These two concepts — crowdfunding and urban improvement — have been married by several recently launched startups, both in the U.S. and abroad. These civic crowdfunding startups tap local communities and businesses to raise money for community centers and urban beautification, giving citizens a sense of ownership and a stake in the future of their cities. — mashable.com

After submitting your work, the decision process varies. Often the Editor-in-Chief will reject your work out-of-hand, without even reading it! However, he might read it. Probably he'll skim. At other times your manuscript may be sent to anonymous referees. Unless they are the Editor-in-Chief's wife or graduate school buddies, it is unlikely that the referees will even understand what is going on. — universalrejection.org

A federal court ruled last week that an employer didn't violate a federal anti-hacking law when it took over an employee's LinkedIn account after firing her, Ars Technica reported. 
Edcomm, the Pennsylvania company Linda Eagle presided over until it was bought out in 2010, fired Eagle in 2011, according to Ars Technica. — businessinsider.com

Art.sy’s mission is to make all the world’s art freely accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. We believe that by bringing together art and science, Art.sy will foster new generations of art lovers, scholars, collectors, and patrons. Thank you for joining us in this ambitious mission. — art.sy

As Occupiers posted links, updates, photos and videos on social media sites; as they deliberated in chat rooms and collaborated on crowdmaps; as they took to the streets with smartphones, they tested the parameters of this multiply mediated world. What is the layout of this place? What are its codes and protocols? Who owns it? How does its design condition opportunities for individual and collective action? — Places Journal

"Zawia#00:Change discusses the significantly changing realities imposed on all social, political and economic systems and their influence on design disciplines. Zawia#00:Change will attempt to demonstrate whether architects are ready to embrace changing ideals and new modes of operation, and whether they are willing to help better people’s lives rather than focusing on glorifying design or architecture." — www.zawia.co

The Marcel Breuer Digital Archive represents a collaborative effort headed by Syracuse University Library to digitize over 30,000 drawings, photographs, letters and other materials related to the career of Marcel Breuer, one of the most influential architects and furniture designers of the twentieth century. — breuer.syr.edu

Sumit Jain has fond memories of his childhood in a small town where everybody knew everybody. But as a young man, he moved to a big city for work and began living in an apartment building. Jain said he soon missed feeling connected to a community.

That sense of loss led him to create Commonfloor.com, a “neighborhood portal” for Indians whose lifestyles have changed with their nation’s economic transformation but who still crave neighborhood life. — washingtonpost.com

Design Week NYC is almost here, and the plethora of events going on around New York City can be quite overwhelming. But worry not, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has launched a new tool that will come in very handy: a mobile-ready website, designweeknyc.org, highlighting design-related events around the city during ICFF, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, May 19-22. — bustler.net

Hillman Curtis, a former rock musician who became a prominent first-generation Web designer and a visionary figure in the Internet’s evolution from a predominantly text-based medium to the multimedia platform it is today, died on Wednesday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 51. — nytimes.com

Ms. Lin conceived "What Is Missing?" as the fifth, and last, of her memorial projects, which began with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1982. — post-gazette.com

Creating anything new, particularly a creative collaboration, is an act of pathological hope. It has been said the difference between construction and creation is this: a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. It was with this sense of hope that this project began—an idea borne not only of the notion that we had something to say, but that we could express it in an engaging, thought provoking, and intellectually rigorous way. — Lantern