“Hey, roommate! If you’re reading this, we need to go to Aldi and pick up some more milk. Also, are you going to eat that leftover Panda Express in the fridge?”

Welcome to a very domestic, and very insightful, episode of The Upsiders!

Join Cohabitat Bertram and Your Friendly Neighborhood Los for a fun, energetic conversation about the explosive rise of Shared Spaces. We aren't just talking about sharing a fridge; we are diving into how co-working and co-living are completely redefining how we work, live, and connect.

In this episode, we break down:

1. The Office, Reimagined: What is co-working, and why are professionals thriving in spaces filled with synergy (our Word of the Week!)?
2. The Co-Living Boom: Why it’s not just for students anymore. From seniors to digital nomads, people are choosing community over isolation to combat the high cost of living.
3. A Coffee Shop in an Abandoned Mental Hospital?: We highlight the Mansion Society Coffee Shop turning a historic, abandoned mental hospital into a thriving community coffee shop, proving that connection can come from the most unlikely places.
4. Hero of the Upside: We highlight Humanitas, a Dutch nursing home offering rent-free housing to students
5. Reality Check: Is co-living for everyone? Does co-working mean losing your privacy? We bust the myths and look at how these models reduce waste and encourage a circular economy.

Whether you're looking for a desk, a home, or just a really good tip on where to store your leftovers, this episode has you covered.

Show Notes:

Westside coffee shop offers a taste of the timeless — and maybe a ghost | Mirror Indy

Central State Mansion: your guide to the co-living space | Indy Today

Historic Central State

New Life at Central State Part Two: Restoring and Repurposing | Historic Indianapolis

The Future Is Flexible: Why Coworking Is Becoming An Essential Part Of The Office Real Estate Market | Forbes

Transforming Coffee Shops Into Coworking Spaces: A Growing Business Opportunity | Forbes

Why People Thrive in Coworking Spaces | Harvard Business Review

A Complete Guide to...

Imagine a city where the roads, the plumbing, and the electric grid were all built for free by volunteers—and they work better than anything a corporation could sell you.

In this episode of The Upsiders, we go "under the hood" of the digital world to explore Open Source. We often think of big tech as a series of skyscrapers owned by Apple or Google, but the foundation they sit on is a $20-trillion infrastructure built on a "gift economy."

What we’re diving into:

1. The Blueprint for Civilization: We look at the Open Source Ecology Project and how 50 industrial machines are being designed for free to help anyone, anywhere, build a sustainable society.
2. Medicine for the People: How open-source hardware, like the MIT Emergency Ventilator, can bypass corporate gatekeepers to save lives in low-resource clinics across the globe.
3. The Linux Miracle: Meet our Unsung Hero, Linus Torvalds, the college student who created the "master control program" that now runs 90% of the internet’s cloud servers.

We also break down the Word of the Week: Kernel, and hit our Reality Check to bust the myth that open source is just for "hobbyists." It turns out, the most secure and powerful code in the world isn't a trade secret—it’s open for everyone to see.

Show Notes:

Open Source Initiative

How open-source is shaping the future of innovation | Dev Ops Online

Open Source Ecology Project

Machines: Global Village Construction Set | Open Source Ecology Project

MIT Emergency Ventilator Project | MIT

Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection | John Green

Open-Source Hardware May Address the Shortage in Medical Devices for Patients with Low-Income and Chronic Respiratory Diseases in Low-Resource Countries | National Library of Medicine

Once a leading killer, tuberculosis is now rare in rich countries — here’s how it happened | Our World in Data

OER Commons

Made by educators, for educators | Moodle

Welcome back to The Community Curiosity Collective! In a time of massive political and economic inequality, the ultimate question is: Can we use the Constitution—the foundational document of our democracy—to truly make our country a better place for average and poor Americans?

This week, we explore the revolutionary efforts to enact New Constitutional Amendments aimed at correcting glaring American issues. We dive into two major movements:

1. Political Equity: The push to Overturn Citizens United to limit political spending and the movement to Establish a Right to Vote for all citizens, ensuring a voice for low-income and marginalized communities.
2. Socio-Economic Rights: The bold campaign for an Economic Bill of Rights, inspired by FDR, which would constitutionally guarantee rights like adequate medical care, a decent home, and a good education.

We introduce our Word of the Week: Entrenchment, and in our segment, That's Actually an Upside!, we flip the biggest frustration on its head: Why the difficulty of amending the Constitution is actually its greatest strength, promoting stability and broad consensus.

Finally, we recognize Ralph Abele, the Unsung Hero who championed the environmental rights amendment in Pennsylvania, and hit our Reality Check to prove why the effort to amend the Constitution is a foundational change that fuels movements, not stops them. This episode is about using the ultimate tool to achieve the ultimate upside: a more equitable, just, and durable future.

Show Notes:

28th Amendment Proposed | Congress.gov

American Promise

Move to Amend

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about The Electoral College | Monmouth University

Equal Rights Amendment

Ralph W. Abele | Charles River Watershed Association

Biden declares Equal Rights Amendment ‘law of the land’ in probably symbolic statement | PBS News