The World, Filtered*

Interesting Reading: Ideas & Images 

Interesting Reading: 12/8

Pixel Qi Getting Screens Ready for “Specialized Tablets”
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/12/07/pixel-qi-getting-screens-ready-for-specialized-tablets

“Pixel Qi (the Qi is pronounced chee) is getting ready to see its screens hit the market in what they are calling “specialized tablets” with multi-touch.  The screen technology provides both a color LCD and an eInk view that makes it readable in direct sunlight. Now word yet on what devices these will be unveiled on, but the company is saying that they and that company will be at CES2010.”

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Bing Maps Rolls Out Enhanced Aerial and Street-Level Views

http://www.coolbuster.net/2009/12/bing-maps-aerial-street-level-views.html

“Bing Maps has overhauled its experience to better reflect how people are using the Web to complete tasks and make decisions. The new Bing Maps Beta adds an immersive new viewing mode and an “application gallery” to further enhance its virtual perspective of the world,Microsoft announced Wednesday.


Blaise Aguera y Arcas, architect of Bing Maps, shares an inside look at the technology powering the new, multi-dimensional Bing Maps Streetside feature.

Bing Maps now offers a Streetside and enhanced aerial view, giving users the ability to explore what’s around them from the street level or from the sky looking down.

The new Bing Maps incorporates several key Microsoft technologies, including Silverlight, a multimedia Web application, and Photosynth, an application from Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington that can stitch photos together, turning them into a three-dimensional model.

The new features mean Bing Maps users can now zoom in, out and around; view a location from the street level or from above; seamlessly rotate 360 degrees in one spot; view location-related content while searching an area; and even upload their own synths of a location to be integrated into a map.”

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Net-Map Toolbox

http://netmap.ifpriblog.org/about/

“Net-Map is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes (Net-Map Brochure: 679 KB). By creating Influence Network Maps, individuals and groups can clarify their own view of a situation, foster discussion, and develop a strategic approach to their networking activities. More specifically, Net-Map helps players to determine

  • what actors are involved in a given network,
  • how they are linked,
  • how influential they are, and
  • what their goals are.

Determining linkages, levels of influence, and goals allows users to be more strategic about how they act in these complex situations. It helps users to answer questions such as: Do you need to strengthen the links to an influential potential supporter (high influence, same goals)? Do you have to be aware of an influential actor who doesn’t share your goals? Can increased networking help empower your dis-empowered beneficiaries?
The tool is low-tech and low-cost and can be used when working with rural community members with low formal education as well as with policy makers or international development actors.”

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Putting a Bar Code on Places, Not Just Products
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/putting-a-bar-code-on-places-not-just-products/?ref=technology

“If you walk past the gift shop of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, or Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles, or Cheeseburger Baby in Miami, the chances are that you will see a sticker in the window that has a Google Maps logo and a one-inch-square with a series of pixelated black-and-white cubes called a QR Code.

In the coming weeks, Google plans to send out 100,000 of these stickers, each with their own QR code, to a new demographic of businesses Google is calling “Favorite Places”. These favorites are based on search results from users interacting with local business listings on Google Maps.”

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At Moma

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Interesting Reading: 12/7

Clarence Petty, Protector of the Adirondacks, Dies at 104
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/science/earth/06petty.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

“Clarence Petty, who so revered the pristine Adirondack wilderness he first roamed nearly a century ago that he spent virtually all his adult life fighting to preserve it, died Monday at his home in Canton, N.Y., a town tucked between the Adirondack foothills and the St. Lawrence River Valley. He was 104.”

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Pictory
http://www.pictorymag.com/notes

“I love photography. Few things make me happier than a beautiful image—online or in print. That said, I’ve become a little complacent about some photos. The Internet is brimming with eye candy, but the vast majority of these images have lost their original context. Photo credits are rare and captions usually garbled, so I find myself often wondering: Who made this? What does it mean? The forces of the Internet can sometimes turn good work into confusing shrapnel

I hope to do the opposite with Pictory. I want to collect images and stories directly from their sources: the people who create them. And then I want to make the best work that much better by editing, proofing, and compiling submissions into glossy online showcases. Big images. Careful details. Practical design. Credit and context.

Maybe it’s a new model for online magazines. Or, maybe it’s just the best I can do from my living room.
In any case, it’s a humble start, and it needs you. Enjoy the features, share Pictory with your friends, submit to the themes, and don’t be afraid to tell me what you think the site needs.”

