Welcome to all Latvian speakers who signed up for this group when we met
at Barcamp Latvia!  Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt is an open laboratory
for serving and organizing independent thinkers around the world.  We
are headquartered in Lithuania, but quite active in Kenya and other
parts of the world.  We would love to support independent thinkers in
Latvia.  I was glad to meet so many in Riga, including Didis Veinbergs:


Didzis Veinbergs wrote:
> Hello, Andrius!
>
> This is Didzis Veinbergs from Latvia, we met during BarCamp in Riga.
> We talked a bit about copyright, free culture and public domain, and
> you mentioned that there would be a meeting in Vilnius on 31st of
> March where those things could be discussed in more detail. I would
> definitely like to go to the meeting, and, while 31st of March is
> still some time away, I would like to learn a bit more about it --
> where would it happen, what would it include etc. I would be happy if
> you could fill me in.
> Good luck with your projects!
>
> Best regards --
> Didzis

Didzis, Yes I could greatly use your help.  I invite you and all to sign
up at http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org  Please create a group there on
Publishing and start writing your ideas and inviting people to join your
group.  When you have thought through your ideas, please start a
Discussion page and write down a critique of a questionable practice
that hurts publishing, about 600 words which is about 5 minutes.  If you
do this, then I would be very happy to pay for your trip to Vilnius by
bus and provide for your stay at a youth hostel or with a family.  I
hope you might help and join us!  And I invite others also to share
ideas and consider attending.  Please note that there will be a Creative
Commons Europe meeting in Vilnius on the day before, which is Sunday,
March 30, 2008.

Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

------------------------------------------------
Here is the invitation from Minciu Sodas for the COMMUNIA workshop on
March 31, 2008 in Vilnius, Lithuania.  Thank you for sharing this to
encourage participation in Vilnius and online.  Thank you also for
registering at http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org  Andrius Kulikauskas
------------------------------------------------


COMMUNIA Workshop: "Ethical Public Domain: Debate of Questionable
Practices" March 31, 2008, Vilnius, Lithuania

The European Commission is funding the COMMUNIA thematic network for the
Public Domain.  A vibrant network may inspire European Union directives
to the member states that they amend their constitutions so that the
Public Domain has primacy over copyright.  Imagine a world where
creative works enter the Public Domain by default unless their authors
explicitly mark them as copyrighted; where the creator of a derivative
work can copyright only their own modifications and not the entire work;
where the owner of a derivative work must make available any Public
Domain works they use or their own work falls into the Public Domain;
and where non-humans (such as corporations) are prohibited from owning
creative works unless they are capable of creating them, and prohibited
from managing creative works unless they show a moral sense of fair use
that allows for more gray than black or white.

We can create a world that favors the Public Domain if we engage each
other as concerned citizens in thoughtful discourse.  Our workshop is a
series of friendly debates by which we engage those whose practices we
question.  How can Google scrape so many websites and yet have Terms of
Services which prevent others from scraping its own website?  Why is
there no market for used Microsoft software?  Why is Flickr set up for
use with Creative Commons licenses but not the Public Domain?  Why does
Wikipedia use the eight-page GNU FDL license which must be included in
any excerpt?  Why does Creative Commons define Public Domain as "no
rights reserved" rather than "all use encouraged"?  Why is the European
Commission ready to extend the term of protection for related rights in
sound recordings from 50 years to 95 years?  Why does the COMMUNIA
website use a Share Alike license which clashes with the Public Domain?
Why is Minciu Sodas inviting corporations to sponsor debates like
these?  We welcome all questions that help us explore how we might share
creative works as co-creators and support a vibrant commons.

Ten half-hour debates will take place from 10:00 to 15:00 at the ELTA
news agency press conference center, Gedimino 21/2, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Each debate will include:
* a 5 minute critique of a practice that hurts the Public Domain
* a 5 minute defense of that practice
* 10 minutes of contributions from the audience
* 5 minutes of mediation.
Debaters can present their arguments themselves in Vilnius, or ask
somebody to present on their behalf, especially if they are not able to
attend.  Remote participants will also be included by video bridge.

Participate in the debates by signing up at
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org and joining or creating groups as
explained by the Call For Participation at the website.  The debates are
meant to unfold as a work-in-progress.  All content enters the Public
Domain unless it explicitly states otherwise.

The debates will be followed by a press conference at 15:00 and then an
evening at the Neringa Restaurant, Gedimino 23 for discussion, dinner
and creative works, including (if all goes well with visas!) the Nafsi
Afrika Acrobats and drummers from Kenya who coach the youths in the
slums and build human pyramids as peacemakers.

Admission is free and open to the public, but pre-registration at
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org is required to guarantee admission.
The website contains information about the program, location, travel and
accomodation.

This workshop is organized by the Minciu Sodas laboratory
http://www.ms.lt for serving and organizing independent thinkers around
the world.  Contact Andrius Kulikauskas, +370 699 30003, ms@... or
Thomas Chepaitis +370 690 46073, uzupis.fafministry@...  The
Scandic Hotel Neringa is offering a special rate of 81 EUR for those
attending the workshop.  If you stay an extra day in Vilnius, note that
April 1, is Uzupis Day in the imaginatively independent Uzupis Republic.


=========

About COMMUNIA

The COMMUNIA Thematic Network aims at becoming a European point of
reference for theoretical analysis and strategic policy discussion of
existing and emerging issues concerning the public domain in the digital
environment - as well as related topics, including, but not limited to,
alternative forms of licensing for creative material; open access to
scientific publications and research results; management of works whose
authors are unknown (i.e. orphan works).

Funded by the European Commission within the eContentplus framework, the
3-years long project expects to provide policy guidelines that will help
each stakeholder involved - public and private, from the local to the
European and global level.

COMMUNIA also plans to build strategic relationships with other
non-European countries (starting with the United States and Brazil,
where two COMMUNIA members are located) in which similar policy
discussions are currently underway.

Website: http://www.communia-project.eu
Media contact: press@...

Hello Latvians

Minciu sodas - I wonder what those two words mean, if anything.

Gunars Berzins

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

Gunars,

"Minciu sodas" means "orchard of thoughts" in Lithuanian.  How would you
say that in Latvian?

Thank you for your letter to our Minciu_Sodas_EN group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minciu_sodas_en/message/6954
and I will also share that here.

Meanwhile I am preparing intensely for our COMMUNIA workshop "Ethical
Public Domain: Debate of Questionable Practices"
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org   Didzis Veinbergs will attend from
Latvia and he has written a critique "Yes, it is Public Domain.  No, you
can't touch it."
http://ethicalpublicdomain.ning.com/group/publishing/forum/topic/show?id=2028014\
%3ATopic%3A1001

I invite our Latvian participants to introduce ourselves in Latvian or
English.  What did we think of the Barcamp Latvia?  What has developed
further from that?

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
Vilnius, Lithuania


gunars.berzins@... wrote:
> Hello Latvians
>
> Minciu sodas - I wonder what those two words mean, if anything.
>
> Gunars Berzins
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
> Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Gunars,

Thank you for joining us at Minciu_Sodas_EN and for your letter!  I also
share with our new Latvian group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Minciu_Sodas_LV/  and with my working
group based on my own deepest value "living by truth"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/livingbytruth/  I have been making steady
progress on my own philosophical thinking at
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?LivingByTruth/Overview  These days I am
thinking through the difference between Undertanding and Experiencing.

I have read only a little bit of Emmanuel Levinas's philosophy but he is
I think a very warm and bright soul.  I am intrigued that you find a
connection with Einstein's nature of time.  The philosophy of time and
space is very difficult.  I think that a key idea is the two directions
of cause and effect: Every effect has had its cause, but not every cause
has had its effect.  The present is where these two temporal directions
are both taking place and so you can switch back and forth.

Gunars, it surely takes a long time, but I am very interested to find
connection with your ideas and benefit from the company of your open
thinking.

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
Vilnius, Lithuania


gunars.berzins@... wrote:
> Dear Members
>
> I am new to this group, having joined after finding that the Minciu Sodas
Latvian group don't seem to understand simple English. Perhaps that was too much
to expect...
>
> Anyway, my English name is George Berzins, and the Latvian original Gunars
Berzins. In the field of philosophy I am at present working on trying to
reconcile Einstein's understanding of the nature of time with the position of
the Lithuanian-born philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Should anyone here be
interested in that subject, I would be happy to enter into an exchange of views.
>
> But a subject that might be of greater common interest is the origin and
evolution of culture. I can see that your correspondence contains references to
various aspects of culture, but what is culture, and how did it originate?
>
>
> I wrote a paper on this subject (before becoming interested in the nature of
time and Levinas), and am about to upload a copy to the files section. The paper
was published in an e-publication called 'Journal of Psycho-Social Studies', at
the address:
>
> http://www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social/Vol2/JPSS2-GB1.html
>
> The Editorial Board of the Journal, consisting of thirteen Professors, is
listed at:
>
> http://www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social/ed.htm
>
>
> George Berzins
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
> Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Each letter sent to minciu_sodas_en@yahoogroups.com
> enters the PUBLIC DOMAIN whenever it does not state otherwise. 
http://www.primarilypublicdomain.org/letter/
> Please credit our authors!
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   minciu_sodas_en@yahooGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
minciu_sodas_en-unsubscribe@...! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

I ask for our help with a workshop that I am organizing in Vilnius,
Lithuania on Monday, March 31, 2008 called Ethical Public Domain: Debate
of Questionable Practices.  We need help with discussion and debate on
the topics below.  Please write to our groups and we may share your
thoughts.  Also, I invite us to join the website
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org  We will have ten guests from Kenya -
Kennedy Owino and the Nafsi Afrika acrobats and drummers - and also
about ten Minciu Sodas guests from Europe, and more from Lithuania.  So
this will be our largest meeting so far I think, even larger than
Nakuru!  I invite our thoughts on what we might accomplish.  And thank
you for sharing news about our event with our link
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org  Andrius, ms@...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you to all who have joined our website
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org which is how we register for our
COMMUNIA workshop in Vilnius, March 31, 2008, Ethical Public Domain:
Debate of Questionable Practices, and also how we are preparing online
even if we can't attend in person.

We've made some progress in preparing for the debates, but we still need
quite a bit more help these next few days.  Please, if you can, submit a
draft of your one-page paper by Wednesday if you would like to debate a
questionable practice.  That will help us organize the debates.

Here are the topics that we have so far, and the help we need.  Note
that in every case we need opponents and judges.  I look for all of us
to help in some capacity!


Term Extensions:
Stef J van Gompel and Andrew Cranfield are both planning to write
one-page statements to critique the European Commission's (DG Internal
Market)  intention to bring forward a proposal to extend the term of
protection for related rights in phonograms (sound recordings) from 50
years to 95 years.  Please do so!  and we will look for somebody here in
Lithuania to debate you.

Publishing:
Didzis Veinbergs of Latvia is starting a business as a publisher of
Latvian literature in the Public Domain.  He has written a critique of
existing practices where Public Domain classics are nevertheless guarded
by copyright.   Thomas Chepaitis is looking for a Lithuanian publisher
of classics to debate with him.

Developing Countries:
Maria Agnese Giraudo, a research librarian in Italy who travels
regularly to Africa, is preparing a critique on intellectual property
rights and the developing world.  I ask Pamela McLean of the UK and
Surya Prakash Vinjamuri of India to also write something for this topic.

Human Rights Commissions:
Eric Wanjamah is a student in Sweden from Kenya.  He is concerned that
Kenya be an equitable and just society.  "Addressing historical
injustices will require that the ills committed be told to the public,
that all classified information in the form of commissions of inquiries
and reports be made public domain."  We will try to find for him
participants in Lithuania's investigation of Soviet and Nazi atrocities.
http://ethicalpublicdomain.ning.com/profile/EricWanjamah

Video Bridge Services:
Franz Nahrada of Austria is a leader in the "global villages" movement
whereby villages are reinvigorated as centers of knowledge and
learning.  He is asking telecoms to provide video bridge equipment
free-of-charge to community centers that sign up for video bridge
service, much like they provide DSL modems free-of-charge to DSL service
subscribers.  Franz will join us by video bridge and debate with a
telecom representative.

Youth:
Fred Kayiwa is a student in Kampala, Uganda, a fantastic online social
networker who is interested in starting an Internet cafe.  He is
concerned that youth are often represented by people in their thirties
and forties.  Indeed, does existing copyright law make sense for
creative works by children and youth?  What does it say that so many
important copyrights in film and music are works geared towards children
and youth, and derivative of youth culture?  Benoit Couture has also
contributed related ideas about the weakness of our collective

Creative Commons (?):
Prodromo Tsiavos, could you write a short, gentle, one-page critique of
the Creative Commons with emphasis of where you would like to see it
go?  That would make an excellent debate and discussion.

COMMUNIA (?):
John Hendrik Weitzmann urged that COMMUNIA stay neutral with regard to
the Public Domain.  John, might you elaborate your thoughts in a page or
so?  That could be a good subject for us to debate.  Another issue is
the license used by the COMMUNIA website http://www.communia-project.eu
, which currently is the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Would anybody like to
suggest a different license?  The Share Alike provision, in my
understanding, clashes with the Public Domain when they are used
together in derivative works.

Shortening Copyright Terms
Sasha Mrkailo is interested to present ideas in favor of shortening
copyright terms, especially drawing on ideas from Michael Hart's papers.

Memory of Institutions:
Andrįs Galambosi has raised several questions about cultural heritage
preservation. Andrįs, could you write a one-page critique of a
questionable practice?

Orphan Works
Would somebody like to present a critique of a related practice?

Local Councils
Markus Petz said he would contribute a one-page paper. That would be great.

