The World, Filtered*

The Value of Design
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/di_special/20100201the_value_of_design.htm

"This Bloomberg/BusinessWeek special report takes a closer look at how design can impact the bottom line of businesses in any industry "

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‘Controlled Serendipity’ Liberates the Web
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/adding-controlled-serendipity-to-the-web/

"When I finish writing this blog post, I will Tweet it.

I will copy this link, go to my Twitter account and spend a minute writing an abbreviated (yet hopefully catchy) description of this piece. And I’ll follow the same actions on Facebook and other social networks.

Then off I go to scour the Web looking for more news to sift through and ration out to my friends and followers — a natural course of action in my day. I spend a considerable amount of time each day looking for interesting angles about technology, news, journalism, design or just the latest comic video to pass along the daisy chain.

Most of us do this to some degree. We are no longer just consumers of content, we have become curators of it too.

If someone approached me even five years ago and explained that one day in the near future I would be filtering, collecting and sharing content for thousands of perfect strangers to read — and doing it for free — I would have responded with a pretty perplexed look. Yet today I can’t imagine living in a world where I don’t filter, collect and share.

More important, I couldn’t conceive of a world of news and information without the aid of others helping me find the relevant links."

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Socccer Ball Generates & Stores Energy
http://springwise.com/non-profit_social_cause/soccket/

"Over 1.5 billion people—one quarter of the world’s population—live in areas with no access to electricity, according to a recent UN report. Capitalizing on a sport's global appeal to address this problem, a group of Harvard University students developed sOccket, a soccer ball that turns energy from a kick into electricity.

The portable energy-harvesting device captures the impact energy normally dissipated when the ball is kicked, storing it to charge lights, cell phones and batteries. It works with inductive coil technology, similar to that found in flashlights that power up when shaken. For each 15 minutes of play, it can store enough energy to power a small LED light for three hours. sOccket could eventually help ease the reliance on toxic kerosene lamps in developing nations, thereby reducing the associated health risks.

Currently in the prototyping stages, sOccket has been successfully piloted in Durban, South Africa, and the development team has plans to market a commercial version of the sOccket in Western countries as a high-end tech toy, possibly using a "buy one-give one" model, to subsidize the cost of distributing sOccket in developing nations. Being an all-in-one soccer ball, portable generator, community builder and global health tool, sOccket is another shining example of the functionall trend covered in our sister site’s latest briefing. sOccket has attracted several development funding grants and is now in the process of developing production and distribution partnerships. One to partner with or otherwise get involved in? "

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Google Docs Evolving Toward Storied GDrive with Access to Any File
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-Docs-Evolving-to-Storied-GDrive-With-All-File-Access-726427/

"Google is making files more universally accessible through Google Docs, letting Google Apps users upload to Docs all file types up to 250MB, including large graphic files, .zip folders, RAW photos or personal videos shot with a smartphone. Essentially, Docs is now a universal storage repository. This proposition is not unlike the long-rumored GDrive, which since 2006 was believed to be as mythical as a unicorn until evidence of it was discovered in a Google Pack file in January 2009. Google denies that this Docs move is a move toward the GDrive."

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Doodle 4 Google
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/doodle-4-google-tell-us-what-you-would.html

"Today, we're excited to announce our third annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles, created by our talented team of doodlers, have helped us celebrate events and anniversaries from Van Gogh's birthday to Valentine's Day. And since 2008, Doodle 4 Google has given K-12 kids the opportunity to create their own logo and have it displayed on the Google homepage for hundreds of millions of users to enjoy for a day.

In addition to the winner's art appearing on Google.com on May 27, 2010, they'll also receive a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop computer and a $25,000 technology grant for their school."

