Friday, August 01, 2008

seizing information without warrant

Thanks to the bizness folks and to the ACLU for making the DHS out this (the federales can seize your papers, your info storage devices, without warrant, without explanation. surprised?).

Seemed to me like we had an amendment in our constitution about that...

Check out Article IV, see if it jars any memories:




Now I'm getting fed up. You hear that ECHELON? The executive leg of this three legged stool is too long now, and the whole thing is about to topple over. Who is that good for? Who stands to gain?

Thursday, July 31, 2008

patron granulation

granulated abilities with variations in patron account types.
has it been done yet?

Welcome to Library X, which type of account would you like? your options are:
. The Buzz Plan: you can check out up to 100 items at once, but they're all due back within 48 hours. Stiff late fines go with this one, and a deposit of $x is required.
. The Daily: standard item numbers and return times. normal fines, no deposits.
. The Milquetoast: you can only have out 5 items at a time, but the items check out for a month. normal late fines after due date. For the slow, meandering, distracted reader. Low pressure, no pressure, no hassle!!!
. The Homebrew Plan: drop by to talk with our Circulation Librarian (meetings by appointment are best), to work out a customized account that meets your specific needs. Only interested in reading one genre? Can you make the case for a lower fine rate, or longer checkout periods? Maybe you're just into graphic novels, and you read really fast. We can take your particulars into account on a case-by-case basis. Signing up for a customized plan requires a mandatory deposit of $x.


you know, something like that. the social catalog seems to have opened the way for this kind of thing. holler if you're working on it already. maybe some of this has been hashed out in the debates of the corporate guys...

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

ubuntu stuff


I was raising cane about Ubuntu, telling folks "my laptop is Microsoft FREE!", but you know, it's a like the man says about web browsers -- you can't get by with just one anymore. So if running multiple scripts in multiple sites is a hassle, or if Ubuntu has a bad day and won't load right, I have found myself using Vista. Tsk tsk. All that said, I'm a much mo happy man using Ubuntu 80% of the time than I was using Windows 100%.

cheap solar

Finally, this pulls the rug even out from under the Pickens Plan:
http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/global/the-age-of-cheap-solar-energy-now-to-be-precise-738

'The implication is clear: the global power economy is in the early stages of a shift as profound as the shift when gasoline began to be widely used. With new battery technology expected in the near future the issues around powering systems at night and handling spikes in demand my begin to be solved, resulting in a complete green power revolution.'

Thursday, July 10, 2008

info/ethno ning thing

http://informethno.ning.com/

Information Science \ Social Science > socio-info literacy solutions

ubuntu in yr library

Good old Ms West puts Ubuntu on some donated computers:




By the way, I guess you noticed I got my dates wrong on that FISA bill thing. But what the hell. Once you tell yr representatives that yr vote for their re-election is on the line, you've played the last hand. No ace card left, is there?

Monday, July 07, 2008

fisa vote tomorrow, 8 july

Today is the day to speak up. Tomorrow they vote.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/07/daniel-ellsberg-on-w.html

"Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel posts this video in which Tim Ferriss interviews Daniel "Pentagon Papers" Ellsberg about tomorrow's vote on warrantless wiretapping in the USA. If Congress passes this bill (the "FISA bill"), it will become legal for intelligence agencies to bulk-wiretap American citizens without a warrant, using data-mining to listen in on millions of Internet and phone connections. Ellsberg, a heroic former intelligence officer, is eloquent and uncompromising in his condemnation of this -- and he makes a good case that any Congressperson who votes for it is violating her/his oath to uphold the Constitution."


also:
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=389&pg=makeACall

Action Alert: Tell Your Senators: "Don't Shred the Constitution this July 4th -- Reject Telecom Immunity!"

After the Fourth of July holiday, the Senate will vote on the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a bill that would betray the spirit of 1776 by radically expanding the president’s spying powers and granting immunity to the companies that colluded in his illegal program. Now that the House has passed the FAA, the Senate is the last front left in the battle against immunity, and every vote -- from cloture, to the amendments, to final passage -- counts.

