this made me un-grumpy. i was complaining to my dad on the phone about how irritated i get trying to explain to people about why my library doesn't have e-books (yet). he sent this infographic to help with this conversation.
In the word version, the red text was animated. awesome.
Normally I try to keep my uber-nerdy professional interests away from this blog (I don't want to compromise my really hip, trendy image, haha) but I had to link this one. A Library to Last Forever - one of the founders of Google defends the Google Books project. In particular this:
Others have questioned the impact of the agreement on competition, or asserted that it would limit consumer choice with respect to out-of-print books. In reality, nothing in this agreement precludes any other company or organization from pursuing their own similar effort. The agreement limits consumer choice in out-of-print books about as much as it limits consumer choice in unicorns. Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice — fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks.1. True as far as it goes. 2. Doesn't mean we should willingly hand over these really priceless cultural resources to what is still, ultimately, a company. with shareholders! 3. haha, consumer choice in unicorns. That's clever!
I have a crush on McSweeney's iPhone app, although really, I have a crush on McSweeney's x, where x is any freaking thing McSweeney's has ever done. The app is very elegant and I like the randomness of it--this is true of McSweeney's in general I guess--it's kind of whatever we felt like sending you. In this case, wirelessly.
So far the content on it is hit and miss--which is consistent with other McSweeney's stuff too actually. I don't love everything McSweeney's ever publishes. I just almost always find it worth investigating, and sometimes I read a page and then skip the rest, or sometimes I find myself completely immersed in a story by an author I've never heard of. The subscription costs $6 for the first 6 months, which is OK by me too since I will apparently pay as much for the iPhone version of The Game of LIFE and then never play it. (It turns out that the most fun aspect of that game, which was spinning the giant Wheel of Fortune style spinner, does not translate to touchscreen.)
One of the ostensible reasons I got an iPhone was to make my commuting time on the bus more effective, not in the sense of actually getting work done, but in the sense of getting off the bus not feeling like I've just wasted an hour of my life. So far I have learned how to put avi videos on my phone and watched a few episodes of Lost, found a few new podcasts I'm interested in, and downloaded the McSweeney's app. So Crush Ib can be my iPhone itself, in all its sleek, purple-cased glory.
Also: my library, along with every other library in the developed world, is currently trying to figure out how it is going to interface with the 21st century and ebooks are part of the discussion. And as the virtual services librarian, I'm expected to have an opinion. I don't use ebooks much except in their native PC, DRM-my form, so this is good exposure for me. I feel like someone visiting Japan: People read? On their CELLPHONES? What?
The way the content in the McSweeney's app is delivered is, I think, an example of how to do a good job formatting text for a tiny screen. It looks attractive and it's easy to read and the pieces themselves are short so you don't feel too overwhelmed. But at the same time, I take a kind of anti-Internet position when it comes to whole books. We already invented the ultimate format for books, and it's called books. The hardware and software never stop working and never need to be updated. There are no batteries. Once you buy the content, it can't be deleted. You can lend it to someone very easily. And two thousand years from now someone will be able to pick up the books we published in 2009 and read them. As long as they were printed on acid-free paper.
After two weeks of vacation, sorting through my work email took only 1 3/4 hours. Not nearly as bad as I expected!
My good old Razr seems to have really bitten the bullet. I can't tell if it's my charger or the battery that's messed up, but something is going desperately wrong in the phone-charging cycle. Every time I turn it on it buzzes promisingly, but then I get a black screen of death, sometimes combined with a very bleak UNABLE TO CHARGE! message.
So I decided this was a logical time to upgrade to an iPhone, since I've been hankering for one for months and my bus commute is not getting any shorter. HA! At the Rogers store they informed me that, having had my current phone for less than two years, I was not eligible for an upgrade and to call customer service. (Jocelyn: "My husband and I got our old phones at the same time and he upgraded to an iPhone several months ago with no problems." Store employee: "Yeah, they changed the rule two weeks ago.") On the phone they told me that I could get an upgrade, getting an iPhone for the low low price of only $199 (only $100 higher than the price they use to entice new customers to join! What a special offer for loyal existing customers!)-- but oh, it's out of stock and the woman wasn't sure if it could be backordered.
CSR: So you could go to a Rogers store and get one there...Really? Really, capitalism? I want to pay you money for goods and this is what you come up with? How about if you just sell me this effing phone that has been available for MONTHS, and I'll give you the amount of money it costs? Is that too much to ask? The two things I hate most about Canada: 1, the death panels. (I keep getting sentenced to death and it's such a drag.) 2, the fact that every technological innovation that happens elsewhere in the civilized world arrives here in some kind of stupidified form. Rogers is the only wireless provider here with the network for the iPhone, so you would think they would sort of anticipate demand for it and say STOCK SOME EXTRA ONES, but nope.
Jocelyn: I already tried that and they were not helpful at all, and I am not anxious to try to convince them I'm eligible for this upgrade. How about if you just order the phone and mail it to me?
CSR: Well, I'm not sure if the system will let me order one. We have too many orders for them already.
Jocelyn: But I want the 3G, not the 3GS. It's the old one! Just backorder it.
CSR: OK, phone back in about 4 days and they will give you your tracking number.