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Tablet + Illustrator: the Case for Electronic Sketching
http://wireframes.linowski.ca/tag/sketch/

"It’s probably nothing new that the sketch has been gaining quite some attention lately as a powerful design tool. Some UI designers have began to precede wireframing and prototyping with free-form pen and paper approaches that afford exploration and support a wider diversity of ideas. For over a year now, in my design process I’ve started doing just the same right after I picked up a set of markers and sketch pads. Looking back, sketching has been wonderful at giving rise to design representations that naturally act as conversation starters and therefore make sketching more so compatible with agile philosophies. However, traditional pen and paper has a few limitations which  over the last few months became noticeable. As a reaction to this, I grabbed an Intuos 3 from Wacom, installed Adobe Illustrator and began sketching electronically using a pen and tablet. Finding the new approach superior, I have doubts I’ll ever go back to paper and wanted to share some of the reasons why."

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Crowdsourcing is Broken: How to Fix It

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2010/id20100122_047502.htm

Don't get me wrong. This is not another whining diatribe against the perils of crowdsourcing. But without new business models and core principles that leverage these forces in a way that empowers its participants, the opportunity is likely to implode. Those involved need to innovate and start harnessing the crowd in more mutually beneficial (and thus sustainable) ways."

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20 User Experience Books you should own
http://www.uxbydesign.org/2009/06/24/20-user-experience-books-you-should-own/

"These highly recommended user experience books cover everything from user research and interface design, to information architecture and UX strategy. If you’re really serious about your career as a user experience professional, these books should be the cornerstone of your personal library."

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Gandhi's Hookworms
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/21/gandhis_hookworms

"Toward the end of his life, Mohandas Gandhi suffered from a hookworm infection. This disease, caused by blood-feeding worms in his intestine, is associated with severe anemia, lethargy, and fatigue. The fact that Gandhi's vigorous efforts to wage peace in India may have been slowed because of hookworms is only one of the more dramatic examples of the deep connection between medical health and the promotion of international peace and security.

Today almost all of the 1.4 billion people who live below the World Bank's poverty line are infected with hookworms or related parasites. Taken together, there are seven high-prevalence Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) that particularly afflict low- and middle-income countries: six parasitic worm infections, which each afflict up to 1 billion people, and a bacterial infection known as blinding trachoma, which infects 60 to 80 million people.

In addition to their disproportionate impact on the poor, NTDs differ from the type of infections common in the developed world because, in the absence of treatment, they can persist for years or decades. NTDs produce chronic and disabling effects on child development and farm worker productivity, and they increase the risks of pregnancy. In doing so, these infections actually trap people in poverty -- chronic hookworm infections in childhood reduce cognition, school performance, and future wage-earning potential by 40 percent or more."

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The Contact Sheet from AMMO Books
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/01/the-contact-sheet-from-ammo-books.html

"There are lots of different ways to look at the work of other photographers. Exhibitions or books by their nature tend to be (or at least should be!) tightly edited demonstrations of their best work. But it's also very instructive seeing how a photographer actually works: how he or she arrives at the final image, starting from what we'd now call "original capture." Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans provides a very detailed look inside the editing and sequencing of Frank's landmark book, starting from thousands of negatives. Great stuff. Well, how about something along those lines looking at the work of a wider range of photographers?

The Contact Sheet provides a brief look into the editing process for more than forty highly accomplished photographers. Each section includes a biographical paragraph, followed by the photographer's comments on their working style, and sometimes specific observations about the session depicted. The text is followed by a reproduction of a contact sheet, group of slides or negatives from the session. Lastly there is a full page reproduction of the resulting photograph—many of them well known or even iconic."

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10 RSS Feeds for Design and Development Job Seekers
http://sixrevisions.com/resources/10-rss-feeds-for-design-and-development-job-seekers/

"In the current economy, there are millions of people looking for work, and designers and developers are no exception. Some people are looking for full-time employment and others for freelance opportunities, but whatever the case may be, industry-specific job boards can be a great source for opportunities."

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Sustainable Schooling: Brooklyn’s Edible Schoolyard
http://www.psfk.com/2010/01/sustainable-schooling-brooklyns-edible-schoolyard.html

"Students at PS206 in Brooklyn, New York will have a very unique schoolyard to look forward to.

Work AC, Edible Schoolyard NY and the Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation are designing an edible schoolyard which will combine a large garden with a network of sustainable systems.

