendipity machine and digital Johnny Appleseed (planting world-changing videos and PDFs from his portable hard drive)
• Temporary School Of Thought – 5-11th January 2009 a space where people come together to share knowledge, non-descript skills, tactical imagination, creationism, passive action. a week long event of mutual learning, leftwing bias, free lectures, inert radicalism, workshops, discussion and film screenings. 39A Clarges Mews, Mayfair if you would like to get involved, host a workshop, show a film, do a talk or throw a brick, get in contact by ringing the house phone 07532072087 persons_unknown [at] hotmail.co.uk
• Petition to: Scrap the unnecessary and draconian usage of the 696 Form from London music events. | Number10.gov.uk – The 696 Form compels licensees who wish to hold live music events in 21 London Boroughs to report to the police the names, addresses, aliases and telephone numbers of performers, and most worryingly, the likely ethnicity of their audience. Failure to comply could result in fines or imprisonment. We believe this places unnecessary and frankly Orwellian powers in the hands of the Metropolitan Police, an institution which does not have the best record of racial fairness. The 696 form can only serve to deter the staging of live musical events – a positive form of activity in London and all cities – stifle free expression and quite possible penalise certain genres of music and ethnic audiences. It is an intrusion too far.
• Dynamic Cities Project – Home – Welcome to the Dynamic Cities Project, a non-profit organization creating energy transition strategies as a proactive response to peak oil and climate change.