Hiroko Tabuchi has written a long and detailed article for the New York Times that raises several interesting questions. It notes that the US government has weakened the rules governing the energy use and efficiency of dishwashers. Then it asks why this has happened.

It happened as the result of a campaign. The names of the campaigners may surprise you. (Spoiler: they have no interest in helping you wash dishes faster.)

Last week I came across this image of John Wayne holidaying in Acapulco in the nineteen forties.

I found myself reminded once again that most of the things that seem new only look that way because of how little detail we retain of the past. Here we see John Wayne dressing fashionably in clothes that I at least found difficult to imagine as mainstream fashion in the nineteen forties.

This paper describes an ongoing project that aims to increase students’ control over their own learning, and to enable then to act as producers as well as consumers of information; and as genuine contributors to the spread of common and open knowledge. It outlines theoretical reasons for embarking upon the project and describes two stages of development: the production of an online course in MOOC format to test pedagogical and technical ideas, and the devising and production of a 5 credit (ECT) course for second year BA students in which the students spend their time devising and producing the online course they would otherwise have taken. Finally the paper offers some suggestions for how this approach might be refined and further developed.