The facility will produce it’s own energy and heat, collect rainwater and process compost for use in the garden. A 1600 square foot greenhouse will enable students to continue growing into the cold season."

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Board Game Stimulates sustanable (re) thinking
http://springwise.com/eco_sustainability/playrethink/

"Games have long been used as an educational tool, and not just for kids. Canadian Akoha, for example, encourages players to be more kind. Now, along similar lines, Play Rethink invites users to redesign everyday objects to make them more sustainable.

Play Rethink ("The Eco-Design Game") is an effort from London-based Rethink Games to help people think—or rethink—how to make everyday objects and services more socially and environmentally friendly. Each game includes a multicoloured wheel and 98 drawing cards along with an eco-strategies key card and an instruction sheet with activities. With each spin of the wheel, players get a card asking them to rethink a particular everyday object, such as a chair or a vacuum cleaner. They then describe their idea for a more sustainable approach by drawing it on the card. Ideas players are particularly proud of can be uploaded onto the Play Rethink website, where others can rate, comment and be inspired by them. What's more, each month Rethink Games selects one idea to serve as the project of the month, and it's currently working on setting up partnerships with organizations that can help develop those ideas further. Play Rethink is sold online and through select London retailers. Pricing is GBP 24.95, with refill card packs available for GBP 5.95 each. Corporate workshops to help promote innovation are also available."

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The Story of Stuff Project
http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Annie Leonard is back with a new animation - this time looking at the Story of Cap and Trade.  Take a look.  Two other animations are also on there way - The Story of Bottled Water and The Story of Electronics

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Wired Kids, Negligent Parents?
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/wired-kids-negligent-parents/

"Young Americans from the ages of 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day on average using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device. On top of that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation study released last week detailing these habits, many children are electronic multitaskers — surfing the Web, for example, while listening to music or watching TV.
If American parents are distressed by these findings, why don’t they do anything to change their children’s behavior? Are they being inattentive, or even negligent? Or is the portrait of media overload more complicated yet less daunting than it seems?"

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Pee-wee Gets An iPad!

"Pee wee Herman shows his new Apple iPad to the playhouse gang"

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Twelve Resolutions on How to Be a Mensch
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/twelve-resolutions-on-how-to-be-a-mensch-guy-kawasaki

"Bruna Martinuzzi is an expert in leadership and presentation skills. Her latest book The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow explains how to become the kind of person others want to follow. Here is her list for twelve New Year’s resolutions to make you a mensch in 2010."

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D.School Bootcamp Bootleg
http://dschool.typepad.com/news/2009/12/the-bootcamp-bootleg-is-here.html

"The d.school Bootcamp teaching team has curated a loose collection of the methods, modes and mindsets that Bootcamp students found most useful this quarter. The Bootcamp Bootleg is intended for people who've already had an introduction to design thinking, but who need some refreshers as they head out to tackle real-world challenges. The teaching team curated the collection by leveraging the work of many predecessors, drawing from material developed by d.school teaching teams and folks throughout the design world over the last five years.

The key to the bootleg is to take it out and make it your own! If one method isn't working for you, toss it. If it works, pass it along to another design thinker. If you find a variation that works for you, tweak it and then tell us about it.  We’re excited to hear from you.

Happy d.thinking!"

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Bob Noorda Dies, Re-Designed NYC Subway Signs
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/william-bostwick/architecture-design/bob-noorda-dies-re-designed-nyc-subway-signs

"Bob Noorda, who redesigned the New York City subway system with Massimo Vignelli, died earlier this month. Noorda and Vignelli founded Unimark International in 1965 (Noorda was based in Milan, Vignelli in Chicago), the firm you can blame, or credit, with making Helvetica one of the most widely used typefaces on earth. "Don't bore the public with mysterious designs," Noorda said, and so we have his 1966 New York subway signage, as simple as it gets, and still in use today."

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Zoomable Paper Maps
http://www.ideaconnection.com/new-inventions/zoomable-paper-maps-03240.html

"This clever concept allows you to "zoom in" to an area of the city by unfolding a corner of the map, which shows you a detailed view of the area.

The London map has an index for streets, stations and places of interest, and an official tube map. The street map shows all underground lines and the location of 100+ museums, galleries, sights.

It is printed on tear-resistant paper, and comes with its own clear PVC wallet"

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Boogie Board
http://www.myboogieboard.com/index.html

"The next time you reach for a piece of paper and a pen – Don’t! Grab a Boogie Board instead, the tree-friendly alternative to memo pads, sketchbooks, sticky notes, dry erase boards and other writing/drawing mediums that can be re-used over 50,000 times!"

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Architect, or Whatever
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/garden/21architects.html

"AT the Ballard Farmers’ Market in Seattle on a recent weekend, passers-by could be forgiven for thinking John Morefield was running for political office. Smiling, waving and calling out hellos to everyone who walked by his stand, he was the picture of friendliness. All he needed was campaign buttons and fliers.

In fact, Mr. Morefield, 29, is no politician, but an architectural designer looking for work. He was seated at a homemade wooden stand under a sign reading “Architecture 5¢,” with a tin can nearby awaiting spare change. For a nickel, he would answer any architectural question.

In 2008, Mr. Morefield lost his job — twice — and thought he could ride out the recession doing design work for friends and family, but when those jobs dried up, he set up his stand. As someone in his 20s without many contacts or an extensive portfolio, he thought he might have an easier time finding clients on his own.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Mr. Morefield said. “I had no other option. The recession was a real kick in the shorts, and I had to make this work.”

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Jyoti Basu, Leader of Communists in India, Dies at 95
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/world/asia/18basu.html

"Jyoti Basu, a powerful leftist leader who dominated politics in the state of West Bengal for more than two decades and nearly became India’s first Communist prime minister, died in Calcutta on Sunday. He was 95.

Mr. Basu’s stature in West Bengal was evident in a huge public outpouring of concern in recent days as his health steadily deteriorated. Anxious crowds gathered outside his Calcutta hospital, local newspapers carried front page updates on his condition and a litany of leading Indian politicians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, made calls to him. He died of multiple organ failure, according to Indian news reports.

Mr. Basu was known as a savvy political survivor, skilled at building coalitions and forging consensus, whose biggest policy initiatives were sweeping land reforms in West Bengal. The initiatives distributed land to more than two million landless families and, in turn, established a leftist coalition known as the Left Front that dominated state politics for three decades until showing recent signs of weakening."

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3 Tools to Sync Your Files with Google Docs
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/3_tools_to_sync_your_files_with_google_docs.php

"When Google announced an upgrade to their Google Docs service earlier this month, a company blog post also mentioned several third-party applications which can help make the transition to the online service easier. With these apps, you can transfer and synchronize your local files to Google Docs without having to upload them one-by-one. But which application is right for you?

We took a look at the options Google suggested and have summarized the features, drawbacks and pricing information below. In addition, we also reviewed one other application not specifically mentioned in the Google blog post that may be of use to those moving to the cloud-based service."

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Skydiver Felix Baumgartner seeks to break sound barrier
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8475288.stm

"It is 50 years since the American Joe Kittinger made history by leaping from a balloon at 102,800ft (31km).

Many have sought to repeat the feat down the decades but all have failed.

Baumgartner, who is famous for stunts such as jumping off the Petronas Towers, aims to skydive from a balloon sent to at least 120,000 ft (37km).
It is likely that in his long freefall of more than five minutes, he will exceed the speed of sound - the first person to do so without the aid of a machine.

"No-one really knows what that will be like," he said."

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Generation M2: Understanding the Multimedia Teen
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/generation_m2_understanding_the_multimedia_teen.php

"If you've spent any time trying to talk to a teenager lately, then the latest numbers on how much time they spend with their nose buried in a glowing screen of some sort will come as no surprise. Whether it's text messaging, Tweeting, watching YouTube videos on their iPhone, lurking on a social networking site like Myspace or Facebook or doing something as old-fashioned as watching TV, teens are spending more time than ever before consuming some sort of media.

