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Links July 8

Empower Your Efforts by Unleashing Intent | OnTheSpiral
I want to point everyone over to Seb Paquet’s recent post on intentcasting. Seb defines intentcasting and intentcatching as follows: Intentcasting is deceptively simple to describe. It consists in broadcasting your intent to make something happen. … There is a capability that is complementary to intentcasting: intentcatching.

Blueprints for Networked Cocreation: 1. Intentcasting - EMERGENT CITIES
Photo by emergentcities.sebpaquet.net on Posterous

Too Late, Too Late, Say Supervisors — Mission Loc@l : News From San Francisco’s Mission District
In 1997, the city had a plan. That plan was to update an old computer system from the 1970s while also consolidating all the criminal justice data in the city. Information gathered by the Police Department, District Attorney and Public Defender’s office would all be combined into a single hub for easy and secure access by all the departments involved.
Google+ Could Revolutionize Customer Service | BNET
Even though we don’t know a lot about Google+, the fledgling social media initiative that launched Tuesday, one thing is certain: If only half of the promised features are widely adopted by Internet users, it could change customer service forever – and for the better. I know, I know.
E Cube: The Perfect Marriage of DIY & Affordable Passive House Design?
Something impressive is developing on the green building front in the Netherlands. And it has nothing to do with LEED or some grandiose skyscraper. It’s a home that does much more than house people. It will enable more people to own their own homes, while increasing their self reliance, and reducing the impact they and their home have on the planet.
Plant a Vegetable Garden in Your Front Yard, Face 93 Days in Jail – Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
"That’s not what we want to see in a front yard," said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski. Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what’s "suitable?"
DIY Projects, Inspiration, How-tos, Hacks, Mods & More @ Makezine.com – Tweak Technology to Your Will
MAKE is loaded with exciting DIY projects and how-tos that help you make the most of the technology in your life. This is a magazine, website, and community that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will
Operating Outside of the Music Industry: Strategies of Production in a Semi-Professional Musical Art World | Martin Prosperity Institute Research
Cultural sociologists have extensively studied professional artistic communities and the steps that aspiring artists take to join them (Bielby and Bielby, 1996, 1999; Giuffre 1999; Menger 1999). However, we know less about semi-professional artistic communities, where artistic activity is more sustained and serious than a hobby, but less financially stable than a job.

social dilemma
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NASA + William Shatner: Space Shuttle’s Legacy | Brain Pickings
This month, NASA announced that after 30 years of spaceflight and over 130 missions, its Space Shuttle Program fleet will be retiring to an earthly resting place. To commemorate the fleet’s remarkable legacy, NASA produced this fantastic short documentary, narrated by none other than William Shatner: An idea born in unsettled times becomes a feat of engineering excellence.
Cyber War Started Between China and Vietnam over Spratly Islands – NAM EthnoBlog
Chinese and the Vietnamese hackers have started a cyber war over the territorial dispute on the ownership of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. According to Global Times, a website under the operation of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry was hacked in June.
Can a Solar Power System in a Suitcase Save Mothers’ Lives? – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic
Alexis Madrigal – Alexis Madrigal is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He’s the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. More Alexis Madrigal is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He’s the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology.

