Clipmarks | johnlam's clips

Social scientists mine Facebook for data

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:27:49 GMT

clipped by: johnlam

Harvard-U.C.L.A. researchers are investigating a concept, first put forth by the pioneering German sociologist Georg Simmel, known as triadic closure: whether one’s friends are also friends of one another. If this seems trivial, consider that a study in 2004 in The American Journal of Public Health suggested that adolescent girls who are socially isolated and whose friends are not friends with one another experienced more suicidal thoughts.

students who reported low satisfaction with life and low self-esteem, and who used Facebook intensively, accumulated a form of social capital linked to what sociologists call “weak ties.” A weak tie is a fellow classmate or someone you meet at a party, not a friend or family member. Weak ties are significant, scholars say, because they are likely to provide people with new perspectives and opportunities that they might not get from close friends and family.

Tags: social computing, social capital, social media, facebook, sociology, psychology, nicholas christakis, nicole ellison

Deteriorating economy forces changes in Paetec tower

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:51:29 GMT

clipped by: johnlam

Clip Source: democratandchronicle.com

Preliminary plans unveiled Friday show a 350,000-square-foot building that will be nine or 10 stories tall rather than the 37-story building Chief Executive Arunas A. Chesonis had described four months ago. But Chesonis stressed that the PAETEC portion of the building, with room to expand the company, remains the same size. About 150,000 square feet of leasable space was cut out.

PAETEC's headquarters would be nine or 10 stories tall and located on South Clinton Avenue, about in the middle of the block currently occupied by Midtown Plaza. Whether the building will extend all the way to Clinton and East Main Street hasn't been determined yet.

The building would be big enough for PAETEC's 850 employees currently scattered in four buildings, as well as provide space to grow to a work force of 1,500.

PAETEC would probably lease the building back from Rhode Island developer Gilbane Inc., which helped develop the design concept.

Cost is estimated at $100 million.

Tags: architecture, land use, downtown, rochester, planning, urban, recession, paetec, real estate

Truth Rising: The 9/11 Chronicles

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:35:33 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: Why do i always miss events like this? Why don't folks who know post of it? Must i be a believer to get an invitation?

Clip Source: cinemarochester.com

The Cinema will be showing a special presentation of the film 'Truth Rising; The 9/11 Chronicles'. The admission to this special event is $7 and you will receive a free copy of the film.

You may get more information on the film by visiting www.infowars.com.

Tags: september 11, 9-11, conspiracy theories

New study money portends hope for former Vacuum Oil brownfields

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:03:16 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: “Prime land” it is, so close to the University of Rochester and city-center Rochester. Like so many stretches along the banks of the Genesee, so beautiful and hauntingly desolate, it's hard to imagine downtown could be so close. The River Trail there is one of my favorite spots to skate.

Clip Source: democratandchronicle.com

(February 21, 2008) — On the west bank of the Genesee River, halfway between Corn Hill Landing and Brooks Landing, lies nearly 60 acres of prime land.

And nearly all of that land is potentially or documented to be toxic.

A city request for $215,100 in state money to help with initial land use planning of the "Vacuum Oil Brownfield Opportunity Area" finally has gotten approval from the Senate

Vacuum Oil operated from 1866 to 1936.

An initial concept for the refinery, where a few of the structures remain, and for the surrounding property suggests that housing, stores, a park and other features could revitalize the surrounding Plymouth-Exchange neighborhood. The development also could connect other riverfront construction, possibly reusing an existing railroad bridge.

Tags: planning, urban, architecture, sustainability, rochester

Sex makes women happy. That's obvious, but why?

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 23:14:23 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: I'm not posting this merely to show potential girlfriends what i can do for them! …nor to convince them not to use condoms. It could, however, explain behavior i've noticed.

Clip Source: psychologytoday.com

Semen contains hormones including testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone and prostaglandins, and some of these are absorbed through the walls of the vagina and are known to elevate mood.