Therefore EFF urges all patriots to celebrate the Fourth of July this year by demanding that their senators uphold the rule of law and stand up for civil liberties, by voting against the FAA and for the amendments to the bill that would eliminate or weaken its telecom immunity provisions.

or email them:

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=391

verbiage like:

I'm a constituent and I urge you to oppose telecom immunity and the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). As a constituent, I am very troubled that during this patriotic holiday season, the Senate appears ready to toss civil liberties and the rule of law out the window, and so I urge you oppose telecom immunity with every vote that you have when the FISA bill comes to the Senate floor on Tuesday, July 8th:

Vote "YES" on the Dodd-Feingold amendment, which would strip telecom immunity from the bill entirely.

Vote "YES" on the Bingaman amendment, which would delay implementation of telecom immunity until after Congress has received the Inspectors General report on the president's warrantless surveillance program.

Vote "NO" on the cloture motion to end debate on the FAA,

And finally, vote "NO" on the FISA Amendments Act, an unconstitutional and dangerous bill that would radically expand the president's spying powers and immunize the companies that helped him break the law.


with an emphasis on "YOUR RE-ELECTION DEPENDS on you FIGHTING FOR THE 4th AMENDMENT."

http://www.votesmart.org/

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

bidi books, bidibooks, bidimensional books

QR Code in print, [Kaywa reports]. Bidibooks, bi-dimensional (here it means 2d as in quick code) books, they're called in Madrid. But they are also bidi because they're both eye-readable, and phone-linkable to otro resources. An online appendix. Hell yes, people.



Or, as they say in Spain, "La hipertextualidad del papel es posible."

Monday, June 16, 2008

second life library quick note

In the last year I've heard folks speak on behalf of Second Life Library twice at conferences, and I've been in touch w/ SLL (infoisland.org) staff through this blog. I've yet to hear a good answer to the simple question how does Second Life help my patrons at my reference desk tonight?

The answers usually float around Mars, then veer toward institutional marketing, sweep back into a low-earth orbit around how cool it is to run around texting goth-dinosaur-bunnies.

Somebody, please, give me a better answer.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Royal Mail and QR Code

Update: I was looking, I guess I should have said, to learn more about RM's use of QR. I mean, they do. As does the USPS... and FedEx, UPS... DHL. QR is common as can be, and it's meter-printed on just about any piece of mail you might pick up these days, nevermind parcels.
So, like, somebody at the RM ought to know something about it... and surely someone (lots and lots of folks) do... I just didn't get connected to the guy who knows the guys who know.

--
I sent an inquiry out to Royal Mail, looking to learn more about QR. Royal Mail wrote back to me, and suggested I google it:

-

Dear Mr Evans,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I apologise for the delay in replying but your email went to Royal Mail
Customer Services and they have forwarded it to us and it has now reached
the Website Helpdesk.

I am sorry but Royal Mail do have any information available 2-D ('quick
code')to give to customers.

Please try going to www.google.co.uk and type in "2-D('quick code')"
without the quote marks and you will find nearly 260,000 search results. I
am sure some of them will be of help to you.

If you have any further questions regarding the website,
please email at contactus@royalmail.com and quote your
reference number (RM0317-4398) in the subject. You can also
contact us by phone on 0845 60 60 406 from 08:00 - 18:00
Monday to Friday.

We hope you enjoy using our site and we look forward to your
next visit.

Regards

[Name]
Website Helpdesk

www.royalmail.com
www.parcelforce.com
www.postoffice.co.uk

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group plc. Registered in
England and Wales. Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 148 Old
Street, LONDON EC1V 9HQ.

Mae'r Post Brenhinol yn un o enwau masnachu Grwp y Post Brenhinol ccc.
Cofrestrwyd yng Nghymru a Lloegr. Rhif cofrestredig 4138203. Swyddfa
gofrestredig 148 Old Street LLUNDAIN EC1V 9HQ.



