LibrarianInBlack

WiFi & CIPA

TechnoBiblio's Aaron discusses the implications that CIPA has for WiFi access in libraries. Basic question is this: are we responsible, per CIPA, for monitoring/controlling what our patrons (adults or children) access using our network but their own computers?

Del.icio.us

Alright, I resisted as long as I could, but everyone and their librarian-brother is posting about this thing. Del.icio.us is a collaborative bookmarks manager, web-based, and spiffy. I'm thinking it would be most useful for reference librarians to collaborate on a set of bookmarks for use at the desk. Now I'm a tiny bit afraid that my library's librarians will see this post, get all excited, and ask for training on how to best use it ;) 'sok Theresa!

Free USB Drive

So, FreeAfterRebate.com higlighted this free 32MB flash drive from both eCost and PCMall. 32MB is pretty small for a flash drive, but if you're looking to get your feet wet with this technology, this would be a good/free way to do it.

Discovering Dickens

Stanford has produced this digitized version of Tale of Two Cities, in its original format. WAY cool.

Nat Hentoff Renounces ALA's Immroth Award

Nat Hentoff refused to accept ALA's Immroth Award (for Intellecual Freedom), based on the fact that ALA would not speak out on behalf of Cuban librarians jailed for making available to Cubans such subversive documents as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and George Orwell's 1984. Hentoff writes: "I now publicly renounce the Immroth Award and demand that the American Library Association remove me from the list of recipients of that honor. To me, it is no longer an honor." First, shame on ALA for being so out of touch with what their membership wants. Second, shame on ALA for not speaking out to uphold the values of our profession ourside our national borders.

Gamers Beware

Don't sit for hours and hours in one position, say, playing Halo or Neverwinter Nights. A UK teenager developed deep vein thrombosis after sitting all day playing video games with his legs tucked under him.

4000 Years of Miniature Books

Indiana University-Bloomington's Lilly Library has a great online exhibit of miniature books. I got to see some of these in person while visiting the IU campus with my Library School chum, Jane Cronkhite. There's something about books being itty bitty that makes them cooler somehow.

Images of Real War

Joi Ito posted a video clip that has been making the rounds. It is thermal-imaging footage shot on December 1st from a U.S. Apache attack helicopter engaging Iraqis, who were attempting to launch a Stinger missile at the Apache. The Apache responds with force.

Snopes has a posting on the video (they've left it "undetermined," even though ABC News has confirmed its authenticity), which includes additional links to download it. One of Ito's readers posted an excellent comment--that the continued shooting of a man, after he has been wounded and incapacitated, is a violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. What do you think Rumsfeld would say to that?

Don't watch the video if you are easily affected by disturbing images. I am, and I watched it anyway, mainly because my little brother was stationed in Iraq for several months when the war started, and I am now finding the war much more personalized. Fortunately, he came home safely, but the same can not be said for some of his friends.

This is what war is really about. I know that my readership is (statistically speaking) largely opposed to the war already, but images like this make more of an impact than any stories you hear on the news. In fact, every news network should be showing this clip, to remind people that the war is still going on and people are dying.

Google Your Dates

A woman Googled her date and found out he was wanted by the FBI for fraud. Some blue-jacketed FBI agents showed up for their scheduled date, and arrested him. So, yes, Google your friends, your enemies, and your potential dates. You can find out some interesting things.

Smart little hooligans...

Some high school students in Saratoga, California used a keylogger to capture a teacher's passwords (which were used later to steal English tests). The students are facing explusion, naturally. But, all serious punishing aside, I can't help but feel a little jolly. The kids used technology in an innovative way...even if it was for the purposes of cheating. Speaking of which, when I taught Freshman English Composition at Washington State University, I caught half a dozen or so of my students plagiarizing (AKA cheating) over the semesters, and despite my efforts to give the students a big fat zero on the projects, the department wouldn't back me up. Instead, the kids just got to write the papers over again for a new, penalty-free, grade. One kid even, for a short story assignment, copied the description from the back of a Dances with Wolves video, and tried to pass it off as original fiction. Come on kid, at least pick something a little less well-known. Anyway, I always felt it was bad form for an academic institution to have no penalty for cheating. What kind of work-ethic does that teach our new workforce?

My Library's Blog

Months ago, I set up a Blogger blog for our Library...a place for patrons to go to stay up to date on what's happening at the Library, best-selling books, websites, book clubs, blah, blah blah. I had tried several RSS feed-creators, none of which ever worked consistently. But now, Blogger offers free RSS-feeds for all their blogs, even the free ones! And, hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, it actually works!

Microsoft to devote more of its R&D budget to security

It's about freaking time.

Oh my gosh...

Amazon's actually making money! Amazon announced its first ever net profit for 2003 ($35.3 million). Good for them. After the hundreds of little brown boxes from them that show up at my door, it's good to know that they're finally making some money off of me.

