Notices by Downes 🍁 (downes@mastodon.social), page 19

Building a Blockchain, or, what I learned about blockchains by building one. https://halfanhour.blogspot.ca/2018/03/building-blockchain.html

(It's worth noting that this is an example the learning method I advocate.)

@lauraritchie We're getting pretty close to seeing soemthing like it break out.

MoodleNet is adopting a lot of the concepts. I'm sure the LMSs are watching.

@lauraritchie Just want to say that it's so valuable to see my own work through someone else's eyes.

@dogtrax I haven't seen it before. It could work. Try out a few and upload to Imgur (or some such) and see if there's any take-up.

Why is it always the case that the point in the article where the author wrote "The above should be straight-forward" is the point where you have to stop and think "what just happened here?" https://hackernoon.com/learn-blockchains-by-building-one-117428612f46

(I think this is what Google was trying to do with 'circles' https://support.google.com/plus/answer/6320407?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en but it was way too complex and user-hostile).

3/3

Mastodon I use for conversations. Like this one.

That said...

I keep my Mastodon connections to just a few in number and delete people if they drown out everyone else.

This creates a nice informal community for me based on nothing in particular except that I like the people in it and find them interesting.

If I wanted to replicate this with a different group I'd need a different environment (or another copy of the same environment). Each group would be different.

@tutormentor1 FWIW I made a video recently rebuilding the diagram and explaining what each part meant. http://www.downes.ca/presentation/477

@rockthrower Specifically, a view of Vernazza. See https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.1369503,9.6779971,3a,75y,355.28h,76.51t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMSIUatTw5x2kzZUZYQ2jNyBMFqC4x09BK_6jGm!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMSIUatTw5x2kzZUZYQ2jNyBMFqC4x09BK_6jGm%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya111.12275-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352?dcr=0

@rockthrower Italy. Cinque Terre

@lauraritchie It occurs to me that we would have much less of a problem with fake news, fake science, etc., if government, industry, academics and scientists worked and debated openly.

It would be great. I could just sit back and marvel at the brilliant minds at work. That's the thing about the web that first attracted me - I got to bounce from home page to home page watching good people and smart people do their thing.

Now it's all shysters and con artists.

@lauraritchie The funny thing is - and I often say this at the start of one of my talks - that for every single individual thing I will talk about, somebody in the room knows more about it than me. And that's OK.

@lauraritchie Someone is always better.

The only relevant question is: are you the best one in the room?

@lauraritchie This was the exception when I was in school. I can't count the number of times people told me that I needed to focus in order to thrive in my field.

@lauraritchie I didn't specialize until I was 24 or so. I had wide-ranging interests (still do). Then, because I had such wide ranging interests, I could become super-specialized (combining media, philosophy, computers and education) in a way that offers unique value.

@lauraritchie People often say to me that not everybody is ready to learn on their own. I ask: when are they supposed to be ready? If they're not ready in university, when will they be? It's the same problem at eash stage of their education - they're not ready yet, so we'll pass it on to the next grade. Your story is the exception. I wish students would learn things when they're in primary school: how to learn on their own, and that they're *allowed* to learn on their own. As I was taught.

Sunday night I was looking at my code and thinking it was loading too slowly. So I moved everything over to my website. Loaded fast - but I really broke it in the process. I'm still fixing it, two days later, because I had forgotten to save the original fully-functional template. D'oh. #smallstories

@lauraritchie I once had someone say to me that they didn't get it when they read my work but when they heard me speak it all made sense. Funny how that works.

My presentation from today - http://www.downes.ca/presentation/487 - slides and video

@dogtrax The funny thing is that this quote is expressed almost entirely in quantifiable terms:
- the countless people who memorize it (which is in fact a countable, finite and non-zero number)
- a roomful of strangers (numbering 30-100, say, with a social index > 2)
- a first kiss (previous # of kisses = 0)
- stop lovers in their tracks (velocity = 0)
- decades later (years > 10)
- value of those songs