Culturing

I am consolidating servers, so will be transferring domains, and moving this. Just wanted to give a heads up

Open eBook (or OEB), or formally, the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS), is a legacy e-book format "based primarily on technology developed by SoftBook Press"[2] and on XML; it has been superseded by the EPUB electronic publication standard.

Open eBook is a ZIP file plus a Manifest file. Inside the package a defined subset of XHTML may be used, along with CSS and Dublin Core metadata. The default file extension is .opf (OEB Package Format).

While I haven't absolutely confirmed this, my understanding is that DC support carried over into EPUB.

Using industry-average data, the cost of selling a Blackboard enterprise learning system is estimated to be $259,000 per sale….This cost compares to an estimated cost of $78,000 per sale for commercially-marketed open source software and $450 to $1000 for community-building for the uPortal product.

Not many years ago, there wasn't enough wind power coming from the Great Plains to worry about. Now there is, and lots of people are worrying.

A group of mostly East Coast utility companies calling itself the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy fears that the prime conditions in the Great Plains will make the region's wind power too cheap for its members to compete with, unless developers there are made to pay the costs of moving wind power eastward.

Jeff Jarvis unloads during his TED talk about how completely wrong it is for people to be sitting there listening to others instead of collaborating with them. Some excerpts:

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This is bullshit.

Why should you be sitting there listening to me? To paraphrase Dan Gillmor, you know more than I do. Will Richardson should be up here instead of me. And to paraphrase Jay Rosen, you should be the people formerly known as the audience.

But right now, you’re the audience and I’m lecturing.

That’s bullshit.

McKinsey sees two categories for emerging applications: "information and analysis" and "automation and control." Many of the applications listed are for large companies or specialized industries (for example automobile manufacturers). But consumers should take note too, because there will be a lot more data about us flowing onto the Internet.

McKinsey defines Internet of Things as "sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects [...] linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet."

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

I think Cascio is really on to something here:

My latest Fast Company piece is up: Augmented (Fashion) Reality takes a look at what happens when the world of fashion gets ahold of AR technology....

I note late in the essay that fashion may end up being the "killer app" for wearable AR. The more I think about it, the more it rings true -- AR can't just be about finding the nearest Starbucks or getting a read on local environmental conditions. It has to be playful, too.

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

A video worth watching

American Scientist could have researched this better (I would have liked to see something from the archival literature), but overviews of this issue for wider audiences are always good.

The general problem of data preservation is twofold. The first matter is preservation of the data itself: The physical media on which data are written must be preserved, and this media must continue to accurately hold the data that are entrusted to it. This problem is the same for analog and digital media, but unless we are careful, digital media can be more fragile.

To our friends, partners and team at Devo Inc,

Devo’s coming baker’s dozen of new sonic missives this Spring has sparked a flurry of activity here at Devo Inc. I’m excited to announce that our partners, Warner Brothers and the ad agency Mother LA, have initiated a series of studies to help the band determine every decision it makes regarding it’s body covering, it’s brand color, it’s graphic icons and even it’s choice of vocal style and instrumentation on any given song!

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

Feasta aims to identify the characteristics (economic, cultural and environmental) of a truly sustainable society, articulate how the necessary transition can be effected and promote the implementation of the measures required for this purpose.

A nature credit trading system

It's not just happening in the American Rust Belt:

In a Guardian extract of his book, “Peoplequake,” Fred Pearce explained how falling fertility rates were creating “perforated cities” across eastern Europe:

I suppose this is better than insisting that they NOT use them, but it seems misguided nonetheless. And what happens when some people start making public mistakes because they don't really get how social media works? Will the BBC be forgiving?

BBC news journalists have been told to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News who took over last week. He said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories.

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

Thanks to Rick for pointing this out

One response to this from fans of these affected writers is to boycott Amazon. But you know what, I think that’s putting the focus where it shouldn’t be. This crux of this matter is a negotiation between two corporate entities, and that’s something a boycott just isn’t going to matter to, or solve in any meaningful way. And in the case of the authors involved, it’s not going to help them make sales.

Hagel has an important post here about the special challenges the social web poses for people who are shy. And how passion might be one way they can cope with it.

...In this new world, shy people can be at a significant disadvantage. We run the risk of becoming increasingly stressed and marginalized by the extroverts who welcome the opportunity to broaden and deepen relationships. They thrive in crowded rooms while we are deeply uncomfortable with exposing and sharing....

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been working a bit more to evaluate open source packages to implement an open archival information system. The software I’ve looked at is very promising. In particular, RODA will be a very nice package for a lot of archives, assuming you can get local support to install it an manage the installation in a way that file storage and backup is trustworthy. I also like Archivematica a lot.

A phenotype is any observable characteristic or trait of an organism: such as its morphology, development

Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product.

Translation is the first stage of protein biosynthesis (part of the overall process of gene expression).

This is worth reading

This is worth reading

We should really investigate this.

Federated Login for Google Account Users

Text of a speech from this year's American Historical Association meeting in San Diego. Argues the typical complaints of academics toward Google are often unfair, but that the real issue is the lack of openness in Google Book Search, which prevents computational analysis among other things.

A follow up piece from inside Higher Ed summarizes the other panelists at the session, and the discussion that ensued.

This is worth reading

As you can see, Feed API for Drupal is a wee bit buggy when it comes to importing content from Delicious.

I wonder if this is due to invalid feed content actually coming out of delicious? I suspect this because feed API uses built in PHP functions for parsing XML and feeds, and it seems to work well for everything else.

In Jan, we should build a new FLOWS delicious parser that has permission to POST to culturing via services (or even to wagn).

Yet another problem with the old business model still in place at major papers like the New York Times. This time business and ethics blend. Virginia Postrel explains why she passed on writing the Times' 'Prototype' column:

"...together we all share the world."

People tend to scan pages in F shaped pattern

People tend to scan pages in F shaped pattern

If there is a community well positioned for the demise of a true local daily, it may be the heavily wired, tech-savvy college town of Ann Arbor, Mich.

"I have wondered for years, as magazines, newspapers, and other news organizations have been hemorrhaging money and employees, why someone hasn't gone into the contract fact-checking business. Like, it could be an extension of Snopes.com. There's a huge redundancy in every publication having their own research desks, so they could lay off all of their fact-checkers and then outsource the job to the new, independent company that the best of them then all go to work for. Meanwhile, the company could also be hired by anyone else.