“Email is where knowledge goes to die”. What a great line. (This piece by Bill French might be the original source.) Via Lilia, who reflects on asking questions in public. [Seb's Open Research] ——- or in some cases…. archived…

If at First You Don't Succeed, Stop!. Just read Open Access News' blog of Information Today's If at First You Don't Succeed, Stop!: Proposed Legislation to Set Up New Intellectual Property Right in Facts Themselves. I'm getting ready to leave town within the hour, so I don't have time to either read or discuss this […]

Social Origin of Good Ideas. I read Ronald S. Burt's “Social Origin of Good Ideas” and it inspires me to think about trends in interdisciplinary thought. [Orange Cone]

Avoiding a Shocking Experience for the Information Consumer. Avoiding a Shocking Experience for the Information Consumerhttp://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/introduction/default.htm The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan suggests that, paradoxically, a worthy goal of the library might be “invisibility” — in the sense that the service is ubiquitous and fully integrated into the infosphere. “After all, technology and services are most […]

alex invited me to orkut, so i invited some more people, and hopefully they will invite more people, and we'll see how many people end up joining. also i created the usual communities, internet researchers, science and technology studies, etc.

This bill seems like a pretty good idea to me. it requires research and evaluation of technology to prevent extra-vehicular car-child accidents. I'd like to encourage everyone to write to their congresspserson to support this bill.

amazon now lets you donate to the presidential candidate of your choice. this is a good thing, i think.

New President Named at Penn. The University of Pennsylvania named Amy Gutmann, the provost of Princeton, to be its next president. By The New York Times. [New York Times: Education] —— this is an interesting move.

Watch out Friendster, here comes Google's Orkut. News.com says: Google tip-toed into the hot market of online social networks with the quiet launch of Orkut.com on Thursday, CNET News.com has learned. The search company, which is expected to go public this year, is flexing its power with its Internet fans by constantly offering new services, […]

Open Source Courseware. Andrea L. Foster, in 4 Colleges Collaborate on Open-Source Courseware , Chronicle of Higher Education Daily Report, January 22, 2004 (Access restricted to subscribers), describes the Sakai project, a partnership between Indiana University, MIT, Stanford and Michigan to produce open source course management systems and related software for academic institutions. Funding came […]