Stephen Downes

This is a post on Reddit where the author announced having built a fediverse service that runs on Cloudflare, a global content distribution network (CDN). It's quite the achievement, not exactly what anyone asked for, and a challenge to our understanding of the Internet and CDNs. The comments are not kind, with one person calling it a "cancer". But Reddit is not the fediverse, and reactions on, say, Mastodon have been more nuanced. Here's the source. Today: Total: Reddit, 2026/07/22 [Direct Link]

Back when I was running the Learning and Support Systems (LPSS) program at NRC we had an open project called Advanced Competency Detection and Recognition (ACDR). It proved too much of a hurdle for the team at the time (and it wasn't that long ago) but it was addressing exactly what Philippa Hardman is talking about here - finding ways to use AI to study expert performance and articulate exactly what competencies they embody (even if they can't articulate them). This of course is the lynchpin to any system that want to develop workplace competencies and skills: compare the expert to the learner, identify what's needed, design a training program, assess against whats known to work. Today: Total: Philippa Hartman, 2026/07/21 [Direct Link]

I suppose it's not technically a MOOC but the concept is similar. "Google DeepMind is bringing its rigorous AI Research Foundations curriculum to strengthen India’s premier AI talent. This free 56-hour program aims to help empower India’s students and AI builders." Sure, there's marketing involved, but it's also how you build an industry in a country that needs it. Today: Total: Google, 2026/07/21 [Direct Link]

This is a long set of slides with extensive notes on the topic of decision-making, which of course is only a small part of leadership, but we'll let that slide. The presentation is standard stuff for those who have been through the topic before, but it's well laid out and there's a lot of content to consider. If you're new to, well, just about anything you'll find value in this resource. Today: Total: 2026/07/21 [Direct Link]

My first thought on reading this was to wonder why this philosopher was selected for an interview, what makes him "influential". I haven't read Gert Biesta so I shouldn't criticize his work based on what I see here, but what I see here is slight, not deep, and in some ways muddled. There are two tends woven in the article: that what is real offers resistance; and that human intelligence is unique in asking why things should be done and of comprehending duties. But if one wants obstacles, I need only to point to the instance of Claude that deleted Git by mistake. As for duties, it's not clear whether these arise from rationality, as they would for Kant, or whether we have a mysterious 'sense' of duty as the article suggests. Today: Total: Shai Tubali, Big Think, 2026/07/21 [Direct Link]

This is another one of those articles with the form "if you support good thing x then you need to also support good thing y." Now it may well be that both x and y are good things (and in this case they are) but putting effort and resources into one does not obligate you to do the same for the other. This is because - again - there's never enough effort and resources. People should be allowed to pick their causes. And it's not reasonable to try to chain them into never-ending layers of responsibility. Today: Total: World Education Blog, 2026/07/21 [Direct Link]