Wow.  I just discovered that the professor (Dr. Don Lavoie at George Mason University) who taught the class I talked about here died of cancer last year.  I was going to send him a link to the article I blogged below, and see what he thought about blogging in educational institutions in general--he was a pioneer in using hypertext to annotate readings.  That class completely changed the way I approach reading and learning, and he probably maintained a blog or something similar, as this medium would have been very attractive to him.  I was stunned and saddened to learn of his sudden death.  He will definitely be missed.

Personal knowledge publishing and its uses in research. Quote: "In this document, I analyze an emerging form of knowledge sharing that I call personal knowledge publishing. Personal knowledge publishing has its roots in a practice known as "weblogging" that has been rapidly spreading on the World Wide Web over the last three years. It is a new form of communication that many expect will change the way people work and collaborate, especially in areas where knowledge and innovation play an important role."

Comment: Nice, lengthy piece. [Serious Instructional Technology]

I agree, and am adding this as much for a bookmark for myself as anything...

An interesting IE toolbar for writers:  the Merriam Webster toolbar. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

From [The Shifted Librarian]:

Will Nielsen Ever Count Digital Video Recorder Viewers?.

TiVo Viewers Like 'CSI: Miami,' 'Firefly'

"According to TiVo, the five most popular new shows, based on the number of users who have configured their recorder to automatically record every episode, are CBS's 'CSI: Miami,' Fox's 'Firefly' and 'John Doe,' ABC's 'Push, Nevada' and CBS's 'Without A Trace....'

In the regular television ratings, as measured by Nielsen Media Research, all those shows have performed well, with the exception of 'Push, Nevada,' which has been soundly beaten in most airings to date and is in danger of being canceled....

In addition to ranking the top new shows of the season, TiVo also released statistics on how often prime-time programs are recorded by its users and watched at times other than their original window.

Overall, the company said 80 percent of prime-time programming is recorded and watched later." [Chris Van Buskirk's ITV Weblog]

Emphasis above is mine, because if that's not some major shifting, then I don't know what is. Now if I could just take those recorded programs with me on, say, a plane ride, I'd be an even happier camper. Too bad the television industry won't see the goldmine in the above numbers.

Interesting to see how much of what controls which shows get which level of support completely disregards updates and changes to the technology that delivers the content.  I guess the fact that many of these other technologies allow the end viewer to customize the experience causes the problem; a "custom experience" is not what the networks and advertisers want us to have.  They want us to have the experience they've designed for us, complete with commercials.  Understandably so--they are paying for the programming.  So what's the way around this?  I can see that viewers during regular broadcast are more "important" as they are the ones receiving the advertising, and thus the advertisers want to know where their commercials are being seen.   I don't have TiVO, so I don't know the answer to this...but perhaps there is a way for the networks to create a customized package for off-schedule viewing, the same way they do for regular broadcasting.