Friday, May 23, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
R LIBRARIANS CRAZEE...AND Y
In a world where there are two kinds of people...
There are two kinds of librarians; the librarians who love the library and the librarians who love the patrons.
No one person can be both…not successfully.
The librarians who love the library want to protect it from the grubby patrons who will tear up the materials, take things off the shelves and not put them back, or worse...put them back...in the wrong place!
These are the librarians who generate copious and strict rules that must be followed without exception. They are also the librarians who keep the shelves orderly and who keep the materials where they can be found.
The librarians who love the patrons want to give the patrons everything they want...even if the materials suffer, and the collection is left in disarray...even if the patrons don't know they want it, these librarians give it to them.
These are the librarians who chase patrons into the parking lot yelling, "Wait! I have more SEE ALSOs for you!"
These librarians consider the rules to be suggested guidelines which should be ignored if they might interfere with a patron's needs.
Libraries need both kinds of librarians.
With just the first kind of librarian, the library will be a shiny toy kept in the box...a sofa covered with plastic wrap...a beautiful lawn with a 'keep off the grass' sign.
With just the second kind of librarian, the library will be piles and piles of books and such, scattered all around the building.
Good libraries are run by people from opposite ends of this philosophical spectrum…and we drive each other insane…AND…that's why librarians are crazy.
Well truthfully, we are a little gone around the bend before we even start, but that's another story...
...and it begins with Melville Dewey (spelled Melvil Dui) who founded library science as a way to pick up chicks and along the way invented the Dewey Decimal System which still confounds library users to this day; it is a mixture of genius and madness that attempts to contain the infinitude of knowledge within a finite boundary, and succeeds, sort of, in an elegant juggernautical way.
But don't take my word for it...you know what to do...it's Google time!
...search on "Melville Dewey"
Use the quotes. It's the librariany way.
__
If the past tense of Google is Googled, is the future perfect tense...Giggled?
I googled once yesterday, but I will have giggled three times by tomorrow.
There are two kinds of librarians; the librarians who love the library and the librarians who love the patrons.
No one person can be both…not successfully.
The librarians who love the library want to protect it from the grubby patrons who will tear up the materials, take things off the shelves and not put them back, or worse...put them back...in the wrong place!
These are the librarians who generate copious and strict rules that must be followed without exception. They are also the librarians who keep the shelves orderly and who keep the materials where they can be found.
The librarians who love the patrons want to give the patrons everything they want...even if the materials suffer, and the collection is left in disarray...even if the patrons don't know they want it, these librarians give it to them.
These are the librarians who chase patrons into the parking lot yelling, "Wait! I have more SEE ALSOs for you!"
These librarians consider the rules to be suggested guidelines which should be ignored if they might interfere with a patron's needs.
Libraries need both kinds of librarians.
With just the first kind of librarian, the library will be a shiny toy kept in the box...a sofa covered with plastic wrap...a beautiful lawn with a 'keep off the grass' sign.
With just the second kind of librarian, the library will be piles and piles of books and such, scattered all around the building.
Good libraries are run by people from opposite ends of this philosophical spectrum…and we drive each other insane…AND…that's why librarians are crazy.
Well truthfully, we are a little gone around the bend before we even start, but that's another story...
...and it begins with Melville Dewey (spelled Melvil Dui) who founded library science as a way to pick up chicks and along the way invented the Dewey Decimal System which still confounds library users to this day; it is a mixture of genius and madness that attempts to contain the infinitude of knowledge within a finite boundary, and succeeds, sort of, in an elegant juggernautical way.
But don't take my word for it...you know what to do...it's Google time!
...search on "Melville Dewey"
Use the quotes. It's the librariany way.
__
If the past tense of Google is Googled, is the future perfect tense...Giggled?
I googled once yesterday, but I will have giggled three times by tomorrow.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Complex Motions of the Earth, and Me, Through the Universe
I was recently asked to fill out form for an office party...a funny trivia kind of thing...what's your favorite color, car, etc.
We were also asked to tell the farthest distance we had travelled. I ended up writing New York on the form, but the question took my mind back to a late night party when I used astronomy to try and measure how far I had travelled in my life.
After a few drinks at that late night party...many years ago, I found myself alone, sitting on the roof, and watching the stars twirl around.
I started figuring directions...
The Earth is spinning around it's axis at 0.5 kilometers a second.
The Earth is revolving around the Sun at 30 kilometers a second.
The Sun is revolving around the Milky Way Galaxy at 250 kilometers a second.
The Milky Way Galaxy is revolving around with the Local Group of galaxies at 300 kilometers a second.
Total rate of distances traveled … 580.5 kilometers a second
____
There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year.
My age is 52 ... 31536000 seconds X 52 years = 1,639,872,000 seconds
So I have lived (roughly, so far) 1,639,872,000 seconds ...
(1.6 billion seconds).
1639872000 seconds X 580.5 kilometers = 951945696000 kilometers
951,945,696,000 kilometers = 591,511,632,000 miles
So, in my life, so far, I have traveled...
(roughly, and in circles mostly)
...about 591 billion miles.
I didn't put that figure on the form for the office party. They think I am odd enough already.
____
But many years ago at that late night party, in a meditative state, after a few drinks, I was sitting on the roof of my shed watching the stars twirl around, and I completed all of the calculations.
