I was intrigued that a few people saw my recent article about iBooks Author as a criticism (in the negative sense). That wasn’t my intention at all, and indeed I’m very enthusiastic about the ecosystem (iBooks Author, its file format, iBooks 2 as a reader/viewer, and the iBookstore as a storefront and delivery mechanism).

Apple launched their new education initiative today, with the equally new iBooks Author application for Mac at its core. There’s been a lot of chatter on Twitter and on the web already, with much more to come, but one thing I haven’t seen so far is a simple evaluation of the the suitability of iBooks Author and the iBookstore as an authoring and distribution system.

I recently read the Pope’s latest homophobic statements with disgust, though not with surprise.

Pride of place [among proper settings for the education of children] goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman.

This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.

In reference partly to my recent articles on switching comments off, and also the ‘Identity’ section of my article on attribution of writing on the web, several people have sent me links to Disqus’ research on comments and identity.

My recent follow-up to my article of a month ago about switching comments off has generated quite a bit of interesting discussion, via email, Twitter, and (particularly) posts on other people’s blogs.

Let me just quickly say that again. High-quality, well-considered feedback and responses written on other blogs, rather than impulsive retorts and/or snarks. That’s exactly what I and my fellow no-comments advocates had hoped for and indeed anticipated. So, do keep that in mind.