According to a study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation, those between the ages of eight and 18 devote just under eight hours a day to media consumption and, depending on how you look at it, that may be the least surprising of the numbers.

The study consists of a survey of 2,002 3rd to 12th graders, ages eight to 18, with 700 of those respondents filling out a "media-use diary" for seven days. From these diaries, it found that respondents used media for an average of seven hours and 38 minutes during the survey period. However, due to multi-tasking - for instance texting while watching TV - teens actually crammed 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption into those approximately seven and a half hours.

What's even more notable about these numbers is that the average teen has increased their media consumption by nearly two-and-a-quarter hours since the last survey, which was conducted in 2004."

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Top 10 Online Small Business Collaboration Tools
http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2010/01/top-10-online-collaboration-to.php

"With the growing number of online services, it's becoming more economical for small business to rely on web-based tools rather than expensive enterprise software. Not too long ago we brought you 5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized, and now the website Business Pundit has released their top 10 list of online collaboration tools for small businesses.

Call it Web 2.0, or Enterprise 2.0; the fact of the matter is that online services just make more sense for businesses on a budget. Because these software platforms are web-based, users can use any computer to access them at work, at home or even on the road. They eliminate the need for expensive software and fewer IT employees are required for setup, updates and patches to systems.

Considering these benefits of online tools, Business Pundit's list of collaborative services is an excellent resource for startups and small businesses looking to save some cash while still getting things done as efficiently as possible.

Topping their list is OfficeMedium, a service we profiled last fall which provides a wide variety of collaborative features wrapped up in an elegantly designed interface. With live chat, user profiles, polls and calendars, OfficeMedium is a social collaboration network for your company."

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If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html

"The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.
And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours."

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5 Reasons to Ditch Your Digital SLR
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/five-reasons-you-should-ditch-your-dslr

"There’s a new camera category in town. It’s EVIL, and it’s going to kick your DSLR’s ass. EVIL stands for Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens, and is our favorite acronym for cameras like the Olympus Pen, the Lumix GF1 and the Samsung NX10. These small, mirrorless, finderless cameras can fit in a pocket and outperform bulky DSLRs. Here’s why your next camera will probably be EVIL."

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Unrealized projects
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/unrealized-projects.html

"When I was at MOMA last week, I saw a list of director and artist Tim Burton's projects. Here's the guy who's responsible for some of the most breathtaking movies of his generation, and the real surprise is this: almost every year over the last thirty, he worked on one or more exciting projects that were never green lighted and produced. Every year, he spent an enormous amount of time on failed projects."

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Attack code used to hack Google now public
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9145478/Attack_code_used_to_hack_Google_now_public

"The dangerous Internet Explorer attack code used in last month's attack on Google's corporate networks is now public.

The code was submitted for analysis Thursday on the Wepawet malware analysis Web site, making it publicly available. By Friday, it had been included in at least one publicly available hacking tool and could be seen in online attacks, according to Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee.

The attack is very reliable on Internet Explorer 6 running on Windows XP, and it could possibly be modified to work on more recent versions of the browser, Marcus said. "The game really changes now that it's hosted publicly," he said."

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7 Tips To Transform Leadership
http://www.leadership-expert.co.uk/7-tips-to-transform-leadership/

"A leader can take several forms in a number of different commercial situations, often when a person isn’t even “the one in charge”. If you find yourself in a group with tight deadline to meet, with no obvious leader around, the one who needs to be the boss just might be you. When this happens, what should you do and NOT do?

When people normally think of a leader in business they think of the cliche ‘boss’, but being a leader doesn’t require a fancy title, official recognition, and certainly not a specified background. In reality, leadership simple requires one individual to stand up, assert authority, and enable the team to achieve the target set.

How can someone who has not been anointed or appointed accomplish this? Here are some brilliant tips for those who suddenly find themselves in an position requiring unofficial leadership to be asserted:"

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100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
http://www.linkedintelligence.com/smart-ways-to-use-linkedin/

"No matter how much I know about using LinkedIn, 10 million users (or some subset thereof) are collectively going to know a whole lot more about it than I do. In May 2007, I kicked off a group writing project called “Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn”. What follows are the results of that project, plus some writings of my own, plus various blog posts and a couple of articles that fit the intent of this collection. It is a dynamic, growing collection, so if you have anything you would like to add, please contact me and I’ll add it."

