Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/30/2009

• It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado - NYTimes.com

  The Times covers water rights in Colorado -- with a distinctly "old Western water laws are so quaint and kooky!" attitude. I wonder what Justice Greg Hobbs (best guest speaker ever!) would have to say about that. They don't fully capture the way westerners treat water with an air of the divine.

  tags: water, water rights, colorado, nytimes, rain, rainwater, grey water

• Science journalism: Supplanting the old media? : Nature News

  I finally started digging into Nature's special issue on the future of science journalism. The most interesting passage thus far (and the one that also rings most true to me, as a former-would-be-scientist/current-aspiring-journalist/lifetime-reader-of-science):
  
  "But there is a problem: the online world, both in its bloggier reaches and elsewhere, is polarized; people go to places they feel comfortable. Many of the people that Timmer originally hoped to reach when writing about intelligent design and the Dover trial probably go elsewhere for their news, he says, because 'it's easy for somebody to pick their news sources based on their politics, and get that version of scientific issues'. Dykstra worries that in a more fragmented media world, 'environmental news will be available to environmentalists and science news will be available to scientists. Few beyond that will pay attention.'
  
  "Others worry about the less questioning approach that comes with a stress on communication rather than journalism. 'Science is like any other enterprise,' says Blum. 'It's human, it's flawed, it's filled with politics and ego. You need journalists, theoretically, to check those kinds of things,' she says. In the United States, at least, the newspaper, the traditional home of investigations and critical reporting, is on its way out, says Hotz. 'What we need is to invent new sources of independently certified fact.'"

  tags: science, journalism, nature, media, blogging, geoff brumfiel

• The Future of Science Journalism | MIT World

  Wow, something I actually REALLY care about came in this edition of the MIT alumni newsletter! I swear I will watch this video of a conference at MIT on the future of science journalism ... as soon as I finish the first season of The O.C. (It is summer, after all!)

  tags: journalism, science, media, MIT, andrew revkin

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Amen.

From Nature's special issue on the fate of science journalism:

In an 1894 edition of Nature, [H.G.] Wells wrote of the need to employ what today is called narrative non-fiction: "The fundamental principles of construction that underlie such stories as Poe's 'Murders in the Rue Morgue', or Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes' series, are precisely those that should guide a scientific writer." (See Nature 50, 300–301; 1894.)

[Science journalism: Too close for comfort]

Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/29/2009

• Malcolm Gladwell reviews Free by Chris Anderson: Books: The New Yorker

  Malcom Gladwell's review of Chris Anderson's book, "Free" mentioned in a link I diigo'ed last week.Gladwell takes issue with Anderson's agrument -- and seems to really have fun dissecting it:"If you can afford to pay someone to get other people to write, why can’t you pay people to write? It would be nice to know, as well, just how a business goes about reorganizing itself around getting people to work for 'non-monetary rewards.' Does he mean that the New York Times should be staffed by volunteers, like Meals on Wheels? Anderson’s reference to people who 'prefer to buy their music online' carries the faint suggestion that refraining from theft should be considered a mere preference. And then there is his insistence that the relentless downward pressure on prices represents an iron law of the digital economy. Why is it a law? Free is just another price, and prices are set by individual actors, in accordance with the aggregated particulars of marketplace power. 'Information wants to be free,' Anderson tells us, 'in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill.' But information can’t actually want anything, can it? "And later, I can feel Gladwell getting giddy and all riled up:"For Anderson, YouTube illustrates the principle that Free removes the necessity of aesthetic judgment. (As he puts it, YouTube proves that 'crap is in the eye of the beholder.') But, in order to make money, YouTube has been obliged to pay for programs that aren’t crap. To recap: YouTube is a great example of Free, except that Free technology ends up not being Free because of the way consumers respond to Free, fatally compromising YouTube’s ability to make money around Free, and forcing it to retreat from the 'abundance thinking' that lies at the heart of Free. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year. If it were a bank, it would be eligible for TARP funds."

  tags: new yorker, chris anderson, wired, books, free, digital, media, communication, malcolm gladwell

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/22/2009

• "A way out of the woods: Stimulus-funded project helps find path to forest compromise"

  Sometimes, you need to cut down a few trees to save the forest...

  tags: forestry, land use, management, logging, oregon

• Where Detroit still reigns | GlobalPost

  Cuba is full of vintage American cars! This story includes a great slide show."When the Castro government placed strict restrictions on car ownership and essentially banned the private sale of vehicles, it made an exception for those built before 1960. This amnesty has assured a market value for the vehicles, guaranteeing they would remain on the roads as long as Cuban mechanics could keep them there.""Many of the estimated 60,000 classic cars that remain on Cuba's roads are ruined hulks that lurch and rattle through the streets spewing black smoke, their engines a hodgepodge of cannibalized Russian parts and Cuban adaptations. But others are kept in immaculate condition by ultra-fastidious owners — including some who await the day they might be legally allowed to sell to American buyers."

  tags: cuba, cars, chrysler, automobile, vintage, globalpost

• Climate Change, Crop Catastrophe : CJR

  The Columbia Journalism Review asks why, with all the media attention California's struggling economy and climate change have been getting recently, few people have put two and two together and written about what climate change means for California's major industry: agriculture.This is timely for me, personally, because I just finished summarizing a paper on how agricultural land-use in California influences local climate and air quality. Oh, feedbacks are fun, and it's clear that this is an important -- and complex -- issue.From CJR:"This dearth in coverage is partly understandable. The potential effects of heightened atmospheric CO2 on the efficacy of the herbicide glyphosate don’t necessarily make for sexy reading. Moreover, while a great deal of research has been conducted on ways the greenhouse effect may alter the production of global cereal crops (rice, wheat, corn), the same is not true for horticulture (fruit, vegetables, nuts, and flowers), which, along with livestock and dairy, comprises the bulk of California’s agricultural output. And then there’s the fact that California is home to many distinct microclimates, and that shifting weather patterns and increased CO2 concentration may harm some crops while benefiting others."

