Woman Arrested, Cuffed for Eating Candy
After having finished her PayDay bar just before entering one of DC's sustenance-free subway stations, a EPA scientist was hauled downtown to face charges of, oh, I guess, digestion while walking or something. I'm glad we have the best and the brightest out keeping us safe from walking timebombs like the hungry and mobile.
Sometimes while I'm waiting for the train or the subway [there is a difference, New Yorkers!], I like to talk [in my head] to the next one coming as if to coax it a little faster, to be a little closer, to come a little sooner. I fully believe that this works. A little. I wonder if anyone else does this. I hope I'm not crazy. Mwahahahahahahaha!
Life has gotten even shorter in digital age
Ok, now they're telling us our indestructible CDs and DVDs may not outlast the houseplants I buy and promptly dehydrate. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Fine, I'm gonna start backing up everything I own on stone tablet from now on.
Weblogs: Do they belong in libraries?
Hell, I think they belong everywhere. Some people say [as mentioned in the article] that they are "the self-obsessed ramblings of people who have little to say and too much time on their hands in which to do it" but that's like saying books are not a good format to present information or entertainment because there's crap like romance books out there. They're fun, they're easy to use and they act like storehouses for a lot of information that would be lost otherwise. I know MY blog is just random dribblings from my brain, but I like doing it, so screw off!
Libraries struggle to keep up with demand for instant information
This is true. Librarians are trying to keep up budget-wise, access-wise, and techonologically with the desire of customers for the latest gadget and online information. But that's really not the problem [and not really the focus of the article]. The problem is that library users now think that they know as much about getting information as the librarian does. In some cases that may be true, but just because you know how to type words into google, doesn't mean you know what words to type, how to read the results, or how long you should be looking/waiting. Librarians [or at least the ideal librarians] knows this and should not be avoided like so many desperate students/jobseekers/fiddlers seem to do.
If you haven't already, you should check out my little philosophy project web page called Waxing Axiomatic. It's a site devoted to suggestions [and just suggestions] for "axioms". Not meant to be entirely philosophically serious, I'm just trying to explore and exhibit some ideas about the basic beliefs we have. I only have 6 listed, but once I get around to having a few more and polishing up the navigation of the site, I'll also include some stuff about the interaction between the axioms I've suggested and maybe discard or change a few. Until then...
White House Suggests Reinstating Literacy Requirements for Voting Damn. Ironically, as a librarian, I see far too many people making important decisions [for themselves as well as others] without a reasonable level of literacy [and other tools, to say the least]. I do believe that it would be ideal to have some sort of competency before they start making decisions like who's in charge [this is the inherent problem with democracy], but even disregarding any indirect systematic denial of rights [such as "poor people have low literacy" therefore "poor people won't be able to vote"], there would still be no way to easily and objectively tell who's competent and who's not. Just because you can't read doesn't mean you can't decide well, even if that may be the general case.
Library user cutting 'bad' words from popular book series
Honestly, I'm surprised that the culprit isn't doing more. It's probably someone you'd least expect, like some misguided little old lady who likes that the kids these days are into readin' but is fearful for their souls and has taken on the vigilant job of scouring the library of naughty words that are the gateway to hell. Funny. It's so often the kind of people that have the most horrible beliefs that have all the initiative in this world.
As you may be able to tell, I've changed things around here. It's not really finished yet of course. I've got to arrange a few more things and pick a couple more colours, maybe make a few little original graphics or something. But I think this will be the basic layout. Actually I plan on changing all the five sections of this site so that they all look different. I don't know how everything else will look but hopefully I'll think of something cool for each.
Appleton official ejected from Bush event : Outagamie board member donned shirt backing Kerry
But get this, he was wearing this shirt UNDERNEATH another shirt so they must have used their political trouble-maker x-ray specs. These allow them to see through things and see problems where there aren't any but doesn't allow them to see things right in front of them. My favourite part is how they justified their childish behaviour : "...they’d do the same thing at a Kerry rally".
Speaking of idiots, supposedly Bush now says he wants to be the peace president? Despite this stupidly obviously contradiction (after he already proudly called himself the war president), there will still be thousands of knobs that will vote for him. Yay for democracy!!!
This is a simple little script and it's a little mean but aren't the simple [and mean] pleasures in life the best?
I've been watching that 4400 show. It's pretty cool. I was surprised to find out that it's only a mini-series? Only five episodes or something? That's a shame. They've got enough material for thousands of shows even counting in overlapping different super-powered alienized people. Maybe that's what they're hoping... to rake in the popularity and then parlay that into a regular series? That'd be cool.
Just looking around on the web today, but I found nothing. The Internet is dead today. I'll try back tomorrow.
I live in Elizabeth which is just south of Newark so everyday, as I stand on the raised platform waiting for my train to work, I can watch the planes taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport. It's funny watching planes take off all the time like that. A mixture of technological awe, curiosity at the lifestyle of people who fly often, scientific interest [and I'm reminded of MythBusters], and finally the folly of society.
The rest of my commute is usually much less complicated.
I wish I had a tenth the nerve of some people.
