nyt

13 Jul 09

Inside the Exteriors of the Architect Toyo Ito - NYTimes.com

Profile of architect Toyo Ito, who tries, in his work, to capture qualities that (it seems to me) relate to embodiment (“I sometimes feel that we are losing an intuitive sense of our own bodies" - Ito). Ouroussoff describes the following aspects, really resonant:
QUOTE
His career can be read as a lifelong quest to find the precise balance between seemingly opposing values — individual and community, machine and nature, male and female, utopian fantasies and hard realities.

His ability to find such balances consistently has made him one of our great urban poets, someone who has been able to crystallize, through architecture, the tensions that lie buried in the heart of contemporary society. It makes his work especially resonant today, when much of the world is drawn to one form of extremism or another.
UNQUOTE

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toyo_ito architecture japan tokyo embodiment nicolai_ouroussoff nyt

18 May 09

Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Work and Name Their Price - NYTimes.com

I've used Scribd for a while now - great service. This NYTimes article describes how it's moving into becoming a platform for e-publishing with a business model for authors/ publishers. Also meant as a diversification / challenge to Amazon's Kindle, and to Google.

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scribd online_book online_publishing business_model e-books nyt kindle

09 Mar 09

The Media Equation - United, Newspapers May Stand - NYTimes.com

This is the article everyone agrees is all wrong: David Carr argues that newspapers should lock the barn doors even though the horse has long left the stable...

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nyt david_carr newspapers business_model

¶No more free content. The Web has become the primary delivery mechanism for quality newsrooms across the country, and consumers will have to participate in financing the newsgathering process if it is to continue. Setting the price point at free — the newspaper analyst Alan D. Mutter called it the “original sin” — has brought the industry millions of eyeballs and a return that doesn’t cover the coffee budget of some newsrooms.
The big threat would be that newspapers could lose the readers they have, lots of them. The mitigating factor is that a lot of those readers aren’t paying anyway.
¶No more free ride to aggregators. Google announced that it would begin selling ads against Google News, with almost no financial accommodation to the organizations that generate that news. The book industry — of all Luddites — has extracted cash from Google, as did the wire services. Google, The Huffington Post and Newser have built their audiences and brands on other people’s labors.
Most aggregators are not promoting newspaper content; they are repurposing it to their own ends. Newspapers’ audiences are harvested and sold divorced from the content that attracted them in the first place.
2 more annotations...
- ¶No more commoditized ads. Ad markets and remnant sales have been a lose-lose proposition, ginning up more and more ads for less and less revenue, turning a grim dollars-into-dimes model into a hopeless dimes-into-pennies proposition. Newspapers once thrived by selling scarce ad positions. The downside is turning down ads, and who can afford that right now?
- ¶Throw out the Newspaper Preservation Act. Regulatory reform will allow the industry to consolidate to an economically feasible model and preserve newsgathering. Does Seattle need two newspapers? Did Denver? Sure, it’s preferable for all kinds of reasons. But one is better than none.

29 Dec 08

NYT: No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’

The New York Times gets & spreads a clue about Passivhaeuser.

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nyt passivhaus ecology passive_heating architecture germany buildings darmstadt

And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.
Ironically, however, when California inspectors were examining the Berkeley home to determine whether it met "green" building codes (it did), he could not get credit for the heat exchanger, a device that is still uncommon in the United States. "When you think about passive-house standards, you start looking at buildings in a different way," he said.
- heat exchangers are relatively better known in Canada, though - I think...? - on 2008-12-29
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- "We've found it's very important to people that they feel they can influence the system," Mr. Hasper said.
- In Germany the added construction costs of passive houses are modest and, because of their growing popularity and an ever larger array of attractive off-the-shelf components, are shrinking.
  But the sophisticated windows and heat-exchange ventilation systems needed to make passive houses work properly are not readily available in the United States. So the construction of passive houses in the United States, at least initially, is likely to entail a higher price differential.

20 Nov 08

Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs - NYTimes.com

Article about attempts by some alternative news organizations to recreate themselves as non-profits. Lots of interesting angles, from the demise (or at least being under siege) of traditional newspapers to the rise of alternative business models (embodied by the "watchdog" sites referenced by the article's title) for paying journalists/ newsrooms to stay in business.