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Cheap and Simple Credit Card Processing for Everyone

http://springwise.com/financial_services/square/

“An entrepreneur may have the best product in the world, but if he or she doesn't accept credit cards, it can be a problem. That's something St. Louis glass artist Jim McKelvey learned the hard way, and it's also why he was inspired to create Square.

Cofounded with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Square lets small business owners begin accepting payment cards immediately without the contracts, expensive hardware, monthly fees or hidden costs that are typically required. Using Square's intuitive app and a small plastic device that plugs into a mobile phone's audio input jack, payment cards can be swiped and read anywhere. Customers can have receipts sent to them via email or mobile phone and then access them securely online; they can also use text messaging to authorize every payment in real-time. For those who create a Square account, meanwhile, there's faster transaction processing and the option of photo verification. Now in limited beta, Square will donate a penny from every transaction to the cause of the user's choice. It will be widely available in early 2010. The reader devices will likely be free, while the app will cost about USD 1, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Similar in many ways to ProcessAway, which we covered earlier this year, Square promises to open up a whole new world of opportunity for sellsumers and minipreneurs. One to get in on early?”

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Foursquare Makes Geotagging Generous, Points to Charity's AR Future

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/foursquare-makes-geotagging-generous-points-charitys-ar-future

“Foursquare's already a technology to keep your eye on if you're interested in geotagging, augmented reality, social gaming, and hyper-local ads, but it's just added a new attraction just in time for the Holidays: Charity, for New York players at least.

In a blog post today, Foursquare's team note that they are "super excited" about the new deal. For about a month the company has been looking for a sponsor for its New York City leaderboard--the table by which New York-based Foursquare players work out how well they're doing compared to the other players of the location-based pseudo-AR game. Now they've teamed up with Pepsi, but there's an unexpectedly sweet pay-off from what sounds like just another business ad-sponsorship scheme.”

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Google’s Checkbook Opens Up Again, This Time for Collaboration Start-Up AppJet

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091204/googles-checkbook-opens-up-again-this-time-for-do/

“Google, which has bought five companies in five months, just made it an even half-dozen: The company has snapped up AppJet, an online collaboration start-up run by veterans of the search giant. That’s CEO Aaron Iba on the right, in a photo presumably taken after the deal closed.
Google hasn’t even acknowledged the purchase yet–AppJet announced it on its blog–but when it does, I don’t expect to see a purchase price. AppJet, which hatched out of the Y Combinator incubator a couple years ago, has raised a reported $700,000 in angel funding, which means that whatever price Google (GOOG) paid won’t be material enough to require a disclosure.

AppJet says it will be working on Google’s Wave platform/product/whatever it is, which so far seems to be popular in concept but baffling in execution. Just below is an AppJet-produced video explaining its EtherPad word processing program, which allows for real-time collaboration.”

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FLYP Media

http://www.flypmedia.com/

“FLYP uses an innovative palette of online tools and Web 2.0 user functionality to provide an engaging and enriching multimedia experience. We approach the Internet as a new medium—not just a new distribution channel—and we strive for a form of journalism that fulfills its possibilities on topics that range from politics and science to art and music.

Combining high-quality text, video, animation and design, FLYP goes against the here-today-gone-tomorrow tendency of journalism on the Internet. Our biweekly issues full of stories on topics ranging from politics and science to art and music are meant to be experienced, and not just read. Merging the best characteristics of print journalism with appealing interactivity, FLYP tries to offer up a dynamic magazine.”

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Interesting Reading: 12/4

India's Next Global Export: Innovation
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2009/id2009121_864965.htm

“On a November afternoon, a dozen executives from companies including investment banks Rothschild and Goldman Sachs (GS) and tech research firm Gartner (IT) ringed a conference table in a brownstone on New York's Upper East Side. They were there to learn how U.S. businesses could develop products more cheaply and quickly by borrowing strategies from India. Speaker Navi Radjou, who heads the recently formed Centre for India & Global Business at England's Cambridge University, summed up his advice in one word: jugaad.

