Stephen Downes

It's an old message but it bears repeating, so Cory Doctorow repeats it: RSS is the way we get to have a decentralized web that doesn't depend on centralized services like Twitter and Facebook. "RSS basically works like social media should work. Using RSS is a chance to visit a utopian future in which the platforms have no power, and all power is vested in publishers, who get to decide what to publish, and in readers, who have total control over what they read and how, without leaking any personal information through the simple act of reading." It was, indeed, quite an act of marketing to convince people that RSS isn't what they want.

I know this is being presented as a new beginning but to me it feels like the beginning of the end. "As of today, the Open Data Institute 6 (ODI) will take responsibility for the organisation of the Solid Community." I had a lot of hopes for Solid and followed them from the start, but they appeared to focus on engineering first and never did attract an actual user base.

Small Modular Reactors (SMR) have been in development for years, but they're making a splash this week as first Google, and now Amazon, has announced they will deploy SMRs to power their data centres. "One of the fastest ways to address climate change is by transitioning our society to carbon-free energy sources, and nuclear energy is both carbon-free and able to scale." As I said earlier this week, I am supportive of the idea. Plans have been underway for the last couple of years for SMRs at Darlington in Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta.

The value of this article is that it looks at three current AI engines and compares how they manage educational tasks like summarizing and explaining core concepts, themes, and methods. But it is also illustrative of the real issue with the use of AI in education: the tendency to reinforce old-fashioned instructivist models of education with no consideration of context, community and engagement. It's not that AI can't be helpful in these areas; it's that many supporters of AI just don't even think of them as relevant.

Two part post (part one, part two) on the values of the fediverse. I'm of two minds on this. First, the values described here are also my values. But second, I don't think you can describe 'the values' of an online community. But having said that, these posts take a different approach: looking at traditional social networks (and citing Jaron Lanier) they observe how the structure of the network creates a set of values and expectations from users. In the case of traditional media, it's "ME ME ME LOOK AT MEEEEEE". The fediverse was designed to embody a different set of values: genuine connection, privacy and consent, accessibility and (in part 2) mindfulness. 

This is a great introduction to Mastodon for people who have no idea what it is but who want to learn more - a lot more. It suggests places to start, how to find people to follow, verification, Mastodon culture, and anything else you might need to know.  One highlight: it introduced me to omg.lol, which includes your own website, email service, Mastodon account, and much more, for $20/year.