Posts from — May 2003

The Orphans of Invention: Something more than jobs were lost in the Internet bust. It has to do with people and history, with what might be called industrial memory. By Ellen Ullman. [New York Times: Opinion] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

we also lost, significantly, alot of intellectual property that went into someones dust bin….

The Oracle of Starbucks. The Oracle of Starbucks. (via chemaccino) [MetaFilter]

just try to put in any reasonable drink like a red eye or black coffee, or cappuccino, or espresso and see what you get….

Good 'ol Dr. Who. Have you seen the episode of “Dr. Who” written by the late Douglas Adams, that was done completely in Flash animation? [MetaFilter]

i like the good doctor, but not all doctors are equal….

Electronic Literature Organization. The Electronic Literature Organization, of which I have been a director since its foundation, has ceased to make any positive contribution to the field and has, instead, become an active impediment and a continuing embarrassment. [Mark Bernstein]

This is an interesting development. I tend to think that if ELO is locating itself around one set of company interests, then Mark is entirely right. However, I know many of these people and most of them aren't aligned as such, but this doesn't mean that there doesn't seem to be people with such interests, I just don't know of them.

As for other parts of ELO, I've always found it an intriguing organization, and my interest in it comes and goes, but in regards to its pad initiative, in the fall I suspect I will become more involved or at least offer similar services for free through cddc, but i have to get the new archives server up and running, well i have to order it too.

Jeremy Zawodny: E-mailing myself. Quote: “Am I the only one who does this? I get an idea (sometimes via browsing or a suggestion from someone on IM) and don't want to lose it. But I also don't want to be interrupted by taking my hands off the keyboard. So I just send myself a quick e-mail.”

Comment: I do it all the time too.  I also send email to myself when I check my phone messages.  My out box becomes a record of who I interacted with in the past week (I have to write a weekly report on my activity – don't ask). [Serious Instructional Technology]

nope, you are not the only one. I actually have a listserve set up that i send stuff too, so I receive the email back into my inbox and archive it on a password protected website, it is very handy when I'm on the road and need to look something up from webmail or the like.

Robert Reich Warns Against Graduate School. Both the AccidentalAdmin at the Financial Aid Office and King at SCSUScholars are linking to this opinion piece by Robert Reich: This spring's college graduates are entering the worst job market in 20 years. With few good jobs on the… [Invisible Adjunct]

yep, well, this has always been the case now hasn't it. the market is bad, and getting worse, I wonder how much mist Reich is going to make off this next big tax cut…

i think that if we are going to keep cutting taxes then we should start a new form of tuition, if you make more money then you pay more money, alot more money. this would at least make up for the loss of tax revenues in state schools.

PopTech Speakers' List Announced. The speaker list for this year's Poptech (October 16 – 19) is quite a roster again, including Larry Lessig, DeWayne Hendricks, Virginia Postrel and Moira Gunn.   After last year's Conference (which I blogged) I was so blown away that I immediately signed up for the 2003 meeting.  I can see that I won't be disappointed.  The theme for this year is “The Impact of Technology on People.”

 

[Ernie the
Attorney]

It's too bad that poptech occurs during the same time the immensely more fun and interesting Association of Internet Researchers conference or I might try to go to it, but then the 4s conference is then too:(

Let's Hope This One Goes Somewhere.

Special Interest Group About Library Use of eBooks

“From the announcement, 'The Open eBook Forum (www.openebook.org), the trade and standards association for the eBook industry, today announced the creation of a Library Special Interest Group (SIG). The group was formed to enable publishers, eBook resellers, DRM, software and hardware companies to communicate directly with librarians to better appreciate the opportunities and challenges of service for libraries and their patrons. The group meets on a weekly basis via conference calls and maintains communication through an email list. Participation in the group is currently open to the public and further information can be found on the Open eBook Forum (OeBF) website at: http://www.openebook.org/oebf_groups/library.htm' ” [The ResourceShelf]

Don't you think this group needs a blog??

[The Shifted Librarian]

I remember way back when, oh gee prolly 3 years ago now, when i was working on ebook materials and eventually decided that it was going no where more or less, but times change, and this might go somewhere. I'm no longer on the openebook list though:( so i haven't been paying attention.

Leaving academia. Some alternately wrenching and hopeful but always brilliant writing on leaving academia by Invisible Adjunct and the Happy Tutor (see also comments to this post—he’s just knockin’ ’em outta the park today). While Rana talks about the ludicrous jobhunting assumptions she’s run into. If you’ve been there too, drop by… [Caveat Lector]

hmm, well there is no reason necessarily to stay, but keep in mind, it isn't better outside necessarily, unless you think money makes things better. Most of the work and most workers, people that do things, are not highly prized in this society, we seem to think that only the people that make money off of other people are worth praising, and only the top say 5% of any given profession ever gets any major recognition outside of an occasional raise. In short, the huge middle class, which is growing larger every day, is quite normal, and I don't think that academia is any different. contrarily, it is the academic service class that we should be worried about, the people teaching 4 classes a semester without tenure or hope thereof… if we can stop them from doing that and encourage them to find better employment of their skills, I think it would be a great shock to the system.

Robots digitizing books at Stanford according to this John Markoff report. And the Internet Archive has sent 80 tons of books form the Kansas City Library to Hyderabad to be scanned manually. It now costs as little as $1 to scan in books, and Stanford reported a 50% increase in circulation when it digitized its card catalog. Digitizing old books is a no-brainer: the big drawback is not scanning costs, it's newly-onerous copyright legislation like DMCA… [www.gulker.com - words and pictures from Silicon Valley]

This is a great idea, i wonder if we could get something happening here. hmmm….