A Hindi slang word, jugaad (pronounced "joo-gaardh") translates to an improvisational style of innovation that's driven by scarce resources and attention to a customer's immediate needs, not their lifestyle wants. It captures how Tata Group, Infosys Technologies (INFY), and other Indian corporations have gained international stature. The term seems likely to enter the lexicon of management consultants, mingling with Six Sigma, total quality, lean, and kaizen, the Japanese term for continuous improvement.”

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Best New Year's Resolution? A 'Stop Doing' List
http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/best-new-years.html

“Each time the New Year rolls around and I sit down to do my annual resolutions, I reflect back to a lesson taught me by a remarkable teacher. In my mid-20s, I took a course on creativity and innovation from Rochelle Myers and Michael Ray at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and I kept in touch with them after I graduated.

One day, Rochelle pointed to my ferocious work pace and said, "I notice, Jim, that you are a rather undisciplined person."
I was stunned and confused. After all, I was the type of person who carefully laid out my BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), top three objectives and priority activities at the start of each New Year. I prided myself on the ability to work relentlessly toward those objectives, applying the energy I'd inherited from my prairie- stock grandmother.

"Your genetic energy level enables your lack of discipline," Rochelle continued. "Instead of leading a disciplined life, you lead a busy life."
She then gave me what I came to call the 20-10 assignment. It goes like this: Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than 10 years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular, what would you stop doing?”

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India Announces Improved Cook Stove Program

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010842.html

“India revealed a program today to provide efficient cooking stoves to rural areas in an effort to reduce air pollution and a major contributor to climate change.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy announced the National Biomass Cook-stoves Initiative, a series of pilot projects that seeks to improve stove efficiency for individual households.

The program, if implemented properly, could provide a quick solution to short-lived pollutants that contribute to the greenhouse gas effect and are responsible for millions of premature deaths across India.

The government has not yet established targets for implementing the cookstove program. "We are trying to put together a plan first and test it out because we don't want to set up targets right at the outset and then not be able to meet them," said Shyam Saran, the prime minister's special envoy on climate change, according to the Press Trust of India.

An estimated 826 million Indians depend on simple cook stoves that burn solid fuel, mainly fuelwood or coal. When households are filled with smoke from inefficient stoves, the toxic soot can increase the risks of developing pneumonia, cataracts, and tuberculosis.”

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New York City’s First ‘Zero Energy Building’ Coming to the Red Hook Section of Brooklyn

http://www.redhookgreen.com/

“Designs for New York’s first sustainable zero-energy, live/work building are nearing completion, with ground-breaking scheduled for February and completion planned for summer 2010.  This structure is expected to become a distinctive new addition to the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

As defined by the US Department of Energy, “a net zero-energy building (ZEB) is a residential or commercial building with greatly reduced energy needs through efficiency gains such that the balance of energy needs can be supplied with renewable technologies.”  Basically the ZEB concept is the idea that buildings can meet all their energy needs from low-cost, locally available, nonpolluting, renewable sources such as solar or wind power.

This approximately 4,000 square foot facility will house a studio/workshop, offices for a digital business, garages and an apartment, as well as outdoor green space. The form of the house is inspired by the shipping containers stacked along the adjacent waterfront. Modular units, proportioned similarly to shipping containers are stacked and shifted to create a variety of terraces and overviews to take advantage of the areas amazing harbor views.

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Interesting Reading: 12/3

No More Executive Bonuses!
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/business-insight/articles/2009/5/5151/no-more-executive-bonuses/

“These days, it seems, there is no shortage of recommendations for fixing the way bonuses are paid to executives at big public companies.
Well, I have my own recommendation: Scrap the whole thing. Don’t pay any bonuses. Nothing.
This may sound extreme. But when you look at the way the compensation game is played—and the assumptions that are made by those who want to reform it—you can come to no other conclusion. The system simply can’t be fixed. Executive bonuses—especially in the form of stock and option grants—represent the most prominent form of legal corruption that has been undermining our large corporations and bringing down the global economy. Get rid of them and we will all be better off for it.”
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Anne Mustoe: headmistress and round-the-world cyclist
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6935356.ece

“It is an exceptional author who can supply a book with three appendices so varied as a technical specification of a bicycle, a timeline of the life of Cleopatra and an ichthyological listing.

Admirers of the intrepid former headmistress turned round-the-world cyclist Anne Mustoe were well accustomed to such precise, detailed and charming information in the books in which she chronicled what she termed her “new career”. When she resolved to cycle round the world, Mustoe was 54, somewhat overweight and unfit, and without any idea of how to mend a puncture. She had not ridden a bike for 30 years, wobbled when she tried again, and she hated camping, picnics and discomfort.