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“The Big Lebowski” + Shakespeare = “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski”
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/01/08/the-big-lebowski-shakespeare-two-gentlemen-of-lebowski/

"At first glance, the Coen Brother’s 1998 cult classic “The Big Lebowski” has nothing to do with William Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” The former is a quirky surrealist film involving bowling, porn starlets and nihilists, while the latter is a minor work by the Bard about the silly actions of men (and women) in love. But look a little closer, suggests 27-year-old Adam Bertocci, author of “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski,” a literary mashup that re-imagines the Coen Brother’s film in iambic pentameter.

“Shakespeare’s themes, like profanity and sexual humor, are certainly present in the Coen’s work,” said the Bronxville-based filmmaker/editor. “And in ‘The Big Lebowski’ in particular, there are a lot of Shakespearean references.”

Bertocci first came up for the idea for the “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski” — which reimages Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski as Geoffry “The Knave” Lebowski — last November. He was brainstorming and posting funny faux-Shakespearean translations to his Facebook status page, when he realized that a full-written script would be an excellent publicity stunt to raise awareness for his own unpublished screenplays. So in mid-December, he banged out his “Lebowski” mashup in a weekend and spent the next couple of weeks honing the language."

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Alpha Energy completes largest solar carport in the US
http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/alpha-energy-completes-largest-solar-carport-in-the-us/

"A massive 1MV grid-connected solar power system is ready to supply power to the auction facility in Bordentown, NJ. The system is said to be the largest solar powered carport structure in the United States. Constructed in an area of 13,000 square meters, this carport includes 5,880 solar panels of 170W capacity. The whole panel structure is connected through 11 separate inverters to ensure that removing a single solar array does not disturb the entire energy supply. This means even in situations when one of the solar arrays is unable to supply electricity, the rest of the system can supply 90% of the total energy to the carport."

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World's only bicycle lift is in Norway
http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/_archives/2007/4/16/2883576.html

"Need a lift? An actual bicycle lift in the city of Trondheim, Norway, has provided cyclists with a little boost to the top of a steep hill in the historical part of town since the mid-1990s.

The owner and inventor of the bicycle lift, Design Management AS, says it's the only one in the world. Nearly a quarter-million people have used the lift since testing began in 1993, and the rate has increased to 20,000 to 30,000 a year.

About half of the passengers are college students who attend University of Trondheim at the top of the 425-foot-long hill, and 41% of the users say they ride a bicycle more often because of the lift. The city is the third largest in Norway, but it has the highest number of bicyclists.'

Note: Way Cool!

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A Facebook Movement, Against Mom and Dad
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/nyregion/16bigcity.html?hp

"They feel her pain. At the Spence School and Greenwich High and Fullerton Union High and Nyack High and Narragansett High, teenagers and near-teenagers, hundreds of them, are waving a virtual flag for Tess Chapin, a 15-year-old from Sunnyside, Queens, who has been grounded for five weeks. A few days after founding the Facebook group — “1000 to get tess ungrounded” — Tess had nearly reached her stated goal, with 806 members by Friday morning; after this column about her quest was posted on nytimes.com, she surpassed it.

This is teenage rebellion, electronic style — peaceful, organized and, apparently, contagious.

So basically, Tess explains on her group page, she made an honest late-night mistake. Her parents flipped, and they grounded her for five weeks — “thats my childhood right there,” she wrote. “please join so I can convice them to unground me. please please please.”

On Monday, the official start of what Tess calls her “groundation,” she circulated a petition during sixth period and after school at Millennium High School in Lower Manhattan, where she is a sophomore. At a friend’s suggestion, once she got home, Tess put the petition online by starting the Facebook group, which she categorized under Organizations: Advocacy. The group promptly took off, proving that no adolescent experience, in the age of social networking, is too small to start a movement."