I included the widening gyres caused by the Earth's rotational tilt, 23 degrees, and the tilt of the Solar System's orbit relative to the Sun's movement though the Milky Way.
I guessed at the direction of the Milky Way's orbit within the Local Group of galaxies.
And lastly I included the direction of the Local Group moving away from the point of the Big Bang (another estimate to be sure).
While I was figuring and estimating and "feeling" the various directions, all of a sudden the equations came together in my mind.
I looked toward a point in the sky and quietly said: "There."
Suddenly my head smacked back against the asphalt shingles. My cheeks were stretched back towards my ears. My spine flattened. My vision darkened and blurred.
The acceleration pressure nailed me to the roof.
I was crushed by my new found discovery of Universal Velocity.
It only lasted a fraction of a second...or a lifetime.
And then I lost consciousness.
We were also asked to tell the farthest distance we had travelled. I ended up writing New York on the form, but the question took my mind back to a late night party when I used astronomy to try and measure how far I had travelled in my life.
After a few drinks at that late night party...many years ago, I found myself alone, sitting on the roof, and watching the stars twirl around.
I started figuring directions...
The Earth is spinning around it's axis at 0.5 kilometers a second.
The Earth is revolving around the Sun at 30 kilometers a second.
The Sun is revolving around the Milky Way Galaxy at 250 kilometers a second.
The Milky Way Galaxy is revolving around with the Local Group of galaxies at 300 kilometers a second.
Total rate of distances traveled … 580.5 kilometers a second
____
There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year.
My age is 52 ... 31536000 seconds X 52 years = 1,639,872,000 seconds
So I have lived (roughly, so far) 1,639,872,000 seconds ...
(1.6 billion seconds).
1639872000 seconds X 580.5 kilometers = 951945696000 kilometers
951,945,696,000 kilometers = 591,511,632,000 miles
So, in my life, so far, I have traveled...
(roughly, and in circles mostly)
...about 591 billion miles.
I didn't put that figure on the form for the office party. They think I am odd enough already.
____
But many years ago at that late night party, in a meditative state, after a few drinks, I was sitting on the roof of my shed watching the stars twirl around, and I completed all of the calculations.
I included the widening gyres caused by the Earth's rotational tilt, 23 degrees, and the tilt of the Solar System's orbit relative to the Sun's movement though the Milky Way.
I guessed at the direction of the Milky Way's orbit within the Local Group of galaxies.
And lastly I included the direction of the Local Group moving away from the point of the Big Bang (another estimate to be sure).
While I was figuring and estimating and "feeling" the various directions, all of a sudden the equations came together in my mind.
I looked toward a point in the sky and quietly said: "There."
Suddenly my head smacked back against the asphalt shingles. My cheeks were stretched back towards my ears. My spine flattened. My vision darkened and blurred.
The acceleration pressure nailed me to the roof.
I was crushed by my new found discovery of Universal Velocity.
It only lasted a fraction of a second...or a lifetime.
And then I lost consciousness.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Happy Klansmen Dancing a Jig in Hell
Today's local newspaper, Charleston's Post and Courier, included an AP article about a rapper in New York, Remy Ma, who shot her friend in the stomach. The shot was an accident; the gun was displayed as a warning...like a schoolyard taunt gone bad.
Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint have written an illuminating book about the tragedy of young black people killing each other...Come On People: on the path from victims to victors.
Here are two statistics taken from the book..."Homicide is the number one cause of death for black men between fifteen and twenty-nine years of age...Ninety-four percent of all black people who are murdered are murdered by other black people" (pages 8,9).
The Ku Klux Klansmen burning in Hell must be dancing happily around their flaming crosses.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
100+ Essential Resources for Web Developers
We’ve put together a list of over 100 resources to help make your life as a developer easier; where to find snippets of code, sites that automate processes, cheat sheets, lessons, useful tools and a couple of silly videos to give your brain a break if you make it through to the end.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, March 3, 2008
Give me little kiss, Honey
Being ever interested in our beginnings as beings peopling the planet. I was struck by this article about Honey's uses as medicine.
This article is from Interesting Thing of the Day
Like honey probably being our first alcholic drink, predating the milk wine of the herders, now we find Honey is healthy inside and outside the body as an antiseptic.
Note: there is a quiet crisis with Bees. A new disease is causing collapse of hive colonies. How this affects Bees in the long run is debatable, but Bees are one of those links in the ecosystem that hold the whole food chain together.
National Honey Board
This article is from Interesting Thing of the Day
Like honey probably being our first alcholic drink, predating the milk wine of the herders, now we find Honey is healthy inside and outside the body as an antiseptic.
Note: there is a quiet crisis with Bees. A new disease is causing collapse of hive colonies. How this affects Bees in the long run is debatable, but Bees are one of those links in the ecosystem that hold the whole food chain together.
National Honey Board
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Book Review
Daemon, by Leinad Zeraus
A classic detective story with a modern twist. A computer game designer has set loose an internet program, a Daemon. The program examines obituaries, boots up other programs scattered on servers all across the world. The programs can transfer funds between accounts; they react to events occuring on online news sites; they can hire people. People begin dying, and the clues lead back to this reclusive program quietly running through it's processes. A Detective begins sifting through the evidence, seeking to determine the goal of the program designer. The difficulty of catching the murderer is heightened by the fact that the author of the daemon program died months earlier. The Daemon program is leading to an ultimate that the detective must determine before more people die. |
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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