the.effing.librarian

Who are you?

2008-07-03T15:38:00.003-04:00

This shit pisses me off. I don't know about you, but I don't like giving away my life to some company, even if it's one memory at a time.

Recently, I had to take an online test, so I had to register under my real name and use a real credit card. Yes, my own credit card and my own name and not one of the names I got from a child who died in infancy that I use in my other life as an international assassin and poet.

So now they have my real name. But during the test, I'm asked questions like:
"Name five people who are close to you." And, "Have you ever had a major illness?" "Where did you attend high school?"

The New York Times says, "These are some of the commonly asked 'fallback questions' that Web sites pose to users who need to reset their passwords."

In this case, these questions were meant to confirm my identity during the course of the test. After one hour I'm asked to name my high school; another hour later, I need to put down my major illness. This is to keep me from allowing someone else to take part of the test for me while I go out for a smoke.

But it didn't matter where I went to school because I lied to the online test. I kept my answers on a sheet of paper to refer to later if I needed to remember.

I lie to every website. I have a dog. I have a cat. I have a ferret. I am a man. I am a woman. I'm 90 years old. I'm a newborn babe. I am Portuguese, German, Black, Asian, an architect, a sandwich, rich, right-handed, web-toed, music hater, bubble gum lover,...

I don't want these companies to associate these traits or preferences or likes or dislikes with my true self. So I will always lie. At my age I can't remember which high school I went to anyway.

One day, I will take all those fake profiles for each of my accounts and combine them into a real kick-ass superhero. Or maybe they'll just add up to me.

[seen on lisnews]

Wrong kind of skin exposed at the library.

2008-07-02T20:50:00.003-04:00

Patrons complain about what we put in the library; this time at a library in Bloomington, IL one guy was shocked when he borrowed the DVD for Shortbus, an unrated movie "containing sexually explicit content." Variety says about Shortbus, "Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry..."

I'm all for skin in the library. Hell, I made sure we purchased 10 copies of The Beastmaster. But when libraries start parading this kind of skin around, one needs to put his foot down:
Skin care for teens at the Yarmouth library.

You can complain about gaming in the library, and poetry slams, and anything else that attracts kids, but when you invite the local cosmetic expert from the local department store into your library to teach kids about skin care and hygiene, I need to speak out.

Why would you want all that oily, spotty, splotchy, greasy, pimply skin in the library? Yuck. Porn, sure. But not that.

Will I be pretty, will I be rich?

2008-07-01T09:50:00.005-04:00

"Does she love me?"
"Will I get the job?"
"Should I see a doctor about this rash?"
"Where should I hide my stash?"
"Does my boss know the real reason I'm not at work?"

According to the New York Times, "You’re not supposed to use the Internet like a Magic 8 Ball."

Yahoo Answers is supposed to do it, and Wikipedia isn't designed to do it, and Google can't do it without some help; therefore, we here at Effing Labs have done it for you.

Since the goal of the.effing.librarian is to increase brand awareness and spread the love, we've designed a new website where you can go and search for ways to make your life better: www.WhoSaysEffingWhat.com.

How the Gosh Darn Thing Works:
Input a term and click the appropriate button and the search function will sort out results based on proximity and general approval comments such as: sucks, disappointed, crap, loved, great, etc. The actual search string is a trade secret, but it attempts to locate the term partnered with its contextual meaning, either positive or negative. If some writes, "I hate bananas," and you search for the keyword bananas and click on the Go For It button, that page will not show up in the list of results, but it would show if you click the Stay Away button. We have tested it, and it works. And for stuff other than bananas, duh.

One added note: Before you try this site, remember, it doesn't really exist, and I made it up.

55 hours without a computer.

2008-06-29T22:01:00.003-04:00

I didn't use a computer all weekend. I didn't use a credit card. And I didn't turn on the TV. Yes, I used my phone and my camera, which probably have computers in them, but don't pick nits.

"Effing, were you on a spiritual retreat to purify your mind and body? Were you on the moon? In Alabama?"

No, none of those. My job doesn't pay for me to go to your fancy liberry conventions, so I took a road trip with a couple of friends. Hope you all had a good weekend.

Google, on my shoulder.