We also have several topics that have arisen in Lithuania.  In various
topics I note tensions that relate to the public sphere, sharing, the
commons, and in one way or another, the Public Domain.  These tensions
can call into question the legal system, the nation-state, the economic
system and the many foundations of our civilization that come together
in copyright law.

Plagiarism:
Jolita Malinauskaite teaches law.  She is organizing a conference in
Lithuania on the subject of plagiarism.  Quite a few professors have
been passing off their students' work as their own!

Nationalism and Minorities:
We have had a discussion in Lithuanian at Minciu Sodas about the balance
between national and minority cultures.  How does one foster a culture?

Religious Practices in Public Spaces:
We have had discussion in Lithuanian on whether it is appropriate for
public spaces to be used for structures (such as labyrinths) that may or
may not have negative impact on the spiritual surroundings.

Alcohol, Drugs and Advertisement:
We have an active movement to limit television broadcast of alcohol
advertisements and a fierce campaign by the alcohol industry to overturn
such limits.

More?  My plan is to focus on the ten debates that are best prepared,
but have spaces to do more, as needed.

-----------------------

Here are people who have signed up at our website
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org that they will come:
Christopher Brosch  (eear.eu), Caroline (fundp.ac.be), Maria Iglesias
(fundp.ac.be), Patricia (creativecommons.org), Michelle
(creativecommons.org), Ruth Inigo (upc.edu), Anna Rovira (upc.edu),
Tomislav Medak, Prodromos Tsiavo (lse.ac.uk), Georg Pleger (pleger.at),
Nuria Rodriguez Murillo (beuc.eu), Tinah Nandako, Andrew Cranfield

People who have said they are coming to Vilnius but have not yet signed
up for our website http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org  Please do so!
Ignasi Labastida, Paul Keller, Klaas Schmidt, Maja Lubarda, Daniele
Bourcier and a French colleague, Stefjvan Gompel, Juan Carlos De Martin

Participants from Minciu Sodas who are coming:
Markus Petz, Didzis Veinbergs, Vygantas Vejas, Maria Agnese Giraudo,
Zenonas Anusauskas, Pamela McLean, Theresa Bakalarz, Eric Wanjamah,
Jolita Malinauskaite, Kennedy Owino and the Nafsi Afrika acrobats and
drummers, and more from Lithuania.
and not coming but participating:
Franz Nahrada, Surya Prakash Vinjamuri, Fred Kayiwa

I look forward to our working together in Vilnius at our workshop!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
Vilnius, Lithuania

I came back from my third trip to the airport and the Uzupis youth
hostel Filaretai.  We still have some snow on the ground and it is
cold.  But I am happy to report that Kennedy, Job, Reagan, Michael,
Simon, Kenneth, Victor, James, Geofrey, Levi are all safe and warm in
Lithuania!

Pamela is also here from London and Eric is from Sweden.

We have a Minciu Sodas / Pyramid of Peace meeting tomorrow in Vilnius
all day from 11:00 to 19:30 (our guest will join us at around 13:00
after they sleep in, I will sleep in, too!)  We will have a video bridge
with Janet Feldman at noon her time which will be 18:00 our time.   We
will also be setting up wireless so some of us will be online and we can
hopefully chat with you too if you join us at
http://www.worknets.org/chat/  and you can see us through live video at
http://www.internettv.lt

I'm very grateful that we could have such a meeting.  Thank you all for
coming and for being with us in spirit to make this happen!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
VIlnius, Lithuania

I share my thoughts as founder of Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt and
leader of Pyramid of Peace http://www.pyramidofpeace.net  regarding our
work these next 10 years to bring forth a culture of independent
thinkers by which our minds shape every aspect of our world.

Last week we came together as independent thinkers in Vilnius, Lithuania
to organize the COMMUNIA workshop Ethical Public Domain: Debate of
Questionable Practices.  We took the opportunity to celebrate each other
and 10 years together as the Minciu Sodas laboratory.  Thank you to
Nafsi Afrika Acrobats and Drummers (Kennedy, James, Simon, Levi, Reagan,
Job, Victor, Geoffrey, Michael, Kenneth) for your generous gift of
amazing shows (Butrimonys village, Neringa restaurant, Labas Rytas
television show, Uzhupis Day, Panevezys school for the deaf) and for
your thoughtful debate at our workshop.  Thank you to our members from
Europe who welcomed them: Pamela, Agnese, Theresa, Eric, Markus, Didzis,
Dante.  Thank you to Janet, Sasha, Fred, Ricardo, Benoit, Surya, Prosper
and all who joined us virtually.  Thank you to Irena, Thomas, Zenonas
and all of our Lithuanian team.  This was truly a coming together for us.

I had the chance to speak for two hours with Kennedy Owino and Pamela
McLean as we drove up to Panevezys.  Kennedy affirmed his support for my
leadership with full authority for the Pyramid of Peace
http://www.pyramidofpeace.net as an activity within the Minciu Sodas
laboratory http://www.ms.lt  and as part of a broader movement of
independent thinkers.  Pamela helped me consider such a movement the
next several days on our road trip through Latvia and Lithuania.  I also
spoke today by phone with Rachel Wambui Kungu, Dennis Kimambo and
Lawrence Achami.  They welcome my leadership and my wish to focus on our
long term work for a culture of independent thinkers.

As independent thinkers, we know what it is like to stand up to the
world all by ourselves, and yet we know we are not alone.  We are the
same deep inside.  We can understand each other's private language.  We
can remake our world to nurture the ever unfolding growth of the people
we truly are.  I imagine three stages:

1998 to 2007: Lab) We have created a haven to support and foster a wide
variety of independent thinkers. We have more than 100 active and 1,000
supportive participants. We help them engage and involve more minds,
weave together a society so their dreams become real, make a living and
earn money for their projects, clarify their values, pursue their
investigations, advance their endeavors, make friends, grow as leaders,
and flourish with moral support.

2008 to 2017 ?: Culture) We now work to establish a culture that would
allow independent thinkers to apply themselves to every aspect of life.
I imagine 100,000 active and 1,000,000 supportive participants, as if we
were a diaspora, yet I hope we might be the dominant culture in at least
one small country like Lithuania so that we might make evident our
impact, our love and care.  Around the world, we would have many local
groups, and many global villages, and many traveling self-learners, and
festivals as well, and we would set the world's policy on certain key
issues such as the Public Domain, pattern languages, interfaith
dialogue, open economy, inclusion and peacemaking.  We would foster
enormous creative talents to apply eternal themes for positive impact.
We would fall in love, raise children, be together young and old.  We
would make tangible all of our values.  We would have many havens, many
labs, and we will not need any particular person (like me) to lead
because so many leaders would understand our culture.  We would include
old and bring forth young who are always encouraged as independent
thinkers.

2018 ? to 2027 ?: Ethic) We may some day find our way of life to be an
ethic which is profound for people of all cultures, much like
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Communism, Capitalism or
Science.  We might have 100,000,000 active and 1,000,000,000 supportive
participants, which is to say, all people might be within reach of an
independent thinker who is a bridge to many other such.  I think we
might discover a universal language of concepts by which we can express
our values, questions, endeavors and all of our ideas.  We might be able
to organize ourselves for any global challenge.  We might live in a
world where all truth is known, available and tangible.  We might
appreciate each other's personal languages, intuitions and talents.  We
might understand how to engage God and share our world with God.

We have many talents.  I believe they are for the sake of all.  There is
a tension between cultivating our own talents and serving the needs of
others.  Yet I believe that we wish for each of us that we might all
apply ourselves to our fullest.  And if we do not grow ourselves, then
we will quickly find ourselves lost and lead others astray.  Therefore I
encourage us to develop ourselves, to nurture, foster, cultivate our
gifts, for this is our culture.  Everywhere we go let us find those who
we might support likewise amongst the displaced persons, the deaf, the
women, the youth, the children, the illiterate, the sick, the
forgotten.  We do not have to help the masses, but rather we can make
friends with all manner of people, and they will lead us to others, and
we will all be ready to respond as we have in Kenya.  We started with
Samwel Kongere and how many friends we have made!

We are ever encouraging ourselves to think about our:
* Values: What is your deepest value which includes all of your other
values?
* Questions: What is a question that you don't know the answer to, but
wish to answer?
* Endeavors: What would you like to achieve?

Questions play a special role in our culture, and indeed it is a
"culture of investigation".  I encourage us to be comfortable living
with unanswered questions, allowing them to multiply, considering
several lines of thinking at one time, thinking-out-loud and
working-in-parallel.  This is where I will encourage us to place our
energy for this is the positive work that I think we do for our own
sake.  We can have many small projects.  We will collect and share
personal experiences, stories, ideas, perspectives as a foundation for
answering our questions.  We should try to be self-sustainable.  We can
share resources with each other - computers, travel, paid work.  We have
our own inner economy.  We also do work for clients who wish to mobilize
our good energy and are happy to meet each other half way, as was the
case with My Food Story, the Global Utopias video bridges and with the
COMMUNIA workshop.  We will learn to investigate, to ask questions and
find answers.  We will ever grow mature as we care to help each other
grow.  There is no end of the creative energy that our questions can
unleash.

We will also engage the world.  We will pursue endeavors, but let us
keep in mind why we do.  We ask questions for our own sake, whereas each
endeavor has a purpose beyond itself, and so where does it lead?  At
best, an endeavor helps us reach out to include others, and at best,
helps us to care about them and take up their questions.  So let us be
careful with our endeavors, why we are doing them, and let us take our
time to include everybody as we pursue them.  And let us be compelled by
our inner drive, just as Agnese and Sasha and Janet and Asif compelled
us on January 1, 2008 to care for our fellow Kenyans.   Let our values
be the reason that we engage the world.  They are what we would like to
establish in our culture and pass on to future generations.  Here we are
giving of ourselves without reservation, just as we would for our child,
much as we all did in Kenya.

When we are driven by our values to engage the world, then we can be
effective in the world, just as we were with the Pyramid of Peace.  We
can pursue all manner of endeavors.  We can participate in the outer
economy which is outside of our culture.   We can recognize our enemy
and love them.  We can invest in them, but only to the extent that they
will walk with us, that they will work with us to include others as
well.  We can identify corporations that we might invest ourselves in,
that might benefit as we connect with the independent thinkers amongst
their workers, customers, shareholders, that might appreciate our
scrutiny and concern.  They might invest in us that we reach out to
include others, that we lay the groundwork for emergency response, and
that we have the resources to act in the event of a catastrophe, which
is where we excelled in Kenya and generated much social capital.
However, I think that all of this is secondary for us to our dedication
to our own culture, our own gifts, our own talents, which are so huge,
and which is what we wish to share.

I therefore call a retreat of the Pyramid of Peace whereby each
peacemaker finds themselves, their voice, their questions and is able to
be at peace with them.  We are ready to come together at any time.  But
I ask us to share our questions and to help each other and to be led by
our questions to make friends with those beyond us, the displaced, the
troubled, the deaf, the women, the marginalized, and the thinkers
trapped behind the corporate walls.  We are laying down the web of
relationships that will spring to life when the day comes.  And even now
there are peacemakers such as Lawrence Achami for whom we should uncover
more support.  Yet even so my first priority is that we all grow openly
and thereby encourage each other.

I have shared what I can make of this movement.  We have so far to go!
I am grateful to Ricardo for his wonderful example as an investigator
and to Kiyavilo Msekwa likewise.  Thank you also to Kenneth Chelimo and
all for your letters and the growth you make evident.  I leave us with
the question, What is a question that you don't know the answer to, but
wish to answer?

Let us ask and look where the questions take us!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt
Pyramid of Peace http://www.pyramidofpeace.net
+370 699 30003
skype: minciusodas
Vilnius, Lithuania

Daryl Hepting,

Thank you for alerting us to your call for "20 double-spaced page"
essays for your "Free Knowledge Book".  I alert the participants of the
COMMUNIA network http://www.communia-project.eu, the Union for the
Public Domain http://www.public-domain.org, and also the Minciu Sodas
laboratory http://www.ms.lt

Thank you also for alerting us to the link at the GRAIN website to our
Ethical Public Domain workshop.  We are posting videos from that event
at http://www.internettv.lt   Also, I invite you to join our website
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org as we will be continuing our
activity! and you can work there to encourage participation in your book.

Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

Daryl Hepting wrote:
> Hello;
>
> I saw a notice of your work, of the Ethical Public Domain workshop in
particular, on
> the GRAIN website: http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=536 (that has a ad for my
> book project, below as well).  I would very much like if you'd consider
writing something
> and/or sending the following announcement along to those who you think might
be interested.
>
> Best regards,
> Daryl
> --
> Hello;
>
> I am putting together a book based on "Free Knowledge" event
> held at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in
> November, 2005.  Although the book will certainly have a
> Saskatchewan flavour, I am also seeking contributions from
> outside of Saskatchewan.
>
> I would also be very grateful if you would consider forwarding this
> call to those who you think might be interested in participating.
>
> I also have a blog about this project at:
>
>     http://knowledgecommons.blogspot.com
>
> All the best,
> Daryl Hepting
> --
>
>> Spread the Word: Essays Wanted
>> Free Knowledge Book
>>
>> The increasing privatization of knowledge is changing our society
>> in important ways, but for the benefit of very few.
>>
>> Of interest are essays that deal with current challenges,
>> and promising alternatives, in specific sectors such as (but not
>> limited to) farming and food, computer software, medicine, media,
>> arts, and libraries. Essays dealing with, for example, traditional
>> knowledge, economics, or the historical context of this issue are
>> also welcome.
>>
>> The essays are being collected for a volume inspired by the
>> ā€œFree Knowledgeā€ event held at the University of Regina on
>> November 17 and 18, 2005.  Contributions need not be
>> Saskatchewan-specific.  The finished manuscript will be available
>> on the web, through a creative commons license, and it is also
>> hoped to have it published in print.
>>
>> Interested authors should contact Daryl Hepting, c/o Department of
>> Computer Science, University of Regina, Regina, SK, S4S 0A2, Canada
>> (e-mail daryl.hepting@...) as soon as possible.  Manuscripts
>> should be approximately 20 double-spaced pages, not including
>> references.  One or more external referees will review each
>> submission.  Authors are invited to make suggestions about suitable
>> referees.  Deadline for manuscripts is September 1, 2008, with an
>> expected publication date in the Fall of 2009.
>>
>>
> --
> Daryl H. Hepting, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor  * Computer Science Department * CW 308.22
> University of Regina * Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4S 0A2
> dhh@...    * http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~hepting
> tel: (306) 585-5210  * fax: (306) 585-4745 * cell: (306) 596-6312
>
>
>

Dear Andrius,

I am just posting this to Minciu Sodas LV, but I would be glad if you
re-posted it to other groups as well. What follows is my own thoughts
on your vision of the future of Minciu Sodas and independent thinkers.

