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Release_Candidate Uncategorized

If you ever wondered to yourself “This 3D printing is interesting and all, but what if I need to print out an alligator skull…can that be done?”  The answer is now “Yes, it can.”

Printing complex organic shapes with a Makerbot

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Release_Candidate Uncategorized

A design firm creates a challenge for itself: create 30 different coffee cups in 30 days and sell them online via 3D printing. Each of these is printed directly to ceramic, glazed, and then shipped off to the buyer.

30 Days 30 Cups

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Release_Candidate Uncategorized

Todd made a cube similar to the one seen in Paramount Pictures’s Super 8, ordered it off of Shapeways, and got a Cease & Desist from Paramount for his trouble. This is part of the first wave of intellectual property lawsuits regarding 3D printing…expect many, many more.

Cease and Desist over Super 8 cube

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Release_Candidate Uncategorized

Given that Deathly Hallows was available as an ebook online before it was even for sale in print form, Rowling has certainly taken her sweet time on this. But it will be good to have “official” versions of the books electronically. My favorite quote from the article: Henwood said: “We want to make sure anyone who buys it, can read it on any device, we are talking to the Kindles, the Apples, the Googles, Barnes & Noble to make sure they are compatible. At the books are now available on The Internets.

Rowling to finally allow official Potter ebooks

Categories
ALA LITA Personal

Goin’ down to New Orleans

I leave today for ALA Annual 2011 conference in New Orleans. My schedule is a hot mess…I would normally throw it here on the blog, but it really wouldn’t do anyone any good. I’m triple-booked for most of the weekend, so I’m not even sure I’ll know where I am most times. The only guarantees are that I’ll be at LITA Happy Hour, the LITA Board meetings, and defending my crown at Battledecks.

However, if you’re there, come say hello! I’m looking forward to seeing friends and learning things. Not so much looking forward to hours of meetings, but that’s the price you pay for trying to fix things. 🙂

Hope to see you in NOLA! Laissez les bons temps rouler!

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Brand_New_World Uncategorized

Eliza’s 3 and a half!




IMG_1754

Originally uploaded by griffey

Don’t know where the time has gone, but Eliza is now turning the corner toward 4.

She’s still really into dress up (as you can see in this pic from the Renaissance Fair). She loves kitty cats, real or stuffed. She is really into Scooby Doo movies and watches at least one every day. And she has developed a hilarious sense of humor. There’s nothing like her smile to light up the whole world.

She has taken dance class, swim lessons, and had play dates, stayed with Nana and Pop Pop for extended periods of time, and traveled to many fun places. She’s quite the big girl now, as she likes to remind us.

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Release_Candidate Uncategorized

ICANN, the international organization responsible for coordinating the Domain structure of the Internet, just voted to allow generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) to be created. This means that instead of being stuck with .com, .net. .org, etc…organizations can request and be granted the ability to oversee their own TLD. A group of automakers could band together and register .car, for example, and you could have ford.car, honda.car, and so on. On the other hand, Ford could theoretically register .car, and prevent other companies from using it. The methodology that ICANN is going to use to prevent this sort of meta-cybersquatting isn’t really apparent at this time. The Draft version of the application guidebook is now available, and among the details is the application fee. It will cost $185,000 to apply for a new gTLD…a fee which ICANN will keep, even if your application is denied. Even with that, I think that serious thought should be given by ALA and IFLA to a joint application for a top level domain of .lib or .library (I did not know that there was already a TLD for .museum). Given the relative failure of the use of non-standard TLDs, I’m not sure a .library TLD would be used. But it’s far better that ALA and IFLA control it than Microsoft or Google. 

ICANN approves custom Top Level Domains

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Release_Candidate Uncategorized

The British Library and Google today announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library’s collections. Opening up access to one of the greatest collections of books in the world, this demonstrates the Library’s commitment, as stated in its 2020 Vision, to increase access to anyone who wants to do research.

The British Library and Google to make 250,000 books available to all

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ALA Books Library Renewal Media

Library Renewal around the web

LFOP-Renewal Poster OrangeI haven’t blogged much about Library Renewal, a new library non-profit that I am involved with…but we’re about to hit ALA Annual, and a bunch of things are coming together online. It seemed like a good time to remind people where they can find us. Here’s a quick list, including the new Youtube channel:

Coming soon, a lot more…including the ability to donate to Library Renewal (and receive some awesome premiums for doing so) and a new web-based tool that I’m not allowed to talk about yet. Interesting things will be happening in the next few months. Keep an eye on us.

And if you are attending ALA Annual, make sure you carve out time to see our Beloved President of Library Renewal, Michael Porter, present You Mean Libraries Will Be Able To Deliver Electronic Content Better Than iTunes and Netflix? on Saturday, June 25, 2011 from 1:30pm – 3:30pm in Convention Center Rm 244.

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Brand_New_World Uncategorized

Eliza in repose



IMG_4341, originally uploaded by griffey.

We’re all having a great summer, and Eliza has become a really terrific toddler…it helps that she LOVES vacations. If there’s novelty involved, Eliza is all over it.

This is a shot from our trip to Rock Island State Park here in Tennessee, an awesome trip with our favorite friends and their toddlers.