******************************
*****************************************
Royal Mail Group Limited registered in England and Wales registered number
4138203 registered office 148 Old Street London EC1V 9HQ

This email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the
addressee only. If you are not the named recipient, you must not use,
disclose, reproduce, copy or distribute the contents of this communication.
If you have received this in error, please contact the sender and then
delete this email from your system.
**********************************************************************

-

LOL.


qrcode

Monday, June 09, 2008

Saturday, May 31, 2008

the cost of a book

A salty cataloger reminded me (and whenever I get intensive time with tech processing folks I usually leave the meeting awed by their focus -- they turn the volume up on geek so high that I find myself tapping my feet) that a book costs a lot more than its list price, if it's a library book. There's air conditioning, lighting, all the stuff that goes along with housing; there is staff time and knowledge and care. Weeding the items around it... ordering items that encourage its use. The longer the book is with the library, the more its value grows.

Consider a tree. Kew acquires a rare walnut tree that grows in Souther Staffordshire, because they've payed a farmer from Silverdale ₤15 for a cutting he'd managed to pirate and cultivate. Over the course of that tree's lifetime, from sappling to gnarly great-grandad of the garden, over ₤15 per day may be spent on fertilizer, mulch, pruning, mowing -- all that has to go into maintaining a healthy tree. The lifetime cost of the tree is much more than that first 15...

Books aren't simple items. To risk another metaphor, books and their values are fractal. Not just four-dimensional, but not quite 5-dimensional...


Wednesday, May 21, 2008

wrong tool for the revolution

Fledgling Rebellion on Facebook Is Struck Down by Force in Egypt

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 18, 2008; A01

CAIRO -- At 1:49 a.m. in an Internet cafe only then quieting after Cairo's daily rumble, 27-year-old Ahmed Maher worked at a computer. He wore the same shirt he had had on for two days. The essentials of his life on the run lay splayed out next to his keyboard -- car keys, cigarettes, prepaid cellphone.

Maher pursed his lips, typing intently. His dream of a people's uprising organized on Facebook was beginning to slip through his scrabbling fingers.

Worries about the risks of political activism in Egypt were spilling onto his screen. It won't work, one man wrote. The government's already infiltrated us, wrote another. This is stupid, wrote a third.

Since late March, 74,000 people had registered on a Facebook page created and run by Maher and a few other young Egyptians, most of them newcomers to activism. Even some of Egypt's older, more disillusioned proponents of democracy had let themselves hope that a social networking Web site created by American college students could become an electronic rallying point for protest against President Hosni Mubarak's 27-year rule.

But the experience of the Facebook activists showed the limits of technology as a means of organizing dissent against a repressive government. Maher would end up among what rights groups said were 500 Egyptians arrested during two months of political activism in Egypt -- and find himself stripped and beaten in a Cairo police station, he said.

addictomatic

Addictomatic: hexayurt.

Addictomatic story: InfoToday.

where my jetpack is

I used to be like hell yeah, brother! where's my jetpack?! too... Angry about the future. Angry about the lack-of-future. Angry about the present?

But I kind of like Bruce Sterling's answer to that question... "Are you Chinese?".

Or, better, "you're not payin' fuckin' attention... you're all disillusioned and you're not actually looking at what's really happening."

Aside, Doktor Sleepless as a reaction or embodiment of this angst and disillusionment is worth reading.

extropianism as literary movement?

News to me, but it seems transhumanism is now considered to be a literary movement. Philosophy, yes. Political movement? ...could soon be. But artistic school?

Check Warren Ellis' wikipedia page:











































Warren Ellis

BornFebruary 16, 1968 (1968-02-16) (age 40)


Essex, England
Occupationwriter
NationalityBritish
Genresscience fiction, superhero
Literary movementExtropianism, Transhumanism
Notable work(s)Transmetropolitan

Planetary

The Authority

Nextwave

Global Frequency
Notable award(s)Eagle Award


Genre, I could see... but literary movement? Any artistes out there want to weigh in on this?

Monday, May 12, 2008

powerset video

We're in deep now -- Powerset furthers the assumption that Wikipedia is factual.



Powerset Demo Video from officialpowerset on Vimeo.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

be here at ref desk



Be here, be here now, yo?
A lower noise-to-signal ratio, please.
Light less mediated.


Info seekers need our presence.