2008-06-26T12:54:00.002-04:00

"In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like 'orgy' than for 'apple pie' or 'watermelon.'" (NYT)

Okay. I am not a lawyer, nor am I very bright, but I will try to explain what could happen from a trial like this.
The attorney for the defense wants to use Google's database of searches sorted by geographic area to define what community standards should be based on keywords used in those searches.

The lawyer is trying to show that you like porn, no, that you love porn. He wants to define community standards based on what you search for on the Internet.

I don't know about you, but I can find porn on my own, there's a whole folder full of it in my favorites; I don't need Google's help. But I do need help with baking an apple pie or gauging the ripeness of a watermelon. The only time I use Google to search for orgy information is when I need to know how soon after one should I send out the "thank you" notes (Miss Manners advises within 48 hours of the last guest leaving the orgy).

All this googling is only going to establish a community standard for computer users who use Google to find stuff. And regular porn is easy to find. But what if you need monkey porn? So Google registers a large percentage of monkey porn searches. Does that mean that my community loves monkey porn because I search for it twenty times a day? No, it just means that a subset of the original subset like monkey porn. It isn't a random survey. It's like using Mötley Crüe fans to estimate the total number of black widow tattoos and declare that 40% of USA residents have black widow tattoos.... not scientific, just bullshit. But fun.

If mining Google search data becomes the norm for defining community standards, then what's to stop anyone from polluting that data. Is Google going to throw out disingenuous or bogus searches? What if the local church has its members search for love and Jesus and Saviour and Bible? And what if the defense attorney bombs the search with millions of pony sex searches? Or rape searches? Or murder? Do rape and murder become legal community standards because Almighty Google says so? I'd bet there are thousands of searches for porn and even child porn in any community.

Internet searching is impulsive. "Hmm, monkey... porn. Ooh. Gross." So now, I've condemned my community to a future of monkey porn video shops?

The next logical step in this is having thought police or having Google ask before you submit a search, "Are you sure you want to search for 'dolphin orgy'?"
Now that I'm Feeling Lucky button sounds more like Dirty Harry asking, "...Ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?"

Because the next logical step would be for the state prosecutor to lose the case intentionally. Ponder this: if we allow Google search results to define community standards, in essence, becoming an accurate and even legal snapshot of a community, then what would stop law enforcement from performing the same search to gauge criminal activity in a community. If we are what we search, then if you search for how to hide your weed, then you are criminal. If you search for how to secure a child slave in your basement, then you have just established probable cause for law enforcement to get a warrant to get Google to turn over your IP address and then to get your provider to turn over your personal information and to have you arrested.

The point is that no one should be spying on my searches just as no one should be spying on my thoughts. That Google keeps this information is just another reason that I never go on the Internet without wearing a disguise. Today I'm dressed as Raggedy Ann; tomorrow maybe Postmaster General Samuel Osgood. See if you can find me now, you bastards.

[sorry, forgot to give credit to where I originally saw this, here it is..]

An Open Letter to Everyone I Will Ever Piss Off.

2008-06-25T11:09:00.004-04:00

It's difficult for me to make a joke without making it seem like an insult. Recently, I posted something on LISNews about, well, read it:

"Who else got "Colleen" drawn in their Unshelved book? at least, I think it's Colleen. it's sort of a cloud or lake landscape with the twin setting suns of Tatooine... no, wait, it's Colleen.
Did anyone else order Frequently Asked Questions to get the bonus drawing and autographs (it looks like a "G-something" and "B-something-with-a-dot")?
Just wondering if Bill varied what he drew and what the distribution might be and how rare each drawing is and how collectible and which mylar bag should I use and how much will it be worth in five years and does anyone ever read my blog?"

For those who don't read Unshelved, the authors are Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes. And after I wrote that, I tweeted Bill the link to the question, and he replied:

Yes, that's Colleen. As a rule each book has a character and catchphrase that I scribble in it when signing. That way we don't have to think about it, which is good when we're signing hundreds and hundreds of books. For FAQ it was Colleen and the catchphrase was "Don't ask us!". But anyone who asked for something specific got it.
Some cartoonists offer "artist editions" of their books for an additional dollar amount, with real took-some-time drawings. I don't pretend that this is what we're giving you for being nice enough to preorder. But then we didn't charge you for it either :-)

I didn't mean sound ungrateful for the drawing and signature. But as a consumer, I feel I always have a right to criticize, even when the product is free. I'm sure if I ever get to Heaven, I'll complain, "You mean I obeyed three of those Commandments for this?"