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By Greg – July 9, 2011

Links July 7

The Washington Monthly – The Magazine – Playing Chicken with History
If America really is threatened by a growing mountain of debt, shouldn’t the wealthy help out by paying higher taxes? Most voters think so, according to polls, and for good reason. The rich have enjoyed staggering run-ups in their incomes and net worth in recent years, while average Americans have barely treaded water.
QE2 helped the rich and screwed the poor. – By Bethany McLean – Slate Magazine
Sign up for Slate’s daily newsletter. Since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis the Federal Reserve has twice attempted to stimulate economic growth through a somewhat unorthodox maneuver called quantitative easing, wherein the Fed buys back Treasury bonds from big banks.
City Museum is a Crazy Maze of Found Objects Including a Plane and Ferris Wheel in St. Louis | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World
With all there is to choose from in the museum, we’re not quite sure where to start. To give you some background, the attractions aren’t just made from recycled objects, the building itself is also repurposed (it used to be a shoe factory).
urban planning research » Blog Archive » Introduction to Urban Planning: Books, Pamphlets, and Tweets
I hope this is a good summertime discussion question…. I had an inquiry from an incoming student on what she should read before she begins her master’s program in the fall. My second was to find a mystery set in a particular city. (Margaret Truman’s Washington DC mysteries came to mind.)
Streetfilms | Revisiting Donald Appleyard”s Livable Streets
You may have wondered, while watching a Streetfilm or reading a post on Streetsblog, where we got the term "livable streets." The answer can be found in the work of Donald Appleyard, a scholar who studied the neighborhood environment and the ways planning and design can make life better for city residents.
Small Scale Wind Power On the Rise; Home Depot Selling Turbines
Home Depot will begin selling small wind turbines in select stores, a decision that reflects the growing popularity of the devices, which can provide homeowners in windy parts of the country with a steady supply of renewable.
Printing complex organic shapes with a Makerbot « MakerBot Industries
For a recent project, I had to print this awesome crocodile skull from the University of Texas Digimorph project. At first it looked daunting, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy to print. I really like this print because it is a complex organic shape, and it is really impressive that it came from a Makerbot.
On Dangerous Disconnect Between Economics and Ecology « naked capitalism
William Rees is one of the pioneers of ecological economics and is the originator and co-developer of “ecological footprint analysis’. This video contains some basic facts about current consumption levels in advanced economies that are attention-grabbing. I’d normally say "Enjoy" but this is not that sort of video.
» Who We Are
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. How-to Homestead is a multi-faceted arts organization that has at its center the creation, curation, and distribution of short films dedicated to 21st century homesteading. We make our own videos, we scour the web looking for videos, and we actively encourage folks to make videos about homesteading.
Socioeconomic status as child dictates response to stress as adult
When faced with threat, people who grew up poor are more likely to make risky financial choices in search of a quick windfall, according to new research from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.
Bigger than football: Study shows sports can help communities recover from disaster
Research from North Carolina State University shows that organized sports can be a powerful tool for helping to rebuild communities in the wake of disasters. The research focused specifically on the role of professional football in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "Sports, and by extension sports media, can be a powerful force for good.
Make: Online | DNA is now DIY: OpenPCR ships worldwide
The eagerly awaited OpenPCR kit is now shipping! UPS picked up the first batch of kits and OpenPCRs are on their way to users in 5 continents and 13 countries around the world. For $512, every OpenPCR kit includes all the parts, tools, and beautiful printed instructions – you ONLY need a set of screwdrivers.
VIDEO: Rebuilding Sustainably After Severe Weather Disasters | Sustainable Cities Collective
Heavy rain, snow, flooding, and tornadoes have damaged or destroyed towns and cities across the United States this year. But how can communities devastated by severe weather turn tragedy into an opportunity to sustainably rebuild? When that town is Greensburg, Kansas, it returns to its pioneer roots and creates a self-sufficent community.
David Eagleman and The Brain on Trial « Books I Read
Imagine for a second that anything you know about the motivations behind criminal activity. For most of us, myself included, our assessment of burglars, murderers, and other deviants is that they have made a choice to act this way (to break the law).
How the Great Reset Has Already Changed America – Richard Florida – Business – The Atlantic
In the wake of the recession, cities and suburbs are being knit into giant city-states, with millions of people and billions — even trillions — of dollars of business A year ago, I published a book that argued that, for all the privations and dislocations of the economic crisis, it also provides us with the opportunity to make fundamental changes in our economy and society.
Japan unearths gigantic haul of rare earth minerals · TheJournal
Lutetium, one of the four metals identified in a gigantic new haul of rare earth metals. JAPANESE MARINE RESEARCHERS have identified a gigantic stash of rare earth materials – a 100-billion-ton find that dwarfs all previous discoveries of the metals.
Biofuels from the sea
The use of kelp as a biofuel could provide an important alternative to terrestrial grown biofuels; however the suitability of its chemical composition varies on a seasonal basis. Harvesting the kelp in July when carbohydrate levels are at their highest would ensure optimal sugar release for biofuel production.
Marc Andreessen on the Dot-Com ‘Bubble’ – NYTimes.com
Contrary to all the recent hype about a bubble, you’ve said that tech companies are actually undervalued. So in true 1999 fashion, should I take my life savings out of mutual funds and toss it into tech stocks? I’m certainly not an investment adviser, but on a 30-year basis, these things are cheap.
Talkwheel
Talkwheel creates a visual roundtable collaboration platform to allow groups in enterprises, e-learning and social networks to interact more effectively than anywhere else online. -Enterprises use it to improve communication internally, as well as externally to engage their customers around different interactive focus groups.