First off, I would like to thank you for organising the event in
Vilnius. It certainly could have used some more planning and a bit of
polishing here and there, but it was extremely enjoyable nevertheless.
In a way, we probably got a glimpse how a large group of independent
thinkers would act. And the first thing that struck me as obvious was
that those independent thinkers tend to be quite, well, independent.
They organised themselves in small groups, sharing their own
interests; they got along better with some and worse with others; even
the language barrier was a very real obstacle. It was not a huge,
unified group of independent thinkers that set out to change the
world; to borrow your own words, independent thinkers like to crumble.
That is what makes them independent; they have their own thoughts and
interests and are more interested in pursuing them, not following
somebody's else vision of how things should be -- at least, not if it
does not happen to be similar to their own.

Which leads me directly to the second point -- your plan for the
future of Minciu Sodas looks, well, quite unrealistic and, even if it
was realistic, I am not sure if I would like to take part in it. Of
course, there are some obvious questions such as "What makes you think
that a group that has managed to gain 100 members in its first 10
years will suddenly grow to 100,000 members during the next 10 years?
Obviously a 200 seems a more realistic figure." But even if that
somehow could happen, there still is the obvious question: why would
the independent thinkers want to do that? You say we could make up
some sort of diaspora; I believe we would do the very same thing we
are doing right now, crumble into small groups according to our own
interests. You need a strong unifying idea if you want a diaspora.
What would be the strong unifying idea all independent thinkers would
agree on? It would be great to live in a world where everybody has the
freedom of thought? Well, this is the case in most parts of the world
already. So why should we attempt to reach something that we already have?

Finally, I do agree that there are many cases where you need a leader
or a commander-in-chief. But I would say that there are probably even
more cases where you do not need any leaders -- again, the Vilnius
meeting provided many examples where people organised themselves quite
successfully.

This all leads me to my own vision of the future of Minciu Sodas: I
believe that it should still be a place where independent thinkers
could meet other independent thinkers, and I believe it should move on
to have a significant real-world presence as well, because Internet,
of course, is great, but it still is no substitute for meeting people
face to face. It should still be a laboratory for independent
thinkers, again, moving more towards a real-world presence -- not only
a place where people could discuss their ideas, but also a real,
physical place where people could go and try their ideas out to see if
they work (which is pretty much what a laboratory is). But most
importantly -- it should be a place where people would be welcome with
their own thoughts. If, say, I do not believe that everything should
be in public domain, I should be welcome to have my own thoughts and
explain them. If I am not that eager to give everything away but would
rather stick to more conventional understanding of economy, I should
be free and welcome to have my own ideas. I do not believe that I
somehow have all the answers, so I am always keen to listen to other
people's ideas -- not to prove them wrong and convince them that my
idea is better, but to find out what I can learn from them and how I
can improve my own ideas. We must keep that healthy exchange of ideas
if we are to have a culture of independent thinkers.

I do not know whether that would lead to 100,000 active members. I do
not like round numbers that much, anyway. But I do know that it
definitely would be a very great thing to have, and I believe that
more and more people would come to appreciate that. And I firmly
believe that we should welcome those who want to take part in it --
even if their beliefs are quite different from ours. After all, that
is what independent thinking is all about.

Didzis,

Thank you for your letter! and I repost as you request to some of our
other groups.

You ask: What would be the strong unifying idea all independent thinkers
would agree on?  For me it is not "freedom of thought" but
"responsibility of attention".  I think for me the unifying idea is
that, currently, the people who are quick to accomodate each other end
up in the center, and the people who are slow to agree, who wish to
truly agree, end up everywhere else, which is in the periphery.  My wish
is to reverse that, to pull our attention to the periphery, to those who
are marginalized because they think their own thoughts, rather than
other people's.  So I am organizing a culture that favors the personal
understanding over the "conventional understanding" because I believe
that is how we can truly agree.

Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

veinbergsdidzis wrote:
> Dear Andrius,
>
> I am just posting this to Minciu Sodas LV, but I would be glad if you
> re-posted it to other groups as well. What follows is my own thoughts
> on your vision of the future of Minciu Sodas and independent thinkers.
>
> First off, I would like to thank you for organising the event in
> Vilnius. It certainly could have used some more planning and a bit of
> polishing here and there, but it was extremely enjoyable nevertheless.
> In a way, we probably got a glimpse how a large group of independent
> thinkers would act. And the first thing that struck me as obvious was
> that those independent thinkers tend to be quite, well, independent.
> They organised themselves in small groups, sharing their own
> interests; they got along better with some and worse with others; even
> the language barrier was a very real obstacle. It was not a huge,
> unified group of independent thinkers that set out to change the
> world; to borrow your own words, independent thinkers like to crumble.
> That is what makes them independent; they have their own thoughts and
> interests and are more interested in pursuing them, not following
> somebody's else vision of how things should be -- at least, not if it
> does not happen to be similar to their own.
>
> Which leads me directly to the second point -- your plan for the
> future of Minciu Sodas looks, well, quite unrealistic and, even if it
> was realistic, I am not sure if I would like to take part in it. Of
> course, there are some obvious questions such as "What makes you think
> that a group that has managed to gain 100 members in its first 10
> years will suddenly grow to 100,000 members during the next 10 years?
> Obviously a 200 seems a more realistic figure." But even if that
> somehow could happen, there still is the obvious question: why would
> the independent thinkers want to do that? You say we could make up
> some sort of diaspora; I believe we would do the very same thing we
> are doing right now, crumble into small groups according to our own
> interests. You need a strong unifying idea if you want a diaspora.
> What would be the strong unifying idea all independent thinkers would
> agree on? It would be great to live in a world where everybody has the
> freedom of thought? Well, this is the case in most parts of the world
> already. So why should we attempt to reach something that we already have?
>
> Finally, I do agree that there are many cases where you need a leader
> or a commander-in-chief. But I would say that there are probably even
> more cases where you do not need any leaders -- again, the Vilnius
> meeting provided many examples where people organised themselves quite
> successfully.
>
> This all leads me to my own vision of the future of Minciu Sodas: I
> believe that it should still be a place where independent thinkers
> could meet other independent thinkers, and I believe it should move on
> to have a significant real-world presence as well, because Internet,
> of course, is great, but it still is no substitute for meeting people
> face to face. It should still be a laboratory for independent
> thinkers, again, moving more towards a real-world presence -- not only
> a place where people could discuss their ideas, but also a real,
> physical place where people could go and try their ideas out to see if
> they work (which is pretty much what a laboratory is). But most
> importantly -- it should be a place where people would be welcome with
> their own thoughts. If, say, I do not believe that everything should
> be in public domain, I should be welcome to have my own thoughts and
> explain them. If I am not that eager to give everything away but would
> rather stick to more conventional understanding of economy, I should
> be free and welcome to have my own ideas. I do not believe that I
> somehow have all the answers, so I am always keen to listen to other
> people's ideas -- not to prove them wrong and convince them that my
> idea is better, but to find out what I can learn from them and how I
> can improve my own ideas. We must keep that healthy exchange of ideas
> if we are to have a culture of independent thinkers.
>
> I do not know whether that would lead to 100,000 active members. I do
> not like round numbers that much, anyway. But I do know that it
> definitely would be a very great thing to have, and I believe that
> more and more people would come to appreciate that. And I firmly
> believe that we should welcome those who want to take part in it --
> even if their beliefs are quite different from ours. After all, that
> is what independent thinking is all about.
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Didzis,
Thank you! These are great!
And some of them show quite intense debate!
Andrius

Didzis Veinbergs wrote:
> Hello, Andrius,
>
> I've put online some of my pictures of the Vilnius conference. You may
> browse them at
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/didzis/
>
> Regards --
> Didzis

I share my goals for the future.  I encourage us all to share ours likewise.

I am very happy for the dedication that we are sharing at the many working
groups of our Minciu Sodas laboratory http://www.ms.lt/news.php for
serving and organizing independent thinkers.  Congratulations to Marcin
Jakubowski and all at Factor E Farm  http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/ for
your open source tractor LifeTrac, your solar turbine, your exemplary blog
and videos.  Congratulations to Samwel Kongere for arriving in Italy from
Kenya and building bridges across the deep divides that isolate us.
http://www.ms.lt/news.php?thinker=Samwel_Kongere Thank you to Maria Agnese
Giraudo, Kennedy Owino and the Nafsi Afrika Acrobats
http://www.nafsiafrica.org  Our dreams are coming true. Thank you for
inspiring us!

Our network and our culture have grown strong over the years.  We have
many opportunities, but also I have constraints that keep me running.
Since 1998 I have accumulated more than $100,000 in debt to establish the
Minciu Sodas laboratory.  I make monthly payments of $1,400 on these loans
and I need at least an $1,000 more for my needs and expenses.  I don't
have any income and I have about six weeks to find some.  I hope to
receive $7,100 this year from the Knight Foundation but that will only
stretch things out for about two months more.  I may have to take up a
full-time job and bide my time for two or three years.  This makes it all
the more important to distribute our leadership so that we continue to
grow and inspire.  Most importantly, I ask myself, What do I truly want? I
invite your leadership to let us know, What do you truly want?

My life's work is to know everything and apply that knowledge usefully.  I
work almost every day to make sense of my conceptual limits
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?LivingByTruth/Summary  I am making steady
progress as I try to imagine how all knowledge unfolds from God's point of
view.  I think about how God takes up the question, does God exist even if
God does not exist?  and this leads me to consider the potential for God
as it opens up from God to I to You to Other around whom we may all unite.
  Day by day I am jostling concepts so that I might see how they make sense
and how they might bring forth dynamic languages for how things matter,
have meaning and happen.  This is lonely work, but our lab gives me hope
that more and more, it will have practical impact and others will care.
Our laboratory's purpose is to serve independent thinkers by providing
helpful minds, a social framework for making our dreams real, ways to make
a living and find resources, a context in which to grow, and moral
support.

I personally wish to grow in virtue as a human and a leader.  I wish to
empathize with others and live fully to take up every concern.  I wish to
learn how to accept hurt ably and transform it.  I want to be masterfully
creative, to learn what is meaningful to say, to recognize hurt and joy,
and connect with others so that we might all live fully.  I'm drawing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50525222@N00/ and writing a poetic drama in
Lithuanian.  I wish to write my Includer blog as episodes in a novel.  I
would like to fall in love and raise a family.

I wish to serve God as an independent thinker.  I welcome God's leadership
just as I welcome all of ours.  I invite us to make evident God's values,
investigations, endeavors as an independent thinker, and likewise include
all who may not be able to participate directly, so that we overcome every
divide.  I believe that God endeavors to "reach out to the hard to reach"
for this is the endeavor that it seems that all of our endeavors work
towards. http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors  I think that he
investigates, how can he reach every single person?  I would like to help
by working together to understand each other's deepest values
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Values This is also a way for us to
accept each other, support each other, and foster our creativity to speak
to and from each other.  All of our deepest values are aspects of Love,
which I take to be God's deepest value.

In the next ten years I wish with others to bring to life a culture of
independent thinkers, with at least 100,000 active participants, enough to
make evident in many villages and neighborhoods and some regions or
countries, how independent thinkers address all aspects of life.  This is
a culture of investigation, of leadership through any individual who
openly takes up the challenge to grow.  I am encouraged that more and more
of us grow confident to take responsibility for our culture, which
includes principles that help us act on each other's behalf: Our venues
are in the Public Domain except where content notes otherwise; money can
bring people together, but you can't pay people to care; we want all to
succeed.

We are, in fact, making practical many of the principles that Jesus spoke
of: give everything away, love your enemy, turn the other cheek.  More and
more, I hear his vision of a "kingdom of heaven" as an invitation to
establish the culture I and others wish for.  He relates his vision with
parables that say, "What you believe is what happens", just as the tiny
DNA of a mustard seed already has within it the giant plant that unfolds.
I think of eternal life as God's wish for each of us that as individuals,
we forever grow and unfold.  We are blessed at our laboratory to witness
each other growing in this way, even as adults.  I think of a kingdom as
the wish for authority, which is not power, but responsibility for power.
Muscles have power, but will has authority.  The kingdom of heaven is for
the "poor in spirit", the independent thinkers, who do not want to fling
themselves as martyrs, but who wish to walk step-by-step, in small leaps,
with small risks, by reproducible miracles, small projects, a science of
subjectivity.  The kingdom of heaven allows each of us to exercise our
will, to apply ourselves to human-sized concerns, and walk and fly and
unfold step-by-step forever, alongside each other and together.  The
kingdom of heaven invites each one of us to take authority as creators, to
share authority as co-creators, and so to be authors.

