Open Source Markets (OSMs) are best exemplified in the freelance IT world. Sites like ifreelance.com and guru.com are currently operating the best user interfaces with the most practical functions and reaping the rewards of their innovation.

Open Source Markets are new forms of exchange, what impact will they have on economics?

These are some of my thoughts:

Open Source Markets provide a level playing field for entities small and large.

An OSM may be used for the sole purpose of promotion with no intent to sell, purchase, or distribute.

Business practices that are elsewhere considered unethical may be operative in an OSM.

OSMs are not subject to regulations at present including mandates for workers rights, wages, etc.

OSMs are not governed by the theory of supply and demand.

OSMs are public requiring no affiliations for involvement.

OSMs are not bound by time and space, an example of this is the trading floor of an exchange, and an always-on site like craigslist.

OSMs: ebay.com craigslist.com kijiji.com guru.com etsy.com

Id like to compile a list of obscure online markets that are free to enter and use. Open Source Markets
more @ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Markets

Don't know much about geography? Physics? Nanotech? There are a number of really good video and audio resources available. Try the Research Channel, the Royal Society, Open Source Physics, everything you wanted to know about economics, the dismal science or it's cousin, political science... Then there is MIT World, Carnegie Mellon's open source learning initiative, Connexions, Vega, and the Princeton collection. Wikiuniversity is always interesting, Berkeley does a mean podcast, and the Edge video library is always, well, cutting edge. Stanford has the iTunes connection, and Fathom is a wide ranging site. Do you have a great resource? Share it in the comments section below.

A Call to Arms

We are introducing a project directed toward the question of why some super-cells produce tornados. The goal of this project is to show a connection between electromagnetic forces and the tornadic winds within these rare and violent storms. With this project we hope to show this connection and to prove that pent up electrical charges within the super-cell is the cause for a super-cell becoming tornadic.

Since lightning triggering technology has been developed; it is our intention to position grounded rockets near the pathway of a tornado. They will be positioned far enough away from the tornado to safely launch, yet close enough to trigger lightning from the storm. It has been well documented by trigger lightning research that electromagnetic charges in super-cells will decrease as a result of triggered discharges.

The question is: will a drop in a tornado?s wind forces also take place on demand as a result of these triggered discharges? For if it is the amount of pent up charges (due to electrical resistance to ground in any super cell) that is responsible for a tornado?s increase in ferocity, then it is possible to effect the production of tornados, and we can overcome this electrical resistance with rockets and wires, thus draining the charges of these super-cells to ground.

It is our goal to record triggered discharges from the launch of multiple grounded rockets from a super cell that is tornadic. If we find an immediate and substantial drop in the ferocity of the tornado, then we prove that the electrical charge is responsible for the tornado and we can affect the existence of these tornados.

To test this idea we are encouraging anybody who can safely launch a grounded rocket into a tornado producing super cell to participate in this project.

www.tothbros.com

Jane Jacobs, a well-known writer on urban issues, has died today. You can read the CBC obit here and the Toronto Star obit here.

I can personally recommend The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Dark Age Ahead as interesting, thoughtful tomes on the challenges we face in the very near future. You can also read some recent interviews with her here and here.

I didn't agree with everything she wrote, and I'd be interested in seeing a discussion here on her work and urban issues generally. Given that the world is increasingly urban, and will only become more so in the near future by all accounts, it's an important topic.

US President George Bush called for the US to return to the moon, but any program to get there won't see any real money until at least 2010, the projected date for completing the space station and retiring the shuttle fleet.

China is developing a reasonably successful space program, and has plans to go to the moon and put taikonauts on Mars. India is also lunar bound, with the appropriately named Chandrayaan-1 the likely first step. Meanwhile, Russia appears to be shaking off its space budget blues, with Roskosmos set to receive more cash now and in the immediate future, thanks to the booming Russian economy, government budget increases and its commercial ventures. Given the Russian ability to do pretty amazing things with sometimes laughable resources, and their complex relationship with China, we'll probably see a great deal out of that country in the near future.

Private space enterprises like Burt Rutan's