I have no words.
It’s like some demented genius said “Now if only there was a foodstuff that was both easily portable and contained bacon and Tang…”
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Day of the Dead
photo credit : Scott Beale / Laughing Squid @ laughingsquid.com.
Yet another zombie mob scene in San Fransisco this past week.
Is it a coincidence that I’m blogging this today, on the first day of classes? 😉
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WPOpac
Wow…I’m a little late to the party, but this has such potential I thought I needed to blog it. Casey Bisson has done some amazing integration work to combine his OPAC with a WordPress blog. I’m still playing with features, but it seems like an amazing tool for refining search. Plus, it’s just a mind-freakingly difficult thing to pull off…most OPAC’s don’t play well with others. I’m completely impressed that it even works…this is like convincing Microsoft Word to integrate with iTunes. Huge props to Corey for making this work.
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Voight-Kampff
from boingboing:
The Wall Street Journal has an article about a blood pressure, pulse, and sweat level measuring device being tested in US airport security checkpoints. It’s made by an Israeli Company with the delightful name of Suspect Detection Systems Ltd.
…
If they really want to use this to find terrorists, they’re going to have to test every single person that gets on a plane. According to the TSA, two million people fly everyday. That’s 730 million people a year. Let’s assume that 10 of them are terrorists. With a 4% false-positive rate and a 10% false-negative rate, that means 29 million innocent travelers are going to be detained as suspects, and one out of the 10 terrorists will still make it through security to conduct his or her dirty work. Is it worth it, or would the money be better spent preventing terrorism through intelligence work?
Reading this, I fully expect to sit down in one of these and have it tell me “Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about… your mother.” Is there any point which is too far for the US public? Even with the leading security experts in the world telling us these things do no good, we still allow ourselves to be placated with meaningless tribulations which do not catch terrorists. WTF?
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Japanese desk toys
So I spent the last 4 days in Indianapolis, Indiana at GenCon, the largest collection of gamers in the world. As you might imagine, there are a lot of strange things there…and I came home with a few (not the ones in the pictures search, though).
While I’m not the otaku that many, many, many people are in the gaming community, I am fascinated by certain aspects of Japanese culture. I’m hoping maybe someone out there can help me identify the type of toy I’m talking about here, so that I can find more of them. 🙂
There’s a history in Japan of producing a type of figure/toy/object called karakuri, which means something like “mechanical device to tease, trick, or take a person by surprise”. When you cross that tradition with a culture that’s tied to their desks for insane hours a day, and their nearly inexhaustable ability to produce cute (kawaii)…you get these desk toys I’m just obsessed with. The problem is I don’t know what to call them…if there is even a word for toys of this type. So here’s some examples:
Walkie Bits is the famous toy from Takara — a mini robotic turtle that responds to commands made by tapping its shell! With four different modes, this tiny turtle can walk and run, sing, race, or walk in a rhythm you program by tapping its shell.
Unazukin is the latest interactive toy from Bandai — a small “fairy” that is actually a good listener. The voice activated doll actually reacts to your voice, nodding and shaking her head whenever appropriate. Battery powered (the battery is included — make sure to remove the protective slip first) with an on off switch, the cute two inch high doll has four different movements, shaking head back and forth once or twice; and nodding once or twice, An adorable toy that makes a great gift or a display item.
The Hidamari no Tami (also known as “the Sunshine Buddies” are beloved across Japan for their happy pleasant expression, and their serenely nodding head that seemingly in time with a private tune. Powered entirely by solar power, these display toys are also environmentally friendly and teach the power of sunlight.
So…I bought one of these guys:
…at the con, mainly due to the kawaii. It looks like they are a part of a manga or anime, but I can’t be sure, not being able to read Japanese and such. 🙂
These toys have some things in common…they are all very kawaii, and all are mechanical in some limited way. My Haro is sitting on my desk now, happily flapping his ears (?) up and down via solar power. I have a small bear made by Tomy that dances in response to sounds. Do these sorts of things have a name? Can anyone in blog-land help? Is anyone else obsessed with these things?
I’ve tried the Google translator for things like this, but it gets me only wonderful advice like:
- How! Design of fragrance being attached new appearance!
- Enjoying just your arrangement with the hologram seal which is defeated don’t you think?
- After opening, there is also the pleasure and a secret.
- Be able to open and close the ear, it shakes swingingly with the weight which is built in.
- Putting in place [harokore], the pedestal which it can decorate has been attached.
- It is the paint end finished product. As for color of the commodity there are times when really it differs somewhat.