We will learn of more and more movements that make real such a culture.
We know of Sarvodaya http://www.sarvodaya.org, the village movement in Sri
Lanka, and of the Grameen social businesses in Bangladesh
http://www.grameen-info.org  We also have wonderful leaders, such as
Benoit Couture's relentless passion for a "Kingdom Deep Net"
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?KingdomDeepNet and his deepest value
"Going from the spiritual division of human DNA to the Organic Experience
of Spiritual Unity."  I am delighted that we have leaders from such a wide
variety of faiths and outlooks, and I embolden us to project our visions
even wider. Thank you to Franz Nahrada, Pamela McLean, John Rogers,
Kennedy Owino, Samwel Kongere, Janet Feldman, Peter Ongele, Ricardo,
Edward Cherlin, Tomas Cepaitis, Dante-Gabryell Monson, Chris Macrae, Peter
Burgess, William Wambura, Josephat Ndibalema, Audrone Anusauskiene and
many others.

One of our great contributions will be to bring together all of our
movements.  Our culture is an eternal exploration of the minimal
principles by which we might work together.  The Internet should not be a
requirement, but rather a catalyst and a metaphor for our network.  I hope
we might discover the structures for our online and offline venues that
would allow us all to participate fully and freely.  Minciu Sodas means
"Orchard of Thoughts" in Lithuanian, which I later came to find quite
prophetic for our haven as a Paradise, with trees of life and of knowledge
of good and evil.  Likewise, our "worknets" may be prophetic in the sense
of Matthew 13:47. "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet, that
was cast into the sea, and gathered some fish of every kind, which, when
it was filled, they drew up on the beach. They sat down, and gathered the
good into containers, but the bad they threw away.  So will it be in the
end of the world."  And likewise in his inviting disciples to be "fishers
of men".  This is all frightening, but the "kingdom of heaven" is about
making belief, authority, truth, fear all human-sized, real and tangible,
so that we might all participate.  I expect that it is more about the
absence of God than the presence of God, reaching out before God to the I
and You and Other for whom God is understandably foreign, and to make
sense of the world even as we transform it with a heart for living now and
forever.  I am sure we'll make progress by asking what a "kingdom of
heaven" might mean to the widest variety of people.

I will learn how to participate as one leader among many.  Minciu Sodas is
a base that I lead, but there should be thousands of such centers.  I plan
to headquarter myself at Zenonas and Audrone Anusauskas's center near the
village of Eiciunai in Lithuania, but also stay at various centers such as
David Ellison-Bey's house and Moorish Cultural Workshop at 6726 S Parnell
Ave., Chicago, where I am now.  How can we nurture our many centers for a
vibrant network?

My priority is to set up our online infrastructure to open up more
opportunity for leadership and to decentralize our venues yet resonate our
energy.  I will try to set up Ringside Networks
http://www.ringsidenetworks.org which is open-source software that allows
us to set up our own social networking venues (like Facebook, but in the
Public Domain) at more than one location, to share IDs amongst those
locations, to show our Facebook activity but at our own sites, to write
applications that work both at our sites but also at Facebook, and to
invite others to drift over from Facebook and into our venues.  If this
all works out, then we will have control of our own venues and IDs and can
integrate our activity at Yahoo groups http://www.ms.lt/news.php , our
wiki http://www.worknets.org , our chat room http://www.worknets.org/chat/
, our survey http://www.worknets.org/survey/ , our personal Facebook
activity (for those who wish that), and our Ringside social networking
pages.  This might also open up work opportunities.  Can we find
programmers who might help us?

I look forward to speaking with Pamela McLean, Samwel Kongere, Ricardo and
others who might coach and mentor our participants.  Franz Nahrada and
Janet Feldman have a great impact on our laboratory, and as much as they
are available, I value their leadership.  I wish though to make clear new
leadership roles and acknowledge and support the people who take them up.
We should design the roles so our leaders benefit.  Our working groups are
active to various degrees.  We need people who might mentor four or five
working group leaders so that they might all generate momentum.  This is a
role that I have played and which I need to share.  This might relate to
the idea of "schools", each of which supports dozens of related endeavors,
and makes tangible the leader's vision.  I also want to recognize the
leaders of the "local centers" in our network and the teams they are
building.

We have many opportunities to write proposals and engage potential
clients.  I can't pursue these all myself.  Let's work openly in teams.
If you lead a proposal team, then you can decide how much paid work you
wish to specify for yourself and others.  If you help with a proposal,
then we will work to include you in our paid work, if we win any.  Here
are some proposals that I have written in the past:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Proposals Please write to any of our
groups if you would like to be on any of our proposal teams, such as the
following, and how you might like to participate:

* Wolfram Science.  In July, I attended Stephen Wolfram's summer school "A
New Kind of Science".  Last week I wrote a research proposal for him that
I do an exhaustive study of the cellular automata that are the foundation
for his approach. http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?CellularAutomata
Earlier, I wrote a proposal that our social networkers work to expand the
"A New Kind of Science" and Mathematica communities and encourage more
people to do mathematical exploration and apply mathematical thinking.
Stephen Wolfram was especially interested in our social networking
capability.  It may take a long time to build up this relationship, but it
might also mean a lifetime of paid work from one of the world's greatest
independent thinkers.

* Includer.  In June, I prepared a presentation
http://www.includer.org/presentation/ for Internet businesses that they
hire us to make their online services available offline.  There are other
angles that we can pursue.  We should survey our African participants.
Who might help us write proposals?

* African Innovation Challenge Fund
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?AfricanInnovationChallengeFund Concept
notes are due September 1 to propose teams that in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria,
Ghana or several other countries would promote the adaptation of
innovations identified by Research Into Use, a UK agency.  This is a great
opportunity for us to showcase our achievements and propose a worldwide
network of support with bases in the African countries but also in
Eiciunai, Lithuania and at Factor E Farm.  What are our personal visions?

* Afghanistan http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Afghanistan  The Lithuanian
Foreign Ministry is accepting proposals of up to 75,000 USD by September
30 to help develop Afghanistan's Ghor province, especially for basic
education, infant health and government communications.  I believe our
Includer proposal or an OLPC laptop proposal might be relevant, but we
need partners in Afghanistan, and supporters in the ministry.  I would
like especially to organize Islamic independent thinkers, for example,
school teachers and doctors, and help them make the most of marginal
Internet access.

* COMMUNIA http://www.communia-project.org , Ethical Public Domain
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org  We have already received 4,800 EUR of
travel money for COMMUNIA meetings for the Public Domain, and we will
receive a similar amount for travel these next two years.  We also might
organize another conference for the Ethical Public Domain or another event
or activity to foster the Public Domain.  Who would like to participate in
COMMUNIA? and who would like to engage corporations and agencies to fund
projects to expand the Public Domain?

* Catholic schools in Chicago.  We have an office at David Ellison-Bey's
house in Chicago where I am staying.  I look forward to introducing to
David many people who I met at the SocDevCamp.  I belong to St. Benedict
the African East and would like us to engage the local community.  People
suffer intensely from the racial caste system. Our pastor's vision is that
we engage the community through the Catholic schools.  Indeed, for any
family here, sending their children to a Catholic school is I believe one
of the best investments.  Our laboratory can help add to that a program of
adult education.  We can help adults locally get tutored to use the
Internet and then get support from our worldwide community.  This could be
a general service.  Perhaps the Catholic school system and other private
schools might be willing to pay us to provide such adult education for
parents who send their children to their schools because the more the
parents study, the better the children will do.

* Living Labs movement.  We have the opportunity to join the European
network of Living Labs.  This might open the doors for us to win European
Union funding.  Who might help with this proposal? It's due September 30.
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?LivingLabs

We have many opportunities and I invite us to bring to us others that
you'd like to pursue.  Who are independent thinkers who you'd love to work
for?  Muhammad Yunus is one more example.  What kind of money would you
like to earn?  What kind of work would you like to do?  What is your
personal vision for your life?  How might you participate as a leader?
Who would you like us to help or reach out to?  How might we make our
venues more effective for you?  What are the questions that you'd like to
pursue, the values you'd like to live, the endeavors that you'd like to
achieve?

Thank you for writing!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+1 312 618 3345
in Chicago until October 14

Welcome, all participants of Minciu Sodas!  Please write a Letter of
Support (the questionnaire at the bottom of my letter) so that we could
include you or simply note your support!  And I invite all of us, too.
Your letter can be short and personal! Andrius Kulikauskas
-------------------

I send below my proposal for the African Innovation Challenge Fund and
further below, questions for us all to answer so that we may have your
Letter of Support.  Please send your answers to any of our Minciu Sodas
laboratory's groups.  I would like to get 100 letters of support!  This is
also your opportunity to add your own vision and many wonderful points
that I could not include in our proposal because of space.  I need all of
the Letters of Support by this Sunday morning.  Also, you are welcome to
share this invitation with people and groups who you would like to
include, and I would like to include them as well.  This is just a Concept
Note, and if we are successful, we will be invited to submit a formal
Proposal.  This is a great opportunity to help our lab and all of us.
Let's win! Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@..., +1 312 618 3345, in Chicago
until October 14.

------------------------------
Proposal: Orchard of Thoughts
------------------------------

Minciu Sodas is a worldwide community for independent thinkers. Minciu
Sodas means "orchard of thoughts" in Lithuanian. We would like small
gardens to be the concrete way that we come together around the world.

Small gardens are revolutionary. Gardens flourish as activity centers in
the "food desert" of Chicago ghettoes; commitments to sustainability in
Silicon Valley; "nutritional resistance" in summer and winter for
Soviet-occupied Lithuania; a first income for alternative farmers in
Missouri; a monastic refuge in Austria; a laboratory where women are free
to experiment to heal HIV/AIDS victims in Africa.

Samwel Kongere, a Kenyan fisherman, led our Kenyan team for My Food Story
http://www.myfoodstory.info He organized a Minciu Sodas regional network
in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. We collected 500 stories on-the-ground with
the help of participants in Serbia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Israeli-occupied
Palestine, India, the United States and the European Union. We learned
that our world's food supply chain makes for concrete stories that link
innovations and human values. Our friendships moved us to respond to the
post-election turmoil in Kenya with our Pyramid of Peace
http://www.pyramidofpeace.net of 100 online activists supporting 100
peacemakers, 1,000 volunteers on-the-ground engaging gangs, opening roads
and saving lives. Public Radio International championed our innovative use
of cellphone minutes for emergency barter. Our creativity embraces
differences with human pyramids, community theater and peace caravans with
camels.

Samwel now leads a center near Rusinga Island teaching ICT and
entrepreneurial skills to 3,000 women. Janet Feldman and Pamela McLean
inspire us to include African women. We want to absorb and apply RNRSS
innovations which foster independent thinking, self-learning, appraisal,
awareness, experimentation, conceptualization and investigation such as
Farmers Learning (CPP07), Information Maps (CPH45), Improving ICT
(ZC0205), Step Tools (R8402), Easy-to-Use Software (LPP30), Promoting New
Farming Technologies (CPP34).

We also want to act concretely. We have many farming interests including
mushrooms, watermelon, beekeeping, cows and goats, bananas, beans,
cassava, soybean, artemisia. Small gardens are puzzles of time, space,
beauty, health, aroma, nutrition, economics, meditation, love and
friendship. They are personal yet universal. We should experiment with
Seeds (CPP69), Quality (R7528), Pest Management (R7449), Kale (CPP11),
Certification (CPP64) and more.

Villages crush independent thinkers, but four or five of them can
transform their village. We come together locally as informal hubs of
projects and guests, working towards "global villages". We want to
establish our global network of rural and urban hubs by cultivating our
gardens.

How will clients benefit?

We want to work with African women with small gardens in the countryside
and urban areas. We wish to engage them as independent thinkers and
together reach out further to include others. We will overcome barriers of
language, education, poverty and sexism.

Africans who participate online with us build relationships which lead to
computers, video cameras, paid work, emergency assistance, and travel to
conferences in Africa and Europe. Those who write daily about their
projects grow as writers and thinkers as if they were attending college.

We believe that women will benefit similarly even if they are offline.
Family and friends celebrate them online with food stories about their
projects. They work as a team and get more help. They continue to
experiment with their gardens, diversify their efforts, and discover what
works best for them. They feed their families better and more reliably.
They spend, return and manage a microloan. They may learn to write letters
and emails. They may travel to the city and across the country as part of
our network. They make international contacts through video bridges and by
hosting guests. They grow as volunteers, citizens, entrepreneurs and local
leaders as they stay active.

How many people will benefit?

We will grant 1,875 no-interest 50 GBP microloans to women. We will grant
375 stipends of 100 GBP and no-interest 100 GBP microloans to
investigators who coach the women. We expect that more than 1,000 people
will enjoy this support as active participants of Minciu Sodas. Our most
active participants may receive more than one stipend or microloan during
the three years. We will also help 2,000 men learn enough about ICT so
they can each contribute a "food story" about a woman in their family. Our
projects will typically last six months and benefits of participation will
be clear within one or two years. We will thus have many active champions
of our culture.

We expect 20,000 people in their families to benefit from the women's
microloan projects and from their garden experiments. We expect 200,000
people to benefit from services generated by the microloans and from
produce grown in the gardens. We will inspire 2,000,000 people with the
women's stories and ideas.

Our online community in Africa and around the world will grow accordingly.
We expect in three years to have 2,000 active and 20,000 supportive
participants, a tenfold increase. We will have eight hubs in Africa and
eight hubs in the West, each with at least 10 leaders and 100
participants.

Impact and monitoring

Our greatest impact is our culture of investigation by which we hold
ourselves accountable. Social entrepreneur Andrius Kulikauskas, Ph.D.,
founded Minciu Sodas in 1998. He will work on-site with Samwel Kongere,
our rural hub leader in Rusinga Island and with Kennedy Owino, our urban
hub leader near the Nairobi slums. Rachel Wambui Kungu will foster women's
participation and Dennis Kimambo will teach community theater and other
novel means of sharing innovations and results. We will then coach hub
leaders in Africa and also in the West so that we link our lands with our
investigatory culture and many small research projects.

