The world wide web is shrinking May 18, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : web2.0, Wiki , add a commentThe world wide web is shrinking says Nicholas Carr in today’s Technology Guardian
but he’s only referring to the distribution power law which is making popular sites more popular.
In the end, though, the internet seems to be following the same pattern that has always characterised popular media. A few huge outlets come to dominate readership and viewership and smaller, more specialised ones are consigned to the periphery.
I’m just not sure this is the inevitable conclusion from the observation that Wikipedia is eating Google
Ho hum.
Are junk information diets killing us? May 16, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog , add a commentShawn Callahan bemoans the way students use Google and Wikipedia..
Anecdote: Our information diets are killing us
The majority of the students were relying on Google and wikipedia to support their claims and arguments. The only journal articles referred to where the ones I made available in the shared online space.
So why not put all the journal articles on the public web where they can be easily found via google and cited in Wikipedia? Insisting that students learn how to delve around in the hidden internet is just a way of perpetuating that particular academic digital divide.
Wiki on your iPod May 15, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : UK, cider, Wiki , 1 comment so farWhile I was away enjoying some rare face to face with ukcider members in Rosie’s Dorset barn, another section of the internet group was meeting in the midlands, and one major wiki contributor was inspired to do something clever with the Perl scripting language.
Adapting a script for reformatting mediawiki pages into “notes” format for iPod we now have available a facility for downloading the entire Online Cider Pub Guide to a mobile device.
Get the Cider Pub Guide on your iPod
BBC NEWS ¦ England ¦ London ¦ Homes evacuated after bomb find May 15, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : London , 1 comment so farStories about unexploded WW2 bombs were quite common in the 1960s I seem to recall, but you would have thought they’d all been uncovered by now. Just recently, there have been a few stories from around Europe but this latest one is closer to home.
BBC NEWS | England | London | Homes evacuated after bomb find
Large World War II bomb found in East London.
Builders found the 500lb (226kg) device at a site off Palmers Road in Bethnal Green, east London, on Monday evening.
Forever blowing bubbles May 14, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : politics, London , add a commentAs West Ham struggle with legal challenges to remain in the premiership despite beating Manchester United at the weekend, Lynn Walsh writes about the world economy in a major analytical piece entitled:” World Economy: Forever blowing bubbles?
Startupping Forums May 14, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Pajamanation, Community, blogs and community , add a commentI admire Mark Fletcher for the way he has been developing “Startupping”, transparently showing the process of his own business development at the same time as building a community of startup entrepreneurs. Now he’s able to showcase some of the interesting threads from the startupping forums by posting teasers on the blog, with a link to the forums RSS feed.
Weekly Summary - May 11, 2007 - Startupping Forums
Every Friday we summarize some of the interesting discussions taking place in the Startupping community:Here’s my startup idea, what are your thoughts?
Hi, I’d love if you could all shoot down my startup idea. I like to travel backback style, and since the 70s Lonely Planet has been the nr1 publisher of travel guides for this audience. But: there’s nowhere online where you can find good travel guides that include hostel prices and locations and maps (the 2 things LP is great at).
…. Read More ….Ease of development vs scaling question
I’m looking at languages and frameworks right now for the social news site I’m building this summer. I’m looking at the following: Ruby => Rails, Python => Django, Erlang => Erlyweb. One of my biggest considerations is ease of development/rapid deployment vs scaling.
…. Read More ….Scaling
For those of you who’ve been through the scaling wringer before: At what point did your site have problems with scaling? When did you have to start thinking about multiple web servers and database servers? What type of load balancing did you use? Where did you go to learn about this stuff?
…. Read More ….Getting advice on a partnership problem…
I am planning to start a new business in web services industry, together with one partner…. The problem is with my current partner. He holds same amount of share with me… (M)ost management matters, business planning and strategic issues seem to be solely on me….. I don’t want to share same amount profits with a person who don’t perform the same with me.
…. Read More ….Subscribe to the forums RSS feed and stay up to date with the conversations.
Googlemp3 May 10, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Music, web2.0 , 1 comment so far
Googlemp3 is a potential net phenomenon in the making, I wonder how long it will last.
Search for mp3 files, upload mp3 files - sounds good, but what’s this:
Thankyou Mr Hubble
Important Notice : We strongly suggest you to delete the audio files you downloaded in 24 hours
Hmm.
Blair to go, now give back the Labour Party May 10, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : politics, UK , add a commentNow that Tony Blair has no further use for the Labour Party, the organisation he used and transformed into a pro capitalist, anti union, pro nuclear, pro imperialist war party, is he going to give it back to the people it was originally built for again?
Unlikely, he’s too busy making youtube videos congratulating riight winger Nicholas Sarkozy’s victory over the socialist candidate in the French presidential election.
Blair congratulated Sarkozy on his victory over Socialist Segolene Royal in a message posted on the popular website YouTube earlier this week and commended the French for their high turnout in Sunday’s election.
“Nicolas is someone with whom I have worked on several occasions, who I admire and who I consider a friend,” said Blair,
The world isn’t so flat May 10, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Pajamanation , add a commentThis emerges from my draft posts folder, but I’m puzzled by the title. Who thought the world was flat in the first place? I suppose service such as pajamanation could be seen as helping to flatten the world a little bit, by bringing equal global access to some particular niches of work opportunities. The infrastructure of the internet has a tendency to do that, but then it can create its own areas of complexity as well. If entropy was a universal fact then we wouldn’t be here at all and all the matter and energy in the world would be equally dispersed as a blanket of low density dust instead of thrown up into galaxies, planets, cities and web communities.
edublogs: The world isn’t as flat as we think
Once more the world is changing, to one where it’s no longer cheap labour and cheap ideas that you get out of the emerging economies of this planet. You’re now getting top class ideas, inspiration, creativity - and top salaries - which are on a more level playing field that most Westerners can quite comprehend.
Blogs as community killers May 9, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : blogs and community , 1 comment so farMiguel wrote some reflections about blogs and communities, relating to listservs. I read it in my email, from a subscription to the com-prac yahoogroup.
Blogs as community killers? « eme ká eme
Blogs as community killers?
9 05 2007Here is an experiment.
I followed the link to the blog, which I subscribe to anyway, but hadn’t seen the RSS yet, and I used a bookmarklet to save it as a draft blog post.
A little later, I read a reply from Patrick Lambe, again on the group - which included a rationale for replying there:
As to why I answered your post here rather than on your blog (I’m a
subscriber):
(a) I read it here first
(b) I’m interested as much in how other com-prac members might
respond as in your own response, and I have a stronger sense of
community “presence” within the forum than I do within a blog.
So I returned to my draft blog post, added this and posted it, mindlful that all I have done is to document my own process without adding any opinion, analysis or original content whatsoever.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