Occasionally the commuter train I take closes off the first car. There are little bars blocking the way between the car closed and the open car behind it. These bars are certainly not an impregnable security device. Simply a sign that this area is not for seating at this particular moment. A lot of people (and I mean A LOT... capitals are necessary) will walk the entire length of the train just to sit in the front car (myself included, to be honest) so when it's blocked off there's a lot of surprise or disappointment or whatever. The vast majority of people look up from the blind trek forward through the aisle with shock and dismay at the bar blocking their way, then slowly turn around and head back to find a seat. But there's always (read "ALWAYS") one or two people who see the bar and stare into the car ahead of them to make sure that there's really no one up there and that the bar not just a mistake.
But occasionally... occasionally... there is one gutsy, danger-seeking individual who see the bar as some sort of poorly-built turnstile. Happily moving it out of the way, they anxiously walk into the empty car, held, supposedly just so they can stretch out over a dozen or so seats. Of course, moments later they are neatly shooed back out of the car, but... for those few minutes... blind to the rules of behaviour and common sense that the rest of us are burdened with... THEY ARE MY GODS.
Walking home from work today I went past this church-like kinda thingy and saw one of the funniest posters I have ever seen. I viewed the poster in this order:
- Hmmm... interesting volcano, what's that say... "LAVA LAVA ISLAND"? Hmmm... that's interesting.
- Below that it says, "Where Jesus' Love Flows" [profuse laughter follows with a sprinkling of "love flows... lava floes... I get it"]
- And off to the side it says "The Hottest Vacation Bible School" [continue laughter and add tears]
Sorry...
Fire department bars book-burning
I opened today's Library Link of the Day and lo and behold, I was transported back to the Middle Ages! A book-burning?!?!? Ok. I can accept that in some cases where you've got an incinerator, you don't want the books, you can't give them away, they're taking up space, costing you money, blah, blah, blah, burning a book or two is ok. But a situation like burning books for the pure thrill of utter destruction seems a little more Old Testament than Jesus-Approved™ Christian behaviour.
But John Deeth says it best:
This is an awful moment for tolerance and expression, but it is a classic moment for local bureaucracy (speaking as a local, uh, bureaucrat): No discussion of the big picture, but lots of discussion of ordinances.
But check out these other links:
Bush Wins; House Leaves Patriot Act As Is
Bush and his fellow morons successfuly stopped yet another attempt [there's been a few so maybe there's a few sensible people up there] to weaken the rather totalitarian Patriot Act. One republican changed his vote to no "after being shown Justice Department documents asserting that terrorists have communicated over the Internet via public library computers". Ok. So if we find terrorists have chatted in the restroom, do we then place cameras in the stalls? If we find little terrorist kids passing notes in math class, do we strip search them and confiscate their pencils? Yep. Yale's passing our best and brightest!
They think, "Oh, it's ok, a little loss of privacy won't do any harm..." I've heard many customers say how afraid they are, how they are unwilling to do certain things online not because of terrorism, but because of the possibility of information tracking. People not working on their resumes, not checking their email, not looking up information, because they think [and are kind of right] that the government is spying on them. Great country this is.
I wasn't going to write anything today but this page made me. [Got it via Attu] I'm going to live my life following these 26 steps. And, I guess, after I'm done, I'll die. Ok... maybe I'll pick a few and see how it goes. I never really wanted to be a rock star anyway. Dry ice makes me wheezy.
Pentagon: Bush Military Records Destroyed
So, in 1996, the Pentagon was "engaged with limited success in a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm," trying to save microfilm, and instead totally destroyed it. Doesn't that sound kinda, oh I don't know, incompetent?! And they just happened include the future president's records around the time that Bush, Sr. et al. may have been thinking, "Hey, my son could have a shot!" Ok. It's possible.
Had a couple in the Cyber Center today who wanted to "change to a new computer because the print-out was faded". They even knew why [the toner/ink was low] but still they thought they had to move to a new computer. Yeah... we use the computer until toner runs out and then it's a non-printer forevermore! These are the only people that I would ever worry about throwing out the baby with the bath water!
Internet Under Surveillance 2004 : Obstacles to the free flow of information online : Excellent site describing the efforts to restrict access to online information by country. I read a few, skimmed a few, and although a lot of the incidents are obviously unfair and shameful [naughty, naughty], some are quite complex and I really can't tell which side I'm on. For example, in Canada, one of the most hooked up [net-wise] as well as one of the least net-monitoring in the world, a judge ruled against US-based Washington Post on behalf of a newly accepted Canadian citizen having been accused of professional errors while in Kenya. Saying that the Post should have realized that these accusations would follow the accusee around the world [accusations which amount to libel or something, I guess] and was not forced to put such an article online. It certainly makes sense that an institution should take greater care when publishing to the world [as we all do on the web] but the article points out that this could result in a stifling of web writers/editors for fear of being prosecuted by any of the 192 independant states in the world.
Libraries Receive Thousands Of Outdated CDs : For payment of a settlement with libraries music distribution companies provided them with lots of CDs but most of them turned out to be pretty crappy. Wow. Who knew that big business would be so greedy and underhanded...