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By Greg – July 8, 2011

Links July 6

Intimacy Gradient and Other Lessons from Architecture – Life With Alacrity
In order to provide for Progressive Trust, you need to establish what is known as an "Intimacy Gradient". The concept of Intimacy Gradient comes from architect Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. (Oxford University Press, 1977).
Pattern Language.com
BUILDING LIVING NEIGHBORHOODS
If you are one of a group of friends who are talking about building a new place to live a better life, this website can show you ways of working that are inspiring and related to the things which matter in your lives.
Community by the Numbers, Part One: Group Thresholds – Life With Alacrity
We often think of communities as organic creatures, which come into existence and grow on their own. However, the truth is they are fragile blossoms. Although many communities surely germinate and bloom on their own, purposefully creating communities can take a tremendous amount of hard work, and one factor their success ultimately depends upon is their numbers.
Once the principle of group solidarity was established, Ibn Khaldûn saw dynasties going through predictable cycles of five phases: (1) successful overthrow of a royal predecessor; (2) gaining of complete control; (3) leisure and optimal expression of rule; (4) contentment succumbs to lassitude and luxury; (5) squandering breeds hatred in the people and disloyalty among the soldiers, and dynastic senility becomes an incurable disease.
Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded | Singularity Hub
I´ve spent the last week playing with the new Google+, and I´m here to tell you the service is pretty damn awesome. Dozens of Silicon Valley startups, especially social behemoths Facebook and Twitter, must have had some pretty fun meetings over the last several days.
Facebook Adds Video Chat — Does Anyone Care?
Today Facebook announced the new feature of being able to video chat with friends, as well as jump into a group chat with several friends. See their blog post about it here. In a move that is an obvious attempt to steal some thunder from Google+, the question is… does anyone care?
OurGoods
Posted by David Felix Sutcliffe "I always tell them that the exchange is this: You get a ride out in the boat and I get to tell the story." Your way of operating in this circumstance will need to be both pragmatic and generous, and may also depend on the current place in the career of both of you.
superfluid | start something!
Whatever you need; if it takes one or twenty people. Collaborate with members, just with your friends, or mix it up. Use your Pints superfluid to bring in the people you need but don’t have, and you can start right now.
Us claims all .com and .net websites are in its jurisdiction- The Inquirer
Sees an Internet without borders THE US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) wants to take down web sites that use the .com and .net top level domains (TLD) regardless of whether their servers are based in the US.
The State of the Union’s Roads: An Investigative Report – Feature – Car and Driver
BY ZACH ROSENBERG, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES, ILLUSTRATION BY BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN June 2011 The Minneapolis bridge carrying I-35W over the Mississippi River, which opened to traffic in 1967, was almost 2000 feet long and designed to handle 66,000 cars a day. Over the years, it had been modified, increasing the total weight, or "dead load."
What Twitter users asked the president – Boston.com
congress, capitol hill, meeting, negotiation social security, medicare, medicaid immigration, aliens, immigration, border health care, healthcare, hospitals millionaire, billionaire, corporate jet
History in Ads: The many space planes that inspired the Shuttle | DVICE
At the end of this week on July 8, the final mission of NASA’s Space Shuttle program launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The program’s thirty year history is familiar to space-watchers, but less is known of the program’s pre-history. Before there was a Space Shuttle program, there was an initial twenty-five period filled with sci fi-like proto-spacecraft.
Physicists Almost Certain The Universe Is Not A Hologram : The Two-Way : NPR
Rest easy: What is in front of you is almost certainly not just a hologram projection. Alright, I’ll back up a little bit: As a result of a gravitational wave experiment called the GEO600, Craig Hogan, a particle astrophysicist at Fermilab in Ill., thought the universe might be a projection.

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By Greg – July 7, 2011

Links July 4

Fukushima, Social Networking, and more.