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nyt newspapers journalism business_model

As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.
Here it is VoiceofSanDiego.org, offering a brand of serious, original reporting by professional journalists — the province of the traditional media, but at a much lower cost of doing business. Since it began in 2005, similar operations have cropped up in New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, St. Louis and Chicago. More are on the way.
The fledgling movement has reached a sufficient critical mass, its founders think, so they plan to form an association, angling for national advertising and foundation grants that they could not compete for singly. And hardly a week goes by without a call from journalists around the country seeking advice about starting their own online news outlets.
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- That is a subject of hot debate among people who closely follow the newspaper industry. Publishing online means operating at half the cost of a comparable printed paper, but online advertising is not robust enough to sustain a newsroom.
  And so financially, VoiceofSan Diego and its peers mimic public broadcasting, not newspapers. They are nonprofit corporations supported by foundations, wealthy donors, audience contributions and a little advertising.
- But some experts question whether a large part of the news business can survive on what is essentially charity, and whether it is wise to lean too heavily on the whims of a few moneyed benefactors.
- Nonprofit news online “has to be explored and experimented with, but it has to overcome the hurdle of proving it can support a big news staff. Even the most well-funded of these sites are a far cry in resources from a city newspaper.”
- The people who run the local news sites see themselves as one future among many, and they have a complex relationship with traditional media.
- So far, their audience is tiny, about 18,000 monthly unique visitors, according to Quantcast, a media measurement service.
- The biggest of the new nonprofit news sites, MinnPost in the Twin Cities and the St. Louis Beacon, can top 200,000 visitors in a month, but even that is a fraction of the Internet readership for the local newspapers.
- MinnPost is rich compared with its peers — with a $1.5 million bankroll from Mr. Kramer and several others when it started last year, and a $1.3 million annual budget — and it has been more aggressive about selling ads and getting readers to donate.
  The full-time editors and reporters earn $50,000 to $60,000 a year, Mr. Kramer said — a living wage, but less than they would make at the competing papers. MinnPost has just five full-time employees, but it uses more than 40 paid freelance contributors, allowing it to do frequent reporting on areas like the arts and sports.
- “There’s room for a whole range of approaches, and we’re living proof that you can do meaningful journalism very cheaply,” Mr. Bass said.
- Crosscut.com, a local news site in Seattle, does reporting and commentary of its own, but also aggregates articles from other news sources. It began last year as a business, but is changing to nonprofit status.
  - had no idea they were changing to non-profit! - on 2008-11-20
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- VoiceofSanDiego took yet another approach, hiring a crew of young, hungry, full-time journalists, paying them salaries comparable to what they would make at large newspapers and relying less on freelancers. Mr. Donohue and Mr. Lewis earned $60,000 to $70,000 last year, according to the VoiceofSan Diego I.R.S. filings.
  On a budget under $800,000 this year — almost $200,000 more than last year — everyone does double duty. Mr. Lewis writes a political column, and Mr. Donohue works on investigative articles. But the operation is growing and Mr. Woolley says he has become convinced that the nonprofit model has the best chance of survival.
  “Information is now a public service as much as it’s a commodity,” he said. “It should be thought of the same way as education, health care. It’s one of the things you need to operate a civil society, and the market isn’t doing it very well.”

29 Oct 08

Young Professionals Meet for a Power Breakfast, but They Don’t Call It Networking - NYTimes.com

Nice article on the "new" social networking, with a special look at likemind meet-ups, the un-network.
QUOTE:
"Likemind gatherings have no formal structure, no fees and typically no agenda. But participants exchange ideas, job tips and useful contacts, while also batting around ideas about technology, art, business and culture."

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nyt likemind socialnetworks socialtheory piers_fawkes psfk

Likemind gatherings have no formal structure, no fees and typically no agenda. But participants exchange ideas, job tips and useful contacts, while also batting around ideas about technology, art, business and culture.
Likemind caters to young professionals in advertising, media and design who are products of the age of personal blogs, warts-and-all YouTube videos and viral marketing. For them, the best pitch is the disguised pitch. Nothing, participants said, is more uncool than the hard-sell of traditional networking (which may explain why likemind is not capitalized).
1 more annotations...
- In a sense, likemind gatherings are more like the networking-party equivalent of so-called “unconferences,” which arose as a rebuke to the staid $1,000-a-head industry gatherings. They are typically free informal retreats where people in the same field can engage in extended open-ended brainstorming sessions unified around a single theme.

25 Oct 08

British Architect Norman Foster to Design Public Library’s Renovation - NYTimes.com

I don't know enough about the affordances and constraints of the New York Public Library building on 5th Ave to be able to have an informed opinion as to the necessity of this proposed renovation, but I'm tempted to file it under the "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" category.

The proposal sounds a bit scary, like a proposal to press a starchitect's ego what is a beloved icon. In particular, the quote by one board member (end of article) suggests a determination to proceed even if warning flags go up. Yes, libraries are very important, but they don't necessarily need *spectacular* intervention proposed.

Too bad the article doesn't link to images of the proposal.

On some levels the intervention sounds innocuous enough, as it won't visible from the outside and will affect only the interior. It could be as restorative as a heart transplant for someone who's terminally ill with heart disease. On the other hand, it could be as dangerous as a heart transplant...

