A second federal judge has issued a court ruling against the administration's plans to ask whether every person living in the country is a U.S. citizen in the 2020 census.
Reads
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
👓 PressED conference 2019
A WordPress Conference about education on Twitter
👓 Flipping pancakes with mathematics | Simon Singh | The Guardian
Mathematical minds love a problem that's easy to pose but tough to solve
👓 Turnitin to Be Acquired by Advance Publications for $1.75B | EdSurge News
A company best known (and sometimes rebuked) for its plagiarism checker has just received one of the biggest checks in the education technology ...
There is just so much wrong with what Turnitin is doing to begin with, much less a bigger corporation buying it for this sort of money.
👓 Update: Creating and managing a lifestream as an Early Career Academic | Kay Oddone
Kay Oddone (Linking Learning)I began this year with the plan to create a lifestream blog – something that curated observations, discoveries, articles, images, music – in fact any digital artefact – that I encountered or spent time thinking about as I started my role as lecturer at QUT here in Brisbane Australia.
You can read about the reasons for this decision, and what I hoped it might achieve in my earlier post, but I am taking time to say that my plan has taken a left-hand turn, and being the ‘perpetually in beta, flexible, digitally fluent’ (!) person that I am, I am going with this to see where it takes me.
I had spent some time setting up the If This Then That (IFTTT) applets which I hoped would automate the process of recording my lifestream, and in doing so, I have made some discoveries.
Wahoo! Someone else out there in the ether(net) has started a digital commonplace book and she’s documenting how’s she’s doing it. I love that she’s framed doing it as part of her professional growth.
It looks like Kay has run up against some of the same problems I’ve seen in the past (and for which I’ve found some useful solutions). It would appear that she’s at least come across the IndiWeb wiki and knows about Greg (I can tell from her commonplace!) but perhaps she’s not run into examples by Aaron Davis or Ian O’Byrne yet.
I’m going to have to propose a commonplace session at IndieWebCamp Online this weekend (and maybe for PressEd)… who’s game? Kay, if you’d like to join us there (or in chat anytime), we can probably get a group of people to talk about what they’ve built, how they did it, what they want to do, and how to improve on it all.
👓 How to Think Like a Front-End Developer | Jeremy Keith
Alright! It’s day two of An Event Apart in Seattle. The first speaker of the day is Chris Coyier. His talk is called How to Think Like a Front-End Developer. From the website:
The job title “front-end developer” is very real: job boards around the world confirm that. But what is that job, exactly? What do you need to know to do it? You might think those answers are pretty cut and dried, but they’re anything but; front-end development is going through something of an identity crisis. In this engaging talk, Chris will explore this identity through the lens of someone who has self-identified as a front-end developer for a few decades, but more interestingly, through many conversations he’s had with other successful front-end developers. You’ll see just how differently this job can be done and how differently people and companies can think of this role—not just for the sake of doing so, but because you’ll learn to be better at your own jobs by understanding how other people are good at theirs.
👓 Here are the data brokers quietly buying and selling your personal information | FastCompany
You’ve probably never heard of many of the data firms registered under a new law, but they’ve heard a lot about you. A list, and tips for opting out.
👓 Luminary. A better way to podcast
Luminary is a podcast streaming platform that gives you access to 500k+ shows, when and where you want. Sign up today and be the first to try @luminary!
Look ma! Another stand alone app-cum silo billing itself as a podcast solution. What do you want to bet there’s no RSS and it won’t work with any other podcatcher?
👓 Podcasts startup Luminary launches with $100m of funding | Music Ally
Another day, another podcasts startup attracting significant investment, amid the wider excitement around the spoken-word format. This time it’s a Los Angeles-based startup called Luminary, which is launching a slate of more than 40 podcasts including the likes of Lena Dunham, Malcolm Gladwell, Trevor Noah and Conan O’Brien as hosts. What’s more, the New York Times reports that Luminary has already secured nearly $100m of funding.
Its CEO Matt Sacks certainly has all the right lines when it comes to signifying ambitions, too. “We want to become synonymous with podcasting in the same way Netflix has become synonymous with streaming,” he said. “I know how ambitious that sounds. We think it can be done, and some of the top creators in the space agree.”
The way Luminary has gone after some of the most prominent podcasters to create their next shows for its company mirrors what Spotify is doing – there’s something of a land-grab going on for anyone who’s proven their ability to engage listeners with this format. Luminary isn’t just a producer though: it’s launching its own app, which will offer an $8 monthly subscription for ad-free access to its entire lineup. The app will also have an ad-supported free section.
