I recently submitted my proposal for the 2006 NELINET Information Technology Conference. It’s about WPopac, of course, but the excitement now is that the presentation would be the story of the first library outside PSU to implement it. WPopac is an open source replacement for a library’s online catalog that improves the usability, findability, and […] » about 300 words
Yup, Tom reminded me recently that there’s less than a year left on the Official Paris Hilton Retirement Countdown. In case you’ve forgotten, the hamburger-eating heiress announced her retirement in a June 20 issue of Newsweek (jump to page two for the relevant bits). Don’t get tripped up on the postdated retirement announcement, Bill Gates […] » about 300 words
I’m honored to join Katie Bauer, of Yale University Library, in a program coordinated by Mary Jane Kelsey, of Yale Law’s Lillian Goldman Library. The full title of our program is Technology Scouts: how to keep your library and ILS current in the IT world (H-4, 4PM Tuesday, room 274). My portion of the presentation […] » about 300 words
Amusing. One one side of the world is Jenny Levine, the original library RSS bigot, pushing libraries to adopt new technologies from the bottom up, and here on the other side of the world is NewsGator offering their products for top-down adoption. Why are law libraries interested in NewsGator? Could it be that social software […] » about 100 words
…The time for pedantic purism is past; if we wish to communicate with the larger audience, we must use language they understand. We do not have the luxury of defining our words, their definitions are thrust upon us by usage. I was struck by how much that sounds like something I might have said about […] » about 300 words
Today I discovered (thank you Ryan) Kareem Elnahal’s speech as valedictorian of Mainland Regional High School and I discovered new hope, new faith in our country’s future. When high school students can step up and speak truth to power, as Elnahal did so well, I become a believer in the strength of human spirit. “We […] » about 1000 words
I pointed out this Jet Turbine Powered Toyota MR2 a year ago, but now I’ve discovered Ron Patrick’s Jet Powered VW Beatle. The story is well told in a San Francisco Gate article from April (with bonus video), which describes the builder: Patrick is a 48-year-old Stanford-trained (Ph.D.) engineer who owns ECM (Engine Control and […] » about 400 words
French vexillographers circulate the national library,
protesting flag desecration, too many windows, and cardboard
sunscreens. Fireworks on the Fourth of July promise.
Celebrate Independence Day With A Drink.
tags: banana, bananas, blueberries, blueberry, flag, fourth of july, fruit, independence day, july 4, july 4th, patriotic, patriotism, raspberries, raspberry, red white and blue, stars
Let the vexillographers cringe, flag desecration never tasted so good. Sure, it’s barbecue season, but that’s no reason not to enjoy breakfast. And what better way to break fast on the Fourth of July than to dress waffles as sugary, fruity flags? Do that with your hamburgers. Do that with your potato salad. Do that […] » about 100 words
Today’s terms
tags: , concert, music, political criticism, politics, show, the sun, they might be giants, tmbg
echo through pine walls
stretch sun along desire’s coast
They Might Be Giants, playing at Mohegan Sun, drew roars of approval from the crowd when John Flansburgh went off-lyric sheet during The Sun (which they amusingly described as part of their Venue Songs series): …The heat and light of the sun are caused by nuclear reactions between a failed foreign policy, a failed domestic […] » about 200 words
Is there a term already for what I am about to do?
OK, here goes:
bad knockoffs of cheap pop
Oops! I Did It Again
Richard Thompson
strange sense of humor
Last.fm, despite the suggestion here
stream it from NPR, go buying.
****KCRWmusic
Toxi
The Chapin Sisters
Top Tune
Britney Spears
episode 175
Coverville.
**** Britney in wax at Madame Tussaud’s
pretending to do hard math
some fan with a Brit photo on his refrigerator
Now here we have what we might call in the poetry world “Plunderverse” www.poetics.ca/poetics05/05betts.html
except that I haven’t used the stolen phrases to make something
new of yet. I’ll work on that for tomorrow. The question today
is will these terms alone generate some traffice to this
brand new site??
I don’t know why it is that I love bad knockoffs of cheap pop, but I do. That’s why, when I heard a folksy rendition of Oops! I Did It Again playing between segments on some NPR program a while ago, I had to go looking for it.
