links for 2007-11-11

• Online Citizen Journalism Now Undeniably Mainstream
  "Interesting to see how the techniques and technologies of amateur, citizen journalists are adopted, co-opted, and integrated by the mainstream media". (From ReadWriteWeb)
  (tags: citizenjournalism journalism media socialmedia trends)
• ...Or Maybe Not: The User-Generated Content Myth
  "A whole mythology is emerging around the idea of “users” — consumers, fans, regular average folk — creating content that media companies and brands can leverage." (From Scott Karp in DigitalMediaWire)
  (tags: citizenjournalism journalism trends)
• You're responsible for your own truth
  Laurent Haug as some very wise remarks after the mass killing in Finland a few days ago (which the killer "announced" in a sick online video) and the ensuing discussion about controlling YouTube and the Internet. Needless to say, I agree 100% with him.
  (tags: internet violence censorship)
• Will eyes in the sky end natural gas flaring?
  Natural gas flaring is a key environmental issues you’ve probably never heard of, mostly because it happens in places where it’s hard to see. Ethan Zuckerman discusses a new satellite-based approach to mapping the flares and put pressure to end them.
  (tags: environment naturalgas)
• Schoolkids' uniforms with RFID tracking
  A UK school is putting RDIF tags in uniforms to track attendance and whereabouts. Joke: Easy to skip class: give your shirt to a friend. Serious: it creates a dangerous habit of knowing you're monitored. Classic: use of tech to solve a non-tech problem.
  (tags: privacy surveillance school)
• Star architects 1 / MIT sues Frank Gehry for flawed building
  MIT has filed a negligence suit against star architect Frank Gehry, charging that flaws in his design of the $300 million Stata Center in Cambridge caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, and drainage to back up.
  (tags: architecture lawsuit gehry)
• Star architects 2 / Valencia accuses Calatrava for damp opera house
  The city of Valencia, Spain, is pointing fingers at architect Santiago Calatrava for the damages (including inundate rehearsal aras) suffered after torrential rain by the new Palau de les Arts, a futuristic complex dedicated to the arts and science.
  (tags: architecture calatrava)
• Mass production starts for XO laptops
  After many delays, the One Laptop per Child Foundation's much-awaited XO laptop ("100-dollar-laptop") has finally gone into mass production on Tuesday, at a Quanta Computer factory near Shanghai. (From News.com)
  (tags: OLPC laptop)
• Cars and total ownership costs
  Interesting post by Shai Agassi (fomerly SAP, now working on an electric car venture): With oil near $100 a barrel, "The cost of the average used car in Europe is now cheaper than the cost of gasoline to drive it for a year".
• Freitag: Design contest for truck tarpaulins
  Freitag, the Swiss fashion/design company whose iconic product is a bag made of recycled truck tarpaulins, announces an international contest to design a tarp. The winning design will travel 5 years on a Swiss truck, then be cut into special edition bags.
  (tags: design contest crowdsourcing)
• Datacenter energy consumption: 1.5% of the US electricity supply
  "Similar to the way computer-processing speed doubles every 18 to 24 months, energy consumption by datacenters climbs, too. It doubled between 2001 and 2006"... "For every watt to run the computers, the farm may need nearly a watt for air-conditioning."
  (tags: datacenters energy)
• Datacenter energy consumption: Green computing update
  Story by Worldchanging on the Green Grid, a consortium (AMD, Intel, Dell, HP, IBM, Sun, and others who are normally competitors) to share data and strategies for creating greener data centers.
  (tags: datacenters energy)
• How are newspaper site visitors using comments?
  The IHT's Developer Blog on what they’ve learned about how visitors are using (or not) the comment features around the Trib stories. "There ar 3 distinct aspects that need to be considered in order to create successful comment threads". (via EM)
  (tags: newspapers comments readers IHT)
• Interesting essays from "Innovations" journal
  Great summer edition of "Innovations", a MIT journal co-edited by my friend Iqbal Quadir. Full of essays on innovation, collaboration, networking. Check out in particular the essays by Malone & Klein, Cory Ondrejka, and Michael Abramowicz. (via EM)
  (tags: Innovation)
• IBM's Global Innovation Outlook (((PDF)))
  "The New New Media" is the title of IBM's Global Innovation Outlook report. It explores the future of media, content, and messaging. "In the age of free content, the future (and the money) is in the context." 47-pages PDF.
  (tags: innovation media newmedia)
• Best Newspaper blogs for comments, community and readability
  Shawn Smith compiles a commented list of newspaper blogs that, in Vin Crosbie’s words, “encouraged readers to join the process, not just to consume the results.” Of course, they're all US. But interesting. (From New Media Bytes)
  (tags: newspapers)
• Numbers 1 / The New Nostradamus
  Game theorist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita claims that mathematics can tell you the future ... that a computer model he has perfected over the last 25 years can predict the outcome of virtually any international conflict, provided the basic input is accurate.
  (tags: numbers)
• Numbers 2 / Literary Style By The Numbers
  Amazon.com has added "text stats" for many books. Steven Johnson runs the numbers for some books by himself, Malcom Gladwell, Steven Pinker, Seth Godin and more.
  (tags: numbers)
• ZeroHouse
  ZeroHouse "generates its own electrical power", "collects its own water", "processes its own waste products", and is completely automatic. A design by Specht-Harman in NY.
• "Only 50 years left" for sea fish
  There will be virtually nothing left to sea fish by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a study published by "Science". Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries; the rate of decline is accelerating.
  (tags: sustainability fish food oceans)
• Inside the World's Only Plant-Intelligence Lab
  Professor Stefano Mancuso knows it isn't easy being green: He runs the world's only laboratory dedicated to plant intelligence, the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV), near Florence, Italy.
  (tags: Biology biomimicry design nature environment)