Personal

Twice in the last week I’ve heard the phrase “free knowledge.” I understand that there are many people with more influence in the world than I who like this term (e.g., Jimmy Wales’s “Free Knowledge requires Free Software and Free File Formats”). In fact, I heard Jimmy use this phrase last week at the Shuttleworth/Soros/Hewlett-sponsored meeting in Cape Town. He was describing why he doesn’t like the term “content.” Because “content,” he said, sounds like a static something that can be packaged and shipped. And so he prefers the more living, breathing, dynamic term “knowledge,” which he uses to characterize sites like Wikipeida. Now, fully understanding that many of you could care less, I have to get this off my chest anyway… ...

A fun service over at http://www.careerdistinction.com/ measures your “online identity” on a scale of 1 to 10. I did pretty well: Your online identity score is 10 out of a possible score of 10. Congratulations. You are digitally distinct. This is the nirvana of online identity. Keep up the good work, and remember that your Google results can change as fast as the weather in New England. It was pretty crazy to see that in a Google search for “David Wiley” 25 of the first 30 results were about me (i.e. there were only five results about some other David Wiley in the first three pages of Google results). What does this mean at the end of the day? I’m not sure… but my wife will have to work extra hard to help me get my already oversized head through the doorway for a while. :p

Bekir passed his dissertation defense on Friday! Congrats, Dr. Gur! Bekir did his dissertation in the “multiple paper” format (which I encourage all my students to use), so he should be ready to submit the three papers for publication much more quickly than usual. I’ll put links here when preprints go up. But for now, CONGRATS!

My Freebase invites post was so popular, I’m offering Pownce invites now. Thanks to the dozens of you who asked for Freebase invites; sorry I couldn’t hook you all up.

Leave a comment if you would like one.

When a former PhD student goes on to do absolutely amazing things, your initial instinct can be to try to take some of the credit for their success… :) However, not even I have a big enough ego to think I deserve any nods for Andy Van Schaack’s amazing new company, LiveScribe. Absolutely insane things are coming from these folks… Be sure to check out the sneak peeks at what their technology can do. ...

Apparently some of the readers of my new OpenCourseWars draft misunderstand. They think that I don’t like MIT OCW, or the opencoursewares in general. Let me set the record straight. ...

One of the most amazing quotes I’ve seen in a while comes from Allan Adler, vice president for legal and government affairs of the Association of American Publishers, in an article about Open Access to Research. [Mr. Alder] rejected the idea that taxpayer financed research should be open to the public, saying that it was in the national interest for it to be restricted to those who could pay subscription fees. “Remember — you’re talking about free online access to the world,” he said. “You are talking about making our competitive research available to foreign governments and corporations.” ...

The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has released the latest version of their report The Condition of Education. Of interest to homeschoolers like myself - who in many communities are looked upon as backward, less-educated, lower-income weirdos - is the section on homeschooling: In 2003, there were no measurable differences in rates of homeschooling among students when considering their household income or the level of their parents’ education. Yes, even better-educated, higher income weirdos do it. And the overall percentage of U.S. students who homeschool jumped 0.5% from 1999 to 2003 - now 2.2% of all U.S. students from Kindergarten to 12th grade are homeschooled. This is movement in the right direction… :)

Stephen recently announced that he’s taking a hiatus from his blog and newsletter. Rather than feeling sorry for him, we should be glad for him. What courage it must take to do such a thing! Stephen is very much in the public eye with the very excellent work he does. The love of fame alone would be enough to keep most people from dropping out for a while. More impressively, Stephen knows as well as anyone the pace at which this all moves, and the costs associated with trying to get back in the game after an absence. ...