Recently it feels like everything is breaking around me. Based on my previous record, you might think I'm referring to some kind of metaphorical sense of "breaking", but actually I mean literally. All my electronics. My Thing-A-Day updates have been hampered by my broken camera. This morning I got the digital camera equivalent of the BlueScreenofDeath. A couple weeks ago, I had a day set aside to copy my whole hard drive, wipe my computer, and re-install Windows, which I thought would fix my compy problems. I backed up my files onto an external hard drive, but then, when James and I tried to convince the computer to boot from the CD drive, the computer went into extreme unco-operative mode. Sometimes it would not boot at all, just kind of wheeze and sit there. Other times it would boot up a little bit, and then we would get a DOS screen that said "DRAM is too tightly." When we changed it back to booting from the hard drive, it was no longer willing to even try. My home computer is now James's old computer--fitting, since I also have his old stereo and his old TV. Yep. I live in a world of tech hand-me-downs.
My work computer has also been giving me sass lately. It won't use Flash even though I have re-installed the latest version several times. I can't exactly complain to the help desk either -- "Flash doesn't work on my computer, I can't play Scrabulous on Facebook!" Yeah. Exactly.
My only working gadgets are my phone and my ipod. If either of them kicks the bucket, I'm going to be pissed.
This is a bad morning after a rough night. But I walked to work in actual LIGHT this morning, and it's a balmy -12 outside, and I have my coffee. Things are looking up, I guess. Now if only I had whatever the camera equivalent of coffee is...
Pictures of your cat with a circuitboard/computer/monitor/mouse are not funny. Stop posting them. You suck.
Except for the ubiquitous Windows, I don't use any Microsoft products at home. This is partly because I am cheap, and partly because I really believe that the future of information and ethical computing lies in open-source. But work is another matter, of course, and today Internet Explorer and Word 2007 are both giving me sass. I should get to take a personal day because I have a headache because I can't figure out how to make a new bookmarks folder in Internet Explorer. Or work from home, where Open Office and Firefox do exactly what I want them to do, all the time, right down to telling me I'm pretty every time I turn on my computer. (OK, not really.)
I thought posting this would make me feel better, but it really doesn't.
Morning, Internets!
It's only 9:02 AM and already I have checked off two of the things on my to-do-at-work post-it. That means it's time for a little illicit blog-posting, thus (probably) disobeying the work computing agreement I agree with every time I log onto the network and possibly ensuring THE TERMINATION OF MY CONTRACT. On the other hand, I think they're going to be pretty hesitant to dismiss someone as professionally dressed as I am, so I should be safe.
(Re: the post-it. Most of the people I work with have Crackberries, and we use Microsoft Outlook for everything. People have laptops and tablet laptops and, I don't know, robot butlers. It's a very high-tech office, which makes sense since I work for the tech consulting branch of the ministry of education. I'm the only one who insists on kickin' it old skool by writing things in a notebook I carry around. Although I would undoubtedly get addicted to the portable e-mail too, if only I were funded for it. However, I know I'm the only person in the world to say so, but I kind of like Outlook. Every time I get a meeting request I'm touched: me? You want little old me at your meeting? Well, sure, honey! And any computer program that lets me colour-code things is guaranteed to go over well.)
I woke up this morning and it was still dark outside and snow was falling and the streetlamps were lit up like cheezy streetlamps are lit up in cheezy paintings. I've lived on the Canadian prairies for most of my life, and you'd think that by now I would be disenchanted with winter. And I am, for the most part. But the first big snow of every year looks like Christmas and Narnia and my childhood and, I don't know, Little House on the Prairie, and it wins me over. There is something ineffably romantic about the world being covered with new snow. And this is particularly true on the street where I live now, which being a Historical Area has cast-iron streetlamps and brick buildings and lovely trees. I wished I could stand there in my slippers and bathrobe drinking coffee and watching the loveliness of the scene, but unfortunately I don't own a bathrobe and I don't wear slippers because I hate having things on my feet (true fact!) and I am incapable of making my own coffee because I am coffee-retarded and, also, because I believe very strongly that I play an important role in keeping expensive but necessary coffee places in business, because I remember the Time Before Starbucks, and it was a cold, cold time. (In my fantasy, I AM Starbucks' business plan. Their business plan just says "Jocelyn's bizarre attachment to evil corporate coffee," and then has a bunch of appendices with graphs and charts.) Anyway, it was pretty much the nicest thing a dewey-eyed romantic like me can wake up to. I shall try to make the rest of the day live up to that precedent.
Training material contains these instructions: "Open up your internet browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape)..."
From RouterGod (don't ask): An interview with Jessica Simpson about open-source routers. "I really find I don’t have any time now for anything that’s not connected to open-source networking in general." This website has a whole series of interviews with celebrities about hardware and software. Amazing. From women we thought were vapid!
Here is something fun I learned about in class (!) today. LibX runs as a Firefox extension, which takes information on any site you happen to be looking at, uses it as a search query, and checks the catalogue of your chosen library for holdings. I can find any book on Amazon and in two clicks, I know if my library at the U of A has it. I downloaded the U of A version. I think you do need a version tweaked to your own library, though, so if your library doesn't have one, send them an email and tell them to get off their Web 1.0 butts.
Why haven't I heard about this before?!? WHAT OTHER TECHNOLOGY SECRETS IS THE INTERNET KEEPING FROM US?!? Next you'll tell me that there is a firefox extension that does my dishes. (Ahem.... so, I almost wrote this extremely nerdy joke about the dish attribute "clean", because I was studying XML a few minutes ago. But I am trying, desperately, to cling to any vestiges of coolness I might have left, so... ROCK MUSIC! MAKEOUT PARTIES! And... uh, SUBSTANCE ABUSE!)