Yet, inspired by the chance sighting of a solitary European man pedalling across the Great Thar Desert while she was riding a bus through Rajasthan on a holiday in India, she “traded in the Kurt Geiger shoes and the Alfa Romeo” for a pair of trainers and cycle clips.”

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Organizing the Chaos of Online Travel Tips
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/technology/personaltech/03basics.html?_r=1&ref=technology

“Gliider, I learned, is just one of a growing number of new online tools to help travelers plan where to go and what to do when they get there. While still immature and somewhat buggy, they are making finding, sorting, saving and organizing nuggets culled from the mountains of online travel content more efficient and fun.”

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Google Wants to Speed Up the Web: Launches Its Own DNS Service

http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/12/03/03readwriteweb-google-wants-to-speed-up-the-web-launches-i-51840.html

“Google just launched the Google Public DNS. Just like OpenDNS, Google Public DNS will allow users to bypass their ISPs Domain Name Servers (DNS). DNS servers are,

in many respects, the backbone of the Internet. DNS allows you to type a domain name like www.senate.gov into a browser instead of a machine-readable IP number like http://156.33.195.33/. Google argues that it wants to give consumers an alternative to their ISPs' DNS services in order to make the Internet "faster, safer and more reliable."”

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Evolution of Storage - Infographic

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Time Inc’s Tablet Project
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/12/02/time-incs-tablet-project?

“Terry McDonell, the editor of Sports Illustrated, showed TechCrunch and others a demo of Time Inc’s “Manhattan Project,” a system to bring magazines into the digital age. The system, complete with swipe control to turn pages, is designed with tablet systems in mind and will likely be ported to devices other than the HP Tablet PC in the demo, apparently a tx2 with multi-touch control.”

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Interesting Reading: 12/2

Don’t Take This Bait (but You’re Safe if You Do)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/business/29digi.html?_r=1

"THE e-mail message from the bank looks real. It isn’t.

Law enforcement agencies that oversee computer security are well versed in the many permutations of “phishing,” the scam in which fraudsters try to lure people to a counterfeit replica of their bank’s Web site, for example, and have them part with their user names and passwords.

But even the professionally wary can be gulled — or close to it. Just ask Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2009
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_semantic_web_products_of_2009.php

"2009 has seen a lot of Semantic Web and structured data activity. Much of it has been driven by Linked Data, a W3C project which gained momentum this year. According to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, Linked Data is a sea change akin to the invention of the WWW itself. We've gone from a Web of documents to a Web of data.

The 10 products we've picked out for this end-of-year review are ones that have done interesting things with data. Connecting to other data, building new applications with data, sharing data, and more. These 10 products may not be the type of Semantic Web apps that the W3C envisaged in the 90s, but that no longer seems to matter. What's important is that the Web is becoming more meaningful - more semantic."

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Madagascar unveils 'cartoon constitution'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8387385.stm

"Amid the violent protests and wrangling that has marked Madagascar's recent history, the constitution has been changed several times. Worried that the public has not noticed, officials have come up with a novel way of explaining the changes - using cartoon characters."

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Google to limit free news access
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8389896.stm

"Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.

The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages.

Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.

Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages."

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Learn the five secrets of innovation
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/26/innovation.tips/index.html

"Coming up with brilliant, game-changing ideas is what makes the likes of Apple's Steve Jobs so successful, and now researchers say they have identified the five secrets to being a great innovator

Professors from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs, that included interviews with high-profile entrepreneurs including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, founder of Dell computers.

In an article published in December's Harvard Business Review the researchers identified five skills that separate the blue-sky innovators from the rest -- skills they labeled associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering."

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Interesting Reading: 11/30

Recycling Station
http://www.ideaconnection.com/new-inventions/recycling-station-03061.html

"The ecoATM eCycling Station allows you to deposit your nearly out-of-date gadget, and in return receive an in-store redemption or gift card, or to make a charitable donation.

The old device is then either resold or recycled. EcoATMs are being rolled out in San Diego."

