Can Cats Read Minds?
Ali Boyle, iAi News, 2018/09/11
I've thought a lot about the mental states. In the current case, we're not asking whether cats have ESP. Rather, if a cat does something, is it because the cat thinks we're thinking something, or is it simply reacting to behaviour. This article raises what is called 'the logical problem', because we can't change the evidence for our thinking something without also changing our behaviour. But it becomes odd and hard to explain a cat's actions without assuming they know what we're thinking. More...

Gurus v. Bloggers, Round 1
This is a fun article that makes a great point. The concept is this: line up the websites of eight design and usability gurus against the websites of eight bloggers who write on the same topics. Evaluate the respective websites for design and usability. The result, needless to say, is one-sided, and not in favour of the supposed experts. More...

Fighting Music Swappers
My response to the Globe and Mail article, as a letter to the editor. The debate over file sharing isn't simply a matter of protecting honest vendors against thieves. It is about whether these vendors should be able to hold a privileged position in the marketplace. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, April 13, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Writing on the Brain
This commentary on Alice W. Flaherty's The Midnight Disease asks the question: why do people write? Perhaps, the author suggests, it's a disease? Certainly the list of great writers has no shortage of manic and drug-addled basket cases. More...

Speaking of Music Piracy...
You have to wonder whether the people who invested $400 or so for music players featuring legitimate 99 cent song downloads are feeling a little used now that music publishers have started pushing the prices back up again. More...

Feasibility of Course Development Based on Learning Objects
"This paper presents three case studies that seek to maximize the use of freely available and reusable learning objects in their course design," write the authors. "The three case studies originated in different university-level disciplines – Nursing, Business and English writing." An excellent discussion of some issues involved in the use of learning objects follows, with the cases providing solid foundation for criticism. More...

The Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age
You have to do a lot of reading in this article to get a little content, but the argument is essentially that today's students were raised in a world of images, and especially moving images, and as such, as a consequence of moving image technology, they are losing important things, such as their ability to comprehend deductive arguments, and their ability to identify context, and hence, their own identity with context. More...

Sugar Camp
Last Friday, after work, the e-learning group took a well deserved break for supper and a tour at the Trites Family sugar camp. For those of you not familiar with maple syrup production, the sap of maple trees, which runs for three weeks each spring, is collected in buckets or piped through (blue) hoses. More...

L'état, C'est Moi
A system of public education should have as its primary objective the teaching of means and mechanisms of interaction with others in a maximally harmonious network of distinct and autonomous individuals. More...