You could argue that the drawing and signature wasn't free, since it was a bonus offered to induce a purchase. But still, Bill doesn't need to cramp up his drawing hand to sign a couple hundred books in order to get people to buy; he could have produced a limited edition postcard or mini-poster or bumper sticker.

When authors and artists offer these gifts (I also purchased a copy of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow through the mail for the signature and inscription and free shipping offer that Borderlands made), we should be polite and say "thanks" and not be assholes. Otherwise these authors will discontinue these practices, and we will have to wait in long lines at boring conventions just to get something signed.

So, thanks Bill. I will cherish my scribble. Until I sell it. Tomorrow.

Good. That's done. I don't need to be adding more names to my other blog.

When life gives you lemons, do something that doesn't make you suck.

2008-06-24T15:31:00.002-04:00

I know most libraries are suffering from budget cuts, and I know that everyone is suffering from higher gas prices, but people continue to visit libraries. You might worry that your stats will plummet because no one wants to drive, but that isn't happening. They continue to come.

And now that they're at the front door, what do you do?

I suggest that you offer more programs and more programs and more programs. If summer programming has your meeting rooms maxed-out, then good for you. But for everyone else, think up stuff. There's lots of stuff you can do. No, I don't know what. Check the googly for what other libraries are doing. And there's tons of stuff: favorite author websites, best shopping websites, gardening tips, weatherproofing your home, online museums and zoos, how to upload photos to flickr, picasa, photobucket, more story times, how to use a database, best video game sites, new books, new dvds, new music, show movies,... I don't know. If you already have the computer or video equipment, adding extra classes doesn't cost much, just time.

The answer is to schedule more programs, not fewer. Make visitors feel that the trip to the library is worth the added expense of driving. And whatever you have to offer, promote it more.

This is still my favorite way to promote the library: put the attractive kids up front. I know I can't suggest that you only select attractive students for your library and volunteer positions, but take a good look at those kids you have and pick one with some self-esteem, who doesn't slouch or perpetually stare at the carpet, or doesn't smoke or have double-digit face piercings, or doesn't have terrible skin or awful hair. And put those kids in the front of the library to greet visitors. Give them newsletters to hand out. Give them shopping bags to give out. Just have them smile and tell people where the Internet computers are. But attractive people make everyone feel good. This isn't me saying this; this is science. Yes, I agree that there is no norm for what beauty is, but look for the kid with a nice smile, hair, posture and decent clothes. Yes, I know pickings are slim. Also, if you keep the attractive kids up by the front in plain view, instead of deep in the stacks shelving books, the pedophiles will be less likely to harass them.

And what about us? Do you think libraries began with all of the jobs filled with cat people and holiday sweater wearers? No. The modern librarian looks the way she does because of a million years of Blair and Lillian Vernon catalogs. So this will be a long process. But start with the attractive kids. Then that will bring more attractive kids and parents. And then the homeless people might see all these nice people and leave. And then the librarians will see all the attractive people in the building and shed those sweaters and send for some Lands' End or J. Jill catalogs, or dare I say, Spiegel. Because they will no longer fear getting any homeless funk on their nice, new clothes.

And as soon as we all become attractive:

Why have a guest poster?

2008-06-24T09:29:00.000-04:00

Today I have a guest author. She (he, who knows about real identities, anyway) emailed the.effing.librarian and asked if she could write a post to increase her web presence. I don't know what writing for this blog could do to help anyone's visibility on the web; it sure hasn't helped mine. But 13 of you have purchased "effing" merchandise, so there is a very good chance that I could travel the globe for the rest of my life and still never meet one person wearing my tee-shirt.

If you googly Heather's (the guest) email, you'll find her many guest contributions on many sites. So I'm not sure what benefit there is to posting on other's blogs. On the one hand, you become more visible, but on the other, you become more visible. I avoid being visible: I am the boy/ that can enjoy/ invisibility. (But I heard it from Sonic Youth, not Joyce.)

If you ever want to spot me at a conference, look for the guy who's trying not to be noticed. I understand my weaknesses, and given too much attention, I will abuse it. Just watch the video of me giving the toast at my friend's wedding reception, or any wedding video where I appear, for that matter.

I don't comment so much on blogs because I'd feel like a whore, overused and easy. But I try to visit and comment on sites where I think an appearance might be welcome or at least not given a swift boot to the ass. If I've commented on your site, I'm sorry, I was probably drunk. Or horny: God, you are so hot.

