Fruitbowl - Fresh Ideas from Hawke's Bay

Fruitbowl is a wonderful forum for developing ideas on the future of Hawkes Bay. In doing so it's important to take inspiration from as many sources as possible. Following are some resources which many of you may already know. If not, I hope you find them interesting.

The Long Now Foundation:

The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects , as well as to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

The Long Now Foundation's monthly Seminars were started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking; to help nudge civilization toward our goal of making long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare.

Audio (free) and Video (by subscription) podcasts are available here .

TED

The most fascinating collection of interesting, intelligent, challenging, and inspiring presentations.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

Free Video podcasts are available here.

CUNY Lecture Series (City University of New York)

These podcast tend to have a New York focus but they also look at many general interest subjects such as sustainability. A recent anti-"occupation" podcast on Afghanistan provides insights well hidden or not reported in mainstream corporate media.

An Afghan activist representing a Kabul-based human rights organization has a harsh message for the U.S. and its allies. “Afghanistan is a free country, but only for rapists,” said “Zoya,” who uses a pseudonym and won’t be videotaped or photographed. “It’s free for the drug lords who have made the country the largest producer of opium, for the warlords to commit any kind of crime without the least concern, and for foreign troops to kill our civilians.” “Zoya” spoke on behalf of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on a panel that examined the escalating conflicts in Afghanistan as the U.S. enters its eighth year of intervention.

Free Audio podcasts are available here.