Monthly Archives: April 2008

New Position: IMS Global Learning Consortium – Developer Network Coordinator

You may have heard by now that alongside my full-time teaching at the University of Michigan School of Information I will be working with the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. My task is to improve and grow the IMS Developer Network and to focus on increasing the adoption of IMS standards in real, released and widely deployed applications.
http://www.imsglobal.org/severance.html

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Off to Barcelona – Lasalle University

I will be speaking at the Lasalle University in Barcelona on Tuesday at the world-wide conference of Lasallian Universities. Lluis asked me to not just talk about Sakai but about Open Source in general and general future directions for teaching and learning with Technology – what a fun topic and wide open opportunity.
I will take advantage of the opportunity to revisit with my friends at the Campus project and get an update on the Moodle/Sakai/OKI tool interoperability project. Now that it is April – I am really looking forward to seeing what the Campus project has accomplished with 6+ months of work.
I hope to also see friends from Lleida and Valencia if I have time.
On Thursday and Friday I do a bit of touristing. The CERN High Energy Physics facility (the birthplace of the web) is having an open house for the next set of Large Hadron Detectors (about 5 stories tall) – the beam line is about to turn on and it is the last time the public will be allowed into the pit. I visited CERN with my family in 2004 and Steven Goldfarb gave my family a tour of the detector when it was 1/3 done – very impressive.
Then on Friday April 11 – I sing with Steve’s Band (The Canettes Blues Band – http://www.canettes.ch/) at the Mr. Pickwicks Pub in Geneva (http://www.canettes.ch/). This will be my first live band experience – I will sing one song – “I have got my Mojo Working” – I have been practicing for about 3 months in my car as I drive between Lansing and Ann Arbor.
I am quite excited and very nervous. This is my first time singing with a band – I am hopeful all those years of serious Karaoke dedication will finally pay off. There will be a video team there so it should be caught on tape – could be awesome – could be bad. It might be my *only* time singing with a live band – so I want to make it a good one.
Hey – if you are in the Geneva Area – stop by Mr. Pickwicks – here is the Gig URL:
http://www.canettes.ch/2008/0411-Pickwick
Steve tells me when the Canettes play at Mr. Pickwicks – seats are at a premium – so come early.

Saying: Understanding Bright People and How They Think

The brightest people are the ones who have a choice in what they do. They will only give fully of themselves to a project, effort, or even a job if they are assured that in the giving of themselves – they are not losing themselves. The rarest and most precious gift is the gift of ideas, vision, and leadership. Bright people are bursting to to share their best ideas and efforts with the world – but they do not want to lose their own right to those gifts.
See also:
The Apache Software Foundation Individual Contributor License Agreement
http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt

Python Thread Notes

https://ctools.umich.edu/dav/715d3da9-f664-4281-80f6-e60869a420c8
http://docs.python.org/lib/module-threading.html
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Python/Basic-Threading-in-Python/3/
http://docs.python.org/lib/timer-objects.html
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/Python/PyThreads.pdf
http://artfulcode.nfshost.com/files/multi-threading-in-python.html
http://artfulcode.nfshost.com/files/multi-threading-in-python.html
Locking:
http://linuxgazette.net/107/pai.html