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nyt libraries norman_foster starchitecture new_york_public_library

Mr. Foster and his London firm, Foster & Partners, are to create a new circulation library in a space below the library’s Rose Reading Room and overlooking Bryant Park that now houses seven levels of stacks and a basement.
The area, which now measures 1.25 million cubic feet, will be completely reconfigured, with new rooms for children and teenagers and numerous computer work stations. The stacks are to move to an existing three-acre storage area beneath Bryant Park that is also to be renovated. Work is expected to be completed by 2013.
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- “I’m very optimistic that we’ll be able to do this,” Mr. LeClerc said. He predicted that the renovated central library would “be a huge jolt of energy for the city when it’s done, the biggest comprehensive library open in the world but also in human history.”
- Mr. Foster’s acclaimed work with prized historic buildings made him a particularly compelling candidate, the library said. He has designed glass-enclosed additions to the Reichstag in Berlin (1999), the British Museum in London (2000) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington (2007).
- Starting with about 30 candidates and narrowing the field to 10, the library was particularly impressed by Mr. Foster’s efforts, trustees said, declining to name the other architects considered. Mr. Foster or members of his team visited the library 19 times before offering their proposal, Mr. Rose said. They designed elaborate visual presentations and even a model, which library executives declined to describe, saying that it was strictly hypothetical and that a final design was more than a year away.
  “They did do a knockout proposal,” Mr. LeClerc said. “It wasn’t, ‘This is what you’ve got to do.’ It was something that was indicative of the capacity of the firm to think very, very creatively about how this could be pulled off in a way that was really interesting — indeed, brilliant.”
- Because the stacks structurally support the reading room, for example, the reading room will have to be braced before the stacks are taken out. Mr. Foster’s firm has conducted engineering studies and evaluated the acoustics. Today about 1.2 million people visit the main library annually; when the new circulation library opens, that figure is expected to increase to about 4 million.

12 Aug 08

Voices From the Suburban Blogosphere, by Bob Tedeschi - NYTimes.com

Article that chronicles the role of blogging in the creation of new hyper local / local news eco-systems.
QUOTE:
For readers, the blogs are providing news in ways unseen in traditional local news media.
(...)
Like other journalists who run news sites, Paul Bass, New Haven Independent’s editor, does not consider himself a blogger.

“We’re a news site,” Mr. Bass said.

To underscore the difference, Mr. Bass said the site has three full-time reporters and one part-time reporter, all paid for by $185,000 in grants, corporate sponsorships and private donations. The site’s coverage, he added, helped remove a city budget director, change city towing policies and shame board of education members into better attendance, after it publicized the fact that the board’s truancy dwarfed that of city students.

“A lot of neighborhood boards weren’t covered until we came around, so we’re just showing up,” Mr. Bass said. “That’s the promise of hyperlocal journalism, as opposed to blogging.”
UNQUOTE

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nyt blogging hyper_local local_news placeblogging

04 Aug 08

Night Life Reprogrammed - NYTimes.com

Everything is more intense in NYC, including the geek or nerd "party" scene (meet ups, tweet ups, "ignite" events, etc.). More people = more capital, in terms of creative energy and innovation. (And perhaps headaches... but that's another story...!)

Of course I'd love to figure out how to sustain a mini-version of this right here (Victoria). Vancouver works very hard at it -- but even in Vancouver (I'm told), it's the same people reappearing at the different events (i.e., nowhere near the critical mass of larger US metros). Part of the problem is enticing people to come out -- it's so easy to stay home, after all...

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nyt creative_class geek socialtheory ignite meet_ups

IgniteNYC was just one of 12 tech events listed that evening
Now, young Internet entrepreneurs, some holdouts from the old days and a few members of the city’s creative class (and underclass) are engaged in a new type of party, which mashes together Silicon Alley 1.0’s camaraderie and optimism, meetup.com’s spontaneity and informality, Burning Man’s home-brewed creativity, and a technology conference’s devotion to unveiling ideas.
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- These days many of the ideas are about producing and delivering video content.
  - - interesting, with "prediction" aspects...? - on 2008-08-04
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- some are just attracted to a night life that involves actually talking to creative people doing exciting things, rather than heading out to clubs and bars that beat you into silence with their thundering rhythms.
  “Instead of just going out to drink and be bored,” said Ilana Arazie, whose video blog, Downtown Diary, chronicles her love life, “you’re talking to interesting people who are starting companies and telling great stories.”
- 16 speakers made PowerPoint presentations. Each was allowed 20 slides that auto-advanced after 15 seconds — five minutes total — a modified version of a format pioneered in Japan called “Pecha Kucha,” loosely translated as chitchat.