👓 Luminary Media Sets Podcast Launch Lineup With Lena Dunham, Trevor Noah And More Than 40 Others | Deadline
Once the company officially launches (sometime in the first half of 2019, it says), its streaming app will be available as an $8-a-month, ad-free subscription version and free version with ads. Some of its shows will be existing podcasts moving over to Luminary as their new exclusive home, and others will be Luminary originals.
Podcasting, of course, has its own roster of A-list talent best-known to people who wear earbuds a good portion of the day. Three such figures are making their next shows for Luminary: Guy Raz, known for How I Built This and the TED Radio Hour; Leon Neyfakh, the creator and host of Slow Burn; and Adam Davidson, the creator of Planet Money.
While it is not yet a billion-dollar business, podcasting pulled in $514 million in revenue in 2018, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Spotify has recently moved aggressively into the sector, buying Gimlet Media for $230 million.
This sounds like yet another standalone app that is going to turn podcasting into a silo so they can monetize the content. Why not just build a payment system on top of what is already there? They could build less and capture/help out a much larger portion of the ecosystem.
I suspect that RSS will not be involved in this process and one will have to use their app instead of just any app.
👓 Luke Perry, ‘90210’ and ‘Riverdale’ Star, Dies at 52 | Variety
Actor Luke Perry, known for roles in “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Riverdale,” died on Monday after suffering a massive stroke on Wednesday. He was 52. “[Perry] was surrounded by his children Jack and Sophie, fiancé Wendy Madison Bauer, ex-wife Minnie Sharp, mother Ann Bennett, step-father Steve Bennett, brother Tom Perry, sister Amy Coder, and other close family and friends,” his rep said in a statement. “The family appreciates the outpouring of support and prayers that have been extended to Luke from around the world, and respectfully request privacy in this time of great mourning. No further details will be released at this time.”
👓 Celebrating the Work and Life of Claude Elwood Shannon | IEEE Foundation
In 2014 IEEE Information Theory Society President, Michelle Effros, knew that something had to be done. The man who coined the very phrase, Information Theory, had largely been forgotten. Given his importance, and the growing impact that his work was having on society at large, she led the IEEE Information Theory Society on a quest to use the Centennial of Claude Shannon’s birth to right this injustice.
A series of activities were planned, including a dual IEEE Milestone dedicated at both Nokia Bell Labs and MIT. Such was his stature that both institutions were intent on honoring the work he accomplished on their respective sites. His work, after all, foresaw and paved the way for the Information Revolution that we are experiencing, making possible everything from cell phones to GPS to Bitcoin.
By the time of the Nokia Bell Labs event, the keystone project – a documentary on Shannon’s life was in the formative stages. IEEE Information Theory Society leadership had secured the services of Mark Levinson, of Particle Fever acclaim. The script was being written and preliminary plans were underway.
To make the film a reality, a coalition of individuals, foundations and corporations came together with the common objective to bring the story of Shannon to as wide an audience as possible. An effective partnership was forged with the IEEE Foundation which was undertaking its own unique project - its first ever major fundraising campaign. The combination proved to be a winning entry, and the Shannon Centennial quickly became exemplary of the impact that can occur when the power of volunteers is bolstered by effective staff support.
19 June was the World Premiere of the finished product. The Bit Player was screened to a full house on the big screen at the IEEE Information Theory Society’s meeting in Vail, CO, US. The film was met with enthusiastic acclaim. Following the screening attendees were treated to a Q&A with the film’s director and star.
Among the techniques used to tell Shannon’s story was the testimony of current luminaries in the fields he inspired. All spoke of his importance and the need for his impact to be recognized. As one contributor, Andrea Goldsmith, Stephen Harris Professor in the School of Engineering, Stanford University, put it, “Today everyone carries Shannon around in their pocket”.
Based on this article the Claude Shannon movie The Bit Player has already had its premiere. I updated the IMDb entry, but I still have to wonder if it is ever going to get any distribution so that the rest of us might ever see it?
👓 Deep text: a catastrophic threat to the bullshit economy? | Abject
I used to be an artist, then I became a poet; then a writer. Now when asked, I simply refer to myself as a word processor. — Kenneth Goldsmith It’s a striking headline, and the Guardian…
👓 Frans de Waal Embraces Animal Emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’ | New York Times
In his new book, the renowned ethnologist argues that emotions are key to understanding both human and animal behavior.