By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Digg This: 09 F9 11 02 9d 74 E3 5b D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Definitely one for the annals, what we have here is the secret code that can be used to decrypt HD-DVD videos (the Wikipedia article has a very useful table describing the difference between DVD formats). A media giant ordered Digg to remove the code, which Digg did, the company not have millions of dollars to fight lawsuits. Digg users rebelled. Digg displays stories based on votes submitted by users, and so for the rest of the day every story on Digg contained the code as users voted for them en masse. "After seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments," writes Kevin Rose, "you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company." Bavatuesday has screen shots of the Digg RSS feed (my own is similar). BBC post on the topic. More...
Silverlight: Ruby and Python in the Browser
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Silverlight: Ruby and Python in the Browser
Silverlight is a browser plug-in for Mac and Windows that allows scripts written in a variety of languages, including C#, Visual Basic, Ruby and Python, to run in your browser (the way Javascript does today). Silverlight does run in Firefox (though not on Linux). Worth noting is that Microsoft also released, on Monday, a Firefox plug-in (for Mac and Windows) that allows it to run Windows Media animations. Pundits are saying this is Microsoft's answer to Flash, but I would say it's also its answer to AJAX and Javascript, which were running away on them. Will all this extra turn things around? A lot depends on implementation. More...
Journal of Applied Research On Learning (JARL)
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Journal of Applied Research On Learning (JARL)
Brand new journal launched by the Canadian Council on Learning, and I am happy to say it is freely available online. The journal covers a wide range of topics, from Potential Risks to Reading Posed by High-Dose Phonics to Assessing the Effectiveness of Informational Video Clips on Iranian Immigrants' Attitudes. More...
Open Letter to Linden Lab
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open Letter to Linden Lab
This post reports on an open letter from Second Life users to the company that runs it, Linden Labs. Second Life is beginning to show some strains. People are concerned about their inventories disappearing. There are frequent search outages. The grid itself isn't stable, meaning that teleports routinely fail. The build tools are not working properly. And there are even questions about transactions and Linden dollar balances. These are, in my view, just the sort of problems to be expected from an overly centralized system. More...
The Scary Little Computer
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Scary Little Computer
Some changes in the specifications for the One Laptop Per Child computer (aling with a new $175 price tag) are raising questions among some pundits. Especially interesting (and troubling) is the allegation that more expensive components are being sued in order to allow Windows to run on the platform. A Wired story states it outright, "Negroponte: OLPC Hardware Altered for Microsoft." Here's another item from ZDNet. But I read something last night (I can't find the link, I'm sorry) from someone who was in the room when the decision was made, and the assertion was that it is to improve the computer, not to accommodate Microsoft. More...
Normandie: un nouveau dispositif pour les projets “Deep Tech”
Un certain nombre d’étudiants ont la volonté de créer une entreprise pendant leur cursus universitaire mais la période de stage obligatoire, majoritairement effectuée dans une entreprise au cours de leur master, a pour conséquence de générer un retard de plusieurs mois sur leur projet de création d’entreprise. Par ailleurs, ces derniers ne trouvent pas toujours, au cours de leur cursus, l’accompagnement, ni les soutiens financiers suffisants pour mener à bien leur projet. Plus...
Le REFEDD lance sa nouvelle Consultation Nationale Étudiante
2e édition du Knowledge Summit entre la France et l'Inde
Loi Avenir professionnel : quels enjeux pour la profession agricole en Nouvelle-Aquitaine ?
La Chambre régionale d’agriculture de Nouvelle-Aquitaine propose un après-midi de réflexion-débat , le 7 novembre 2019 de 14h à 16h30 à Pessac, autour des enjeux de la loi « Avenir professionnel » en agriculture. Plus...
A lire : les chiffres clés de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine
La Direccte publie son édition 2019 des chiffres clés de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine qui établissent un diagnostic global de la région. Plus...