All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

Butterflies and Wheels Article:
The only difference is, this horror story occurs in a book thought to be revealed by a God who is fundamentally good and eternally just, one who rewards whom he wants, humiliates when he wants, is jealous when he feels like it, and compassionate when he doesn’t feel like being jealous. He is a lot like the trolls your grandmother told you about, only he lives in the sky, not under a bridge, and he plays tricks on people rather than goats. This God proves his might by exalting his people over other people, except in those (frequent) cases when it becomes necessary for him to spank his elect so severely they perish at their enemies’ hands. Then their enemies, with his blessing, take away their land, destroy their temple, and send them penniless into dispersion. This God seldom brings you presents; almost always sticks and lumps of coal, for which nonetheless you have to say thank you.

——-

A nice revelation for you about the history of god…. honestly, she doesn’t come when you call, and there’s a reason.

Final Report of the Invitational Workshop on the Comparative Analysis of National Research Systems:

Read the full final report (PDF, 24 pages.)

The Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge examines how research and knowledge are generated, how they are organized and how they play a central role in national development.

—-

This is an interesting, if short comparative report

United Nations Day:

The anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter — 24 October 1945 — has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948. It is marked throughout the world each year by meetings, discussions and exhibits on the achievements and goals of the Organization.

Check out the United Nations Association of the USA for a history of UN Day.

——-

This is the day before my birthday…. thus it is extra special and more meaningful

Planning for Library Camp Mid-Atlantic:
Planning proceeds apace – Jeremy Hunsinger is kindly checking to see if space is available at Pratt Institute, and has posted about the event to a mailing list he’s on. I will likely do the same on BUSLIB-L, assuming it’s OK with Dan Lester.
I’ve created a very brief survey for people who might be interested in attending:
Click here to take survey
Even if you’re not interested, please pass the information on to people who might be.

——–

the fine folks at the business librarian are… thinking of putting on library camp mid-atlantic. it could be fun.

Jeff Ubois on Erasing Televised History, Copyright-style:
Remember Dan Quayle’s attack on fictional character Murphy Brown? Well if you don’t, or want to refresh your recollection of the 1992 episode, you’ll have to rely on secondary sources, Jeff Ubois reports.

Due in part to the vagaries of copyright and contract, public access to the televised part of our historical record is severely limited. Ubois, while a Berkeley resarcher, was able to get almost none of the audiovisual material documenting the Quayle speech, the TV coverage, or Murphy Brown’s response. He’s just published a paper on the project: “Finding Murphy Brown: How accessible are historic television broadcasts?” with the Journal of Digital Information.
———
this is absolutely despicable… but… it is not that they are blocking it… it is that there is no market? i’m not sure i believe that.

The Sun Online – News: Bet this tortoise runs on shell:
IT may not be a fast mover but it keeps Tina the three-legged tortoise out of the crawler lane.
The 54-year-old pet has a mini air-filled rubber wheel to replace a leg lost to a predator.

—-

and people wonder what other people do for a living…

I made it to newark airport… My only hangup of course is that is did something to my back yesterday afternoon and basically haven’t slept much, but eh, that only caused me to walk up and down 34th street for 10-15 minutes wondering where the heck the penn station door was, because I’d never been in before, eventually i just decided to walk against traffic and voila, it was at the end of stream of people. Beyond that, the symposium looks interesting, I’m really happy that I was invited even though… it means flying across the u.s. 2 times in 48 hours so that i can be back in time for the digital archives class.

Governance and conflict resolution in probably a better construct for the Linden Lab meeting, but I think that I’ll easily fit in, and make some of my points. The symposium is all day tomorrow. Tonight I’m trying to meet up with my friend and colleague David Silver, whose teaching until 8pm.

Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox):
All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don’t participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background.

In contrast, a tiny minority of users usually accounts for a disproportionately large amount of the content and other system activity. This phenomenon of participation inequality was first studied in depth by Will Hill in the early ’90s, when he worked down the hall from me at Bell Communications Research (see references below).
—–

it is important to realize that when we are talking about user participation and contribution, we are in fact talking about a very small number of people who have the time and motivation to contribute to our projects. frequently… system creators assume that their users will be just as enthusiastic as they are in creating things in their system their system, this is rarely true, but Nielsen points out some ways you might increase the number.

Why Wiki? free online video course:

Car loans help the poor get to work – Yahoo! News:
Advocates say Ways to Work, which has underwritten $36 million in loans to 24,000 families since it began as a small program in Minnesota in 1984, is part of a new model for social service programs, one that delivers human services aimed at economic self-sufficiency. Borrowers in the program, which is in place at about 50 human services organizations in 25 states, are low-wage workers who either have poor credit or no credit. The program is targeted at getting them not just a car, but also a decent credit score and a bank account.

——-

This is a great program. I don’t really like the automobile infrastructure, because it is often overpromoted and overused but as a way to escape poverty, if it helps, that’s great.