01 Aug 08

Emotional Architecture - Using Psychological Profiles to Design Houses - NYTimes.com

At some level -- perhaps because this article is about residential architecture in what looks to my eyes like an 80s "Dallas" (TV show) model (i.e., very expensive custom McMansions -- emphasis on "custom" and "expensive") -- the article gives me a "yuck" reflex. At the same time, there are some links and points I need to take a closer look at, and try to think about this in terms of urban design vs. in terms of very privileged people having shrink sessions with architects by commanding super-sized SFHs.

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nyt architecture residential

The idea of an emotional architecture is not a new one; it has long been the counterbalance to another fundamental architectural principle, that of “rational” space. Karrie Jacobs, an architecture writer and the author of “The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home” (Penguin, 2007), said she thought emotional architecture was a redundancy, like emo rock. “I mean, if architecture isn’t emotional, what good is it?” she said. “This may be a minority opinion, since many Modernists liked to think of themselves and their buildings as utterly rational, but I think that all good architecture, no matter the style or period, has emotional power.”
Interestingly, the Modernist architect Richard Neutra practiced a method similar to Mr. Travis’s, extracting detailed biographies from his clients in a take-home questionnaire, said Alice T. Friedman, professor of the history of American art at Wellesley and the author of “Women and the Making of the Modern House” (Yale University Press; 2006).
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- “It shows real forward thinking, but I don’t know how realistic that is,” said Toby Israel, author of “Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places.” Ms. Israel is an environmental psychologist in Princeton, N.J., who, like Mr. Travis, helps clients reach “emotional goals” through the décor and layout of their spaces; a lot of her work deals with childhood memories of place. Her method uses one-on-one sessions, like therapy, usually three three-hour marathons, she said, that she conducts herself.
  “I totally accept that the story of a house is the story of a life,” she said. “But interpreting that story is not just a science, but an art.” She said it sounded like Mr. Travis was an artful interpreter — clearly “a connector,” she said — and she wondered why he would want to develop his method beyond his client base.

14 Jul 08

Closing on Broadway - Two Traffic Lanes - NYTimes.com

Article about the "Broadway Boulevard" project, which will take some of current automobile lanes and turn them into public seating/ parks and bike paths. The project stresses the importance of wresting public space back from cars, for public/ pedestrian/ non-vehicular use.

QUOTE:
“Broadway is not famous because there are a gazillion cars going through it,” she said. “We’re trying to have the public space match the name.”
UNQUOTE

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nyt nyc broadway traffi_calming public_space urban_parks urban_design

31 Jan 08

Research Groups Boom in Washington - New York Times

Think tanks are apparently a booming industry, as Elizabeth Bumiller's article shows. Richard Florida ("Tanked," see http://tinyurl.com/35apn9) observes: "A DC insider once told me these so-called think tanks don't so much create new intellectual capital as repackage and recycle it - or as he put it, they run it down. Candidly, I was shockingly disappointed during my time in DC by the inability of most think tanks to tackle big questions in an open-minded, globally-oriented (that is not American-centric) way. And while there always are individual exceptions, I was also dismayed by the quality of much of the work. My hunch is the increased giving is being fueled by partisan agendas - actually, I have been told many time this is the way think tanks increasingly are funded - as political actors seek to lend credibility and legitimacy to desired actions." Bumiller closes her article with this: "'Institutions like this don’t possess power,' said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. 'You’re one of many voices in the political marketplace. It’s up to those in the marketplace who possess power — congressmen, people in the executive branch — to run with one of your ideas.'” That's something to think about for everyone in every local context, too.

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elizabeth_bumiller nyt politics research richard_florida think_tanks washington_dc

02 Jan 08

This Land: Visual Pollution | The New York Times

Fascinating slide show narrated by Kevin Fry of Route 1 (which runs 2000 miles from Maine to Florida), and which is in too many places a godforsaken strip mall. Fry's argument is that these places, built for cars not people, alienate us from any kind of authentic sense of place, and in turn this alienates us from citizenship, which is (and must be) local and specific. Relates to this article: http://tinyurl.com/2hkf25 too. (Slide show link via pricetags)

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alienation cars kevin_fry nyt placelessness socialcritique sprawl visual_pollution

Yule Heibel's Library tagged nyt → View Popular

Inside the Exteriors of the Architect Toyo Ito - NYTimes.com

Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Work and Name Their Price - NYTimes.com

The Media Equation - United, Newspapers May Stand - NYTimes.com

NYT: No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’

Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs - NYTimes.com

Young Professionals Meet for a Power Breakfast, but They Don’t Call It Networking - NYTimes.com

British Architect Norman Foster to Design Public Library’s Renovation - NYTimes.com

Voices From the Suburban Blogosphere, by Bob Tedeschi - NYTimes.com

Night Life Reprogrammed - NYTimes.com

Emotional Architecture - Using Psychological Profiles to Design Houses - NYTimes.com

Closing on Broadway - Two Traffic Lanes - NYTimes.com

Research Groups Boom in Washington - New York Times

This Land: Visual Pollution | The New York Times

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