The finding that women who do not use condoms during sex are less depressed and less likely to attempt suicide than are women who have sex with condoms and women who are not sexually active, leads one researcher to conclude that semen contains powerful—and potentially addictive—mood-altering chemicals.

Study author Gordon G. Gallup, Ph.D., a psychologist at the State University of New York in Albany, also found that women who routinely had intercourse without condoms became increasingly depressed as more time elapsed since their last sexual encounter. There was no such correlation for women whose partners regularly used condoms.

Gallup says he has since replicated the findings with a sample of 700 women

Tags: sex, depression, health, coitus, semen, endocrinology, biology

Giant holes open into Martian caves

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:56:43 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: Though the article never addresses what makes the holes nearly perfectly round, it does suggest an answer. Sinkholes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinkhole often do appear round. I would be more surprised if they appeared square, triangular or some other engineered shape.

Credit to http://nibot.livejournal.com/589189.html for this article tip.

Clip Source: planetary.org

This black spot is one of seven possible entrances to subterranean caves identified on Mars by Glen Cushing, Tim Titus, J. Judson Wynne and Phil Christensen in a paper they presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March

The hope for the HiRISE images was that we could see some details from inside the hole.

HiRISE is a very sensitive instrument, and Mars' dusty atmosphere scatters quite a bit of light around, so there is certainly light entering that cave hole and bouncing around the interior. But it seems that the cave is so big and so deep that almost none of the light that enters the cave comes out.

Tags: mars, astronomy, images, pictures, nasa, planets, camera

Designs For The Poor

Thu, 31 May 2007 14:03:01 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Solutions The exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt has many items to show a grasp of the depths of world poverty and ingenious ways to attack it. They include a 20-gallon rolling drum for transporting water, above.

A pot-in-pot cooler that relies on the evaporation of water from wet sand to cool the inner pot.

The Lifestraw drinking filter, which kills bacteria as water is sucked through it.

To that end, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, which is housed in Andrew Carnegie’s 64-room mansion on Fifth Avenue and offers a $250 red chrome piggy bank in its gift shop, is honoring inventors dedicated to “the other 90 percent,” particularly the billions of people living on less than $2 a day.

Their creations, on display in the museum garden until Sept. 23, have a sort of forehead-thumping “Why didn’t someone think of that before?” quality.

Tags: inventions, poor, better, life, quality

Shooter slays random cyclist and gets convicted only for manslaughter

Thu, 17 May 2007 19:11:48 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: I wonder how thoroughly police investigated this crime. Could all the supposed victims of the attempted robberies have declined to come forward or to testify? Might they never have heard about the arrest or circumstances?

Many other shootings result not in death, but permanent injury. I rarely ever hear about those stories. Do police and prosecutors treat carjackings more seriously than violence against cyclist?

Maybe i'm overly skeptical here, but through my years of cycling and skating, enough dangerous objects such as beer bottles flying 40mph have hit me, i wonder if harassment like this doesn't deter others from cycling and skating in the city. The acts go beyond mere objects. The vicious, angry words shouted are evidence of road rage. Yet, i read and hear very little in way of prosecution, and that leads me to wonder.

I will tag follow-up stories “Fred Mason”.

Clip Source: democratandchronicle.com

Jurors decide bicyclist's death was manslaughter

Angry teen chose random victim

Frustrated over what police believe was his failure to rob several people, Charlie J. Scott said he would shoot the next person he saw.

As he and another man drove across the Driving Park Bridge in northeast Rochester last year, they encountered bicyclist Fred Mason, 19, who was heading home after visiting a cousin.

According to the driver, Scott said: "I'm so mad I'm going to shoot somebody. See that guy on the bike? He's going to get it."

Scott fired a .22-caliber sawed-off rifle from the passenger window of the car, hitting Mason in the left side. Mason, whose aorta was severed, flagged down a motorist for help but died at a hospital.

A Monroe County Court jury on Tuesday acquitted Scott of second-degree murder but convicted him of first-degree manslaughter in Mason's death on July 10.