Each hub leader will coach 5 investigators who will advance their own
research projects. Each investigator will work with five women who try out
a relevant innovation, such as an RNRSS innovation. We will reward the
women with 50 GBP microloans for their own projects so they might better
their situation.

We will make our projects and the RNRSS innovations understable as food
stories. We will record whether the women validate the RNRSS innovations,
who follows their example, how they use their microloans, and what
projects our participants fund.

Overcoming obstacles

We enjoy success in Africa because we engage our participants as equals.
We expect them to have a deepest value, an investigatory question, and to
work for free in the Public Domain on what they wish to achieve. We
thereby repel the selfish and attract those who care. We are then
confident to provide them with 50 GBP of paid work even never having met
them.

We are able to share energy with each other as independent thinkers. Our
care for their activity motivates them much more than any earnings, gains
in productivity, or local opinions. Samwel notes that our "knowledge-based
approach" transforms our minds so that we seek to learn in everything we
do.

We should reach out to the hard-to-reach, both the very rich and the very
poor, so that we are all one human chain. We then value every person who
reaches out further, but also those who hold us together. We plan to
always have at least one "ambassador" from Africa work from our bases in
the West, and from the West work in Africa, so that we discover a global
context for each other's food stories, weave relationships and impress
upon us our global relevance.

Indicate risks

High risk: Our leaders may care about money and not our culture. We will
therefore involve those who have their own research interests. We will
invite those already familiar with RNRSS. We will promote RNRRS
innovations as catalysts for all manner of African innovations.

Medium risk: Women often suffer domestic violence when they try to improve
their conditions. We will ask men in their families to stand up for them
and present their accomplishments with food stories that help us all
engage them.

Medium risk: Women may default on the microloans more often than we
expect. We will reward each team that completes its projects and repays
its loans with 50 GBP for their own fund to loan to each other.

Low risk: We may have trouble moving content back and forth between local
languages and English. We will make sure that our local coordinators have
a good understanding of our investigatory culture. We will work with them
to structure our activities so that we can share globally what is most
relevant.

Low risk: Our centers may not find work to sustain themselves. Yet we are
tenacious, creative and thoughtful investors. We value the human capital
that our centers and gardens yield.

Exit strategy

Our goal is a growing worldwide network of self-reliant rural and urban
bases for independent thinkers. We will start with Kenya and Lithuania and
within three years we expect to have rural and urban bases in Uganda,
Nigeria, Ghana and Missouri, Chicago, California and Austria. Each base
will be led by a team and evolve into a physical center for co-working,
which means a space for working-for-free on one's own projects such as
education, arts, sports and also working-for-pay on projects such as
ecotourism, knowledge work, agricultural sales to make a living and
provide revenue for the center. Each center will provide Internet access,
Skype and video bridge services. Our local network of gardens and thinkers
will affordably accomodate those traveling from the countryside to the
city or vice versa and those visiting from other countries. Our worldwide
community will encourage research projects at each base and foster a
culture of leadership through investigations. We will encourage
individuals from the West to support microresearch and microloan projects
with a website much like Kiva http://www.kiva.com except that we share our
food stories, we work in the Public Domain, and we invite all to engage
our participants.

Budget and Team

Please think about participating. Below are the ways that I am budgeting
for, but I also encourage us to write about our ideal roles for ourselves.
I am trying to design the roles so that we make the most of the money, we
include as many people as we can, we have as much flexibility as possible
to do our jobs, and our basic needs are met. I am equating 1 GBP = 2 USD
for now and will be more exact later. Please know that this is just a
"concept note" and we will submit a formal proposal only later, if they
like our concept note.

Lead Social Networker and Research Director ($50,000 per year) prepares
our proposal, takes responsibility for our deliverables, travels from hub
to hub to get them started and to help them grow, establishes a
methodology for investigators, coaches hub leaders to apply this for
concrete projects, writes a handbook for investigators, organizes online
community, designs an online environment, organizes business
opportunities, absorbs any failures.

Food Story Ambassador (travel expenses, living expenses, health expenses,
and $150 per month extra) travels from Africa to the West, or from the
West to Africa, to learn about local projects, express them as food
stories, promote them in a global context, and encourage the local hub as
an investigatory center for a global village. Typically, these are Hub
Leaders who travel to make connections for their hubs and themselves. They
will typically travel for half a year, or any length of time for people
who can pay for their own travel.

Hub Leader in Africa ($2,000 per year) organizes an informal rural or
urban hub, takes responsibility for the hub's deliverables, coaches
investigators, resolves any local disputes, organizes video bridge
capability, works towards establishing a physical center, seeks business
opportunities for themselves and their hub. Takes care of guests (will
receive about $500 per month to provide a Food Story Ambassador with
accomodation, food, Internet, local travel).

Hub Leader in the West ($2,000 per year) organizes an informal rural or
urban hub, organizes video bridge capability, organizes local meetings
every month or two, encourages online participation and investigation,
pursues a local project they are personally interested in, builds links
with other hubs, works towards a physical center, seeks business
opportunities for themselves and their hub. Takes care of guests (will
receive about $1,000 or more per month to provide a Food Story Ambassador
with accomodation, food, Internet, local travel) and helps them develop
contacts.

Investigator Coach ($2,000 per year) provides special guidance to
Investigators in specific areas such as inclusion of women, preventing
domestic violence, bridging tribal divisions, reaching out to the
disadvantaged, organizing businesses, applying the arts, teaching ICT
skills, attracting media attention. Helps the hub leaders and ambassadors.
Takes charge of difficult cases as requested.

Investigator ($200 and a $200 no-interest microloan). Designs and leads a
research project, works with 5 women to try out an idea in their gardens,
supervises the microloans to them so that they work together to use them
wisely and are able to return them, coaches men in their families so they
write and post food stories about the women, takes action so this all
happens. Typically this is part-time work for half a year.

Experimenter ($100 no-interest microloan). A woman who works on a team and
with an investigator to try out an idea in her garden. Encourages men in
her family to contribute food stories about her work. Working with her
team, takes responsibility to spend and recover a microloan. Helps
document this all.

Online Community Developer ($10,000 per year) develops a vision for our
online venues, adapts and maintains the relevant software, takes
responsibility for online chores, encourages online activity.

Software Developers ($2,000 per year) develop or adapt software as needed.

Online Community Organizers ($200 for part-time work for half a year) are
available at our chat room, teach people how to use our wiki and other
venues, greet people and help them participate effectively.

------------------------------
Letter of Support
------------------------------
(You do not have to answer all of the questions!)

Your full name:

City and country where you live:

Contact information: email, phone or other ways of publicly reaching you.

What is your deepest value in life that includes all of your other values?

What is a question that you don't know the answer to, but wish to answer?

What would you like to achieve in the next three years?

When and how did you learn of Minciu Sodas?

How have you participated in Minciu Sodas and how have you grown and
benefited by participating?

What challenges of agriculture in Africa would you most like to help with?

Which food stories would you like to collect? and how might you share them
so they have the biggest impact?

How can you help us reach out and include women?

In the next three years, how would you like to participate at Minciu
Sodas, especially if we win this proposal?

What are organizations and networks that you would involve and how?

Didzis,

Its nice to hear from you.  Yes, greetings from Bosnia.  Today is Bajrem
Serif, a big Muslim holiday to celebrate the story of Abraham and Isaac,
with sacrifices of rams.

Yes, theres a chance that I could go to Bar Camp in Latvia.

Would you like to go to any of the COMMUNIA meetings?  How is your
business going?  Is there any interest in Creative Commons Latvia.  A
person showed interest in Creative Commons Lithuania.

I wonder what mails of ours you are reading, and any thoughts you have.  I
have to look for new sources of work and so I am thinking, what is
important to me?  I want to work on my philosophy, I would like to lead
research projects that God is interested in, and I would like to organize
the kingdom of heaven, a culture of independent thinkers.  I suppose I
would like to find a base in Lithuania because I lost the one I had in
Pavilnys.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms AT ms DOT lt


> Hi, Andrius,
>
> I haven't really written much neither to you nor to Minciu Sodas group, so
> I
> thought it is better to start late than never :)
> How are you doing? From what I gather, you are teaching maths in Bosnia,
> which must be quite a change even for someone who is quite accustomed to
> the
> post-Soviet ways of living and doing things :) Any thoughts of returning
> to
> Lithuania any time soon? They are holding the next BarCamp in Riga,
> February
> 6-8, and I thought you may be interested if you happen to be nearby.
> I tried to get Thomas Chepaitis in touch with folks in Undine, but I'm
> afraid it didn't really go anywhere ā€” they were too busy to organise
> anything, and I was too busy to help :/ However, they are still open for
> co-operation, so if you have any interesting ideas please let me know.
> And, of course, if you come to Latvia, I would be happy to meet you.
> Good luck with all your projects ā€” some of them are so outlandish that
> they
> might as well come true.
>
> Best regards ā€”
> Didzis
>


--
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+1 312 618 3345

Didzis,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter.  There's a decent chance that I'll
be in Lithuania in February and I'll keep in mind BarCamp Latvia.

I try to structure our lab so that it doesn't require intense
participation, but rather, if you care about something, we can help you
make progress over time.  You can see that in the course of a year a lot
happens!  For example, you are very welcome to participate in our COMMUNIA
meetings.

Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

-------------

Hi, Andrius,

I just got back from Finland ā€” I went to Tampere to see Markus and had a
really great time. He said you both had a video conference about gift
economy while he was in Pori. How did that go?

As to my business, I'm afraid this is a really tough time. First of all,
nobody has any money, and I have a wife to support, so I am paying more
attention to getting some money now rather than setting up something that
might be more profitable in future. Second, because nobody has any money,
it's quite hard to convince people they should invest in something like
that ā€” and the banks are very cautious as well. A year ago they were
doling out loans like Halloween candy. I'm afraid those days are gone.
Third, our beloved government has decided to raise the VAT on books from
5% to ā€” get a hold of this ā€” 21%, effective January 1st, 2009. So the
prospects are not really that great. However, I am fully aware that this
presents a great opportunity ā€” the current crisis might as well shake up
the market and change the rules, so the advantages of open-source
publishing would be even greater. It's just very hard to keep all the
balls in the air ā€” you know, making enough money to get by, getting my
business idea off the ground, passing my last year's exams and writing the
bachelor's paper, trying to find a new place to live (I might have to
leave the one I'm living in quite soon), staying reasonably healthy, and,
finally, somehow keeping my marriage together. It isn't easy, I must say.

Anyways. As to the base in Lithuania ā€” so this village thing with Zenonas
didn't quite work out or what? I sort of get the feeling that people ā€”
myself included ā€” would love to co-operate with you, but that is just it ā€”
co-operation, not exactly extending MS network, building Kingdom of Heaven
or what have you. That's what being an independent thinker is all about ā€”
thinking independently, and if you come to different conclusions, you
stand your ground. I do understand that there are times when you need a
commander-in-chief (like the conference in Vilnius, no doubt), but the
network of independent thinkers could only be a loose-knit network with
great degree of authonomy, not a centralised Soviet-style top-to-bottom
network ā€” then it wouldn't really be a network of independent thinkers,
would it? So what I would propose ā€” and this thing could work right now ā€”
you should tap into networks that already exist and invite them to share
and co-operate. So what if things don't go exactly the way you want them
to go? It'll still be in the general direction of a better world. And, if
that would mean toning down some things ā€” for example, I do admire the
strength of your faith, but I can certainly understand how that might turn
some people off ā€” well, so be it. Also, it's quite impossible to ask all
people to have the same level of dedication as you do. I'm sorry, but
being single is quite a different level of responsibility than being
married and planning to have children quite soon (or already having them).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but for now it seems that most people who are
actively involved with MS are either single or retired ā€” either way, they
have enough free time to spare and don't have to worry too much about
money. It's great, but it's not for everybody. At the same time, married
people with children do tend to care more about the world we live in, so
they would really love to join an effort to make it better ā€” just don't
expect them to have the same my-way-or-high-way attitude.

By the way, you're using Skype, right? What's your username? I'd love to
chat with you some time.

Oh, and it would be really great to meet you in BarCamp. If you need a
place to stay, you're always welcome to stay with us ā€” it's not Riga, but
it's not far from it, and it's much nicer.

Best regards ā€”
Didzis
On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 10:19 PM, Andrius Kulikauskas <ms@...> wrote:

     Didzis,

     Its nice to hear from you.  Yes, greetings from Bosnia.  Today is Bajrem
     Serif, a big Muslim holiday to celebrate the story of Abraham and Isaac,
     with sacrifices of rams.

     Yes, theres a chance that I could go to Bar Camp in Latvia.

     Would you like to go to any of the COMMUNIA meetings?  How is your
     business going?  Is there any interest in Creative Commons Latvia.  A
     person showed interest in Creative Commons Lithuania.

     I wonder what mails of ours you are reading, and any thoughts you
have.  I
     have to look for new sources of work and so I am thinking, what is
     important to me?  I want to work on my philosophy, I would like to lead
     research projects that God is interested in, and I would like to organize
     the kingdom of heaven, a culture of independent thinkers.  I suppose I
     would like to find a base in Lithuania because I lost the one I had in
     Pavilnys.