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New Worldcat search
Check out the new search from OCLC…Worldcat gets Googlized, and the results are pretty good. I absolutely adore the “refine your search” options that it gives you on the left bar…Now can we finally get rid of our local catalogs? Pretty Please?
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BookMooch
Hey all you book-borrowers? There’s a new toy in town, and it’s called BookMooch.
Think: Netflix for the book set. You pay shipping, and trade books with people around the world, with BookMooch as the connector.
Bonus points for all the librarians out there: how many of their talking points below sound like Ranganathan? Is this an example of a distributed library? Is the phrase “distributed library” even meaningful? I suggested almost a year ago that LibraryThing institute something like this…and while yes, I understand that paper isn’t going anywhere…boy, can you imagine a system like this for digital books.
BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books.
BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.
- Give & receive: Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you’ve read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish.
- No cost: there is no cost to join or use this web site: your only cost is mailing your books to others.
- Points for entering books: you receive a tenth-of-a-point for every book you type into our system, and one point each time you give a book away. In order to keep receiving books, you need to give away at least one book for every two you receive.
- Help charities: you can also give your points to charities we work with, such as children’s hospitals (so a sick kid can get a free book delivered to their bed), Library fund, African literacy, or to us to thank us for running this web site
. - World wide: BookMooch is not just for Americans. You can request books from other countries, in other languages. You receive 2 points when you send a book out of your country, to help compensate you for the greater mailing cost. John Buckman, who runs BookMooch, lives both in California and London, England, and was frustrated by the vast number of books that were printed in just one country but not any another, or only after several years. Translations into French, German and other languages are planned, and we already work fine with the various Amazon worldwide databases.
- Wishlist: you can keep a “book wish list” that will automatically arrive to you when you have the points and/or the book becomes available in our catalog. Others earn 2 points if they supply a book on your wishlist, so everyone is highly motivated to help find books others are looking for.
- All books: our goal is to make more use out of all books, to help keep books from becoming unavailable. The worst thing that can happen to a book is for no-one to be able to read it.
- Feedback score: each time you receive a book, you can leave feedback with the sender, just like how eBay does it. If you keep your feedback score up, people are most likely to help you out when you ask for a book.
- How we pay our bills: We tap into Amazon’s book database, and if you follow an Amazon link from our web site, we receive a commission from Amazon if you buy that book instead of getting it free from BookMooch.
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Reservoir Dogs: The Game
I’m pretty certain there’s no way in hell that the actual game can compare to these brilliant commercials:
“Then one day she meets a John Holmes motherfucker…”
If anyone reading this blog would do me a huge favor and throw a linkback or comment or mention on your blog my way…we’re trying desperately to find a great candidate for our recently vacated Head of Systems position here at UTC. The entire job ad is here, and here’s a brief description. If anyone has specific questions, I’ll try and answer them within the best of my legal ability (the state of TN has some wacky rules about job ads)….
Reporting to the Dean of the Lupton Library, this position provides leadership and know-how to advance the Library through the development and expansion of library collections, tools and services that facilitate learning, teaching, and scholarship within a digital environment, as well as creating an infrastructure that facilitates the adoption of next generation library services.
Specific information technology related responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Provides library leadership and strategic planning for the design, integration, and maintenance of the library-computing environment and for the specification, acquisition, development, and support of digital library collections, tools, services, and support applications that facilitate teaching, learning, and research.
- Manages a staff of 2 professionals who develop, deliver, and maintain information technology services for the Lupton Library and works collaboratively with other librarians and colleagues throughout the Library and the University.
- Administers the Library’s VTLS Virtua integrated library system.
- Provides consultation, support and problem resolution to ensure Library software and hardware is functional, interoperable, and serves the ongoing goal of supporting research and teaching.
- Gathers, monitors, and evaluates usage statistics.
- Serves as backup to other members of the Library’s Information Technology Services Department.
- Ensures the Library’s Information Technology Services Department is positioned to take advantage of new developments that improve the patron experience and staff productivity.
- Serves as primary Library liaison to University’s Information Technology Division.
This is a great environment to work in…the team that is in the library now is remarkable. We’re moving towards a very robust systems/IT infrastructure, and have some really great ideas where we’d like to go. Plus, you’d get to work with me! 🙂
So if anyone knows someone looking, please make sure they apply! As well, throw a link to this entry up anywhere you can, or link directly to the job ad above.
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Library 2.0 Generator
Really funny stuff from Dave Pattern: the Library 2.0 Idea Generator!