On the Cusp of Ending Big Pharma

Gene therapy threatens to disrupt forever big-pharma's profiteering, but not without a fight.

December 28, 2012  (LD) - Imagine being diagnosed with cancer, a genetic disease, or even age-related deterioration in the morning, given a single injection in the evening, and beginning your recovery the next day. No prescriptions, no lengthy treatments, no difficult decisions between finances and getting better. This is the promise of gene therapy, a promise already being fulfilled.

Image: One method of gene therapy - taking human cells, "editing" them genetically, and reinserting them into the human body where they will replicate and carry out their newly designed functions. (Microsoft Encarta Online Concise Encyclopedia)

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Decentralizing the Power Grid

December 27, 2012 (LocalOrg) - Solar Daily reported that the newly opened San Miguel Power Association Community Solar Array constitutes the largest community-owned solar facility in the US. It represents not only a viable model for bringing solar produced power to communities via local facilities - it represents a model that could translate to a variety of power production models, both existing and on the drawing board.

And while solar power may not yet be the ultimate solution to power production it is sometimes made out to be, the concept of a community getting together to produce cleaner energy represents a real, pragmatic solution to improving air quality and the efficiency of our infrastructure. Contrast this local initiative against financial scams like "carbon markets" peddled by some of the worst human and environmental exploiters on Earth - and realize that no mater what our problems are, they are better solved technically, locally,  and with pragmatism - not policy churned out by corporate-funded think-tanks.

3D Printed Encased, Home-Brewed Mini-Computer

December 23, 2012 (LocalOrg) - Personal computers began as home-made projects put together in garages - Apple and Microsoft both sprung out of the home-brewed computer movement. Since then, computers became faster, smaller, and the manufacturing process to build the components became more capital intensive, centralized, and out of the reach of hobbyists. But as these methods, and the manufacturing technology used to carry them out, spread out across the world, they became cheaper, smaller, and easier to use. Now the pendulum has begun to swing back toward the hobbyist's realm once again.

Image: The trained eye can see the tell-tale signs of 3D printing involved in making the case for this custom-built home-made mini-computer. It may not stack up with an iPad, but the implications it represents tower over the antiquated, monopoly-style business model of Apple. 

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Solutions: 3D Printing

December 19, 2012 (Corbett Report)

Published on Dec 17, 2012

SHOW NOTES AND MP3: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=6458

Episode 251

Ever dream of a future free from the shackles of mindless mass-produced consumerism? A future of complete freedom, instantaneous manufacturing, and self-designed made-to-order one-of-a-kind goods? With additive manufacturing, that future is now. Join us today on The Corbett Report as we explore the 3D printing revolution.

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3D printing, China's New Growth Point

December 18, 2012 (ChinaDaily) - WUHAN - China plans to invest in locally-invented 3D printing technologies to boost its manufacturing power, according to a senior industrial official.

Su Bo, Vice-Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said the country should establish plans and use tax incentives to speed up research and development (R&D) and application of 3D printing technologies.

Unlike traditional printing techniques, 3D printing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital printer which can be created by laying down successive layers of materials. It is also known as additional manufacturing.

Cutting, bending, pressing, moulding and assembling will no longer be necessary in the manufacturing as a click of the printing button on a 3D printer will automatically produce a solid product based on the pre-set three dimensional data.

Decentralize Big-Retail

How to Uproot Walmart & Bring Jobs Back Home. 

December 11, 2012 (LocalOrg) - In many towns across America, Walmart, or a similar mega-retailer, is the only option you have when you need (almost) anything. Big-retail is a monopoly in its truest form and it has become so, not through "free market" economics, technological innovation, supply and demand, or healthy competition, but rather through a combination of pro-monopoly rules and regulations, human exploitation, outsourcing labor overseas, while preventing labor domestically from unionizing for better wages, job security, and benefits. 

The sub-par trinkets, poisoned food and beverages, and slave-made goods that line the corporate consumer troughs at Walmart are the result of a global network taking advantage of socioeconomic disparity, consumer ignorance, and deplorable labor conditions to bring the very lowest prices possible to consumers.

December 2012 - 3D Printing Headlines

Congressman calls for ban on 3D printed guns (BoingBoing) - The system is predictably threatened and now reacting to the advent of 3D printing - Cory Doctorow examines the possible measures the system might take to stop "3D printed guns" and correctly concludes they represent "authoritarianism, censorship, and wishful thinking."

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Sharing is Not a Crime: A Battle Plan to Fight Back

December 7, 2012 (LocalOrg) - The Battlefield: Christopher Dodd was at one point an alleged elected representative of the people. As a US Senator he was charged with upholding the Constitution and laws of the people, and representing the interests of voters in his state of Connecticut - for 30 years. In reality, Dodd didn't represent the people, and instead, represents corporate special-interests - and unfortunately, Dodd is not the exception.

In early 2011, it was announced that Dodd - after retiring from 30 years in the Senate - would take up a leading role at the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) for a $1.5 million annual salary. Immediately, the retired Senator would lead the charge to pass the notorious Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), with his incestuous business-government ties visibly rippling through the US House and Senate as well as through the corporate-dominated media.

The DARPA Vacuum

December 6, 2012 (LD) - A conscious, pragmatic movement, as well informed as it is technically competent, pursuing advanced localism, post-scarcity and the reduction of disparity, elitism, insidiously imposed social engineering, and economic interdependency, has little to fear as it moves forward. However, as the paradigm-shift exists now - there lacks any clear vision for the future, or situational awareness of the present.

Makerspaces, hackerspaces, community labs, and open source collaborations of all varieties run the risk of being subtly manipulated, their good intentions and naivety exploited, compartmentalized, and tasked for diabolical endeavors the individual participants could hardly fathom. In "Decentralizing Telecom," it was noted that D.C. hackerspace, HacDC was part of a crowd-sourced US State Department project to help develop "suitcase Internet" systems for US-backed opposition movements during the US-engineered "Arab Spring."

Don't Survive the "Collapse" - Prevent It

December 5, 2012 (LocalOrg) - Cuba, Thailand, New York City. All three have faced either economic or natural disasters. The adversity and degree to which each was affected varies, but all have lent us invaluable lessons and warnings about future, inevitable collapses and disasters. With this knowledge in hand we can begin preparing ahead of time, so not only do we "survive" the collapse, but we create thriving, advanced communities that remain entirely unaffected by such collapses - after all, prevention is the best medicine.

Cuba: In 1991, the Caribbean nation, after the fall of the Soviet Union upon which its economy hinged, found itself so destitute it was unable to feed its own people. The writing had been on the wall, particularly when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began instituting "glasnost" economic reforms, but little was (or could be) done in time to head off the consequences of collapse.

With no other choice, the people of the city of Havana began tearing up empty lots, reclaiming abandoned buildings, and planting "urban gardens." Neither "communist" nor "capitalist," the spurt of survival-driven local enterprise brought a people teetering on the edge of starvation back to a degree of stability. Journeyman Pictures, in their 2003 documentary "Seeds in the City - Cuba (23 mins)," tells the story of Havana and the urban gardening revolution that took place there.

Decentralizing Telecom

December 2, 2012 (LocalOrg) SOPA, ACTA, the criminalization of sharing, and a myriad of other measures taken to perpetuate antiquated business models propping up enduring monopolies - all have become increasingly taxing on the tech community and informed citizens alike. When the storm clouds gather and torrential rain begins to fall, the people have managed to stave off the flood waters through collective effort and well organized activism - stopping, or at least delaying SOPA and ACTA.

However, is it really sustainable to mobilize each and every time multi-billion dollar corporations combine their resources and attempt to pass another series of draconian rules and regulations? Instead of manning the sandbags during each storm, wouldn't it suit us all better to transform the surrounding landscape in such a way as to harmlessly divert the floods, or better yet, harness them to our advantage?

In many ways the transformation has already begun.