     Andrius

     Andrius Kulikauskas
     Minciu Sodas
     http://www.ms.lt
     ms AT ms DOT lt


     > Hi, Andrius,
     >
     > I haven't really written much neither to you nor to Minciu Sodas
group, so
     > I
     > thought it is better to start late than never :)
     > How are you doing? From what I gather, you are teaching maths in
Bosnia,
     > which must be quite a change even for someone who is quite
accustomed to
     > the
     > post-Soviet ways of living and doing things :) Any thoughts of
returning
     > to
     > Lithuania any time soon? They are holding the next BarCamp in Riga,
     > February
     > 6-8, and I thought you may be interested if you happen to be nearby.
     > I tried to get Thomas Chepaitis in touch with folks in Undine, but I'm
     > afraid it didn't really go anywhere ā€” they were too busy to organise
     > anything, and I was too busy to help :/ However, they are still open
for
     > co-operation, so if you have any interesting ideas please let me know.
     > And, of course, if you come to Latvia, I would be happy to meet you.
     > Good luck with all your projects ā€” some of them are so outlandish that
     > they
     > might as well come true.
     >
     > Best regards ā€”
     > Didzis

--
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...

Sveiki visiem!

This is a Spanish guy "trying to" learn Latvian.
Is this the right group for such purpose?

CC: I share my request with some people who might know who might be
interested...
-------------------------------------

Edward Cherlin and all,

I'm writing a proposal for the NordPlus grants.  Norway gives out about 8
million euros every year for education projects that link up partners in
the Scandinavian and Baltic countries.
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?NordPlus
The maximum grant is 75,000 EUR.  It seems that about 50% of the proposals
received are funded.  In particular, they do fund adult education learning
materials, as I wish to create in mathematics.

The theme this year is climate change.

I wish to create mathematics learning materials for adults, especially for
learning algebra.  I need to help find partners in the Baltic and
Scandinavian countries.

I want to create self-standing lessons ("Classic Math Problems") that
combine a deep idea with a practical problem that illustrates it.  For
example:  Suppose a meal costs 9 euros in Arnold's restaurant and it costs
one-third more in Barbara's restaurant, but you have a coupon for
Barbara's restaurant so that the price is one-third off.  Where is it
cheaper?  Many people think that one-third more and one-third less cancel
each other, but actually, one-third more of 9 is 12 and one-third off of
12 is 8.  The deep idea here is that algebra is the study of thinking
step-by-step and this problem is a very simple illustration of that. And
there can be many related variants.

I would like to write self-standing lessons about 30 such different
problems and I think that would cover almost all of algebra.  They would
yield a little book of 150 pages or so which would let parents master
algebra well enough to teach their children.  My work would be in the
Public Domain and could be used in all kinds of websites, too. See:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?ClassicMathProblems
and there also I a set of notes which I wrote with which I taught algebra,
most recently in Bosnia.
http://www.worknets.org/upload/AndriusKulikauskas/precalculus.pdf

I am looking especially for partners who would like to try these materials
out, who would like to translate them into their own languages, and who
would like to help look for such practical problems.  This is paid work.

The theme is climate change so I'm thinking of phrasing it as "math
lessons for appreciating global realities".

Who might be most excited about such a practical approach to learning and
applying math?  I recall Jeff Buderer's interested in learning math for
sustainability.  I ask for help to find more such partners, but especially
for this proposal, in Scandinavian and Baltic countries.

I'm working on this at Edward's group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthtreasury/ a working group of Minciu
Sodas laboratory.  Edward is leading an initiative to create open source
textbooks, especially for the One Laptop Per Child.  I invite us to join
and work there!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...

Hi Aigars,

I am responding to a comment that you left at our wiki and which I have
placed here:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Latvia
and added that to our list of endeavors
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors

I note also that Estonia has organized a successful national idea project:
http://www.minueesti.ee/?lng=en
and in Lithuania there's http://www.aslietuvai.org
I'm glad to learn of http://www.panks.lv

I introduce you to Didzis Veinbergs in Riga who knows more about Minciu
Sodas.  I share with a group where I'm assembling Latvian participants,
and also our Global Villages working group where the national idea
portals are I think relevant.  I'm interested how we might work together
with you!

Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

---------------------------------------------------------

Fri, 27 Feb 09 09:06:27 +0000 Aigars Bruvelis: Hi. I am very pleased to
see things are moving. In Latvia there is considerable awakening to the
fact that it can not continue they way it has been. The technology and
resources are there, but the level of life is... taken away.

Everything below is self funded not for profit work in free time.

We are launching several projects:
- idea portal - share and vote for the ideas - electronic democracy
www.panks.lv/ (test version)

- exchange and LETS portal - alternative economic approach to the
shortage of the money supply maini.stikpoint.com/do/login (not ready yet
- admins can log in currently)

- Latvia against GMO products - the aggressive expansion of Monsanto in
Europe is threatening agricultural independence. We are doing
translations, interviews, publications and other activities to spread
the word parveseligulatviju-bezgmo.blogspot.com/

email: abruvelis@...

Didzis,

I enjoyed meeting you in Riga, Latvia on my way home from the COMMUNIA
meeting.  Thank you for your encouragement for my Classic Math Problems
learning materials, that means a lot!

I also was very glad to video tape your life dream (living in the
Latvian countryside, sharing with others in the spirit of the Public
Domain, developing a traveling self-learner's university).  I look
forward to putting that online.  Yesterday during our chat we wrote down
some of our dreams, you can see them at:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Dreams
and you can edit yours at your wiki page.  And I look forward to Edward
Cherlin and others writing up theirs so that we can work towards "An
economy of dreams".  I invite you to join his working group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthtreasury/
which is where we're working on open source textbooks.

Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

Didzis Veinbergs wrote:
> Hi, Andrius!
>
> It was great meeting you in Riga. Let me know when that thing you've
> filmed goes online.
> I also wanted to remind that it'd be a great idea to write the book
> nevertheless. I reckon it might be easier to convince people to invest
> in a product that already is ready for production, not in something
> that still needs to be prepared.
>
> Keep in touch,
>
> Didzis

Hi, this is a very important opportunity for our Minciu Sodas
participants in the European Union (and Norway, Turkey). Franz Nahrada
is hosting a workshop at his hotel in Vienna, Austria from January
17-28. I plan to be there. We will work on video communications projects
(like video bridges, video content) for adult education. The EU covers
the costs (food, accomodation) and reimburses your flights. We want to
have a dynamic group of people. Please consider participating, respond
at our groups if you are interested, and help us spread the word!
Thank you, Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@..., +370 699 30003, http://www.ms.lt

Franz Nahrada wrote:
> Dear Globalvillagers
>
> There has been a goad deal of expressions of interest in the workshop we
> are doing in winter in Vienna,
>
> http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop
>
> but we need to get the formal applications in now in order to organize the
> whole thing.
>
> So please download the application form here
>
>
http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop/LearnerRegistrati\
onFormDownload
>
> and if you decide that this is REALLY for you then fill it out, add a
> little image with your signed signature and send it by email to us, the
> national Life Long Learning agency in your country and the Austrian
> agency!!
>
> We are also writing to rural development actors all around Europe, because
> as I told Pamela in replying to her comment below we welcome academics but
> we also would like to see the presence of people who actually are involved
> in some regional education or community /neighborhood / village building
> program.
>
> We also would welcome having fillmakers like Synnove Mathe or internet TV
> professionals like Zenonas Anusauskas, but we have these few restriction:
> partcipants dont pay and they dont get paid by us, they are meant to be
> teachers and students alike. We pay for travel and accomodation, they
> participate actively and contribute constructively. They need to be fluent
> in English.
>
> So please, spread this new call, and if you want to come, you might also
> use it to find additional sources of support in your country or community!
>
> Franz
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> This is a call for people that are both passionate for regional or local
> development and new technologies to help and facilitate the growth of
> community cohesion and cooperation throughout Europe - for the benefit of
> our villages, small towns and rural areas.
>
> The question is: can the gap between education - rich urban environments
> on one side and and rural  and peripheral areas be bridged by new and
> unconventional combinations between modern Internet technologies and the
> emergence of new learning channels and places in regional systems.
>
> The answer to this question is crucial also for "bridging the broadband
> gap": the emergence of new communication infrastructures is very directly
> linked to feasible and practical ideas and models to use them and the
> concrete expression of needs.
>
> We suggest a model of "Global Villages", that means that every region and
> regional policy in Europe pays increasing attention to the emergence of
> specific locations (be it central, be it decentral) that can technically
> and culturally, through competence and understanding, through linkage to
> the main local actors and the awareness of needs, facilitate a growing
> exchange of knowledge and experience between the regions, towns and
> villages of Europe.
>
> To achieve that, they create or use internet access points like
> telecentres, libraries, community centers, educational places or places of
> entirely different nature and they start an interactive learning process
> by video communication including modren presentation technologies.
>
> Such an approach towards a "Global Village" has been successfully started
> some time ago in the Austrian Village of Kirchbach in Styria. We have been
> able to observe a constant interest from local population in educational
> activities that were totally unusual in a village setting - university
> lectures interactively transmitted from Graz and other places by video
> technologies - for now about five full years!! 80 lectures and even
> week-long congresses have been synchronously transmitted. The range of
> themes was broad: Positive Visions of the Future, Sustainability,
> Agriculture, Technology, History, Languages, Culture, Literature, Theology
> and others. One thing was important and unusual: there was a local person
> kowledgeable enough to even hold a lecture if the transmission would fail.
> And this very person was channeling the local questions to the remote
> speaker and continuing the discussion after transmission has ended.
>
> We did a little film on that:
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1115065278070024444&hl=en#
> or
> http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/VideoInEnglish
>
> We have been encouraged by this success to think about a "virtual
> university of the villages" and move towards a more horizontal and
> peer2peer scheme of education, where we use in a sharing spirit our best
> offers to complement each other. We should share our best knowledge and
> our best offerings in order for others to do the same and we should create
> a community that guards fair use. Thus we will multiply our possibilities
> and reach many people at many places at the same time.
>
> So from this background we want to issue the following invitation:
>
> >From January 17th (arrival) to 28th /departure) we will bring people from
> all over Europe together who have some experience in the field. We want to
> augment the techniques and methods of videobridging in particular, on the
> background also of using stored videos as learning materials in general.
> We want to get and give new impulses. We can finance travel and
> accomodation costs for 16 participants supported by the Grundtvig/LifeLong
> learning program of the European union.
>
> if you are interested, please continue reading here:
>
> http://www.videobridge.at/GrundtvigWorkshop
>
> best regards
>
>
> Mag. Franz Nahrada
> GIVE Forschungsgesellschaft - Labor für Globale Dörfer
> Globally Integrated Village Environment
> Research Lab for Global Villages
> Jedleseer Strasse 75
> 1210 Wien
> Tel. 01-2787801
> http://www.dorfwiki.org
> http://www.globalvillages.info
> f.nahrada(_AT_)reflex.at
> f.nahrada(_AT_)give.at
>
> ###############################################################
>
>
>
> Pamela McLean has opened a thread in her blog to work with our invitation:
>
>
http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20090929/franz-nahrada-ssl-workshop-and-dreampartner\
s
>
> Thank you Franz for sending me the information (including application
> form) about the workshop on "Streaming, Sharing and Learning (SSL) – The
> options for and the use of Interactive Digital Video over long distances
> in adult education".In your (personal) email you asked me to help you get
> the message out to the right people, and so I am replying to you through a
> dadamac openletter. This way it will be easy to share this with others now
> andl ater.
>
> Thank you for encouraging me to apply. I would appreciate the opportunity
> to do what the workshop offers and "look into thepossibilities of
> connecting learning communities especially indisadvantaged areas, using
> broadband video".
>
> Relevance to Dadamac
>
> Certainly the workshop is very relevant to Dadamac. The
> learningcommunities that we are concerned with are in very disadvantaged
> areas.Allthough we are not yet able to use broadband video to solve
> thoseproblems, we are always planning ahead. We still have some
> seriousbandwidth issues, regarding connections between UK and Nigeria,
> butthings are dramatically improved from when John Dada and I were firstin
> contact, and they keep getting better. We have been able toparticipate in
> audio-graphic conferencing in the past, on specialoccasions (but I think
> it was with the co-operation of others who would normally have been
> sharing the connection at Fantsuam and who held back on our behalf).
>
> Taking the long view we are very interested in how all digitaltechnologies
> can support learning at the proposed Midlands Universityof Technology
> (Midlands Uni Tech) as it develops.  The connectionsbetween Midlands Uni
> Tech, Attachab Eco-village, Dadamac Learners, andthe Cisco acadamy at
> Fantsuam Foundation, all point towards overlapwith the interests of Global
> Villages and also with the use ofinteractive digital video.
>
>
> Professional dreampartners
>
> I love the expression you used, asking me to encourge my"professional
> dreampartners" to apply. It got me thinking - whatexactly would that mean,
> and who would my own "professional dreampartners" be? I guess it would be
> people who have helped me shapei deas and dreams and plans. I guess the
> word "professional" points to a"working/studying" context (rather than
> personal life). I assume"professional" is not there to distinguish between
> paid and unpaid work (as in professional or amateur).
>
> My professional dreampartners .... I guess it would be easier toname them
> if I worked with people in a team, on a regular basis, in a shared
> physical location, doing creative work - the people there mightbe my
> "dreampartners". But I don''t belong in that environment.
>
> So who are my dream-partners? Who are the people who help me to dream and
> to realise my dreams about education and ICT and teh changing nature of
> learning opportunities in the 21st century? I guess you could say that
> anyone who has helped me to bounce ideas around and develop them has been
> a dream partner - even if only for a very short fragmentof a dream. Howver
> I think that to count as a full dreampartner peopleneed to be around for
> longer, and have greater areas of shared interest- so perhaps my
> professional dreampartners  are people who I recognise as my teachers and
> enablers.
>
>
> Teachers and enablers
> Who then are my teachers and enablers? These are the ones who first spring
> to mind:
>
> John Dada:
>
> John's vision and projects in rural Nigeria gives me
> practicalopportunities for innovative collaborative work related to
> newapproaches to learning.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas:
>
> Through his "Orchard of Thoughts" (Minciu Sodas), AndriusKulikauskas gave
> me the online space to explore any ideas I wanted to, and, like a bee
> buzzing from tree to tree, he cross-pollinated my ideas and thoughts with
> those of others in Minciu Sodas (introducing me to so many wonderful
> people and groups along the way). Having free use of his facilities
> (especially the inter-related discussion groups and the chat room) has
> enabled me to try things out in practice as well as discussing them, and
> his open and challenging discussions of thorny issues has also been a
> great stimulus to my own thinking. To me, my time at Minciu Sodas has
> given me opportunities for study and research that I might otherwise only
> have got by enrolling for a higer degree at a traditional university.
>
>
> Helmut Leitner:
>
> Helmut helped me to "get unstuck" with Dadamac by offering hisknowledge of
> pattern-languages as a framework, and then giving me histime for regular
> weekly sessions of thinking things through.
>
>
> Limiting the list
>
> This list of people who help me to learn could go on and on -ranging from
> people who help me think in theoretical ways to people whohelp me to do
> very practical things. However, you won't want my fulllist, just those are
> interested in Streaming, Sharing and Learning(SSL) – The options for and
> the use of Interactive Digital Video overlong distances in adult
> education. Also your workshop is limited topeople in Europe. I think that
> narrows it down to some academics Iconnect with - and you.
>
> Including academics
>
> To be honest, I am reluctant to encourage academics to take yourprecious
> places, as academics are able to go to so many other workshopsall the time
> at no cost to themselves.  However, we do want to helpenable communication
> between practitioners and academics and it is hardfor practitioners to
> attend the conferences where academics gather, soperhaps this might be an
> opportunity to cross that divide. if you areencouraging academics (or "an
> academic") to attend let me know and Iwill pass the information on.
>
> Pam
>
>