Had an email reference request for information to help prepare for a customer's upcoming trip to Kyoto, Japan. She wanted to know how to find out about the area's history, culture and stuff to do. Of course, I fulfilled this request promptly and then just as promptly read more than I had to about Kyoto. Did you know that although Kyoto was largely spared destruction in WWII, it's own attempt to modernize its very rich cultural landscape is destroying it all the same. And they got their own goth girls kinda, called Yamamba. Long white hair, white lipstick, white eyeshadow, and dark salon-tanned skin. Cool.
Debt collectors go after overdue books : This is absolutely right. It's a shame we have to do this but so many people just don't think twice about keeping library books forever. Sick the repo man [horrible movie btw] after them and they'll start thinking more than twice.
Ok. This is weird. That entry I talked about in my last entry [the one I lost because of adware] has finally appeared. It didn't appear this morning after I typed it. It didn't appear when I was writing the second one. I guess it was saved when I tried to publish it but then it got sucked into the fifth dimension [see MST3K, "The brain that wouldn't die"] and only just now found its way out. Whew.
But now I think it's screwed up my count of entries so I can't figure out which one is the 50th. I was gonna celebrate... *sniff*
I tried writing this earlier this morning but stupid adware is screwing up my computer.
Went to the fireworks on Saturday [the 4th]. It was pretty cool. Of course, the reason we went was for my daughter but she was too tired and uninterested to get full enjoyment out of it. We were in Battery Park [SIT DOWN PEOPLE!] looking over the water to the Statue of Liberty [pretty patriotic view for two Canadians - they were cool nonetheless of course]. We could see off to the east there was the same show going on - closer but behind some buildings - and I just found out this morning that they had a bunch of the same fireworks going off all up and down the river. Pretty cool. Ching ching.
Back to my daughter. She was pretty tired by the time the fireworks came around cuz she was running around for two hours before finding other children to play with and people to show off in front of. She's weird. She can't speak or even look at people she's just meeting for the first time or hasn't seen for quite a while. But in front of total strangers or people she's known even for a little while, she's a total card.
[Yawn] Well, I guess it's back to the grind. First day after an action-packed three-day weekend is always like this... sorta good to be back at work, sorta feels weird, halfway in between having enough time off and wanting more.
Spent a lot of time walking around places [damn, where are those moving sidewalks the fifties told us all about, huh?]. Saturday, we got taken to lunch at Vincent's in Little Italy by my friend from work and his fiancee, goofed around in Battery Park, planned where we were going to meet for the 4th the next day, met the next day, then my little family had haul ourselves down to the grocery store yesterday [teleporters, anyone?], walk, walk, walk, walk, walk... and a little bit of sleepy-four-year-old carrying. Or at least that's what my back and legs are telling me this morning. Oh, how I long for the days when I am old and dependent on my wheelchair.
Speaking of my very pregnant wife [see previous entry], on our train ride in the morning [and subway rides and more] not a single person offered to stand up and let her sit down. Not a single person. And it wasn't like noone noticed. She's very pregnant and some of these happily-sitting-their-asses people even looked up and smiled at my darling wife's state but went back to their very enjoyable sitting. She didn't really need to sit but still... and so I of course started whistling and clearing my throat to see if any of the comfortable people around us were paying attention. They weren't but our daughter was thoroughly enjoying my random adult-annoying noises. Kids.
Had a very outside day today. Don't usually like going outside. [There's a conspicuous lack of air conditioning outside.] But we went downtown [Manhattan] to meet some friends for lunch and went down to Battery Park for a look at the water. [Yep. It's still there.] Walked around a bunch then came home and walked some more [to the grocery store]. Me and my poor feet and my very pregnant wife and past-her-bedtime daughter made a very cute group dragging ourselves home.
Whose water is it? : the unquenchable thirst of a water-hungry world edited by Bernadette McDonald and Douglas Jehl. This is a pretty good book about a very important topic that is near and dear to our hearts. And the rest of our body. Although it is technically infinite (the water we use is not lost and will come around again), we are using the sources of what little easily usable non-glacier fresh water we have too quickly for those sources to replenish themselves. This is a book of essays talking about the various problems we have regarding water and suggestions on how to fix them. Although very informative, they do get a little repetitive, giving the same examples over and over. All except the David Suzuki contribution. Very moving. Especially after pages of academia. Read it.
Absolutely DEAD day at work today. There's been very sporadic internet access (I'm typing this quickly in an ON window) and so very few people are in the Cyber Center right now. Nobody does anything but check their email and surf and watch videos anyway. That's ok. Less work for me.
Oh, and happy Canada Day.
Occasionally, while sitting on the subway in New York City, the conductor comes on the PA and yells at us kids telling us to "let the doors close in the back of the train" (or the front or something) and I always think, "You know, most people don't really pay attention to where they are on the train so it almost doesn't matter whether the conductor says back or front, except that if they get it right the wiener holding the door might think that there's a camera or something." Of course today, the conductor said it was the seventh car. He could still be bluffing.
