Dan Gillmor is starting a book on making Tech decisions that protect your Freedom. (more)

Nicholas Kristof summarizes a long-term research study validating the "Value Add" model of teacher quality (used by Wireless Generation and others). Students assigned to such high value-added teachers are more likely to go to college (College Education), earn higher incomes, and less likely to be teenage mothers (Teenage Pregnancy). On average, having such a teacher for one year raises a child's cumulative lifetime income by $50,000 (equivalent to $9,000 in present value at age 12 with a 5% interest rate). They note that the benefit to Standardized Test scores drops off after a couple years, which makes it seems like they may not be a great measure, but that's the whole basis for defining Value Add (Meta Data). Confusing. (more)

Joshua Schachter and his team of star developers at Tasty Labs have begun work on a second project, an endorsement and people search engine called Skills To. The site lets you endorse people for their skills in various fields, see what the people you know have been endorsed for and search for people with particular skills... What's the core idea behind the site? "Search engine for people by property of the person," he says. "Portable reputation someday." There's certainly something refreshingly Del.icio.us-like about it, the way you can navigate around the site by clicking any link and navigating by a few simple properties. Folksonomy could be key here, just like with Del.icio.us tagging. (Reputation Management)

author (more)

info-top analog to the Social Graph? (more)

In an interview, Barack Obama made his biggest threats so far about War On Iran. I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say. (Meaning they don't have one yet.) If Israel weren't in this picture... It would still be a profound national-security interest of the United States to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. (more)

John Robb pre-announces the launch of his tool/service "iTV Momentum". It continuously scans everything (!) in Social Media and uses advanced algorithms to enable you to get in front of rapidly evolving social trends. Or, in other words, it allows you to routinely anticipate the future in any domain of interest you care about. In order to make some money doing this, we've packaged it as a service for professional customers (marketing pros, campaign managers, public relations representatives, strategic communications pros, investors, hedge funds, etc.). In short, anyone that wants to get ahead of a rapidly evolving global communications system to prevent surprise (Black Swan-s), realize opportunity, and mitigate damage (social systems disruption). (Thinking Space? Meme Tracker?) (more)

Glenn Greenwald is covering the pattern of MSM knuckleheads fomenting a War On Iran, even worse than their tacit approval of the War On Iraq. (more)

Marshall Kirkpatrick is working on a new service called Plexus Engine for rapid Meme Tracker catching.

A Graph Drawing tool. http://www.touchgraph.com/ (more)

There was an "EdgeucationSalon" last night. EduHack! The program will consist of two 50 minute panel discussions, and time for conversation. Speakers tentatively include TED fellow Gever Tulley (SF Brightworks, the Tinkering School), MarinaGorbis (Institute for the Future - IFTF), Gigi Carunungan (Synapse School), Daniela Digiacomo (Flex Academy), Ellen Hathaway (San Francisco Rock Project), Rebecca Dake (Sf Schoolhouse), Marshall Roslyn (School Tube), Wayee Chu (New Schools Venture Fund), Childrens Day School, and Alta Vista School. (more)

see related EduPunk, Education Reform, Educating Kids

The Raspberry Pi became available yesterday and immediately sold out. $35 for a LinuxOS PC board: add storage, TV-as-monitor, and keyboard. Has EtherNet and USB, but no WiFi. (Kinda-EmbeddedHardware.) (more)

I want to turn on the Xap Ian Search Engine for this MoinMoin-powered WikiLog. See MoinMoin:HelpOnXapian. (more)

Notice that Blue Host is warning me in C Panel that I have too many files again. Like 2011-04-26-[[Blue HostTooManyMoinFiles]]. Currently have 196,583. (more)

Stanford University is offering its AI course online for free! (more)

Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad is launching. The company, based in Seattle and San Francisco, has developed what it calls the PULP platform for creating digital novels (EBook). The core of the experience is still a text novel, but authors can add additional material like background articles, images, music, and video. There are also Social Networking features that allow readers to create their own profiles, earn Badge-s for activity on the site or in the application, and interact with other readers... The company promises to release a new chapter a week. Readers can pay $5.99 for a six-month subscription fee or $9.99 for a year... Stephenson isn’t writing the book alone. There’s a team led by a writer Mark Teppo; it also includes Greg Bear, author of Blood Music and other science fiction novels. Stephenson compared the experience to writing a TV show, and not just because it’s a team of writers. The Mongoliad will have an ending, but there’s room for sequels and other stories set in the world, so it’s kind of like season one of a show. (more)

The Ultra-MobIle PC (abbreviated UMPC), previously known by its codename Project Origami, is a specification for a small form factor TabletPC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Mobile_PC (more)

living in NYC this is one thing you give up (more)

page was renamed from z2012-03-01-BackingUpWikilog (more)