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Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/haiti-disaster-relief-how-to-contribute/

"For readers interested in contributing to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti, here is a list of contact information and links for some agencies that plan to provide relief.

Including: "Text the word “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 On behalf of the Red Cross in the U.S.".

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The Tel Aviv Cluster
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12brooks.html

" Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots. Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far. It leads the world in civilian research-and-development spending per capita. It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq. Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.

As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.

Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well. The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending. Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term. Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa."

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Toilet converts Waste to Fertilizer
http://www.ideaconnection.com/new-inventions/toilet-converts-waste-to-fertilizer-03189.html

"Poosh is a bucket-mounted toilet that converts human waste into fertilizer. A biodegradable bag collects the waste. The bag is treated with a chemical that speeds up decomposition.

After about two weeks, one bag of waste will produce a mound of rich fertilizer that can be added to crops"

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"Smart" pasting at The New Yorker site
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2087-smart-pasting-at-the-new-yorker-site

"Interesting: When you copy text from a New Yorker article and paste it somewhere else, it automatically includes a “Read more: URL” at end of paste"

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Google May Insert Real-Time Ads Onto Old Billboards in Street View
http://gizmodo.com/5446271/google-may-insert-real+time-ads-onto-old-billboards-in-street-view

"All those outdated billboards in Google Street View aren't just an eyesore; they're a waste of a money-making opportunity for the big G, apparently. But not for long.

Google's filed a patent entitled "Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising," and it should allow them to automagically cut out billboards shown in Street View and replace them with their own current ads.

In theory, this would be done in concert with whoever owns the space, so a theater owner could keep the posters out front up to date at all times. This seems to be the only way for Google to get away with doing this, as if they suddenly started sticking ads on other people's property without their permission, things could get ugly fast."

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China Snaps Up California Solar Market
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/china-snaps-up-california-solar-market/

"China’s rise as a major solar module maker has been meteoric, but perhaps nowhere has its ascension been faster than in California, the United States’ largest solar market.

Over the last three years, China’s share of the California market, in terms of supplied megawatts, has risen to 46 percent, from 2 percent, according to a preliminary report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research and consulting firm.

At the same time, the share supplied in California by American companies has declined to 16 percent, from 43 percent.

“The ascendancy of Chinese manufacturers would be noteworthy regardless of market conditions, but is particularly telling in a time when purse-strings are still tight,” the report said."

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An Introduction to Website Split Testing
http://sixrevisions.com/user-interface/an-introduction-to-website-split-testing/

"In website split testing (also known as A/B testing), a software application splits the traffic between two or more variants of the same web page, measuring whether there is a difference in the effectiveness of that page in achieving the website’s goals. Every time a visitor takes the desired action on a website, such as making a purchase or submitting a form, it is called a conversion."

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This Caffeine Poster Charts Your Morning Buzz
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ben-paynter/ben-paynter/caffeine-charting-your-morning-buzz

"Ever wonder why the guy who brings in Starbucks each morning seems to be about twice as perky as those schmucks toting plastic tumblers from Dunkin' Donuts or McDonald's? The answer: not all java is brewed equal. According to the chart above, one 16-ounce cup of Starbucks has more than 250 milligrams of caffeine--almost double the amount of its contemporaries.

Though the chart itself has some flaws--the numbers aren't adjusted to account for equal serving sizes, for instance--it allows you to make some simple guestimates about the effectiveness of your brand of go-juice. Most importantly, it tells you how many espressos (or Jolts or NOS's if want to be laughed out of the boardroom) it takes to turn counter productive; Jitters occur around 300 mgs."

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Caught in the Web
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703652104574652341134015738.html

"Ever since the Internet began to make its way into everyday life—beginning roughly in the early 1990s—commentators have worried over its cultural effects, fearing isolation, regimentation, a loss of privacy or a loss of sustained thought. Back then, Jaron Lanier was one of the pioneers of immersive virtual worlds and helped to popularize the term "virtual reality." Those were the days when the Web's promise seemed bright and limitless. Mr. Lanier was one of its champions. Now, as experience has set in, his outlook is decidedly gloomier. In "You Are Not a Gadget," he sounds an alarm about the social-media technologies of the so-called Web 2.0, arguing that they reduce individuals to mere cogs in a mob-based, crowd-sourced apparatus. "Technology criticism," he says in defense of his own role in this debate, "shouldn't be left to the Luddites."