Labs!
Please do apply and share your application here, too, so we can discuss
further how we might work together.
They need to have people from many different countries!
Andrius

Arturs Mednis wrote:
> Hi Andrius,
> I would like to go there too.
>
> Paldies, un vēlu veiksmi!
>
> Arturs Mednis
>
> Mob.: +371 26545662 | Skype: arturs.mednis
> Blog: http://arturs.jaffa.lv | www.twitter.com/arturs
> <http://www.twitter.com/arturs>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 22:50, Andrius Kulikauskas <ms@...
> <mailto:ms@...>> wrote:
>
>     Hi, this is a very important opportunity for our Minciu Sodas
>     participants in the European Union (and Norway, Turkey). Franz Nahrada
>     is hosting a workshop at his hotel in Vienna, Austria from January
>     17-28. I plan to be there. We will work on video communications
>     projects
>     (like video bridges, video content) for adult education. The EU covers
>     the costs (food, accomodation) and reimburses your flights. We want to
>     have a dynamic group of people. Please consider participating, respond
>     at our groups if you are interested, and help us spread the word!
>     Thank you, Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@... <mailto:ms@...>, +370
>     699 30003, http://www.ms.lt
>
>     Franz Nahrada wrote:
>     > Dear Globalvillagers
>     >
>     > There has been a goad deal of expressions of interest in the
>     workshop we
>     > are doing in winter in Vienna,
>     >
>     > http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop
>     >
>     > but we need to get the formal applications in now in order to
>     organize the
>     > whole thing.
>     >
>     > So please download the application form here
>     >
>     >
>    
http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop/LearnerRegistrati\
onFormDownload
>     >
>     > and if you decide that this is REALLY for you then fill it out,
>     add a
>     > little image with your signed signature and send it by email to
>     us, the
>     > national Life Long Learning agency in your country and the Austrian
>     > agency!!
>     >
>     > We are also writing to rural development actors all around
>     Europe, because
>     > as I told Pamela in replying to her comment below we welcome
>     academics but
>     > we also would like to see the presence of people who actually
>     are involved
>     > in some regional education or community /neighborhood / village
>     building
>     > program.
>     >
>     > We also would welcome having fillmakers like Synnove Mathe or
>     internet TV
>     > professionals like Zenonas Anusauskas, but we have these few
>     restriction:
>     > partcipants dont pay and they dont get paid by us, they are
>     meant to be
>     > teachers and students alike. We pay for travel and accomodation,
>     they
>     > participate actively and contribute constructively. They need to
>     be fluent
>     > in English.
>     >
>     > So please, spread this new call, and if you want to come, you
>     might also
>     > use it to find additional sources of support in your country or
>     community!
>     >
>     > Franz
>     >
>     > -----------------------------------------------------
>     >
>     > This is a call for people that are both passionate for regional
>     or local
>     > development and new technologies to help and facilitate the
>     growth of
>     > community cohesion and cooperation throughout Europe - for the
>     benefit of
>     > our villages, small towns and rural areas.
>     >
>     > The question is: can the gap between education - rich urban
>     environments
>     > on one side and and rural  and peripheral areas be bridged by
>     new and
>     > unconventional combinations between modern Internet technologies
>     and the
>     > emergence of new learning channels and places in regional systems.
>     >
>     > The answer to this question is crucial also for "bridging the
>     broadband
>     > gap": the emergence of new communication infrastructures is very
>     directly
>     > linked to feasible and practical ideas and models to use them
>     and the
>     > concrete expression of needs.
>     >
>     > We suggest a model of "Global Villages", that means that every
>     region and
>     > regional policy in Europe pays increasing attention to the
>     emergence of
>     > specific locations (be it central, be it decentral) that can
>     technically
>     > and culturally, through competence and understanding, through
>     linkage to
>     > the main local actors and the awareness of needs, facilitate a
>     growing
>     > exchange of knowledge and experience between the regions, towns and
>     > villages of Europe.
>     >
>     > To achieve that, they create or use internet access points like
>     > telecentres, libraries, community centers, educational places or
>     places of
>     > entirely different nature and they start an interactive learning
>     process
>     > by video communication including modren presentation technologies.
>     >
>     > Such an approach towards a "Global Village" has been
>     successfully started
>     > some time ago in the Austrian Village of Kirchbach in Styria. We
>     have been
>     > able to observe a constant interest from local population in
>     educational
>     > activities that were totally unusual in a village setting -
>     university
>     > lectures interactively transmitted from Graz and other places by
>     video
>     > technologies - for now about five full years!! 80 lectures and even
>     > week-long congresses have been synchronously transmitted. The
>     range of
>     > themes was broad: Positive Visions of the Future, Sustainability,
>     > Agriculture, Technology, History, Languages, Culture,
>     Literature, Theology
>     > and others. One thing was important and unusual: there was a
>     local person
>     > kowledgeable enough to even hold a lecture if the transmission
>     would fail.
>     > And this very person was channeling the local questions to the
>     remote
>     > speaker and continuing the discussion after transmission has ended.
>     >
>     > We did a little film on that:
>     >
>     http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1115065278070024444&hl=en#
>     <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1115065278070024444&hl=en#>
>     > or
>     > http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/VideoInEnglish
>     >
>     > We have been encouraged by this success to think about a "virtual
>     > university of the villages" and move towards a more horizontal and
>     > peer2peer scheme of education, where we use in a sharing spirit
>     our best
>     > offers to complement each other. We should share our best
>     knowledge and
>     > our best offerings in order for others to do the same and we
>     should create
>     > a community that guards fair use. Thus we will multiply our
>     possibilities
>     > and reach many people at many places at the same time.
>     >
>     > So from this background we want to issue the following invitation:
>     >
>     > >From January 17th (arrival) to 28th /departure) we will bring
>     people from
>     > all over Europe together who have some experience in the field.
>     We want to
>     > augment the techniques and methods of videobridging in
>     particular, on the
>     > background also of using stored videos as learning materials in
>     general.
>     > We want to get and give new impulses. We can finance travel and
>     > accomodation costs for 16 participants supported by the
>     Grundtvig/LifeLong
>     > learning program of the European union.
>     >
>     > if you are interested, please continue reading here:
>     >
>     > http://www.videobridge.at/GrundtvigWorkshop
>     >
>     > best regards
>     >
>     >
>     > Mag. Franz Nahrada
>     > GIVE Forschungsgesellschaft - Labor fĆ¼r Globale Dƶrfer
>     > Globally Integrated Village Environment
>     > Research Lab for Global Villages
>     > Jedleseer Strasse 75
>     > 1210 Wien
>     > Tel. 01-2787801
>     > http://www.dorfwiki.org
>     > http://www.globalvillages.info
>     > f.nahrada(_AT_)reflex.at <http://reflex.at>
>     > f.nahrada(_AT_)give.at <http://give.at>
>     >
>     > ###############################################################
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > Pamela McLean has opened a thread in her blog to work with our
>     invitation:
>     >
>     >
>    
http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20090929/franz-nahrada-ssl-workshop-and-dreampartner\
s
>     >
>     > Thank you Franz for sending me the information (including
>     application
>     > form) about the workshop on "Streaming, Sharing and Learning
>     (SSL) ā€“ The
>     > options for and the use of Interactive Digital Video over long
>     distances
>     > in adult education".In your (personal) email you asked me to
>     help you get
>     > the message out to the right people, and so I am replying to you
>     through a
>     > dadamac openletter. This way it will be easy to share this with
>     others now
>     > andl ater.
>     >
>     > Thank you for encouraging me to apply. I would appreciate the
>     opportunity
>     > to do what the workshop offers and "look into thepossibilities of
>     > connecting learning communities especially indisadvantaged
>     areas, using
>     > broadband video".
>     >
>     > Relevance to Dadamac
>     >
>     > Certainly the workshop is very relevant to Dadamac. The
>     > learningcommunities that we are concerned with are in very
>     disadvantaged
>     > areas.Allthough we are not yet able to use broadband video to solve
>     > thoseproblems, we are always planning ahead. We still have some
>     > seriousbandwidth issues, regarding connections between UK and
>     Nigeria,
>     > butthings are dramatically improved from when John Dada and I
>     were firstin
>     > contact, and they keep getting better. We have been able
>     toparticipate in
>     > audio-graphic conferencing in the past, on specialoccasions (but
>     I think
>     > it was with the co-operation of others who would normally have been
>     > sharing the connection at Fantsuam and who held back on our behalf).
>     >
>     > Taking the long view we are very interested in how all
>     digitaltechnologies
>     > can support learning at the proposed Midlands Universityof
>     Technology
>     > (Midlands Uni Tech) as it develops.  The connectionsbetween
>     Midlands Uni
>     > Tech, Attachab Eco-village, Dadamac Learners, andthe Cisco
>     acadamy at
>     > Fantsuam Foundation, all point towards overlapwith the interests
>     of Global
>     > Villages and also with the use ofinteractive digital video.
>     >
>     >
>     > Professional dreampartners
>     >
>     > I love the expression you used, asking me to encourge
>     my"professional
>     > dreampartners" to apply. It got me thinking - whatexactly would
>     that mean,
>     > and who would my own "professional dreampartners" be? I guess it
>     would be
>     > people who have helped me shapei deas and dreams and plans. I
>     guess the
>     > word "professional" points to a"working/studying" context
>     (rather than
>     > personal life). I assume"professional" is not there to
>     distinguish between
>     > paid and unpaid work (as in professional or amateur).
>     >
>     > My professional dreampartners .... I guess it would be easier
>     toname them
>     > if I worked with people in a team, on a regular basis, in a shared
>     > physical location, doing creative work - the people there mightbe my
>     > "dreampartners". But I don''t belong in that environment.
>     >
>     > So who are my dream-partners? Who are the people who help me to
>     dream and
>     > to realise my dreams about education and ICT and teh changing
>     nature of
>     > learning opportunities in the 21st century? I guess you could
>     say that
>     > anyone who has helped me to bounce ideas around and develop them
>     has been
>     > a dream partner - even if only for a very short fragmentof a
>     dream. Howver
>     > I think that to count as a full dreampartner peopleneed to be
>     around for
>     > longer, and have greater areas of shared interest- so perhaps my
>     > professional dreampartners  are people who I recognise as my
>     teachers and
>     > enablers.
>     >
>     >
>     > Teachers and enablers
>     > Who then are my teachers and enablers? These are the ones who
>     first spring
>     > to mind:
>     >
>     > John Dada:
>     >
>     > John's vision and projects in rural Nigeria gives me
>     > practicalopportunities for innovative collaborative work related to
>     > newapproaches to learning.
>     >
>     > Andrius Kulikauskas:
>     >
>     > Through his "Orchard of Thoughts" (Minciu Sodas),
>     AndriusKulikauskas gave
>     > me the online space to explore any ideas I wanted to, and, like
>     a bee
>     > buzzing from tree to tree, he cross-pollinated my ideas and
>     thoughts with
>     > those of others in Minciu Sodas (introducing me to so many wonderful
>     > people and groups along the way). Having free use of his facilities
>     > (especially the inter-related discussion groups and the chat
>     room) has
>     > enabled me to try things out in practice as well as discussing
>     them, and
>     > his open and challenging discussions of thorny issues has also
>     been a
>     > great stimulus to my own thinking. To me, my time at Minciu
>     Sodas has
>     > given me opportunities for study and research that I might
>     otherwise only
>     > have got by enrolling for a higer degree at a traditional
>     university.
>     >
>     >
>     > Helmut Leitner:
>     >
>     > Helmut helped me to "get unstuck" with Dadamac by offering
>     hisknowledge of
>     > pattern-languages as a framework, and then giving me histime for
>     regular
>     > weekly sessions of thinking things through.
>     >
>     >
>     > Limiting the list
>     >
>     > This list of people who help me to learn could go on and on
>     -ranging from
>     > people who help me think in theoretical ways to people whohelp
>     me to do
>     > very practical things. However, you won't want my fulllist, just
>     those are
>     > interested in Streaming, Sharing and Learning(SSL) ā€“ The options
>     for and
>     > the use of Interactive Digital Video overlong distances in adult
>     > education. Also your workshop is limited topeople in Europe. I
>     think that
>     > narrows it down to some academics Iconnect with - and you.
>     >
>     > Including academics
>     >
>     > To be honest, I am reluctant to encourage academics to take
>     yourprecious
>     > places, as academics are able to go to so many other
>     workshopsall the time
>     > at no cost to themselves.  However, we do want to helpenable
>     communication
>     > between practitioners and academics and it is hardfor
>     practitioners to
>     > attend the conferences where academics gather, soperhaps this
>     might be an
>     > opportunity to cross that divide. if you areencouraging
>     academics (or "an
>     > academic") to attend let me know and Iwill pass the information on.
>     >
>     > Pam
>     >
>     >
>
>
>     ------------------------------------
>
>     Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>        mailto:minciu_sodas_LV-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
>     <mailto:minciu_sodas_LV-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com>
>
>
>

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your letters!  This is you, yes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Busby
http://www.greenaudit.org/about_green_audit.htm
christo AT greenaudit.org

I note your work towards corporate responsibility about environmental
pollution.