No one has invited me to write for her blog nor has anyone offered to write for mine; as much as blogging is supposed to be part of the family of social media, blogging is mainly a solitary pursuit.

Wait, I take that back. Birdie at LISNews asked me to contribute, but since I didn't think I could guarantee writing anything that wouldn't embarrass her or Blake, I declined. But I comment there and I have a blog there, but I don't claim to be a contributor.

Ultimately, the answer to why I have a guest poster is, she asked.

Again, I wonder why any of us do this. Is it better to be slogging through the web alone, or is it better to band together and battle grues. What would we do if this were a mmog?

I don't know if the.effing.librarian will become a brand. I will edit all these posts into book form some day, and that could become something I might prize. But there's always the question of why do we do this? To help, to entertain, I don't know. Before I named this blog, I thought I was going to call it The Dude Librarian. I guess I could have begun each post with "Dude!" like, "Dude, today we have a guest contributor." Gosh, why did I abandon that idea? Here is a snippet of a message I sent to someone on 4/26/2007: "a dude librarian, hey, maybe I should have a blog called 'the dude librarian'..." But on the same day I opened my Gmail account under the current name; what made me think of the.effing.librarian??? Weird.

[note: the current Wikipedia entry for Evol has been edited to remove "the lines 'I am the boy/That can enjoy/Invisibility' from 'Secret Girl' are lifted from James Joyce's novel Ulysses," so I wonder if there is no confirmation that the lines are from Joyce, or heard elsewhere.]

Guest post: Collaborative Tools for Librarians

2008-06-24T02:12:00.005-04:00

Collaborative Tools for Librarians

Web 2.0 has opened the door for a number of new collaborative tools that have made a librarian’s job easier and increased their production. It seems that a new website emerges each day that offers a freer flow of information among sources and it can be awfully difficult to discern what sites are helpful and what sites aren't actually all they’re cracked up to be. To assist you in your searches through the internet we've come up with a list of helpful sites that can hopefully make your life easier and enrich the lives of those that come into your library. Without further ado, here is our list that should help you improve your library:

Wikitext – Wikitext is about to make textbooks extinct. This is great news for college students who unload tons of money each year at the bookstore and is about to make your job much easier. While textbooks will always be kicking around, the ability to make these cumbersome books available on the web is going to revolutionize the world of academia.
Social Software for Librarians – Meredith Farkas penned an excellent guide to collaboration tools that are available for librarians. Farkas explains all the different tools that are emerging such as podcasts, instant messaging and so many more.
Library Garden – This is an excellent blog for librarians and there are quite a few articles that will catch your attention immediately. It’s written by librarians and educators so you know the source is reputable. This brings us to another salient point: know the source of the blogger. This is the most important thing we can do to make sure that we’re utilizing only reputable sites.
Wikipedia – There has been so much debate about wikipedia since its inception about whether it’s reputable or not. We have to be careful about our sources and it’s our recommendation that you use wikipedia with a grain of salt. It’s a great place to launch your research as it’s quick and easy. But we have to be careful with anything that’s quick and easy. There are usually catches involved. Our verdict: tread lightly with wikipedia.
Mashups – Mashups refers to a site that culls content from all over the web and presents it in a neat display. Mashups is a great example of what Web 2.0 has added to the industry as it really makes your research easier and combines resources from all over the web.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who is an industry critic on the subject of correspondence degrees. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

George Carlin, 1937-2008.

2008-06-23T07:06:00.003-04:00

That is sad news. He was a funny motherfucker.

So here is that video I made a few months ago to prove some point that I now forget-what-it-is: a cute, furry animal recites the "seven dirty words you can't say on television."

[the orginal post was, "I'm Sorry, that's a video of *What*?"]

The Associated Press still sucks, but so do we.

2008-06-19T23:22:00.004-04:00

Usually I make a bad joke, or several, about an issue and then forget about it. But I found my way back to this issue through Angel Rivera and I have some extra thoughts.

Some bloggers want you to boycott the Associate Press because the AP want to limit fair use. They want to guarantee that they get some financial compensation from our using their property. Whether it's an ad or actual money, they feel that whatever they publish, they should control, completely. And then "fair use" will get a new definition created by them which will be completely one-sided and totally unfair. So for that, the AP sucks. If you agree with that, then click the link and join the boycott.

But I feel it is also we who suck. We right-click and paste content and links without giving proper attribution. If I wrote a formal paper and didn't credit my sources, you'd call me a plagiarist. So why doesn't anyone care when bloggers omit that source credit? If you intend to have your opinions taken seriously, you should be expected to cite your sources.

If news sources want me to give them credit, then they should consider adding MLA and APA formatted citations to their stories like paid databases provide. Then we lazy bloggers could copy and paste that info to add to our posts.

As I commented on Angel's page, I'm not boycotting the AP, I'm just ignoring their claims, for now. But I do expect that some time in the future we will start citing sources in our blog posts in footnotes and not just linking to stories. For "fair use" to be truly fair, we bloggers should be required to do a little more work.

Yes, the AP still sucks, but we're librarians, and we should know better.

[note: I always have trouble referring to organizations, whether to use singlular or plural; it's supposed to not matter as long as you are consistent...never sure if I am. oh, god, I used to be so smart. what happened?]

forgot to zombie blog

2008-06-19T08:05:00.000-04:00

There's a thing called "Blog like it's the end of the world" (search: BLITEOTW) where you're supposed to pretend there's a zombie uprising, but yet pretend that it's not so bad that you don't have time to get on the Internet, log in, and blog about it instead of running around and screaming, "I told you so! You said it couldn't happen, but I told you so. Who's crazy now?"

But I forget to blog that day. I think I forgot last year, too. But I'm not worried. I'm ready for the real zombie apocalypse when it comes.

The trunk of my car contains:

crowbar- for prying, destroying stairways, bludgeoning
machete- for slicing
matches- for burning
holy water- in case it's really a vampire or Paris Hilton apocalypse.

So don't worry about the.little.ol.effing.librarian. And whether it's either a zombie or vampire apocalypse, it's a good idea to wear a turtleneck. And that's the only time. Unless your aunt knits. And you're six-years-old.

Remember: turtleneck sweaters deflect zombie and vampire attacks, but look dorky in every other situation. Unless you travel back in time to 1969 to a party at the Playboy Mansion, then you're swingin', baby!

Fair Use.

2008-06-17T14:10:00.005-04:00

Stolen from here, "[AP VP Jim Kennedy] says they don't want to cast a pall over the blogosphere but that they want blogs to use short summaries, rather than even short quotations."

Apparently, the Associated Press doesn't want anyone to steal their content. And by stealing, they mean repeating. Like if I wanted to tell a friend about a story I read, I'd say, "Dude, some guy went nuts today and he www.ap.org/stories/SITE=114355678933.htm. Isn't that awesome!" Or maybe if it appeared in print, I might be able to hold up the paper without violating the AP copyright.

What they want you to do is this:

What kind of web or intranet use would you like?
Free Web Post. Post this article on your website, blog, social networking page, or intranet for a limited time, free of charge, with ads. Includes the AP logo, copyright notice, and links. You can link to the article or display it using inline frames.
Instant Web Post. Get a web-friendly version of this article instantly. Includes the AP logo, copyright notice and links, with no ads. Hosted by iCopyright and guaranteed available for the term you specify. You can link to the article or display it using inline frames. Use this option if you don't want ads and want to post the article longer than 30 days.
Excerpt for Web Use. License parts of this article for republishing on your website or intranet. Pricing based on the number of words excerpted.

So from now on, if I need to blog about an AP story, I can only summarize the story. In other words, I retell the story to make it mine. Which now becomes my story and my copyright. The AP can't copyright names of geographic locations or chronological dates or individual's names, so I can use those freely. But the events, I will make up. They probably also don't want us to use personal quotations, quotes which are statements made by individuals who may dispute this forfeiture of ownership:
"I'm sorry, you don't own what you said. The second the AP reported your words, they ceased to be yours. If you want to maintain control of your property, keep your mouth shut and blog your thoughts later."

The Associated Press can kiss my ass. Or was that a given?

I'm Texan. Yee-haw!

2008-06-15T22:55:00.003-04:00

You are 61% REAL Texan!!

You're mostly texan. You know your Mexican food, state heritage and are probably slightly politically aware. You can probably pronounce Kukendall, Manchaca and Boerne correctly. Go you.

How Texan Are You?

Although I've never been to Texas. I've been in the George Bush airport several times, but I've never left the terminal. That airport has a couple of really good places to eat: I forget, but ask anyone who's been there for a two hour layover and they'll tell you.

[borrowed from the carrie blog.]

very unhappy.

2008-06-15T14:39:00.000-04:00

I am absolutely unhappy with the amount of work I'm supposed to be doing now. I don't see any way to get it all done. The amount of work I'm hiding in the closet and under the cushions and sweeping under the rug would be enough to keep another FTE busy.

If I can just get through June...

We are all naked.

2008-06-13T08:32:00.003-04:00

So while I read Little Brother, I wondered about this fear that the book promoted that we are losing our privacy. And it made me realize that we are on the road to a future where nobody will have any privacy at all.

All this reminds me of that movie, Sneakers, where the final solution to all governments spying on each other is to have "no more secrets." I wonder if in the future, we will agree to be completely naked, to put all our secret thoughts and behaviors out into the open for everyone to see. Much like the origin of the handshake (that I made up):

In an ancient land, there was a king who enjoyed surprises. Acrobats, sorcerers, magicians and transvestites all visited the royal palace to amaze the king with their secret talents.

One day a master of performing illusions with playing cards appeared before the king. He raised the sleeves of his robe to reveal bare arms and seemingly empty hands, but out of thin air, he produced a playing card. Wide-eyed, the king applauded for more. The illusionist produced another card and another and another from right in front of the king's nose, and all by what could only be magic.

The king wished to possess this magic, so he had the illusionists hands cut off. He shook the hands vigorously, but the king could not make the cards appear, so he threw the hands into the pile with the other hands and various body parts .

Soon word got out that the king was mad and that he sat upon his throne of severed hands muttering about how someone keeps grabbing his butt.

So to protect themselves from the king's madness and to keep their hands, from then on, all people, upon meeting a stranger, would thrust out their hands and allow the stranger to shake them and examine them for cards.

Last week Google opened their Health site "vhere ve keep zhe seekrets." Google is always trying new things, collecting usage data, evaluating the variety of data, sending it back down to The Master, The Dark Lord, then abandoning those things or continuing to use them depending on the results. Remember Froogle? Which became Product Search? Which seems to now be Mobile Product Search? I'm not sure if they've given up on that or not because it's still functioning (if you go to froogle.com) in beta, but they don't use that name to describe it. Google has a bunch of stuff in the lab, but I don't see Froogle as an active tool. It's not a big deal, but it shows that companies can abandon a product whenever they want.

So what happens to all the medical records if they abandon this project, or if any website that provides a similar service decides to quit or sell their assets to another company?

"Just the fear that records could be unsafe could lead patients to withhold important information from their physicians, worried that sensitive information, such as news of a sexually transmitted disease or cancer, might become known, says Tim Sparapani, senior legislative council for the ACLU.

"Whenever you digitize information and then make it, of course, searchable because that's how databases work, you facilitate snooping," Sparapani says." USAToday.

Eventually there will be a day when we have no secrets, when we're essentially naked before each other, but in my belief system, that ain't happening till after I'm dead.

I don't know how these databases can function. I believe that the one truth we all share is that we lie. That's the most basic rule of privacy. Your mom might warn you that some day that lie will come back to bite you in the ass, but everyone knows that much more often, it's the truth that leaves the deepest teeth marks.

Ctrl-a Ctrl-c Alt-Tab Ctrl-v

2008-06-11T21:09:00.001-04:00

You don't know how many times a day I do these steps;
Ctrl-a Ctrl-c Alt-Tab Ctrl-v.

Whenever I want to post something I open the blog or comment box then open Notepad and type my stuff in Notepad. Then I Ctrl-a Ctrl-c Alt-Tab Ctrl-v and paste what I wrote.

I'm just so tired of losing stuff when boxes go bad, when I click Submit and then my stuff evaporates into random electrons. The words are there, then they're gone. Then I get angry and can't concentrate to reproduce what was there. Five, ten, or twenty minutes gone from my life.

So now I post then Ctrl-s to save my stuff into hundreds of tiny .txt files all stored on my flash drive, until they too disappear.

The Adventures of Mad-Cow Cow and Bird-Flu Duck

2008-06-10T23:14:00.003-04:00

A cow stands alone in a field. A duck flies in.
Duck: I have bird flu.
Cow: I have mad cow disease.
Duck: Is that what the X means?
Cow: Yeah. They marked me, but I ran away.
Duck: Me, too.

They look at each other.
Together: You wanna hang out?
So the two of them walked along together until they came to an county fair. When the people see them, they run away from them until the fair is deserted.

Duck: Want to go on some rides?
The duck and cow go on rides. The duck pulls the handle to start the ride then flies on to join the cow. (Then flies off again to stop the ride.) They had cotton candy. Cow won a prize ringing the bell.

Then they died.

Little Brother, part two

2008-06-10T14:17:00.004-04:00

Now that I got that out of my system, I can say that Little Brother delivers an entertaining story. I still want someone to kick this kid's ass, but you know what, I didn't like 17-year-olds even back when I was one. I hated a lot of the stuff I did. But I hated it the next day. I spent a lot of time thinking about what an ass I'd been the day before or the previous weekend. Then I'd make the same mistakes all over again. That's what kids do.

So I don't want it to seem like I hated the book; I hated the kid, and there's a big difference.

Maybe Marcus reminds me too much of me at that age? No. But that's a fair guess. Anyway, don't mind me: go read the book.

[I made this extra post because I just emailed Cory and he wrote back pretty soon after which is cool, and that made me feel a little guilty about being so hard on his kid, Marcus.]

old skool computing

2008-06-10T12:15:00.001-04:00

Reading Little Brother reminded me of when I first got involved with computing. Okay, involved is stretching it, I guess I should say, became aware of computers. Around 1982-83, a friend at work told me about fights he got into on a bulletin board, and he asked me to help him write clever insults to send back to his attackers. We would search the dictionary for interesting words and write stupid stuff that we thought was funny and clever, but always involved the attacker's mother. It got boring fast.

But what I learned was that there were levels of trust that got more exclusive depending on how much trust you'd earned: give more, get more. One day, my friend gave me a piece of paper with a really long number written on it. He said that if I punched that number into any pay phone I could make long distance calls for free. I put the number away. But yes, I used it once.

But I remember that one of the ways my friend was supposed to earn trust was to give someone on the board credit card numbers from off the carbons we threw in the garbage after each credit card sale. Yeah, remember that, when every garbage can in every store was filled with personal data? I was in Sears once a few years ago to buy a dishwasher and the guy prints out a receipt for the delivery with name, address, phone number, and preferred delivery time then throws it in the bin under the register because he'd made a mistake. Horrified, I grabbed it from the garbage and took it with me. Holy crap!

Anyway, I never collected the carbons. The fun of computing was over for a while. Until around 1984 when some company started placing these computer kiosks in the mall that were used for printing out coupons for the local merchants and displaying ads. One of the other options on the kiosk menu was for playing Adventure. Which was freaking awesome!

Then I started saving my money to buy a computer so I could play games. What a dork.

And yes, still a dork.

Little Brother = Little Bastard

2008-06-09T18:06:00.002-04:00

I don't write book reviews. They require a writing style I never learned. But I'm writing one now. I don't want to write about this, but I got nothing else. Besides, I made lots of notes in the margins of the book for something; it might as well be for this.

I just finished Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, and this kid, the protagonist (if you can call him that), a computer hacker, is a huge dick. I wanted this little bastard to become desaparecido, to be disappeared. He's such an ass that he "nods with satisfaction" when his "jamming" (secretly, electronically scrambling and swapping ID cards) causes a hospital to basically shut down because of the ID confusion. A hospital!

I'm not sure what Cory wanted to say with this little schmuck, who terrorizes innocent people because the Homeland Security "black bags" him for five days after a terrorist attack in San Francisco, but when someone pushes me, I push back, I don't go home and punch my mom. But this kid uses all his anger and all his energy to punish strangers, people who just lost family and friends in twin bombings and NOT that government agency nor those agents who abused their powers. And he does it just so he can play online video games. Seriously.

I have so many issues with this book: how Marcus wasn't able to get a picture off of a phone because the phone didn't have email or Bluetooth or what, I didn't understand; how he's able to read encrypted email when using a stranger's Xbox when he didn't seem to have his key (that's why I don't use PGP, I don't understand it); all the needless hyperbole: it felt like a million years, a thousand times, etc.; how the DHS could break into his home to put a spy chip in his laptop, but didn't seem to care after that; how Marcus spots the DHS spy truck by accident and unplugs his Xbox which makes the truck drive away so he goes online again two minutes later; how his mom is called Louisa and Lillian on the same page; how many people could identify M1k3y by sight because Marcus handed out so many ParanoidLinux disks, but yet, the DHS let him run loose for so long. I understand they were tracking him, arresting more kids because of him, which brings me to my final nitpick: Marcus, the over-25-year-olds-hating little putz is ultimately saved by adults: his parents and a journalist. (I really thought the kid would use his friend's Pigspleen network to distribute his DHS evidence to all the subscribers, have the incriminating video pop up in 100,000 monitors all at once, but I guess that's the 1990's movie solution. Getting the evidence to a journalist is really Robert Redford old skool.)

I would think that Cory wants us to like Marcus. But maybe not. We don't have to like every hero. Some truly are dicks.

If I had read this before it was published, I would have suggested gutting every mention of jamming, which is what makes Marcus a terrorist, and trim the timeline down to 2-3 weeks instead of 3-4 months. I guess it's easier for me to accept that this 17-year-old kid neglected his imprisoned best friend for a couple of weeks than those three months. While he played online video games (again, not kidding). I'd seen the story before about kids who play games regardless of how many rain forests they destroy to get online, so I guess Cory was just being accurate. If that's the case, I'm voting to amend the Constitution to ban anyone under the age of 25 from using computers, unless you're drafted into the military. Take that, you little bastards.

I should have expected this kid to be the way he was, after all, how you put a positive spin on the term, Big Brother. Big Brother is watching, everywhere. Is that a good thing? So when I started reading Little Brother, I should probably have felt that this would be about a kid who doesn't give a shit about anyone's survival but his own.

If the author's intent is to create an asshole, he did a great job. Here's a kid who has three very close, lifetime friends, but gives up on all of them when he goes on his pointless revenge spree. So this kid really pissed me off. Until later in the book, when it becomes more like WarGames, when Marcus meets Ange ("She was pretty...with a long face and long jaw.") who is Ally Sheedy, and when they play their dorky vampire game. And especially when Marcus finally gets his deserved punishment (if short-lived). And so I don't doubt that one day I'll hear on some entertainment TV show, "...but is Zac Efron up to the task of playing Marcus Yallow?" because regardless of how much I hated this kid, the story would make a great movie.

I'm only mostly evil.

2008-06-07T00:01:00.001-04:00

How evil are you?
I swear, I wasn't even trying. I think they say you're evil if you answer the first question with "Internet Explorer."

It's a funny quiz; too bad no one spellchecked "vegitarian." Sorry, but I can't remember from where I got this.

Ok, it's my fault.

2008-06-06T10:19:00.004-04:00

I've been lucky to know lots of interesting people; even the people who visit this blog are a lot more interesting than I could ever be myself. I may be reliable, often hilarious, and lip-smackingly gorgeous, but otherwise, I'm not really that interesting.

But when I was younger and even more beautiful (is that even possible?), I went with a girl whose family lived in Caracas. One summer, we visited her family there and I met some important Venezuelans. Because I'm American, they hated me immediately. "What gives American the right to tell the world how to live?" they argued. "Because we kick ass," I replied.

Them: "America tells us how much they will pay for our oil. If we charge too much, they say they will stop buying from us. So they treat us like animals."

Me: "Then why don't you find someone else to buy your oil? It's not our fault that you only look to the closest country to sell to; start selling to other countries and the competition will make the oil more valuable because different countries might be willing to pay more for it."

These were not officially important people in the government I argued with, but sons of important people. And this was over twenty years ago, so these sons of important people could be important now. So like I say, the current price of oil could be my fault.

But I never told them to start a socialist dictatorship. That was their own idea.

How to get teens into the library.

2008-06-05T13:33:00.004-04:00

Library director guilty of giving minors alcohol

Bobbi Sorrentino, 47, director of the Walworth Memorial Library, was found guilty May 5 in Walworth County Court on six counts of providing alcohol to minors.

You mean, that's WRONG??!!

I better take down those signs...

[...no, she didn't give them booze at the library...]

Send your photos!

2008-06-04T16:29:00.002-04:00

If you have the balls to take your picture wearing an "effing right I'm a librarian" tee-shirt or holding the mug, I will post it.

I will even consider pictures of your kitty inside the mug or the shirt on your dog or draped across a sleeping library patron.