By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jack D Herrington[Edit][Delete]: Separate Data and Formatting with Microformats, IBM developerWorks [Edit][Delete]IBM DeveloperWorks [Edit][Delete] July 12, 2006
Nice article that not only describes microformats but also provides some PHP code that allows you to convert from microformats to XML and back again. How would this be useful? You could write a short script that gathers the book reviews written by James McGee recently. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alfred Thompson[Edit][Delete]: Thoughts About the $100 Laptop Project, Computer Science Teacher [Edit][Delete] July 12, 2006
So what does Microsoft think of the $100 laptop project, especially given that the computers will use Linux operating systems. This blog post isn't an official response, but as it comes from a Microsoft staffer we can get an insight into how they may feel. And how they feel, in a word, is critical. The Linux system, he writes, "has an amazingly poorly designed user interface that is unnecessarily complex". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Pollard[Edit][Delete]: Escaping the Prison, How to Save the World [Edit][Delete]How To Save The World [Edit][Delete]How To Save the World [Edit][Delete] July 12, 2006
My most recent book review is of Doris Lessing's Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, and so it is appropriate that Dave Pollard brings us this post summarizing how to escape the prisons. Based on David Edwards's 1995 book, Burning All Illusions, the advice (a bit long, but worth it) is as follows:

1. Be mindful. Watch what's happening and why.
2. Be self-aware. Pay attention to what you're doing and why.
3. Be open-minded. Don't prejudge. Listen.
4. Accept responsibility. Don't blame victims.
5. Think critically. Question what you read and hear.
6. Refuse to self-censor.
7. Reject simple, comforting answers.
8. Don't compromise. The 'lesser of two evils' is a slippery slope.
9. Refuse to hate; don't be provoked into hating or scapegoating.
10. Reduce your dependence, so you can voice your criticisms.
11. Disobey. Constantly challenge authority, ask questions, say and do what others fear to.
12. Learn, especially from experience; sidestep the filters.
13. Don't rationalize. Don't be seduced into believing something just because you want to.
14. Celebrate your uniqueness: Don't just be everyone else.
15. Love yourself. Don't depend on others' attention or approval.
16. Wonder. Imagine. Be free of the need for certainty. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ross Mayfield[Edit][Delete]: Ten Trends That Matter to Business, July 12, 2006
These trends probably matter to other people too but if you're trying to make a living these days you have to appeal to 'business' (whatever that is). Perhaps that explains item number 2, 'overburdened public sector'. As though you could just wave your have and make health and pension costs go away? And perhaps by business responsibility becomes number 6, 'social cost'. "Business has never been loved, but there is a different tone, fueled by tech and edu." Perhaps most important is not the demographic shifts or the shortages of resource. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Chris Anderson[Edit][Delete]: On Media Elitism and The "Derivative" Myth, The Long Tail [Edit][Delete] July 12, 2006
How often have you heard something like this? "Without the New York Times, there is no blog community. They'd have nothing to blog about." Yeah, it's the old story. But it's not true. Check out these statistics: "Technorati shows that there are currently 555,000 posts linking to the New York Times. Nearly 800,000 posts mention the Times in one way or another. Sounds like a lot? Not if you pull back and look at the entire blogosphere. Technorati is currently tracking 2.7 billion links." Another way of putting it is to observe, with the author, that "roughly 300 times more people talking about themselves (and the world around them) than talking about what the New York Times has written about." P.S. Wired magazine has just bought the online service, Wired News. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: Reboot, Bbc [Edit][Delete]BBC [Edit][Delete] July 12, 2006
This is a really interesting look at what readers thought the BBC's web 2.0 web page should look like. There are some really good ideas here with some others that are, well, less good. I liked the personalization in the winning entry but I actually preferred the Schumachers' version, which was much cleaner, incorporated personalization, and had built-in radio. I also like the idea expressed in I don't want a portal, but not so much the execution. More...