The Budget in Oreo Cookies

Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry's fame, has done a brilliant Flash video for TrueMajority, a political advocacy organization. It discusses the budget situation in terms of Oreo cookie stacks, and presents some very good arguments for shifting just a little money (only a few cookies) from our &$#*% military budget over to education, children's healthcare, and alternative energy. Good job Ben. And your Cherry Garcia ain't half bad either ;)

Patriot Act Section Ruled Unconstitutional

An LA judge ruled that part of the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. She ruled that "a provision in the law banning certain types of support for terrorist groups was so vague that it risked running afoul of the First Amendment." I also agree with Karen Schneider, who disagrees with Jessamyn West, that this part of the law is applicable to libraries in that it deals with who you can talk to, and about what. More specifically, "expert advice or assistance" given to terrorist organizations is considered a violation of the law. The Humanitarian Law Project folks saw this law as preventing them from providing relief assistance to Kurdish refugees in Turkey. And the judge agreed. It's a step in the right direction...

American McGee's Oz trilogy

Jerry Bruckheimer has bought the movie rights to American McGee's Oz, a game not even released yet (though highly anticipated by those of us who swooned over American McGee's Alice). The new news is that Bruckheimer plans to turn the game into a complete trilogy of movies. Could be interesting...very interesting.

Dr. Doom is in the House!

MyDoom is making its rounds. Friends & colleagues are getting bombarded with this at work and at home already, despite hefty security. Bad, nasty, oh so nasty....

Microsoft Toolbar

MSN has a toolbar. Kinda looks like Google's toolbar. Go figure.

I, Robot

West Virginia University Library has a fairly content-rich Isaac Asimov site. Look at rare book images, cover art, and read about this pioneer in science fiction literature.

Office Service Pack 1

Microsoft is releasing Service Pack 1 for the Microsoft Office Suite in late June. Keep a lookout. Or, at least, remind your friendly neighborhood techie to do so :)

Bill Gates, KBE

Bill Gates is receiving an honorary knighthood from the Queen. Wealthiest man in the world, and a knight? Not too shabby for a geek... As much as MS products make me crazy, Gates still gets my kudos for all he's done for the computing world.

Return of the King & Lost in Translation Win Big

Return of the King and Lost in Translation (incidentally, my two favorite movies of the last year) both won big at the Golden Globes. It's not usual that I agree with the award-distributors...

Gates says he can beat spam and trump Google

Gates chose the World Economic Forum as his podium. He announced that Microsoft search technologies would soon outdo Google, and that a new innovative three-pronged approach would effectively thwart spammers. Cheeky monkey, that Bill Gates.

Cell Phone Most Hated Invention

This story has been around the tech block already, but I thought I'd post it anyway. An MIT survey found that the invention that is most-needed & most-hated is the cell phone. Funny enough, alarm clocks were second. I can certainly identify with that.

CLA + ALCU + PATRIOT ACT = A BIG ROAR!

Check out the CLA/ACLU new ad on the Patriot Act.

Bush urges Patriot Act Renewal

Mr. Bush (I shall not to call him President), has urged the renewal of the Patriot Act. Fortunately, we have some activists in Congress trying to weaken it, particularly as it applies to privacy rights. Hopefully ALA & other organizations will start sending out action notices so we can all make our librarian-voices heard.

Fontifier

Turn your handwriting into a font! Fontifier allows you to download a free file, write out letters & numbers in your own handwriting, and then turns your handwriting into a custom style. Directions for how to do this are available at TechTV's Call For Help site. This is so completely kewl.

Librarian Voices Dragonball Z Characters

North Texas reference librarian, Monika Antonelli, voices the Dragonball Z characters Puar (a blue cat) and Chiaotzu (a little boy). You go girl! Librarian + Anime = GOOD. You can get the full article here.

Do you suck at parallel parking?

Toyota is offering an "auto-parallel-park" feature on their Prius model. As someone who lives in San Francisco, and can't parallel park worth a darn, this is mighty tempting. It's $2200 more, which is somewhat un-tempting. Oh well, perhaps with time the price will go down. Incidentally, growing up in the midwest, and having taken my driver's ed test there, no one ever tested us on, or even taught us, parallel parking. It's a skill I had to master later in life....well, errr, not "master" maybe. Was this just a lapse in my particular suburb's driver's education? Or is this a common thing?

Wormy Worm

It's heeeeeere! The "Bagle" or "Beagle" worm arrives as an attachment to an e-mail with the subject line "Hi" and "test : )" in the body text. The worm is activated when a user clicks on the attached file. Check out the Washington Post article (via Yahoo) for more info.

Today's Newspapers Around the World

"Want to see what today's print version of your favorite newspaper looks like online? Two services offer reproductions of dozens of newspapers from around the world. " Thanks to Chris Sherman from SearchEngineWatch.com for writing this article, and highlighting this important resource. As we in Marin County (home of Muir Woods, Sausalito, Mt. Tamalpais, and one of the best parts of Hwy 101 for biking) have a lot of travelers coming through, a good # of them international, this is of particular interest to me. By the way, when in Marin, McClure's Beach near Point Reyes is the best beach if you're looking for something secluded. How's that for off-topic?

A longitudinal study of Web pages, contd.

Information Research just published Wallace Koehler's article on document persistence on the web. The verdict (short version)? Some types of web documents are more stable than others.

Harry Potter Trailers

Some teaser trailers for the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban