— Bay Area Community Exchange

Thousands Of Websites Go Dark To Protest SOPA/PIPA

By: Beth Buczynski
18-01-2012
Uncategorized

Protest SOPA/PIPA Censorship

You may have noticed that the internet looks a little funny today.

The Google home page, the start of billions of free internet searches every day, has a big, ugly swatch of black where the doodle should be.

Wikipedia, Reddit, Alternet, and thousands of other websites have completely blacked out their content to draw attention to and protest two bills that now sit on the desks of our nation’s lawmakers: SOPA and PIPA.

Here at Insteading, and the larger Important Media Network, we believe that the internet should be

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Upcycled Find: Rewined Candles Fill Empty Wine Bottles

By: Beth Buczynski
17-01-2012
Uncategorized

Rewined Upcycled Candles

I live in an old house that’s been split into three apartments. Our landlord is kind enough to provide a separate trash can for each tenant, we share a recycling bin. This gives me the chance to (unintentionally) snoop on their recyclables whenever I empty our bin.

One neighbor’s recycling, not sure which, consists almost entirely of wine bottles. Everything time see them sitting there (in plastic bags!) in the bottom of the bin, I have two thoughts:

1) Thank goodness they’re recycling.
2) There are so many other things they could do with these wine

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Occupy food: College co-op advocates gather in Berkeley

By: Mira Luna
14-01-2012
Uncategorized

January 6, 2012
by Sarah Henry
from Berkeleyside

Taking matters beyond burritos, pizza, and beer, a boot camp for college food activists from across the country kicks off today at Berkeley Student Cooperative‘s Cloyne Court Hotel. The intensive, three-day retreat is designed to help train students who want to run campus co-op food cafés and stores stocked with wholesome foods for college kids seeking something other than a steady diet of fast food.

The event, dubbed “Occupy Your Plate,” is sponsored by the year-old Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFED), a Berkeley-based program that was inspired by the launch of the Berkeley Student Food Collective (BSFC), across the street from campus on Bancroft Way. Speakers at the training include People’s Grocery executive director Nikki Henderson; cookbook author Mollie Katzen; CoFED supporters

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Why One Laptop Per Child Is The Most Important Thing At CES

By: Loren Feldman
11-01-2012
Uncategorized

One Laptop Per Child

One Laptop Per Child  is a great project. They design hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning so that kids all over the world can be engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together.

Watch the video below to hear why I think OLPC is much more important than anything else you’ll see at the International Consumer Electronics

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Poor US Citizens Barter Their Way to Health

By: Mira Luna
10-01-2012
Uncategorized

Monday, January 9, 2012
Al-Jazeera

Maine clinic allows low-income residents to do yard work or other labor in exchange for medical help.

A clinic in the US state of Maine is using a novel way to support those who cannot afford costly health insurance.

Low-income people earn time credits from the Hour Exchange Portland website, mostly by working a variety of odd jobs like raking leaves or driving the elderly, and exchange them for time with a doctor.

Al Jazeera’s John Terrett reports from Falmouth, Maine.

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Money that can buy you a future.

By: Guillaume Lebleu
05-01-2012
Uncategorized

In Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) latest dystopian science-fiction movie “In Time”, money is time, quite literally: money is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, centuries and beyond 25, people need to earn and buy themselves time, every minute of their life, or die in an instant.

A very privileged few have enough to buy themselves immortality.

Will Salas: Quality time… There really is a man with a million years.

Philipe Weis: It’s my first million. It won’t be my last.

Will Salas: You know how much good it could do?

Philip Weis: I know how much harm it could do.

Philip Weis: Even if you give a year to a million people, you are just prolonging their agony.

Sylvia Weis: We are prolonging their lives.

Philip Weis: Flooding the wrong zone with a million years, it could cripple the

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Like A Good Neighbor: Brightneighbor.com Revives Neighborhoods

By: Loren Feldman
03-01-2012
Uncategorized

Bright Neighborhood

In our fast-changing world, communities need help to thrive. Bright Neighbor helps communities and local governments accomplish this through community organizing and Internet-based tools. Bright Neighbor’s effective combination of community involvement and social tools helps local governments, communities, faith groups, and businesses increase livability, sustainability, and relocalization while simultaneously improving local economies.

Listen to Insteading’s Loren Feldman talk about why he loves this idea and this website below: