favourite title of the day

So, as I shelf read (making sure all the call numbers bounce along in the order they should), or arrange books at the shelving point ready to pack, or packing them, onto a shelving truck, my eyes run over the titles and now and then my eye is caught.

Today:  An Idiot's Fugitive Essays on Science*,  with a two page errata no less.

*Q 126.8.T78 1984.  And don't get any ideas the common denominator is any brighter thirty years on.

internet invents newspaper!

"Storify lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative."  Yup, you can gather information and put it together into a readable format, into a 'coherent narrative'...which is short for story.  The common denominator, what will it think of next?  Fictional coherent narratives?  I do find it reassuring how common our denominator is.

Vote of confidence

I think I have spent too long with the common denominator to think this will work, but I am glad of the vote of confidence and will watch with interest.  The campus has gone the great step of having full stream recycling.  Which means they present us with blue boxes and we huck everything in but the wet garbage and the kitchen sink.  We adore it.  We bring our stuff from home and feel our virtue and our future generations pleasure at our actions. 

Today arrived word of a small addendum to this process.  Each staff member on campus will have their garbage cans taken away and a blue box given to them.  Each blue box will have within it a little black box (sounds ominous and appropriate) for the non recyclables (the garbage formerly known as garbage).  But will we, the common denominator, manage this simple task?  Will we be able to lift up the tiny lid of the little black receptacle and place the gucky stuff inside?  Or will we just chuck everything in the blue bin...which will then be covered in printed signs to remind us which part of the bin to use when.  Large "GARBAGE" signs will appear on the little black box, in red, with arrows.  Or will we demonstrate we are better than ourselves for whom the turning out of a light is an onerous task upon leaving a room, and actually hit the can. 

We aim to recycle. You aim too please.

metals and merit badges

What is old is new again.  How odd when you consider we continue to have the common denominator in the system.  I discovered today that there is a movement to give people online badges for learning.  There was even a competition for designing them.  Mostly Mozilla at the moment, and I can't say, cute as dinosaurs are, that I find the winner appealing, but, I think this is a great idea.  I loved sewing new badges onto my girl guide sash.  It is the best way to go; positive reinforcement. Best teaching method available my mother says, for dogs and children.  And husbands I can only guess. It also gives an online record of what you have learned, which can only be good for the resume. Mind you we will have to produce some standards, as will inevitably happen as the common denominator settles into its new environment.  The standards will hopefully help save us from such statements "are there any research" on the subject.  Oy.  "Is there any research" thanks muchly*.  But we shall not get me started on the fracturing of the language today.  Like wanting "a place on the table" during a negotiation.  It's a good thing 80% of our communication isn't verbal.

**Heard a Southern Gentleman use this word and I love it.

senior technology retains cache

Well, its coming in folks, the stats, and it turns out there are a goodly number of us who are still looking at the long term, and I might point out, long lasting, out lasting, and bio-more friendly, technology of print on paper over print on a screen (do you really want to know what screens turn into when they try to biodegrade?  ---- eeeeeekkkkk run screaming from reality).

Barry W. Cull has written a paper on the subject, my favourite quote from which is: students prefer to read on paper, although they also want the convenience of online digital text. Liu has found that graduate academic library users like the access provided by online electronic resources, but prefer to print the electronic documents in order to read them. 

My little bookmaking heart is filled with glee.  My poor eyes, currently starting at a screen, as are yours, think longing of ink on paper.  Even if that turns out to be e-ink on e-paper? Given the attributes of the common denominator I expect so (remember to run screaming from reality).  When, I wonders, are we going to start pronouncing that ei-nk (sounding remarkably like ink only longer in front), and what will the anthropologists think of us with such a large part of our vocabulary showing e's out front?

Recumbent upon my sick bed

Hello.

I had hoped to be better by now, but not so much.  I'd show you a picture of me, but I am hard to see under all the pillows and blankets, empty tissue boxes and mounting halls wrappers.  So I am awake and having my chicken soup so I thought I'd check in before the official end---since I am not as sure as I was two days ago that I'll be back before the end.  Keep hoping.  I do.

Wordle.  The calligrapher in me loves it. I have been at it for several weeks now, in secret sneaking ahead.  But the one I printed out to scan in so I could show you, cause darned if I can figure out how to make the think connect to the blog, I left on my desk before I left on vacation.  There was a vacation in all this somewhere.  Anyway, wordle is loooooooootttttttts of fun.

LibraryThing.  I quick joined up and check it out a wee bit.  I think I am going to like it.  More later.

Smilebox looked like fun.  I will play with that when I get back.

To complete the circle I will say of 23 Things I have enjoyed it very much.  It has loosened me up a bit in terms of the world in the box.  A hands on experience is so much better than a theoretical one.  Like Data asking Picard if it was different actually touching the historical space vessel (when they were back in time) as apposed to just reading about it.  "Oh yes" he said.  Oh yes.  Though I do not forget that the common denominator in the box is the same as the common denominator out of it.  Being inside the box does not make you somebody and people outside it nobody.  It just means you are in the box.  I will be happy to visit you there.

Once more unto the bunk dear friends.

Facebook and the Common Denominator

As I stride boldly into the prime of my life (I come from a long line of long livers) I have found it to be true that no matter what system or tool is invented once you release it into the hands of the Common Denominator the same kinds of things will occur.  Facebook is a case in point.  All the hype would seem to say it is a wonderful tool.  My experience of Facebook comes up with one to the good and several to the bad. 

A small dog was put down, unsupervised with a two year old child.  The two young creatures got to playing, the puppy, surprise, behaved like a dog and nipped the child. The child's uncle declared his determination to have the puppy put down.  (My nasty side asks if he was the one who provided the lack of supervision.)  Dog lovers in the know sprang into action, created a Facebook page and the dog was saved.  Facebook as puppy savior.

I belong to the Saskatoon Writer's Coop.  I am a member in good standing.  The group now has a Facebook page.  They run contests on that page.  Unless I am willing to give my personal information to Mark Zuckerberg*, I am no longer able to have access to the full range of the Coop's services.  Facebook as gated community.

"You are not on Facebook?   What are you..."  anti-social?  a technophobe?  weird?  a coward?  Facebook as a stick for the social minded to hit the private types with.

A now former friend told me, when I suggested she needed to put more into our friendship if it was going to survive (I did the visiting, the phoning, the emailing), that she knew the solution:  I could follow her on Facebook.  Facebook as personal newsletter for your fans to read.

Mr. Harper has now apologized for his people throwing those two girls out of his public address, saying that all Canadians are welcome.  Yes, I so trust that man.  Facebook as tool for Big Brother.

I like to stay in touch with my family and friends;  I have a business in my other life and run a website;  I had a headset phone way back in the stone age:  I use technologies I find useful.  I can see the usefulness of the tool of Facebook. I may one day have to get an account for my business. But we have added in the Common Denominator, and it is playing in its usual fashion, some good, some nasty.  Some of the nasty could, ignored, get very nasty indeed.

*Mark Zuckerberg.  A brilliant young man who created Facebook in part to post information about college women so he could rate them like cattle at a stock sale.  Mr. Zuckerberg believes in transparency.  The privacy settings of Facebook were purposefully made difficult so that people would give more information.  He is trying to get the Common Denominator used to being fully open about itself. (Paraphrase: The Facebook effect : the inside story of the company that is connecting the world / David Kirkpatrick)   But Mr. Zuckerberg's understanding of the Common Denominator as beings, as far as I can, see is low. Does he, for example, recognize his sexism when he looks in the mirror?