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Beer-Loving Crowd Aims to Buy Pabst Brewing Co

http://springwise.com/food_beverage/buyabeercompany/

"BuyABeerCompany.com presents the most ambitious crowdsourcing effort yet: USD 300,000,000 for the Pabst Brewing Co. The 165-year-old firm, third-largest beer company in the US (going by 2008 sales), was originally sent to market by the IRS in 2000 as tax laws would not permit ownership by the non-profit Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation. Failure to meet the 2005 sales deadline saw it extended to 2010. With this deadline now imminent, two US ad agencies are ringing the bell for last orders from the beer-drinking crowd."

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Top 10 MindManager Features You Didn’t Know About
http://blog.mindjet.com/2009/11/top-10-mindmanager-features-you-didnt-know-about

"There’s an 80/20 rule for software.

80% of people will use or get value from 20% of the features.

Given that, what if you flipped the equation around and asked, what 20% more could I do or learn to be 80% more effective?

Yesterday, I received a note from a visual mapping enthusiasts at Proctor & Gamble, Adam Siemiginowski. Adam met with George Shaheen of Mindjet and together they mapped out the following post of the Top 10 MindManager Features You Didn’t Know About."

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LED Bulbs Save Substantial Energy, a Study Finds
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/energy-environment/30led.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

"Does the latest generation of energy-saving light bulbs save energy? A comprehensive study conducted by Osram, the German lighting company, provides evidence that they do.

While that may seem self-evident, until the release of the report on Monday the answer remained unclear.

That is because no one knew if the production of LED lamps required more energy than needed for standard incandescent bulbs. While it is indisputable that LEDs use a fraction of the electricity of a regular bulb to create the same amount of light, if more energy were used in the manufacturing and distribution process, then the lighting industry could be traveling down a technological dead end."

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Video overview of six core principles of good management
http://holykaw.alltop.com/video-overview-of-six-core-principles-of-good

"Check out this ten-minute video summary of Awesomely Simply by John Spence. It’s a good overview of the six core principles that determine a company’s fate."

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Interesting Reading: 11/29

Unchanging, Yet Never the Same
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/nyregion/29empire.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=empire%20state%20building&st=cse

“Nearly every day for the past three years, Adam Stoltman, a photojournalist, has captured the scene outside his north-facing window in the Chelsea neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan. The Empire State Building is at the center of his unchanging yet dynamic view from Eighth Avenue and West 24th Street. The scene, Mr. Stoltman says, has “almost an infinite capacity for visual wonder.” Online, a slide show of the photographs, at all times of day and all seasons of the year:”

Great images from my friend Adam - check them out. 

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9 Ways to Visualize Proportions – A Guide
http://flowingdata.com/2009/11/25/9-ways-to-visualize-proportions-a-guide/

“With all the visualization options out there, it can be hard to figure out what graph or chart suits your data best. This is a guide to make your decision easier for one particular type of data: proportions.

Maybe you want to show poll results or the types of crime over time, or maybe you're interested in a single percentage. Here's how you can show it.”

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Richard Saul Wurman

http://thirtyconversationsondesign.com/richard-saul-wurman

A short video with thoughts on the nature of design.

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XBRL: Accounting Geeks Get Radical
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/11/xbrl-accounting-geeks-get-radical.php?

“t is not often that something as deeply geeky as XBRL gets onto the front page of Wired magazine. Daniel Roth's superb article about radical transparency raised the profile of those four letters. What could be more boring than an XML standard for accountants that has been around for a decade? On the other hand, what could be more exciting than something that might disrupt and recreate the deeply broken global financial system? I spent two days at the XBRL US National Conference in New York to find out the reality, which is somewhere in between.”


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Spark Award Winners
http://www.sparkawards.com/Galleries/09_Winners.htm

“Spark is a bold new competition—a unique crossroads of design, where the interests of all participants in the community are represented and their strengths brought to bear. Spark leaps beyond the mid-century view of design. In this new world, how do the best ideas and best designs gain recognition? SparkAwards will validate superlative designs from professionals. But we also need a filter for the best novice designers and innovators, too. The world is now participating in design—let's enable the best formgivers to rise to the top.

Spark is about Change—designed change. Change for the better: studied, researched, cognizant of criteria like sustainability, suitability, context, inventiveness, process, universality—and yes, beauty.”

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In Da Bronx

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Filed under  //   Photograph  

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9 Circles and a Dog

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Filed under  //   Photograph  

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