By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeff Jarvis[Edit][Delete]: Everybody's a Network, BuzzMachine [Edit][Delete] May 24, 2006
Question of the day: "what if media isn't a business anymore? What if it becomes like poetry -" lots of people do it, but nobody ever expects to make any money from it." Or, what if education isn't a business anymore - people share what they know as part of their day-to-day routine or part of the job, everybody does a little, and nobody makes any money? "The smart network response to all this is to liquify. You let your stuff be found anywhere, in any medium and any network. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Garret Sern[Edit][Delete]: Time for Higher Education to Be Heard on Net Neutrality!, EDUCAUSE Blogs [Edit][Delete] May 24, 2006
I take net neutrality as one of those really obvious things. The attempts to end net neutrality are not about improving things, they are about controlling the marketplace and eliminating the competition, about appropriating the public infrastructure, rights of way, and other easements that we provide them for their own personal gain. When this happens, important public services, such as education, lose out to commercial traffic. So it's no surprise to see EDUCAUSE coming out in favour of net neutrality. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Joe Clark[Edit][Delete]: To Hell with WCAG 2, A List Apart [Edit][Delete] May 23, 2006
Well known for his writing on accessibility, Joe Clark slams the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 recently announced for comment. How often does this happen to standards bodies: "The process is stacked in favour of multinationals with expense accounts who can afford to talk on the phone for two hours a week and jet to world capitals for meetings. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Nate Anderson[Edit][Delete]: Making Money Selling Music Without DRM: The Rise of eMusic, Ars Technica [Edit][Delete] May 23, 2006
Interesting article about a site that is making money selling independent music by subscription in MP3 format - with no digital rights management (DRM) at all. The major lables, of course, cannot fathom how such a business could make money, but eMusic is the number two retailer of downloadable music behind the iTunes Music Store. Also worth noting is that the company decided "to hire several distinguished music critics to serve as 'curators' for the site." This is the beginning of the newsmastering rend. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stirling Kelso[Edit][Delete]: My Book, by Me, Fast Company [Edit][Delete] May 23, 2006
This is actually old news, as Lulu.com has been around for a while (Leigh Blackall used it to publish his Teach and Learn Online book). And as Brad Jensen noted on DEOS Sunday, Amazon has it's own version, BookSurge. But this service, Blurb, seems to be new. "Blurb and its ilk are democratizing a tired oligopoly, opening up the pipes to... everyone, really. Want to publish your treatise on the government's extraterrestrial conspiracy? Sure". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Katherine Seligman[Edit][Delete]: Young and Wired, San Francisco Chronicle [Edit][Delete] May 23, 2006
More about the phenomenon of computer use among the young. Good article overall, with a good summation of the major issues. Janice Friesen introduced this article on WWWDEV with the comment, "I think we may be raising a generation of screensuckers." Ironic, coming from the generation that was raised on televsion and the telephone. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Niagara Falls, May 23, 2006

As promised, photos from our visit to Niagara Falls on Friday. The Falls were much more impressive than I thought they would be, and we did the whole thing - the Maid of the Mist and the tour behind and under the Falls. Enjoy. [Tags: Flickr] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wesley Fryer[Edit][Delete]: Blogs like a Neutron Bomb!, Moving at the Speed of Creativity [Edit][Delete] May 22, 2006
Perhaps a little over-enthusiastic, but I appreciate the sentiment expressed by Darren Kuropatwa as he describes the impact of the use of blogs in his math classes. Dean Shareski writes, "My personal growth as a learner has been exponential as a result of my exploration of technology and connectivity to some of the best and brightest in education today." This article comments on the conversation between Kuropatwa and Shareski recorded on the Ideas and Thoughts blog (scroll down to Podcast 16; individual post links are not working). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Wilson[Edit][Delete]: Personal Information and Identity - Some Categories, May 22, 2006
It's mostly just a description of the vocabulary associated with identity, but a close reading provides the reader a good understanding of the nature and complexity of identity on the web. The trick, in both identification and profiling, is to make these concepts work together in a way that is both useful and that preserves privacy. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Hamilton, Ontario, May 22, 2006

Andrea and I travelled to Ontario Tuesday for my brother's wedding and ended up spending a fw days on a pleasant vacation in Hamilton. These are photos (on Flickr) from that trip - most of which are from the Royal Botanical Gardens and from a hike along the Bruce Trail on the Niagara Escarpment. We also spen a day at Niagara Falls, but I'll be linking to those spectacular shots tomorrow. Anyhow, enjoy the photos. [Tags: Linking and Deep Linking, Flickr] [Comment] [Edit]. More...