Category — General

Meanwhile, the British govt. is planning to introduce an identity card for everyone in Britain. Danny, who always knows lots about this kind of stuff, explains more about it (with lots of links) at Oblomovka:

So the UK government has been proposing what they call an Entitlement Card – a universal ID card for every man, woman and child in Britain. Every government seems to propose this the moment they get into office, and ever since 1952, the voters have rejected it. It's one of those things that civil servants like to slip into the “TODO” list while the Minister isn't looking.

…and the Forces Against Evil (Danny and friends, natch) also have got their great 'Stand' project back up, which lets you fax the British government for free about the issue through the Stand website. There's only a few days left in the consultation process where you can make your voice heard, so Do It Now!

[[ t e c h n o \ c u l t u r e ]]

i am personally disdainful toward any system that seeks to identify people through the application of any technology…

When You Wish Upon A Blog. I Wish, You Wish Nifty site that scours wishlists (Amazon and others) of bloggers and puts them all in one convenient place, sorted by either birthday or alphabetically. [MetaFilter]

i put my wishlist up the other day.

McLuhan Course of Course Blogs. I heard from Mark Federman of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology. He teaches a graduate course in “Mind, Media and Society” at the University of Toronto, my alma mater. He writes: “Essentially the course teaches people to think like Marshall McLuhan did… you know… come up with cute aphorisms, predict the future, that sort of stuff…” The course has a blog jam-packed with ideas. Here's part of an entry: We began the “Applied McLuhanistics” course last evening. If the nature of the discussion at the first class is any indication, this will be a lively and most interesting… [Joho the Blog]

having just been reading 'mechanical bride and having read just about everything else bookwise in relation to mcluhan a few years ago, i think that this is fairly interesting.

Personal knowledge publishing and its uses in research (1/2) – 10 Jan 2003. Quote: “In this two-part document, I analyze an emerging form of knowledge sharing that I call personal knowledge publishing. Personal knowledge publishing has its roots in a practice known as “weblogging” that has been rapidly spreading on the World Wide Web over the last three years. It is a new form of communication that many expect will change the way people work and collaborate, especially in areas where knowledge and innovation play an important role.”

Comment: See also this piece on a blogging adoption processÊlinked at the bottom by Lilia Efimova . [Serious Instructional Technology]

interesting enough…

Encouraging Knowledge Sharing. Quote: “Often, we assume that people share based on “what's in it for me”…i.e. sharing of knowledge happens because I think it will help me some how. That may be true…but I wonder if there is such a thing as sharing simply because it is the most natural thing to do with certain things. For example, when something good happens to a friend…we share it with others. Do we do this because of “what's in it for me”?…or do we do it because the thing we are dealing with is something that needs to be shared – because of what it is?”

Comment: See also “Five Tips to Reduce Knowledge Loss” .Ê I wrote a Title III proposal along these lines a few years ago (it didn't make it), as 50% of our faculty are in the process of retiring. [Serious Instructional Technology]

it always amazes me how much people forget. I think as society gets more and more individualistics and isolated, the verbal communicaiton and thus the memory preserving functions diminish signifincatly.. replacing it is pseudo memor and nostalgia for things that never existed.

The Direction of Academic Publishing. Quote: “As can be expected, “Academic Publishing in the Digital Realm”, an interview with Clifford Lynch,executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) that is full of insightful nuggets. I highly recommend it to anyone who cares about the influence of digital technology on where scholarly publishing is going. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the interview (along with my interpretation):” [Serious Instructional Technology]

this is one of the things that i do for a living i guess, with the eprints server and several other initiatives underway, and more to come of course.

[the reverse cowgirl's blog]

while i'm not sure that blacksburg needs such a service, i can see how it would be worthwhile in other parts of the world. i mean overall, who cares what they don't wear, as long as they do the job. and believe me, data entry is not fun, or is anything else they said they would do…

Debut for 'the world's most decadent burger' [Ananova: News]

cheeseburger in paradise, heaven on earth with an onion slice… etc. etc. btw, mikes burgers in blacksburg serves a likely competitor toward best burger ever. however, sandy's bar which is on your way out of dushore pennsylvania on 87 toward laporte is probably the best i've ever had. if you are in that part of the woods, and it would be strange if you ever are because there is not much else there, go see if they still have the 1/2 lb burger.

Microsoft settles suit for $1.1 billion. just in The company resolves a California class-action lawsuit, agreeing to hand out vouchers to certain Windows buyers good for products from Microsoft or others. [CNET News.com]
110 billion was more appropriate…

Donantonio Borns. Two years ago Ismael Olea (olea), Juan JosŽ Amor (jjamor) and David Escorial wrote the specifications of requisites for Donantonio, Donantonio it's an bibliographic system for automatic distribuited publication which will help us at es.tldp.org (called also LuCAS), now the implementation of this system is being discussed a lot in the lists of LuCAS… [Advogato]

i've actually built something like this before, the theory needs to move forward though…