I will be traveling from Lithuania to Estonia for a Grundtvig contact
seminar November 19-22.  http://www.hkk.ee/index.php?leht=619

I will travel by bus so it would be nice to stop in Riga on the way
there and/or on the way back.  I know journalist Didzis Veinbers and he
might be interested to meet you, too.  Also, I would be interested to
meet with Peteris Krumins, he has a very helpful "Philosophy Video" page:
http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/cognitive-computing-consciousness.\
html

In Talinn, I hope to meet with Mihkel Pilv and discuss further our
NordPlus proposal and consider other possibilities, too.
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?NordplusProposal

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003


Dr Chris Busby wrote:
> I am in Latia now quite often, living in Riiga.
> love
> Chris

Hi Didzis Veinbergs, Mihkel Pilv, Peteris Krumins, Aigars Bruvelis,

Would you like to meet?

I live in Lithuania and am traveling to Talinn, Estonia for a Grundtvig
contact seminar "Engaging Disadvantaged Social Groups in Adult Learning":
http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=632
http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=625 (programme)
http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=676&lng=2# (partners)

I will be traveling by bus: Vilnius - Riga - Talinn - Riga - Vilnius.
* November 18, Wednesday night in Riga
* November 19, Thursday at 18:00 the seminar starts in Tallinn
* November 22, Sunday morning, I am in Tallinn and can travel to Riga

Peteris and all, I lead the Minciu Sodas laboratory for independent
thinkers http://www.ms.lt  Here is a recent update about our many
projects:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalvillages/message/4240
and here is a video of my philosophical thinking which might interest
you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArN-YbPlf8M

Aigars, thank you for your note at our wiki:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Latvia  Are you active in any "national
idea movement"?  Estonia has a strong one http://www.minueesti.ee and
Lithuania has one also http://www.aslietuvai.org

Please let me know if you'd like to meet!  Didzis, if I might stay with
you or somebody you know, that would be great.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
skype: minciusodas


Peteris Krumins wrote:

Hi Guys. Tell me what is this about. I have no idea at the moment. Just
received this email out of nowhere.


> Andrius Kulikauskas wrote:
>> Dear Chris,
>>
>> Thank you for your letters!  This is you, yes?
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Busby
>> http://www.greenaudit.org/about_green_audit.htm
>> christo AT greenaudit.org
>>
>> I note your work towards corporate responsibility about environmental
>> pollution.
>>
>> I will be traveling from Lithuania to Estonia for a Grundtvig contact
>> seminar November 19-22.  http://www.hkk.ee/index.php?leht=619
>>
>> I will travel by bus so it would be nice to stop in Riga on the way
>> there and/or on the way back.  I know journalist Didzis Veinbers and
>> he might be interested to meet you, too.  Also, I would be interested
>> to meet with Peteris Krumins, he has a very helpful "Philosophy
>> Video" page:
>>
http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/cognitive-computing-consciousness.\
html
>>
>>
>> In Talinn, I hope to meet with Mihkel Pilv and discuss further our
>> NordPlus proposal and consider other possibilities, too.
>> http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?NordplusProposal
>>
>> Andrius
>>
>> Andrius Kulikauskas
>> Minciu Sodas
>> http://www.ms.lt
>> ms@...
>> +370 699 30003

Mārcis,

That's great!  I come to Riga on Wednesday, November 18 at 14:00 by
bus.  Didzis will meet me at the station and I will spend the night at
his house.  It would certainly be nice to meet you and learn more.  We
can connect by SMS, my phone is +370 699 30003.  I understand that it
will be Latvian Independence Day.   Congratulations!

Andrius

Mārcis Rubenis wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I would also like to attend the meeting!
>
> I and some like minded people have started a network ideju::*talka*,
> which comprises methods of crowdsourcing so that people who see some
> common social challenge can come together and support each other in
> developing many solutions. We developed ideju::talka event format
> during this summer and now are working further to open source it.
>
>
> *Mārcis Rubenis*
>
> board member
>
> society House of Ideas
>
>
> mobile: (371) 26012582
>
> skype: marcis.rubenis
>
> twitter.com/marcisrubenis <http://twitter.com/marcisrubenis>
>
>
>
> 2009/11/14 Andrius Kulikauskas <ms@... <mailto:ms@...>>
>
>
>
>     Hi Didzis Veinbergs, Mihkel Pilv, Peteris Krumins, Aigars Bruvelis,
>
>     Would you like to meet?
>
>     I live in Lithuania and am traveling to Talinn, Estonia for a
>     Grundtvig
>     contact seminar "Engaging Disadvantaged Social Groups in Adult
>     Learning":
>     http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=632
>     http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=625 (programme)
>     http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=676&lng=2#
>     <http://www.archimedes.ee/hkk/modify.php?cat=676&lng=2#> (partners)
>
>     I will be traveling by bus: Vilnius - Riga - Talinn - Riga - Vilnius.
>     * November 18, Wednesday night in Riga
>     * November 19, Thursday at 18:00 the seminar starts in Tallinn
>     * November 22, Sunday morning, I am in Tallinn and can travel to Riga
>
>     Peteris and all, I lead the Minciu Sodas laboratory for independent
>     thinkers http://www.ms.lt Here is a recent update about our many
>     projects: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalvillages/message/4240
>     and here is a video of my philosophical thinking which might interest
>     you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArN-YbPlf8M
>
>     Aigars, thank you for your note at our wiki:
>     http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Latvia Are you active in any
>     "national
>     idea movement"? Estonia has a strong one http://www.minueesti.ee and
>     Lithuania has one also http://www.aslietuvai.org
>
>     Please let me know if you'd like to meet! Didzis, if I might stay
>     with
>     you or somebody you know, that would be great.
>
>
>
>     Andrius
>
>     Andrius Kulikauskas
>     Minciu Sodas
>     http://www.ms.lt
>     ms@... <mailto:ms%40ms.lt>
>     +370 699 30003
>     skype: minciusodas
>
>     Peteris Krumins wrote:
>
>     Hi Guys. Tell me what is this about. I have no idea at the moment.
>     Just
>     received this email out of nowhere.
>
>
>     > Andrius Kulikauskas wrote:
>     >> Dear Chris,
>     >>
>     >> Thank you for your letters! This is you, yes?
>     >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Busby
>     >> http://www.greenaudit.org/about_green_audit.htm
>     >> christo AT greenaudit.org <http://greenaudit.org>
>     >>
>     >> I note your work towards corporate responsibility about
>     environmental
>     >> pollution.
>     >>
>     >> I will be traveling from Lithuania to Estonia for a Grundtvig
>     contact
>     >> seminar November 19-22. http://www.hkk.ee/index.php?leht=619
>     >>
>     >> I will travel by bus so it would be nice to stop in Riga on the
>     way
>     >> there and/or on the way back. I know journalist Didzis Veinbers
>     and
>     >> he might be interested to meet you, too. Also, I would be
>     interested
>     >> to meet with Peteris Krumins, he has a very helpful "Philosophy
>     >> Video" page:
>     >>
>    
http://freescienceonline.blogspot.com/2006/12/cognitive-computing-consciousness.\
html
>
>     >>
>     >>
>     >> In Talinn, I hope to meet with Mihkel Pilv and discuss further our
>     >> NordPlus proposal and consider other possibilities, too.
>     >> http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?NordplusProposal
>     >>
>     >> Andrius
>     >>
>     >> Andrius Kulikauskas
>     >> Minciu Sodas
>     >> http://www.ms.lt
>     >> ms@... <mailto:ms%40ms.lt>
>     >> +370 699 30003
>
>
>

Hi, I would like to meet participants of "My Estonia".
http://www.minueesti.ee  I learned about you because I participate in
"As Lietuvai" events http://www.aslietuvai.org the national idea
movement in Lithuania.

I am traveling from Vilnius, Lithuania to Tallinn, Estonia for a
Grundtvig adult-education partnership meeting.  I arrive in Tallinn on
Thursday, November 19 and am free until 18:00 that day, and I am also
free all day Sunday, November 22 and can stay Monday if that makes
sense.  I will also be in Riga on Wednesday, November 18 and possibly on
my way home.

I lead the Minciu Sodas laboratory http://www.ms.lt for serving and
organizing independent thinkers around the world.  We have working
groups based on our leaders' deepest values, including: global villages,
holistic helping, learning from each other, learn how to learn, social
agriculture, humanity, social entrepreneurship, living by truth, loving
God, community organizing and more.

We have a list of values and questions:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Values
endeavors:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors
and dreams:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Dreams

It would be great to get to know you!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
skype: minciusodas

Hi Didzis,

On Monday, November 30, we had the opening of the exhibit "May I Dream?"
which I was organizing at the Gedimino 9 shopping center's fourth floor
"incubator" in Vilnius, Lithuania.  Here are the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50525222@N00/
and the video (in Lithuanian):
http://www.internetinetv.lt/?View=PostCollection/ViewPost&id=146
I was collecting people's dreams-in-life and we were expressing them
with the arts and then hoping to integrate them.

I had gotten permission to display them on the glass rails as you see,
but soon after the administration required that I take it all down.  And
I spoke a few days with the owner from Ireland/England and he felt that
I insulted him.  He demanded that the incubator get rid of me or they
would shut down the whole incubator.  So I went back to the countryside.

I was looking forward to your coming so I'm sad it worked out this way.
But I hope to continue this exhibit elsewhere, for example, the Uzhupis
gallery Galera http://www.umi.lt will let me do a show there for three
weeks in May 2010.

This Thursday, December 10 we're planning to do an "ideju talka" at the
incubator (or elsewhere) in Lithuanian, much like Marcis Rubenis
explained that they do in Latvia.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003


Didzis Veinbergs wrote:
> Hi, Andrius!
>
> When does your exhibition open? I believe I actually will go to
> Vilnius -- it's been a while since I've been abroad :)
>
> Didzis

Didzis Veinbergs and all in Latvia!  I wonder if you might have thoughts
on applying for the following art exhibit.  I'm thinking of doing so and
presenting art related to "12 Questions" http://www.12questions.org for
engaging independent thinkers and our answers.  I wonder if you have
ideas!  Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...

Jonas Kulikauskas wrote:
>
>
>       Survival Kit 2 - Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga
>
> *„Survival Kit 2” international art project*
>
> Last September the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art produced an
> international art project SURVIVAL KIT, which invited over 70 artists
> to reflect upon diverse survival strategies in the modern world. The
> global society is currently actively preoccupied with this subject and
> it has become particularly urgent also in Latvia. The project took
> place in the empty shopping spaces of the city, one of the most
> noticeable features in the face of the economic crisis. Artists turned
> the empty retail premises into creative laboratories that housed
> exhibitions, an improvised second-hand fashion parlour, a bookstore
> and a whole array of activities that involved the society.
>
> More about the project:
> http://www.lcca.lv/projects/survival_eng/
>
> This autumn the next stage of the project is planned to take place,
> using the new initiatives and creative incubators as a platform for
> SURVIVAL KIT 2 project. The current situation is characterized by a
> fiasco of liberal capitalism, a collapse of economy, threats to the
> ecology, outbreaks of regional conflicts.
>
> What can artists do in this situation? Keep searching for creative
> survival strategies by finding innovative and witty solutions.
>
> SURVIVAL KIT 2 is characterized by the following keywords: migration,
> community, utopia, alternative economy, power, ecology. In the
> previous SURVIVAL KIT project, at the time when the society was just
> getting acquainted with the situation created by the economic crisis
> and was possibly under the illusion that it was a temporary occurrence
> soon to pass, artists focused on DIY strategies, using low-cost
> materials, short-term, spontaneous solutions, ironic attributes of
> spirituality, commentary and documentation of the situation.
>
> SURVIVAL KIT 2 calls for a critical analysis of the current situation
> as well as viewing things in a long-term perspective, changing the
> usual direction of thinking, focusing on sustainable strategies and
> taking a look into the future.
>
> Nicolas Bourriaud has said that the contemporary artist „instead of a
> utopian agenda [...] seeks only to find provisional solutions in the
> here and now” - instead of trying to change their environment, artists
> today are simply „learning to inhabit the world in a better way”. The
> participants of SURVIVAL KIT 2 will be urged to create functioning
> „microtopias” for the present time.
>
> The LCCA is waiting for artists` submissions that have to be sent to
> the e-mail address below.
>
> Submission includes:
> 1) Project description
> 2) Approximate costs
> 3) CV of the author
>
>
> *Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art
> Solvita Krese
> Alberta iela 13
> LV-1010 Riga
> Latvia
> tel: +371 67039282
> fax: +371 67039283
> **skrese@...* <mailto:skrese@...>*
> **www.lcca.lv* <http://www.lcca.lv/>*  *
>