Charlie Scott faces a mandatory prison sentence ranging from five years to 25 years when he's sentenced June 4.

Tags: bicycling, rochester ny, rochester, urban, violence, crime, witness, fred mason

Don't cut down forests! Sustainably cultivate indigenous species like ginseng & shiitake mushrooms.

Fri, 11 May 2007 19:25:36 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: Of course to encourage responsible stewardship, governments could also lessen property taxes on plats of sustainably maintained woodlands, and encourage donations of land to conservancy trusts too.

Clip Source: www.news.cornell.edu

forests aren't just timber: think mushrooms, ginseng and sugar

A new Cornell online resource center can help forest owners learn to cultivate economically viable and environmentally sustainable crops other than timber.

Many landowners question how to afford to have so much forest land and pay taxes on it

gourmet mushrooms, maple sugar and such medicinal herbs as American ginseng and goldenseal are among the products that have the highest potential for producing additional income.

Forest log-grown shiitake mushrooms, for example, which are considered epicurean delights, sell for two to eight times more per pound than the more widely available commercially grown version.

Landowners are interested in cultivating their forests and making things happen with sustainable agroforestry, rather than just harvesting them for timber

Medicinal herbs such as American ginseng can produce additional income for owners of forest land.

Tags: sustainability, forestry, mycology, agriculture, cornell university, land use, public finance, conservation, shiitake, ginseng

More than 30 places to find free books.

Tue, 08 May 2007 03:35:38 GMT

clipped by: ashleystar
clipper's remarks: love lists like this.

Clip Source: www.friedbeef.com

Best Places to Get Free Books - The Ultimate Guide

Clip Source: www.friedbeef.com

ManyBooks - Free eBooks for your PDA, iPod, or eBook reader - Thanks Tony Bryan & abben

BookCrossing - Where real books are released into the wild to be found by others - Thanks Engtech

LibraryElf - The perfect companion to a public library system - Thanks Engtech

Word Public Library - 400,000 PDF ebooks for download - Thanks Ellen

Scribd - Open library to publish and discover documents online - Thanks CincauHangus

Tags: books, reading, literature, free

The Mathematical Lives of Plants

Mon, 07 May 2007 00:43:06 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

The seeds of a sunflower, the spines of a cactus, and the bracts of a pine cone all grow in whirling spiral patterns. Remarkable for their complexity and beauty, they also show consistent mathematical patterns that scientists have been striving to understand.
...
Scientists have puzzled over this pattern of plant growth for hundreds of years. Why would plants prefer the golden angle to any other? And how can plants possibly "know" anything about Fibonacci numbers?

For the first time, scientists have found convincing biochemical mechanisms responsible for the interlocking spiral growth patterns seen in many plants. (The Romanesco broccoli plant is a striking example.) The video of the experiment with magnetized liquid iron droplets demonstrates how the geometry of such growth could occur in nature.

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Each yellow nub in the center of this daisy is actually its own miniature flower, complete with a full set of reproductive organs. The buds form interlocking clockwise and counterclockwise spirals.
Scott Hotton

The golden angle is the angle subtended by the smaller (red) arc when two arcs that make up a circle are in the golden ratio.
Wikipedia

This sunflower has 21 clockwise and 34 counterclockwise spirals.
Scott Hotton

Plants form new seeds or buds from the center. In this picture, the circle labeled 1 would be the most recent bud. The circle labeled 2 would have been formed just previously, and it forms the golden angle with bud 1

An image of the tip of a Norway spruce branch, viewed through an electron microscope, shows small buds that are primordial. In this case, they will eventually turn into needles. The primordia form at the tip and then move outward and downward.
R. Rutishauser

This cactus, a Mammilaria moellerana, has golden-angle spirals.
Eleanor Farrington

Tags: math, plants, biology, symmetry, sprial, science, nature, geometry, fibonacci, patterns

Absurd Cats • a wiki

Fri, 04 May 2007 07:42:57 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: Contribute your own absurd photos of cats.

