November 2011
3 posts
“A 2011 Gallup poll revealed that if American men between the ages of 18 and 49...”
– http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/161/branding-for-girls-advertising-for-women
“Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment. To me, a...”
– Margaret Cho (via chrystinetea)
October 2011
2 posts
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September 2011
16 posts
Liz Lemon: You're a lawyer?
Floyd: I prefer 'legal stylist.'
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Astronomers Discover 16 Super-Earths →
European astronomers announced Monday they’ve discovered 50 new planets, including 16 so-called Super-Earths, one of which is potentially habitable.
The existence of the exoplanets outside our solar system was reported at the Extreme Solar Systems meeting at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Astronomers made the discovery using the High Accuracy Radical velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS)...
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“To live surrounded by books may be the greatest luxury.”
– Nate Berkud
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Bad idea
“oh, I’ll just watch a Doctor Who before I go to bed”
Now, I’m wide awake.
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ALA TechSource: What Smartphone Internet Usage... →
eBooks have been the hot topic in libraryland for a few months now and with good reason. It seems like every other day there is some new revelation that makes us either jump for joy or groan in agony. While these conversations and revelations have been happening, there has been another revolution underfoot. The Pew, Internet, and American Life Project released a report last month on the...
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Labor Day = Doctor Who marathon via Netflix Instant
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The Guardian: Google Plus forces us to discuss... →
calimae:
Here’s why we need a critical debate about Google’s Real Name policy: first, because it embodies a highly controversial theory of human behaviour, that the way to maximise civility is to abolish anonymity – even though everyone knows Muammar Gaddafi’s real name (though not how to spell it) and no one knows the name of the kind driver who slows to let you cross the road.
Second,...
Perspehone: Chef tries to live on food stamps →
Great piece. Well worth taking a few minutes to read.
“Wilder visited the doctor at the beginning and end of his experiment. Unsurprisingly, while he’d lost weight, his triglycerides, sugars, cholesterol and blood count were higher. His body fat percentage had increased 3%. And he was VERY happy to be done with the penny-pinching.”
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NYTimes: Scroll to Codex to eBook →
A brief overview of why bound books prevailed over scrolls, and why using an e-reader may make it more difficult to appreciate some works.
But so far the great e-book debate has barely touched on the most important feature that the codex introduced: the nonlinear reading that so impressed St. Augustine. If the fable of the scroll and codex has a moral, this is it. We usually associate digital...
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The National Archives: President Eisenhower's... →
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August 2011
64 posts
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USC Daily Trojan: Digital libraries wasted →
Most students are, however, oblivious to the newest online resource additions. They also grossly underutilize the libraries resources — especially the very substantial number of e-resources and database subscriptions USC provides.
Students should take more advantage of the number of digital libraries that the university provides in order to have more success in their academics.
Often,...
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And now I wait...
All applications are complete. Now, I have nothing to do but wait.
ETA: And, of course, worry about not getting in, or not being able to go, or being able to go but being really bad at it, and so forth.
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Bookshelf Clock
1001bookstoreadbeforeyoudie:
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Waffles and Sneakers →
A neat fact from The National Archives’ blog on Waffle Wednesday:
In 1971, Olympic track coach Bill Bowerman experimented with his wife’s waffle iron to create a new rubber sole for footwear that would grip but be lightweight. The success of his “Waffle Iron” shoes helped his fledgling athletic footwear enterprise become global giant Nike, Inc.
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Libraries should embrace digital revolution, says... →
verticalfiles:
Sky is blue, says survey.
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Best/worst: NPR edition
msavignon:
Best: Ira Flatow and Science Friday.
Worst: “Let’s take some calls from our listeners.”
Yes!
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“A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever...”
– Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty-four Conversations with Borges: Interviews by Roberto Alifano, trans. by Nicomedes Suáez Araúz, Willis Barnstone, and Noemí Escandell (via bookoasis)
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What Makes You Book a Book? →
The way I choose books has shifted since I started using an e-reader. If I’m looking in person, I usually pick up books with interesting covers or authors I’ve heard of/read before, then I read a random few pages from the middle of the book before deciding. Now that I have a Nook, my book shopping is more reliant on recommendations from the media and online stores (Amazon and...
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Slate: Print vs. Online →
[In a very small study at the University of Oregon,] researchers found that the print folks “remember significantly more news stories than online news readers”; that print readers “remembered significantly more topics than online newsreaders”; and that print readers remembered “more main points of news stories.” When it came to recalling headlines, print and...
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MindShift: How Social Networks Might Change the... →
Reading hasn’t always been seen as a solitary act. Our first experiences with books demonstrate that: before we know how to read, we often have people — a parent, a teacher — reading out loud to us. But once we know how to read, there’s a sense that we’re supposed to read silently and oftentimes, read alone. Even so, we’re still compelled to share what we’re reading with others — whether...
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woot, sexting, retweet →
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WatchHere’s the full John Hodgman bit on bookstores from “The Daily Show.” It makes me want to rename my tumblr “The Condescending Nerd.”
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I'm on GoodReads →
If you’d like to add me, you can see my ever-growing list of books that I want to read and haven’t gotten around to. I just finished Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy and am contemplating what to read next. As long as it’s fiction and good, I’m interested. Any suggestions?
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The Daily Show on Borders Closing
John Hodgman: It's been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds. And if bookstores fall, John, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.
Jon Stewart: I'm not sure I understand.
John Hodgman: No. Well, you wouldn't.
The nicest lawyer at my old work place bears a striking resemblance to Lucky Luciano.
Useless observation of the day.
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BookLamp Launches a Pandora For Books →
bibliofeminista:
BookLamp is launching a new kind of book recommendation engine today that scans the texts of its partner publishers to establish what it calls “Book DNA.”
Much like Pandora assigns specific qualities to music, BookLamp measures the story components of a book (characteristics like history, domestic environments, physical injury) and how it’s written (density, pacing, dialog,...
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Wired: Rate This Article →
There’s an essential freedom in being alone with one’s thoughts, oblivious to and unpolluted by anyone else’s. Diminish that aloneness and we start to doubt our own perspective. Do I really think Blue Bottle coffee is that great? Or Blazing Saddles that funny? Do I really not like that pizza place because it isn’t authentic New York-style? Sure, it’s entirely possible to arrive at one’s own...