  tags: California, economy, agriculture, climate change, media, journalism, columbia journalism review, CJR, crops, drought, water, Central Valley

• Science/AAAS | Science Magazine: Sign In

  Here's an editorial from Cristine Russell (of Harvard) about the future of science journalism: not a crisis, she says, but an opportunity."Hopefully, the recent crisis in science journalism in Western countries will be tempered by optimism about the overall future of international science journalism and the importance of reaching a global public in dire need of the best science and technology information."One way she mentions that veteran science journalists (who she presents as an invaluable resource -- she doesn't really mention us noobs) can improve their ability to cover complex issues is to participate in fellowship programs:"Opportunities for professional development of international journalists are expanding. Mid-career journalism programs at places such as Harvard, the University of California, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seek fellows from around the world."Of course, she *forgot* to mention the Scripps Fellowship for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism!

  tags: journalism, science, science journalism, media, technology, new media, AAAS

• Critical Mass § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

  An update on the science of traffic jams, with some cool solid liquid phase-change metaphors interesting ideas about traffic's inherent ability to infuriate us:"According to the calculations of Fey and Stutzer, a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office.""Long commutes make us unhappy because the flow of traffic is inherently unpredictable. As a result, we never adapt to the suffering of rush hour. (Ironically, if traffic were always bad, and not just usually bad, it would be easier to deal with.) As the Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert notes, 'Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.'"

  tags: seed, traffic, commute, city planning, particles, flow, solid, phase change, jonah lehrer

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/19/2009

• "Let's Get Small": High Country News article on distributed energy

  This article takes you from a hamster wheel to Hawaii and back again with a thorough look into distributed energy projects. Localized, distributed generators versus large, centralized power plants is a debate that is as old as DC versus AC. Great story.

  tags: High Country News, Judith Lewis, energy, distributed energy, generators, transmission, grid, biogas digester, geothermal

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/17/2009

• Gender Knot Ch. 1 Follow Up: Who Has The Power of the Gaze? : Thus Spake Zuska

  A post on the ScienceBlogs network fit for Jezebel: what does the gaze achieve in a patriarchal society?

  tags: scienceblogs, thus spake zuska, gender, society, hierarchy, power, control, gaze

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/16/2009

• Is There a Better Word for Doom? § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM - Annotated

  And here's the article from Seed that spurred the discussion re: communicating climate change.

  tags: SEED, Climate change, communication, media, framing, matt nisbet

• A Climate (Communication) Crisis? - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

  Andy Revkin posts Randy Olson's response to Seed's question: "Is there a better word for doom?" (with regard to climate change)That was a mouthful, but basically, it's a fascinating ongoing discussion about how we are (failing to) communicate the immediacy of the dangers posed by climate change.

  tags: nytimes, andy revkin, randy olson, climate change, media, communication, framing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks: What has Jordan been reading on the web today? 06/15/2009

• Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson on the Future of Free | Epicenter | Wired.com

  Hmmm, what does "Anderson's Law" -- that in the digital age, the price of nearly everthing approaches free -- mean for journalism? Here's the most useful passage:"Anderson sees many areas of digital content as obeying this law, including music, video, and video games (the big three 'shiny disc' industries), news, books, and e-mail. Under Anderson’s model, people will continue to pay good money to save time (that is, those who have more money than time will), lower their risk (such as paying to assure that their Second Life land will still be there, or that their operating system will be supported), because they love something (such as buying virtual items in free videogames), or to increase their status in a community."So people pay for time, security and status -- not quality of information. However, news can perhaps *indirectly* provide users with some of those. That's the power of information, right?

  tags: wired, chris anderson, digital, media, price, markets, free, economics, digital economy

• N.Y. Times mines its data to identify words that readers find abstruse » Nieman Journalism Lab

  This would have been awesome if it had surfaced two years ago, when I was studying for the GRE and actually quizzing myself on words like "laconic" and "inchoat" -- most of which I haven't encountered since. I guess I don't read enough Maureen Dowd.

  tags: nytimes, vocabulary, dictionary, usage, users, words, nieman journalism lab

• Surprise! J-school grads are finding jobs

  Saw this article (via the Nieman Journalism Lab Twitter feed) by Jeff Bercovici at Daily Finance. It says that people leaving journalism grad programs in New York (Columbia, CUNY) are actually finding jobs at newspapers, magazines, etc.And just as I was thinking to myself "duh, that's because media companies are laying off the old work force and hiring cheap, web-savvy youngsters" I got to the last graph of the article:"My guess is at least some of it is a direct result of the massive staff cutbacks just about every media organization has enacted in the past couple years. It's a corporate cliche to lay people off and euphemize it as 'restructuring,' but you can be sure that some of the companies that are letting go well-paid editors and writers in their 40s and 50s are quietly stocking up on fresh j-school grads whose lack of real-word experience is at least partly made up for by their effortless fluency in the ways of the web -- and their willingness to work for $35,000 a year."

  tags: journalism, jschool, grad program, grad school, workforce, media, jobs, employment

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.