They key to neighbors is to move into a rental house where the previous tenants hosted loud parties that went until the wee hours of the morning and ended up with people passed out in the street. Then you come along with your machinery, and the neighbors are happy to have that noise instead! =] We do limit the hours we use the equipment, and have talked to our closest neighbor multiple times and verified that it doesn't bother them. We are not too far away from Techshop Menlo Park and also head there for some things that it's just not practical to do in the garage. We also find valuable the interaction with the other people at the Techshop, getting advice from them, seeing their projects, etc.
MIT isn't the only one offering their courses to the masses for free. Many institutions, both K12 and higher ed, have their courses online now. Of those, many have the Creative Commons licenses that can allow for remixing the content. http://www.oercommons.org/oer/oer-providers has everything from Free High School Science Texts from South Africa to webcasts from UC Berkeley to MIT's OpenCourseWare, as well as dozens of other sources.
Would people move to a location that isn't overcrowded and overpriced? That location might have less favorable weather, fewer resources, no Fry's Electronics down the road, a lack of high-caliber universities, etc. Do you think Google would have as many people wanting to work for it if the headquarters were in North Dakota?
From a green standpoint, Google is being kind to the community. They take people out of their individual cars, their buildings are re-used (old SGI buildings), they're putting in solar, etc. Moving headquarters to a new community that is not overcrowded and overpriced may mean building entirely new buildings, having many more people drive to work, and having a significant impact on the resources and environment.
If the headquarters were to move, what impact would it have on the local economy? Already I wonder about the North Carolina deal, where Google will be paying significantly more than the average salary. I'm sure that will have an impact on housing prices. What happens when you bring thousands of workers into a new community? Will that community stay uncrowded and low-priced?
You're right about "tradable, burnable and alterable". Currently there are learning materials that have the distinction called "open" and are meant for use and even re-use by everyone. A new site, OER Commons, http://www.oercommons.org/, aims to impact teaching and learning with an open source network of open resource pointers, social networking, and collaborative spaces to bring people together with open materials. Some materials carry a Creative Commons license, and you can search on the type of license at this site, while others have custom licensing agreements, so that items for adapting, translating, re-using are apparent. The goal is to have teachers and learners at all grade levels and across disciplines add their own experiences and join in the process of continual improvement and enhancement of resources. One example you mention is updating a science course by adding a cool simulation -- this is just what the site is meant for, plus tags, ratings, reviews, discussions, and more open source tools for teaching and learning.
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They key to neighbors is to move into a rental house where the previous tenants hosted loud parties that went until the wee hours of the morning and ended up with people passed out in the street. Then you come along with your machinery, and the neighbors are happy to have that noise instead! =] We do limit the hours we use the equipment, and have talked to our closest neighbor multiple times and verified that it doesn't bother them. We are not too far away from Techshop Menlo Park and also head there for some things that it's just not practical to do in the garage. We also find valuable the interaction with the other people at the Techshop, getting advice from them, seeing their projects, etc.
MIT isn't the only one offering their courses to the masses for free. Many institutions, both K12 and higher ed, have their courses online now. Of those, many have the Creative Commons licenses that can allow for remixing the content. http://www.oercommons.org/oer/oer-providers has everything from Free High School Science Texts from South Africa to webcasts from UC Berkeley to MIT's OpenCourseWare, as well as dozens of other sources.
Would people move to a location that isn't overcrowded and overpriced? That location might have less favorable weather, fewer resources, no Fry's Electronics down the road, a lack of high-caliber universities, etc. Do you think Google would have as many people wanting to work for it if the headquarters were in North Dakota? From a green standpoint, Google is being kind to the community. They take people out of their individual cars, their buildings are re-used (old SGI buildings), they're putting in solar, etc. Moving headquarters to a new community that is not overcrowded and overpriced may mean building entirely new buildings, having many more people drive to work, and having a significant impact on the resources and environment. If the headquarters were to move, what impact would it have on the local economy? Already I wonder about the North Carolina deal, where Google will be paying significantly more than the average salary. I'm sure that will have an impact on housing prices. What happens when you bring thousands of workers into a new community? Will that community stay uncrowded and low-priced?
You're right about "tradable, burnable and alterable". Currently there are learning materials that have the distinction called "open" and are meant for use and even re-use by everyone. A new site, OER Commons, http://www.oercommons.org/, aims to impact teaching and learning with an open source network of open resource pointers, social networking, and collaborative spaces to bring people together with open materials. Some materials carry a Creative Commons license, and you can search on the type of license at this site, while others have custom licensing agreements, so that items for adapting, translating, re-using are apparent. The goal is to have teachers and learners at all grade levels and across disciplines add their own experiences and join in the process of continual improvement and enhancement of resources. One example you mention is updating a science course by adding a cool simulation -- this is just what the site is meant for, plus tags, ratings, reviews, discussions, and more open source tools for teaching and learning.