By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Do My MP3 Files Sound Bad in Flash Player?
So I'm still working on the nice presentation of my talks collected on my Presentations page. Specifically, I addressed the 'chipmunk voice effect' problem Flash has with recorded MP3s. I scouted around a bit before I found a proper solution and explanation. I also replaced my clunky little Flash audio player with one that works, the JW MP3 Player. It will take a bit to resample my MP3 recordings, but it's worth the effort because it makes the presentation pages a lot more friendly. And I will say, I hope people are taking note of these, because it won't be long before something like this - audio, video, slides, whatever - are the standard for conference presentation pages. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Crypto Canon
Sonal Chokshi, Chris Dixon, Denis Nazarov, Jesse Walden, Ali Yahya, Andressen Horowitz, 2019/03/18
I've read a lot of these papers in my own research on blockchain but this list is well-presented and is more neatly formatted. On the other hand, my list contains a lot of excepts that indicate what the resource actually says. But this list is probably more canonical. I'll be running through it to make sure I haven't missed anything. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blaise Aguera Y Arcas: Jaw-Dropping Photosynth Demo
I don't like blogging stuff from TED because of their regressive admission fees policy. But you absolutely want to take the 15 minutes or so to watch this demonstration. This - rather than any Second Life experience - tells you what the 3D web experience will be like. Via Albert Ip. Tony Hirst, meantime, links to the same video as part of his presentation saying to Open University staff, in a nutshell, that "We ignore social networks and social technology platforms at OUr peril. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Semantic Technology Primer
This is a nice introduction to the concept of the semantic web. I especially like the diagram at the bottom of the document showing its progression into modal logic and axiology. Readers should note that this model of knowledge is controversial, not so much because of my objections (mentioned below) but because of the argument that knowledge is not reducible to atomic sentences. More...