Clip Source: twitter.pbwiki.com

Cats

Tags: cats, housecat, humor, photography, photo illustration

Top 10 Largest Social Bookmarking Sites March 2007

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:13:04 GMT

clipped by: zamanikarmana

Clip Source: www.ebizmba.com

10 | ShoutWire.com

9 | Newsvine.com

8 | furl.net

7 | BlinkList.com

6 | Slashdot.org

5 | reddit.com

4 | StumbleUpon.com

3 | del.icio.us

2 | Netscape.com

1 | digg.com

Tags: internet, website, social bookmarking

New York State audits the City of Rochester's fast ferry finances and bungling of fiscal oversight

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 02:50:28 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: A friend and investment analyst for Manning & Napier, the area's most successful money management firm, mentioned to me in the fall of 2002, when the fast ferry had become a hot topic, only three ferries in the entire world ran profitably. Governments subsidized the losses of the others, ostensibly to provide economic benefit for the region, or at least, for politicians to associate their names with useful services and maintain their profile in the eyes of their subjects.

Clip Source: osc.state.ny.us

State Audit Details Extensive Missteps of Former Rochester City Officials on Fast Ferry

Despite clear indications that the project had a high chance of failure, including reports from outside consultants identifying serious deficiencies with Canadian American Transportation Systems’ (CATS) financial plan as well as difficulty verifying that CATS had adequate private equity, former city officials moved the project forward and did not take critical steps to protect the public’s investment in the project.

The audit findings detail how former Rochester city officials:

Did Not Verify Equity.

CATS principals Dominick DeLucia and Brian Prince claimed to have paid $5 million in expenses from their personal bank accounts, not with CATS accounts. Auditors could not verify that these expenses were for CATS

Spending Not Disclosed to Public.

Failed to Exercise Due Diligence.

Did Not Solicit Competition.

No Independent Oversight.

Did Not Adequately Secure Loans.

Entered into Bad Port Lease Agreements.

Tags: rochester, rochester ny, public finance, audit, subsidies, fast ferry, new york, comptroller, transportation, due diligence, municipal, government, lake ontario, transparency, public debt

Las Vegas and San Jose: boomtowns with busted downtowns

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 07:51:35 GMT

clipped by: johnlam
clipper's remarks: What Vegas and Silicon Valley cannot do for their downtowns, can most American cities without booming economies expect to do for theirs? This bodes poorly for conventional planning on how to save city centers. New ideas on how to save American cities need to address unmentionables: racism, classism, the drug economy and the perception of violence that hobbles cities.

Meanwhile, mostly driving to and from work, Americans burn five times more petrol than even other industrialized countries, leaving us at the mercy of players who give us oil by trading away our freedoms, and by wrecking the earth to farm all manner of sugars, starches, and now cellulose, to burn ethanol—all for nine lanes of traffic, strip malls, and ugly cities full of blacktop but devoid of civic life and youthful promise. Those who have not traveled to Hong Kong, Manhattan, and other compact cities have not experienced how life could be better with fewer cars. And success would free the need for massive subsidies.

Clip Source: economist.com

Downtowns

Where the lights aren't bright

LAS VEGAS AND SAN JOSE

How two booming cities have tried, and failed, to revive their centres

Downtowns are an American invention, says Joel Kotkin, an expert on cities. London, Paris and Tokyo all lack a single centre where commerce, entertainment, shopping and political power are concentrated. Such cores did emerge in early 20th-century American cities thanks to steel-frame architecture, which made it possible to build high, and because they had central railway stations. Fifty years later, almost all were gutted by the internal-combustion engine

San Jose has attempted to create a commercial heart by selling city-owned land or even giving it away to developers. The city offers tax breaks and uses a portion of the property tax to pay for improvement projects.

the redevelopment agency has shelled out $2 billion

the campaign has been a failure. The office vacancy rate in downtown stands at 21%—higher than it was four years ago, during the dotcom slump

Tags: architecture, downtown, urban, planning, urbanism, land use, zoning, sustainability, san jose, las vegas