As it turns out, it was Richard Thompson, whose strange sense of humor apparently pops up in his music regularly. You can find his version indexed in Last.fm, but you can’t play it there, and despite the suggestion here, it’s not available as an MP3 download from his site. To hear it, you’ll have to stream it from NPR, or go buying.
Extra: I heard the Richard Thompson cover back in May, but I only remembered it now because KCRWmusic named Toxic, as covered by The Chapin Sisters, their Top Tune recently. Can’t get enough Britney Spears covers? Check out episode 175 of Coverville.
Extra extra: I can’t decide if the best header image for this story would be Britney in wax at Madame Tussaud’s, pretending to do hard math, or just some fan with a Brit photo on his refrigerator in Michigan. Good stuff all.
In the two years Joe spent researching and writing Two Ton: One Night, One Fight — Tony Galento v. Joe Louis I’ve heard a lot about this guy. Tony Galento was a most improbable opponent for Louis, who by then had regained the world heavyweight title from Max Schmeling, but Joe’s description tells it best: […] » about 400 words
My feelings on the Flag Burning Desecration Amendment should have been clear from my Flag Day story. Still, let me offer the t-shirts above as confirmation. america, burn, citizenship, civil liberties, civil liberty, first amendment, flag burning, flag desecration, flag desecration amendment, free speech, liberty, patriot, patriotism, rights » about 100 words
A comment from TroublePup alerted me that the Principality of Sealand burned Friday. The Evening Star explained: Witnesses watched in amazement as a huge plume of smoke started to rise from one of the legs of Sealand — and boats raced to the scene. Seafront worker Bruce Harrison said: “It was quite spectacular. The amount […] » about 300 words
I don’t collect stamps, but this set caught my eye. First there’s the irony that the USPS is celebrating American diplomacy at a time when, well, there’s not much to celebrate. Then I get a further chuckle when I notice the postal service can only scrounge up six examples to celebrate, but found 40 “superlatives” […] » about 200 words
Wendy sent out this invite last week: Last month the Monningers quite suddenly became restauranteurs. Six weeks later, Wendy, Joe and Pie are excited to announce the Grand Opening of “the Twig”– an ever-so-cute restaurant in their hometown of Warren, NH. On Saturday, June 24th from 11-2 come to the Twig for free pizza and […] » about 300 words
“Bagged products” is little better than “cookery.” I’m gonna bet that no customer has ever asked the sales people for “bagged products,” that nobody’s ever checked the yellow pages for “bagged products,” and without context, nobody would come close to answering a question on what the heck “bagged products” are all about. But we do […] » about 300 words
Point A: John Blyberg’s ILS Customer Bill-of-Rights. Point B: Dan Chudnov’s The problem with the “ILS Bill of Rights” Response: John Blyberg’s OPACs in the frying pan, Vendors in the fire While there’s some disagreement between John and Dan, I can’t help but see a strong concordance between their posts: Both are an attempt to […] » about 400 words
The light Sunday evening was golden, so I stopped to take way too many photos of the meadow in the sunset. Just before filling my memory card with all that, I got back to my scooter to find this scene with a haze settling on the field and the sun just ducking behind enough of […] » about 100 words
Engadget alerted me to this GPS data logger from Spark Fun Electronics.
The device records up to 440 hours of data to a 256MB SD card in either a simple text file or KML-compatible format that you can display in Google Earth.
I like it, I want one (actually, I want three, and I’ll eventually post about why), but the ad copy tweaked me a bit:
Pull the SD card, insert it into a card reader, […] and wammo–you can see what Casey did over lunch with a satellite image overlay. Take a look at the example screen shot. You can see what lane Casey was in! When he stopped at the light, his data points piled up. Fancy. Real fancy. Speed is also datalogged – it’s like Big Brother in the palm of your hand…
The above image and following text are circulating the web, tickling funny bones. This man (on the left wearing a fabulous vintage chiffon-lined Dior gold lamé gown over a silk Vera Wang empire waist tulle cocktail dress, accessorized with a three-foot beaded peaked House of Whoville hat, and the ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in […] » about 100 words
Memepool has more than earned its place in my aggregator. Where else would I learn of The Monkey Chow Diaries (and blog), or the plot structure of Fight Club in Legos, or this flying dude?
Thanks to an aside in a sad/angering story at Copyfight, I’m now up on Bloomsday. Here it is, as explained by Wikipedia: Bloomsday is observed annually on June 16 to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and commemorate the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day […] » about 300 words
