By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When Blobjects Rule the Earth
Scott submits this nice link to my discussion area with reference to the 'Drugs that Speak to You' item from yesterday. Bruce Sterling, a noted science fiction and cyberpunk author discusses the concept of gizmos and spimes, objects of the sort described in the other story. Spimes, especially, are interesting; you buy then (where else?) at the drug store, and thereafter the spimes follow you. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Are Instructional Designers Software Architects in Disguise?
I am in the main sympathetic with this article as in comparing the fields of software architecture and instructional design it seems to reveal the deficiencies of each. Posted as an ITForum discussion paper, it has drawn responses mostly along the lines of assertions that 'instructional design is not just another branch of engineering'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Create A Graph
Via Pete MacKay's Teacher List, this site is a nifty tool that clearly illsutrates the relation between data and graphs. I would like to see something like this accept syndicated data from remote feeds. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 13 States Agree to Raise H.S. Standards
Without lingering on this item, let me observe that it's like making your car go faster by sticking an extra number on the dial of its speedometer. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Bodcasting
"The RSS Bubble is here," writes Steve Gillmor, and it's hard not to agree. While I am pleased at the long-awaited recognition of content syndication, let me assert right now that RSS is not the short-cut to easy riches, that it will not replace everything that came before it, that it is likely to get mired in lawsuits over content and use, that if you are just writing your business plan, you're too late, and that if you invest now, you will probably lose your money. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Future of FLOSSE: Interview with Stephen Downes - Part 2
This is the second part of my interview with Teemu Arina. The sound quality is so-so, but it was the first experience for both of us recording a Skype conversation. Arina summarizes, "Stephen talks about communities and what is actually a community and what kinds of communities people belong to. The internet allows people to pick very specific communities by topic out there. Communities are not anymore tied to a place but are more like networks, clusters and clouds." Direct links to MP3s: Part 1, Part 2. Interestingly, people looking for clarification of my Northern Voice talk, which was actually given after this interview was recorded, will find it here. By Teemu Arina, FLOSSE, March 2, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Unanswered Questions about Open Access
The purpose of this," writes the author, "is to put the brakes on the Open Access bandwagon." But despite its being published by a professor in a published journal, the article is filled with weak argument and outright misinformation. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Concepts and a Design for Fair Use and Privacy in DRM
I don't think this is the answer, but the reasoning in this article is worth sharing. "We propose approaching this problem by a set of new design concepts bringing access to process context information to DRM license control systems. These concepts provide privacy by separating user and product identities and by enabling distribution history tracking." All very fine, but I doubt that I will ever see "hardware locking" as an "advantage". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Implementing Real-world Structured Searches
Is this how folksonomies are supposed to work? "Hint to conference planners: If you want the blogosphere to synchronize its coverage of your event, pick a tag and promote it." No, that's just the big spike speaking again. This is better, isn't it: "there are also implicit tags - namely links - that identify items about the conference." Of course. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A special issue of First Monday on the 15–year anniversary of Napster — Digital music as boundary object
Raphaël Nowak, Andrew Whelan, First Monday, 2014/10/08
It has been fifteen years since Napster - it seems like yesterday to me, it was such a defining moment, yet now it's history. More...