Angled bamboo shelf, by ALS DESIGNS in New York.

(Via Curved White)

Iraqiya, a cross-sectarian slate of candidates led by Ayad Allawi, is currently leading by 9,000 votes with 80% of the vote counted:

Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad, said that now that 80 per cent of the vote had been counted it was possible to see a pattern emerging, and showed the race would be “neck and neck”.

“It would be a safe assumption to make that many Shias are voting for a party that includes Sunni on the ticket,” she said.

“Perhaps we are seeing the beginnings of a unifying trans-sectarian voting pattern in Iraq. Perhaps we are seeing the public reach across the sectarian divide.

Euan Semple, at the Henley (UK) KM Forum:

If your organisation says that social networking is too time consuming, ask why their meetings go on all day and they spend so much time writing 40 page reports that no-one reads.

(Via VMaryAbraham)

A wall made of magazines at Stockholm advertising agency Oktavilla (swedish). Created by architecture and design firm Elding Oscarson.

(Via Curved White)

The Federal Communications Commission will submit to Congress on Tuesday a 10-year plan that aims to make high-speed Internet the dominant communication medium in the U.S.:

The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries.

Cameron Daigle of Griffin Technology, on iPad:

Here’s a (possibly tremendously important) thought: the iPad is a portrait-oriented personal computer. Everyone has been so caught up with the touchscreen, whiz-bang look, and thinness (of Jobs and iPad both) that they’ve failed to be properly stunned at the realization that Apple is about to release the first natively portrait-oriented personal computer to hit the market in decades.

Another thought: The New York Times viewed on an iPad is arguably closer to print design than web design.

Landscape (widescreen) is good for video, and that’s a major reason why displays have gotten wider over the past several years. But portrait is good for text – that’s why most books are portrait-oriented. The iPad’s ability to handle – and seamlessly switch between – both modes is one of the most important design considerations that pushes it ahead of the status quo.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Kim Smith, a graduate student in emerging media and communication at UT Dallas, produced this case study of Twitter use in Dr. Monica Rankin’s US history course:

Students find themselves checking the feed after hours because the public trail of Twitter chatter doubles as an excellent study aid. As one student from Rankin’s class put it, “The significant terms that we’ve talked about in discussions, we’ll tweet that, and you can [go] back [to] that, and it’s a pretty good study aid.” This, in turn, keeps Twitter on their minds, fueling the cycle of involvement.

In Some General Comments on the Twitter Experiment, Dr. Rankin offers her thoughts on the project.

Pace of comments and juggling multiple topics:

By the time a comment was posted and students had a chance to respond to it, several other tweets had gone up and new ideas had been introduced. I suspect that this bothered me more than it bothered the students. I tend to think and process information in a much more structural manner. Most of the students (in their world of intense multi-tasking) seemed completely capable of following several streams of thought at one time.

Increasing student engagement:

Overall, I think the twitter experiment was successful primarily because it encouraged students to engage who otherwise would not. Even in smaller classes, only a small number of students actively participate in class discussions. Students knew that their class participation grade would be partially determined by their involvement in these discussions and most of them seemed comfortable with using the technology to engage with the reading materials.

(Via Natalie Petouhoff)

Thomas Friedman, in a New York Times op-ed piece on the Iraqi national election that took place this past Sunday:

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out. Personally, at this stage, I only care about one thing: that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price — in lost loved ones or injured bodies, in broken homes or broken lives, be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits — see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost, it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none.

JetBlue is running this poster in the New York Times today to celebrate its tenth year of flying. It’s good to see a company that has paid so much attention to customer service and experience reach this milestone, especially in a decade that has been particularly hard on airlines.

The running joke every time Apple releases a new product, or removes buttons from an existing one, is that the company hates buttons. Cameron Hunt suggests the opposite:

Would you say to someone, “Wow, you must hate dogs. You only have one. You enjoy his company and playing with him, but seriously, only one? What do you have against dogs?”.

The shallow assumption of Apple’s buttons is they hate buttons, the deeper conclusion is they love the shit out of a few important buttons. I bet they obsess over the placement, color, label, push-back and feel of every single button on every Apple device.