[quicktime width=”320″ height=”240″]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA08117.mov[/quicktime]
Titan Descent Data Movie with Bells and Whistles
ePluribus Media Journal
The original stories, articles, interviews and reviews that appear on the Journal start as either a submission to the ePluribus Media editors or as investigative tip.
ePluribus Media researchers, using publicly available information, and often working with a writer, pull together a story. Once a draft is ready, an editor is assigned who works with the main writer/or researcher to help shape the story and more importantly, determine if the story has merit.
This is an example of the potential of the web– 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0– starting to come to fruition. These ‘crowd sourced’ journals can’t replace mainstream journalism (although they may have to play the role that public radio and television once played) but they can help drive the agenda, as the cliché goes. It’s a model to watch for a number of reasons.
The first is that, perahps learning from Wikipedia, they have a ‘vetted volunteer’ community of writers alongside a complex fact-checking process. It’s a “501(c)(4) tax-exempt, non-partisan organization,” which means that, while dependent on the system of charitable foundations, it can be relatively independent of commercial pressures. The development of a workable institutional model is central to the future of independent journalism.
Another reason that it is worthy of watching is its apparent desire to create permanent research tools, such as searchable timelines on particular events, that can be used in all sorts of settings, from research to the public schools, to policy making. (Here’s the Katrina timeline; they have a Rita timeline as well as one tracing the impact of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome among veterans of the current war in Iraq.)
Alongside the podcasts, articles, reviews, and interviews, they can help create the sort of permanent historical memory long promised by digital gurus. ePluribus Media was founded two years ago, out of what Arron Barlow has a called a desire, “to develop paradigms for journalism on the Web that is horizontal,” an “open source journalism.” You can read his account of the origins and aspirations of ePluribus Media here.
100th Post
2. 100 (number) from Wikipedia
3. Top 100 Videos, Google Beta
4. MIT’s 100 Dollar Laptop
5. Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator
6. Time’s Top 100 People
7. Top 100 April Fools Hoaxes
8. 100 milestone documents of American history
9. IMDb Bottom 100
10. Top 100 Network Security Tools
11. 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007
12. Here are the 100 words most often misspelled (‘misspell’ is one of them).
13. World’s Top 100 Wonders
14. Celebrity 100: Forbes
15. The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000: American Library Association
16. Top 100 Downloaded Books, Project Gutenburg
17. The Billboard Hot 100
18. XtremeTop100.com – Gaming top 100 list
19. Top 100 Bloggers.com
20. 100 Reasons You’ll Be Speechless (Windows Vista)
21. QDB Admin Top 100 Quotes
22. American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches
23. The IT 100 Companies: The Leading Tech Companies of 2005
24. 100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change
25. NASDAQ-100 Dynamic Heatmap
26. Messier 100
27. 100 Words
28. 100 Best Novels
29. 100 Black Men of America, Inc.
30. Committee of 100
31. 100 Years of New York City
32. The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History: (Paperback)
33. 100% Campaign
34. 100 Oldest Currently Registered Domains
35. Michael Light: 100 Suns
36. Top 100 Lyrics
37. Club 100: A Model 100 User Group
38. 100 Girls
39. CNET’s Top 100 Products
40. Michael Light / 100 Suns
41. Micro 100 Tool Company
42. Top 100 Feeds
43. Top 100 Electronic Recruiters
44. Film 100
45. Top 100 Education Blogs
46. NEA: Top 100 Books for Children Top 100 Books
47. 100 Bloggers
48. Top 100 Global Universities
49. 100 Mysteries of the Century
50. World Chess: Top 100 Players
Take Back Your Time
Never has our message been so close to winning broad acceptance. From many quarters, the message that our workaholic, time-rushed culture is harmful to health, families, communities and the environment, is beginning to ring out more clearly.
A recently-released study compared health in the United States and in the United Kingdom, finding stark evidence that Americans are far sicker than the British, despite spending more than twice as much on health care each year. Even poor Brits were as healthy as the richest Americans.
In a New York Times op-ed (“Our Sick Society,” 5/5/06) about the study, economist Paul Krugman asks what it is “about American society that makes us sicker than we should be?” Overwork, he suggests, is a leading culprit. Stress is another.
The study only compares the US with the UK, where working hours — though far shorter than in the US — are among the longest in Europe and health outcomes among the worst. A study comparing the US with the Scandinavian countries or many continental European countries would show an even wider gap between American health and theirs.
from Take Back Your Time
It all seems very long ago, but my ‘minor’ as an M.A.-level graduate student in the mid 1980s was economics. Actaully, though, it was just a chance to read Marx— Capital Volumes I, II, and III– and study with my hero, a professor named Harry Cleaver.
Harry had a seemingly simple reading of capitalism that still makes sense to me today: the main way we loose power over our lives is through work, and the best way to regain control is to reduce the work week. As Harry has written, “Work is Still the Central Issue.”
With all that in mind, I was happy to hear on Rick Steves— yes, the travel show– about a group that is fighting to reduce the work week by, among other things, lobbying for increased vacation time, part-time work parity, health care, and a living wage.