Fukushima Cover Up Unravels | The Big Picture
As I’ve repeatedly noted, the Japanese government, other governments and nuclear companies have covered up the extent of the Fukushima crisis. Japan’s leading business journal Toyo Keizai has published an article by Hokkaido Cancer Center director Nishio Masamichi, a radiation treatment specialist. Nishio originally called for "calm" in the days after the accident.
Japanese Green Tea Industry Faces Crisis | JotZoom News
Posted on03 July 2011. Tags: green tea benefits, green tea diet, green tea extract, green tea fat burner, green tea side effects, green tea weight loss, japanese green tea concerns, japanese green tea online, japanese green tea radiation The Japanese green tea industry and hundreds of green tea growers around Japan are facing a crisis.
Attention Scarcity, The Power of Pull, and The Sociopath | OnTheSpiral
The internet is turning us into sociopaths. For those not familiar with the reference, I do not mean "sociopath" as used in the common vernacular. I mean sociopath as popularized by Venkat Rao in his series of blog posts on The Gervais Principle.
The Top 100 Google+ users – SocialStatistics.com (158)
Add your account to the top 100 too. Just enter your Google+ profile number into this form and we will start tracking it: My profile URL is "https://plus.google.com/110272002170841143606".The highlighted part is my Profile Number. That is the part we need from you.
Circle Hack Brings Google+ Group Creation to Facebook – HotHardware
Google+, the Internet giant’s new social networking project, is still in
How Google+ Shows That Google Still D… by Yishan Wong – Quora
In July of 2010, I wrote a brief answer stating that then-Googler Paul Adams’ internal presentation about social (see: http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/01/google-researcher-says-friend-groups-may-give-it-a-window-to-best-facebook/) indicated that the state-of-the-art in thinking about social inside Google was much further behind than previously thought (see: Yishan Wong’s answer to Should Facebook be worried about Google Me?).
Google made my son cry [Legends of the Sun Pig - Martin Sutherland's Blog]
Alex is 10 years old. He has had a Gmail account since September 2009 – almost two years. He uses email to keep in touch with his grandparents, who live in California and Scotland. He is signed up to get newsletters and updates from his favourite online hangouts, like Roblox and Hyves.
People Over 35 Have Recently Launched 80% Of Startups
With all the press coverage devoted to new high tech company founders, you’d think that young entrepreneurs are the only successful entrepreneurs. But the latest research suggests otherwise. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, people over the age of 35 made up 80 percent of the total entrepreneurship activity in 2009.
Corporate Social Responsibility, Meet Transparency – Miller-McCune
Congo’s Violent Rape Epidemic Needs a Cure Save the Poor by Selling Them Stuff – Cheap Slugging – The People’s Transit Why Victims Face the Criminals Who Hurt Them A Day in the Life of a Sleepy Student Ocean Carbon Sequestration: The World’s Best Bad Idea Christine MacDonald is a freelance reporter based in Washington D.C.
Rare Earth Minerals Discovered That Build iPads
A huge deposit of "rare earth" minerals has been discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, Reuters reports. Japanese scientists announced their analysis of the deposits Monday, claiming the area around Hawaii is especially rich in minerals that help build iPads, LCD TVs and other electronic devices.
NewAssignment.Net | an experiment in open-source reporting
Buy the People and Force the People or By the People and for the People? Here we are at the end of another year. For me, 2010 passed by like a closed rest step on the side of the highway when you really need a place to pull over and stretch your legs and contemplate the next part of your journey.
Foxnewspolitics Twitter Feed Hacked – FoxNews.com
FoxNews.com’s Twitter feed for political news, FoxNewspolitics, was hacked early Monday morning. Hackers sent out several malicious and false tweets claiming that President Obama had been assassinated. Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family.
Value – MindMeister Mind Map
World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats
More Internet Information Sources and Usage Statistics Premium Telecommunications Market Reports: World e-Commerce Report This annual report offers a wealth of information on the dynamic e-commerce and m-commerce sectors. The report includes analyses, statistics and provides valuable insight into the key trends worldwide.
Nielsen | Internet
Top 10 Global Web Parent Companies, Home & Work Top 10 U.S. Web Parent Companies, Home & Work Top 10 U.S. Online Video Brands, Home & Work
Code for America/Civic Commons Fellows Win at Apps for Good! | Government In The Lab
Abhi Nemani of Civic Commons, Contributor: For the past three months, developers from across the country have been working with community partners to create mobile apps that will help low-income Americans improve their lives. Hosted by One Economy, the Applications for Good competition challenged developers to think about how technology can improve education, employment, health and finances.
Social contagions debunked: Reports of infectious obesity and divorce were grossly overstated. – By Dave Johns – Slate Magazine
Have you heard that divorce is contagious? A lot of people have. Last summer a study claiming to show that break-ups can propagate from friend to friend to friend like a marriage-eating bacillus spread across the news agar from CNN to CBS to ABC with predictable speed.
10 U.S. cities that will take 10 years to recover from the recession | Impact Lab
Reno’s economy relies on gaming and tourism, two industries which have been hit extremely hard by the recession. December 2007 is when the Great Recession officially began and it officially ended in July 2009. But that doesn’t mean the economy has returned to where it was before the steepest downturn since the Great Depression and may not for years.

