The Making
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw1MFobWD_o]
Teachers count.

Talk about efficiency!

O’Reilly Network: The Real Problem with Textbooks: A SafariU Editorial
Some typical tech enthusiasm coupled with a certain dose of self-praise from O’Reilly. As O’Reilly is often perceived quite positively (as a “non-evil” in the tech publishing world), the implied marketing is relatively benign.
Interesting notion about what changes in publishing imply:

A key design principle of this new publishing is remixing–putting together digital content in creative new ways. Remixing is powering new services that are shaking up traditional publishing and distribution.

Of course, other publishers are trying to adopt similar strategies by which iinstructors are able to “build” textbooks by picking and choosing textbook sections (chapters, modules, units) from a publisher’s database. There’s an issue of granularity but it does represent a bit more freedom than being forced to use a monolithic textbook. If the publisher’s collection contains a broad range of material, this can be a solution to some people’s problems with textbooks.
But mix-and-match textbooks address issues of openness only obliquely. The editorial uses iTunes and Google News as examples of remixing. The world is ready for forms of remixing which are more open-ended, like blogs and wikis.

Technorati tags: academia, publishing, textbooks, new-economy, technology

Le réseau sans-fil ouvert/gratuit/libre «Île Sans Fil» se fait une tournée des bars:
Île Sans Fil Montréal – Québec – Canada : PubCrawl2005.
Pas pire! Bière et geekitude. T-shirts pas chers, prix de présence.
En passant, ISF est un des groupes montréalais qui traversent le mieux les «deux solitudes»…

Technorati tags: wifi, bière, montréal

The “Île Sans Fil” Free/Open wireless network in Montreal is having a pubcrawl:
Île Sans Fil Montréal – Québec – Canada : PubCrawl2005.
Pretty cool! Beer and geekness. Cheap t-shirts. Door prizes.
And, BTW, ISF is one of the groups in Montreal where the “two solitudes” are most integrated.

Technorati tags: wifi, beer, montreal

Internet Archive: Details: Day In The Death Of Donny B.
Now, this is one good reason to keep archives. This one was linked from a Dailysonic episode on soundtracks from the 1970s. This one is a short anti-drug docudrama from 1969. Quite powerful. Non-moralistic, rather realistic, non-sensationalist, social… The soundtrack is haunting, the images are quite strong without being drawn out too far. As Dailysonic’s Adam Varga was saying, such a movie couldn’t be made nowadays.

Technorati tags: movie, drugs, soundtrack, archives, 1969

Started yet another blog, this time on Opera.com (a “community” site based on the Opera browser, which is now free).
It’s a rather limited blogging solution but it does allow for importing from Blogger so it’s now populated with entries from here.
So the list now includes, as personal blogs:

1. a Blogger.com/Blogspot.com blog
2. a LiveJournal
3. an Opera.com blog

As well as the academic blog on Thinking Globalization Through Music.

Fun!

Is it too much? Well, yes. But it’s mostly about testing features. Eventually, all of the personal blogs among these could/should be merged into one reliable blogging interface.

Skype se tourne vers les services vocaux. Peut-être l’avénement de cette intégration technologique autour de la voix? La voix, comme interface, a son importance. Mais elle nécessite certains traitements (reco, TTS…). Reste à voir ce qui va se passer dans le domaine.
N’empêche, l’influence Skype, qui est désormais un grand nom, saurait se faire sentir.

Seventy-Two Percent Of High Fives Unwarranted | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source
Even the alternatives are often considered unwarranted. Been criticized for over-using the thumbs-up myself. Although hissed “yessss,” with or without associated fist-pulling, still carries enough weight in specific situations.

Could be linked to other changes in non-verbal communication.