The Journalism Iconoclast

Boring, bland, lifeless offices don’t benefit anyone: Research has shown that a healthy office space with plants and open windows is more conducive to productivity. I love my home office. It’s filled with plants, books, a fish tank, antiques and interesting objects My office at work is pretty bland and boring, but I’m going to try...
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Nothing destroys the credibility of a site quicker than corporate shillery: Should ScienceBlogs.com have agreed to host a controversial blog on nutrition, written by PepsiCo? No, say the site’s readers, as some of its star bloggers stop their blogs in protest. It’s an idea so bad that you swear that The Washington Post and Publisher Katharine...
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Despite the risk, urban cycling is a healthier option The authors found that for the individuals who shift from car to bicycle, the benefits gained by increased physical activity were substantially larger (3 – 14 months of life gained) than the drawbacks of inhaled air pollution (0.8 – 40 days lost) and the increase in...
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‘Gate Fever Breaks – Dot Earth Blog – NYTimes.com: The  Independent Climate Change Email Review is finished and, within its constrained mandate, has cleared climate scientists and administrators at the University of East Anglia of claims of malfeasance rising out of the contents of folders of e-mail messages and files extracted from computers there and posted...
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Building more roads to alleviate congestion only causes more congestion: It seems like a logical conclusion that if your streets are clogged, you need more lanes for cars. But, in a curious phenomenon known to urban planners, cars seem to fill whatever space they’re given. What many cities have found is the opposite. Build bike lanes,...
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If the oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico can’t be contained, it could leak half a billion barrels of oil into the ocean. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez leaked about 11 million barrels of oil. Wow. Matthew Simmons, former chairman of energy industry investment bank Simmons and Company sounds the alarm bells: “This isn’t a...
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Christopher Montgomery, founder of the Xiph.org Foundation, on why software patents suck and need reform: “Patents are like every teenager carrying a hand gun,” he told me.  Sooner or later, one of those guns could go off. Don’t get too excited about Google open sourcing the VP8 video codec. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have patent...
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It’s easy to get followers; it’s hard to get good followers. Be patient. There are a bunch of tools to get people and organizations a mass of Twitter followers quickly. But raw numbers won’t help you. What your organization needs are followers that actually care about your product and want to interact with you. That’s why I advocate...
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A debate has sprung up in the blogosphere about libertarianism and millennials based on this OkCupid post on political leanings and generations. (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan) William Wilkinson has a great take home on why many millennials may lean libertarian and yet also feeling more comfortable with the democratic party, while boomers that lean libertarian...
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By now, you’ve probably read glowing review after glowing review of the iPad by tech columnists, but I want to share my experiences with you when I get my iPad. I will not have received an iPad for free, nor will I be testing it out as my job for  a news outlet or tech...
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