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By Greg – July 5, 2011

July 3 LInks

What Makes a Community? |
With the popularity of social networks it is a good idea to define some terms. I make a distinction between a network and a community by the size, strength of the social ties, and level of interaction. A social network is usually large (i.e.
On "the invisible rule of proportionate attention in online communication" – Contemplative Computing
I’m off to the Lift conference next week to speak on contemplative computing and the virtues of slowness. While updating my profile and figuring out who else is going to be at the conference, I came across this post on the Lift blog about attention and online communication: For a…
Ironically, Google+ achieves what Facebook failed to: Making people share with the public – Martin Weigert’s thoughts on the social web. And life.
One of the reasons people praise Google+ for are the alleged better tools to protect your privacy. But think about the following: What does usually happen when you try to access a stranger’s Facebook profile? In most cases, you don’t see anything else than the profile photo, some basic information (if shared with the public) and the list of friends.
Google+ Is Everywhere–It’s Creepy | PCWorld
By Tony Bradley, PCWorld Jul 2, 2011 6:11 AM Joining any social network introduces a balancing act of sharing vs. privacy. But, when I joined Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn, they were just Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn. They didn’t take over my computer. Google+ is everywhere.
Life As A Mosaic, Not A Monolith: What Google+ Means | Stowe Boyd
My recent brief experience with Google+ (or plus.google, as the URL says in reverse polish) has led me to some observations about how we might be shifting our personal and collective use of tools, and thereby our sense of self in the increasingly media-augmented world we inhabit.
Google+ and Social Media Elitism – Adriel Nation
So, one of the memes I’m seeing floating around in response to Google+ is how you don’t need to reciprocate when people add you to their circles. Some are saying this is a great thing. Really, social media experts?
Brief thoughts on Google Plus – O’Reilly Radar
The blogosphere is already full with comments and reviews on Google Plus. I won’t try to duplicate what other people have said. I have one very quick reaction, though: I was an early Plus user, just as I was an early Wave user. And there’s one big difference.
The New Fear of Intimacy
I have seen this playing out already, so this is less mad than it might initially seem: I have this feeling that people are going to become more and more wary of direct face-to-face attention because it will seem like its wasted on them if it’s not mediated, not captured somehow in social networks where it has measurable value.
Compare Q&A sites (Quora vs Yahoo Answers vs StackOverflow, TED conversations) | SocialCompare – Comparisons community
Compare Question and Answers sites: Quora vs StackOverflow vs TED conversations vs Yahoo Answers
DIGIDAY:DAILY – Entrepreneurs Should Say No to Silicon Valley’s Bully
As the head of a PR firm that represents tech startups, I’m well aware of the pressure that entrepreneurs face to get attention for their young companies. There’s no question the goal of hundreds, if not thousands, of startups is a profile in TechCrunch.
Resources | MyStrategicPlan Strategy Development & Execution Software
July 6 | 9 a.m. P.T. | Register Now July 13 | 9 a.m. P.T. | Register Now July 27 | 9 a.m. P.T. | Register Now July 28 | 9 a.m. P.T. | Register Now
Reorganized Cities | CMYBacon
French artist Armelle Caron takes maps of cities and reorganizes the individual blocks into ordered rows. The process transforms a chaotic city into a unrecognizable, but systematic assemblage of shapes. I’ll be honest, the sizes of the images below don’t do the designs justice.
StatPlanet Map Maker — Interactive Mapping & Visualization Software
StatPlanet is a browser-based interactive data visualization and mapping application. Use it to easily and rapidly create visualizations from simple Flash maps to advanced infographics. StatPlanet can be freely and easily hosted on your own website. It is lightweight, lightning fast, and makes exploring large data sets easy, fun and highly interactive.
Yellowstone Oil Spill Prompts Evacuations
Matthew Brown, Associated Press LAUREL, Mont. — An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River in Montana ruptured Saturday and leaked hundreds of barrels of oil into the waterway, causing a 25-mile plume that fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts downstream to close intakes.
Terry Gross And Fareed Zakaria | Underpaid Genius
Terry Gross: If the U.S. does not raise its debt ceiling, if we end up defaulting on debts, what impact do you think that would have on the U.S. and the global economy? Mr. ZAKARIA: I tend to think it would be catastrophic.
Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Main Page
Subjects covered by the source texts in each Section.
How Grover Norquist hypnotized the GOP – The Washington Post
At our 25th college reunion in 2003, Grover Norquist – the brain and able spokesman for the radical right – and I, along with other classmates who had been in public or political life, participated in a lively panel discussion about politics.
Help Exchange: free volunteer work exchange abroad Australia New Zealand Canada Europe
HelpX is an online listing of host organic farms, non-organic farms, farmstays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteer helpers to stay with them short-term in exchange for food and accommodation.

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By Greg – July 3, 2011

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