Mr. Lanier calls his book a manifesto, but it reads more like a collection of columns and notebook entries loosely organized around a central theme. More than anything else, he worries that those whom he calls "the lords of the cloud"—huge entities such as Google and Facebook—constrict their users, creating online environments in which true individuality is curtailed in favor of the extraction of marketing data and other intelligence. The practice is not only unfair and confining, he says, but perhaps even dangerous. "Emphasizing the crowd," Mr. Lanier writes, "means de-emphasizing individual humans . . . and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad moblike behaviors." At the very least current Web arrangements encourage a shallow, lemming-like conformity of judgment."

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Indian-Chinese Cuisine: Of Spice And Zen
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122497091

"If I had to pick my last meal, the dishes would all be Indian-Chinese: chicken Manchurian (batter-fried chicken served in a spicy chili-and-soy sauce), Sichuan paneer (Indian cheese with Chinese spices), Indian-Chinese fried rice, and a dried green chili chicken. These dishes don't come from a cuisine that I dreamed up, but from one very popular in India called Indian-Chinese. It is much spicier than the milder Cantonese Chinese food that most Americans are familiar with. Almost any menu in an everyday eatery in Delhi and Mumbai will list several Indian-Chinese dishes. On our family trips to Mumbai, the first meal we eat out is not traditional Indian, but Indian-Chinese.

The Chinese have been residents of India for more than two centuries. India's largest Chinese population has historically been in Calcutta, a populous city in eastern India. The Hakka, early settlers from southern China, brought with them the traditional styles of Cantonese and Hakka cooking. They assimilated into the local culture, and their cooking took on local Indian flavors. The result is a satisfying hybrid cuisine, created from two very different communities and food cultures."

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At a Mighty 104, Gone While Still Going Strong
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/nyregion/12ironman.html

"Joe Rollino once lifted 475 pounds. He used neither his arms nor his legs but, reportedly, his teeth. With just one finger he raised up 635 pounds; with his back he moved 3,200. He bit down on quarters to bend them with his thumb.

People called him the Great Joe Rollino, the Mighty Joe Rollino and even the World’s Strongest Man, and what did it matter if at least one of those people was Mr. Rollino himself.

On Monday morning, Mr. Rollino went for a walk in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a daily routine. It was part of the Great Joe Rollino’s greatest feat, a display of physical dexterity and stamina so subtle that it revealed itself only if you happened to ask him his date of birth: March 19, 1905. He was 104 years old and counting."

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Graphical World Progress Report – A Sneak Peek
http://flowingdata.com/2010/01/07/graphical-world-progress-report-a-sneak-peek/

"FYI: A new edition on the current state of the world is coming soon from FlowingPrints. "

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The How-To Guide to Innovation
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ben-paynter/ben-paynter/how-guide-innovation

"Calling someone a "creative type" these days would be a misnomer. That implies that creativity is an innate personality trait, whereas it may really be just a lesser taught school of thought, according to Jeffrey Dyer, a professor at Brigham Young University's School of Management, who just finished a study on how innovation at top companies actually works.

Fittingly, Dyer's methodology wasn't super creative. He interviewed magnates like Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, and Michael Dell to find commonalities in their thought processes about business strategy and product development. Then, Dyer surveyed a troop of 3,500 top executives who had either founded innovative companies or launched gotta-have-it products to figure out which traits widely matched. The result is a practical five-step manual to thinking outside the box."

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Founding Prodigy Chief Created Online Services for Consumers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126335118860527243.html

"After selling and manufacturing some of the first business computers, Theodore Papes helped create one of the earliest online services for consumers.

Mr. Papes, who died Jan. 8 at the age of 81, led the development of Prodigy Services Co., a digital enterprise that provided online news, email, shopping and other services years before the World Wide Web."

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