Monthly Archives: July 2005

Movie Night: The Underneath

July 31, 2005 – 6:28 pm

Steven Soderbergh has done a number of good films, but The Underneath isn’t among them. It’s interesting to see the director working out his moves, but more entertaining to see them in a more mature form, as in Out of Site.
Eh, I’m ready to give the guy a break. My real complaint has nothing to [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music | Comments (1)



Space Shuttle Tracking (and other good uses of the Google Maps API)

July 31, 2005 – 1:35 pm

Tom Mangan has put the Google Maps API to interesting use with his space shuttle tracking page. Also worth checking out: his Blackbird Spotting site and TLable, a little extension to make pinning/annotating maps even better.
blackbird, google maps, map api, space, space shuttle, spacecraft, sr-71, tom mangan

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Planes, Trains, & Automobiles, Technology | Comments (41)

Politics And The Google Economy

July 31, 2005 – 3:19 am

While I’m anxiously working to better fit libraries into the Google Economy, a few paragraphs of Barry Glassner’s The Culture of Fear, got me thinking about its role in politics.
Glassner was telling of how a 1996 article in USA Today quoted the National Assocation of Scholars saying that Georgetown University had dumbed down its curriculum [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Politics & Controversy, Technology | Comments (3)

Japanoid K-Cars

July 30, 2005 – 9:01 am

Gizmodo reported it a while ago, but a Canadian company called Japanoid is importing these and other tiny Japanese cars. How tiny? At or under 1.5 meters (under 5 feet!) wide with engines 660CC or under. They’re called Kei Jidousha, or Keicars, or just K-cars (though not to be confused with Chrysler’s K-Cars). Japanoid has [...]

By Casey | Posted in Planes, Trains, & Automobiles | Comments (5)

Movie Night: Entropy

July 29, 2005 – 5:31 pm

Phil Joanou’s Entropy isn’t available in the US on DVD, but I found it at Amazon UK. IMDB has this to say:
Stephen Dorff narrates this tale about how his life goes astray as his character attempts to strike a balance between the demands of directing his first film and the pressures of his new romance [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music | Comments (4)



The Problem With PDAs Today

July 29, 2005 – 4:07 pm

When I finally get around to writing up my impressions of the Pepper Pad, I’ll be pointing to Roger Sperberg’s recent posts at TeleRead about non-PDA handhelds and computers for stand up use. At the moment, however, some of his points remind my of a few I’ve got to make about PDAs here.
I’ve got [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (5)

Gizmo Project, VoIP, Asterisk

July 27, 2005 – 7:12 am

Jason O’Grady introduced me to the Skype-like Gizmo Project by the folks over at SIPphone.
I’ve been a Vonage customer for a couple years now, so I’ve had a chance to get familiar with VoIP, and I’m looking for a good Bluetooth headset so I can try Gizmo and Skype (and others), but I got to [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (5)

Marriage

July 26, 2005 – 10:25 pm

Alternet has a story by Monica Mehta titled The Myth of Marriage with this synopsis:
A radical new book debunks the concept of marriage as a time-honored institution, and argues that we need to loosen up about it.
The book is Stephanie Coontz’s Marriage, A History.
Related previous story: The ?Sanctity? Of Marriage.

tags: alternet, marriage, monica mehta, myth, [...]

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Books, Movies, Music | Comments (1)

Put A Pepper In Your Library

July 26, 2005 – 7:41 am

Libraries are known for books. And despite the constant march of technology, despite the fact that we can put a bazillion songs in our pocket, despite the availability of the New York Times and so many other newspapers and thousands of journals online, books are a big part of what libraries are. Books, dead tree [...]

By Casey | Posted in Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Technology | Comments (5)

Elements Of Murder

July 25, 2005 – 9:27 pm

John Emsley, author of Elements Of Murder: a history of poisons appeared in an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air’ earlier today. Those who were fascinated by the morbid details of Devil in the White City should give it a listen. I plan on checking out the book too, though it sounds like Emsley offers more [...]

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Books, Movies, Music | Comments (0)

ILS: Inventory or Search and Retrieval System?

July 25, 2005 – 7:07 am

There’s an interesting discussion going at LibDev about what our ILSs are. It all started with a discussion of what role XML and webservices could/should play with ILS/catalogs, but a comment reminded us that Vendor’s decisions about adding new features to products that have been around for 20 or 30 years sometimes edge towards lock-in. [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (0)

Nuclear Family Vacation

July 24, 2005 – 5:12 am

Via Defense Tech: Slate did a series last week titled A Nuclear Family Vacation that visited the Nevada Test Site; Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs; and Trinity. Extra: a slideshow accompanies the text and the authors interviewed on NPR’s Day to Day.
Related: previous nuclear stories at MaisonBisson.

tags: albuquerque, defensetech, lawrence livermore, los [...]

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Politics & Controversy, Travel | Comments (0)

Karl Rove?s Leak-and-Covergate

July 24, 2005 – 4:25 am

Two items from the blogosphere about Rove’s Leak-and-Covergate at Tikun Olam and AlterNet.

tags: alternet, bush, coverup, george bush, george w bush, karl rove, rove, tikun olam, w, white house

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Politics & Controversy | Comments (0)

Life Magazine Covers

July 24, 2005 – 12:51 am

I get a kick out of these 1948 and 1950 Life magazine covers. Take a look and I think you’ll agree that no magazine puts photos like this on their covers today.

tags: 1948, 1950, culture, life, life magazine, magazine covers, magazines, retro

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music | Comments (3)

Screen Real Estate

July 23, 2005 – 7:56 am

At 2560 x 1600 pixels, Apple’s Cinema HD display is big enough for three people’s egos.

tags: apple, cinema hd, computer, display, ego, maisonbisson, monitor, nosheep, spiralbound

By Casey | Posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless., Technology | Comments (0)