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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
June 26, 2009

The Magic of Attraction (aka Attractors in Dynamical Systems)
Good post on attractors, one of the major concepts in chaos theory. "An attractor is a piece of structure of many systems that appears when you view the systems evolution over time. Speaking informally, an attractor is sort of like a black hole in the phase space: it's a region of the space where if you get sucked into it, you'll never leave." Mark C. Chu-Carroll, Good Math, Bad Math, June 26, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Streams, not blogs?
Cross writes: "Blogs are author-centric in a world that's increasingly about relationships. Blogs are slanted toward me, me, me, me, me; the net is inexorably moving to us, us, us, us, us. Dialog trumps monolog." And so, he argues, we should be looking at lifestreaming, not blogging. My lifestream is in FriendFeed - here - but that's a view of my work that might be too scattered to be useful to people. I won't stop blogging any time soon. Jay Cross, Intrnet Time, June 26, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Web Logs] [Comment]

Flash Players: Some Cool Tools
Useful post that looks at different types of Flash players you can use to play videos on your own website. 'For an occasional video embed, probably the JW FLV player would be the best option. It's less complex and more straight forward. But if you want to deliver instructional content on a regular basis, I would suggest a very close look at the SlideShowPro product line." Tim Tyson, Practical Practice, June 26, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Video] [Comment]

Two students, two schools -- 20 miles and a world apart
From the email: "In the 20 or so miles that separate Jefferson High School from La Cañada High," writes The Los Angeles Times, "in the miles between inner city and suburb, there exists a social chasm so deep as to seem unbridgeable." In a profile of two students, personally similar but demographically opposite, The Times distinguishes between the two poles of public education in the sprawling confines of Los Angeles. Mitchell Landsberg, L.A. Times, June 26, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Schools] [Comment]

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