Poetics of Indeterminacy

Of the two 'references' in Wikipedia used to support the biography of the writer, Avi, one is 'Cataloging Rules' by the 'American Lesbians Association' . If I was aware of that association at all, I would be surprised that the other A.L.A. had any interest in metadata, Dublin Core, or AACR2. Even more--Why would this organization of all things classification and sapphic be interested in a biography of Avi?

Perhaps there is a clue in that other collaborative/authoritative resource chock-a-block with truthiness-- Answers.com. Fans of Avi, your wait will soon be over! The inside scoop can be found in his autobiography : My Life Looking Like a Shemale (2007). Apparently, Answers.com beat Books-in-Print and Amazon to this forthcoming publication.

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.

As a wise colleague realized, we will soon be in a possesion of another gadget. Huzzahs to the Radio Corporation of America! Huzzahs to L2.0!

'73--
KA8OMQ

Shout Out to my Pepys

Supposedly "unabridged," Excerpts from the Diary of Samuel Pepys can be downloaded from NetLibrary. It's read by Audie Award-Winning reader, George Guidall, so I'm looking forward to listening to this recording of a 17th century text in my 21st century car (with audio jack!)

This article or section may contain original research or unattributed claims

Not to get too old-timey or anything, but I knew members in the WELL, had an e-mail account in 1992, and was using Archie (Jughead and Veronica too--we were very resourceful then) before Mosaic came on the scene. Podcasts may be the new new thing, but--yawn--it's really a rather old thing. Social networks (the WELL, Free-Nets, MUD's, IRC) were past tense in 1994 (Rheingold's 'Virtual Communites,' et. al.). Well, maybe imperfect tense--Everything old is new again.

Be a 'mind sticker'--with a shape he can't forget

Quimble Poll

THIS IS A TEST...Doooooohhhh!!!!!

PB Wiki Allergy

I'm pretty sure that a shopping list could be a LOT easier with a pencil and a pad of paper, despite the claims that "it couldn't be easier" with PBWIKI.

Smell Your Way to Dover!

Speaking at an academic conference at UPenn, Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, urged students that they shouldn't use the online encyclopedia for class projects. It is not, he claims, a definitive source. "It is pretty good, but you have to be careful of it. It's good enough, depending on what your purpose is."

Good enough...

Although Wikipedia frowns on subjects of an entry from editing their own bio, this hasn't stopped Wales from editing his own entry 18 times, including a revision whereby he alone is the founder of Wikipedia.

Revisionism...

Wales says, "Over the past three years, the quality of Wikipedia has improved dramatically," as some 600 to 1,000 contributors help maintain the integrity of "up to 75 percent of the site's entries."

Only 25% of the information is wrong!

The Library 2.0 Noise Machine

From Karen Schneider's 'Manifesto' to John Blyberg's rants, there's a lot of rage against the naysayers (or even questioners) of the inevitable slow-force march of L2.0. I wonder just how confident the proponents are when half their essays are denunciations of how the other guy got it wrong

One thing I've not seen addressed is the very real possibility that patrons come to our bricks-n-mortar space because it is real and not virtual. There is much talk about the Library 'going to where the people are,' but I wonder if they like coming to this public space because of its intimacy and sense of community. Besides Starbucks, it may be America's last Plaza Mayor.

Technorati's...

...but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Queer as Folksonomy

The problems inherent in a 'folk-sonomy' (redundancies, inaccuracies, mispellings) are legion, but lacking a controlled vocabulary results in a balkanization of terms and a limited social (and intellectual) conversation. As we engage in narrower and narrower (virtual) social spaces, our vocabulary, necessarily, will be more precise. But also proprietary--we'll use language in a way that will be familiar and comprehensible to those around us, but not to an outsider. A discourse mafia emerges. Even David Sifry of Technorati refers to certain blogs (the "Magic Middle") as 'authoratative.' So much for the power of the people. Wiki's, folk-tags and other social networks may be more democratic, but in the end they may be as exclusionary as L'Académie.

Books? I Already Have a Book

The 'thing' about the 'book thing' I'm not fond of is the adoration of books as cult object. That there is a commeraderie or an assumed shared veneration of 'the book' is sophistic. I dig books, sure, but their hanging around my personal space--unread, un-looked at, unloved--is more decoration than intrinsic value.

There was this tv show in the 1970's where the host would make 'objet d'art' out of household objects. For one project, he had a 'false front' bookshelf (like a secret compartment) where he took a bunch of old books (probably Reader's Digest Condensed) and sawed them off at the spines, glued them together and, voilà!--a place to store your jiggers, high-ball glasses, and swizzle sticks. As a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up so I could take a band-saw to my mother's book-of-the-month selections and create my own mini-bar.

Reading books is something entirely different, of course. There is just about no greater joy than what happens between that printed page and my brain's cognitition. Bliss.

Library Thing

Blogging like it's 1984...

So I'm in 'topix.net' and under local news there are links to news about Leesburg. I'm wondering, um, how does it know where I'm at? Can a web site follow me? Is it watching me now?

And for that matter, where's my cut of the US$51,000,000.00(fifty _one Million US Dollars) from F DR.IBRAHIM MARTIN of union Bank Of Nigeria. Plc??? I sent my bank account number as instructed for Off-shore remittance, and I've not seen a penny. I'm beginning to think this guy is not on the up and up.

Tres tristes plátanos

click slowly and see

How's Abe?

(Refresh Page for Update)

One of these things is just like the other...

I thought this Flickr app was cool:

http://www.krazydad.com/gustavog/FlickRandom.pl

It basically scans the Flickrsphere for images and throws up some random snapshots. Like John Nash from 'A Beautiful Mind,' I'm starting to see connections between these so-called 'random' images; there are definite patterns here. I believe I may have discovered the connection between Skull & Bones, the Rosicrucians, the Trilateral Commission and the Leif Garrett Fan Club. It's all clear to me now...

More Entertaining Than 'Garfield'

Mary Worth's Boozy Floozy Friend
Originally uploaded by tcarmac.

Funnier, too. MARY WORTH RULES!

Weegee

030
Originally uploaded by taller fotografia ong.

I loved that he used a "Speed Graphic."

evil incantation in gibberish

One day Mrs. Hopewell had picked up one of the books the girl had just put down and opening it at random, she read,

Science, on the other hand, has to assert its soberness and seriousness afresh and declare that it is concerned solely with what-is. Nothing – how can it be for science anything but a horror and a phantasm? If science is right, then one thing stands firm: science wishes to know nothing of nothing. Such is after all the strictly scientific approach to Nothing. We know it by wishing to know nothing of Nothing.

These words had been underlined with a blue pencil and they worked on Mrs. Hopewell like some evil incantation in gibberish. She shut the book quickly and went out of the room as if she were having a chill.

from Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor