Wednesday, November 4, 2009

26 Monkeys, also the Abyss by Kij Johnson

This is a short story, so neither Good Reads nor LibraryThing is an appropriate place for it.

I found 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss online. It's available not only in print, but also audio. It appeared in Asimov's in July of 2008, and was a 2008 Hugo and Nebula award finalist. It won the 2008 Asimov's Reader's Award for best short story, as well as the 2009 World Fantasy Award for best short story.

Summary (contains spoilers, highlight to read, review below): The story tells of Aimee, her magic monkeys, and her boyfriend Geoff. Aimee bought the monkey show at a fair for $1, the price the man she bought it from paid for it. She needed to buy it, and the man understood. The monkeys do slight of hand (poorly), have an animal trainer act, and disappear from a claw foot bathtub. It's the last trick that perplexes Aimee. She has no idea how the monkeys disappear, though she suspects Zeb has something to do with it. She has no idea where the monkeys go. They return after a few hours, sometimes with treasures -- Moroccan slippers, foreign coins, cards, blocks. Sometimes one will come back pregnant or with another monkey. Eventually, an empty looking man comes up to her at a fair, saying he needs to buy the show. Aimee understands, and sells it to him for $1. A few months later, one of the monkeys turns up at Aimee and Geoff's apartment.

The story has 24 very short sections. It takes perhaps a half hour to read. It's a thoughtful, wondering kind of story. The language is mater-of-fact and descriptive. It's a telling story, rather than a showing story.

The monkeys-disappear-from-a-bathtub-onstage is never explained. It does, however, provide the base for philosophizing -- Where do the monkeys go? How do they go there? Why do they come back? Where did the come from? Which question is more important? What is "home"? Does everyone have one? How do so many monkeys of so many species get along so well? Why did Aimee need to buy the show? Why did someone else need to buy it? Why does anything happen, really? And does it matter?

Monday, August 24, 2009

I dunno. My friend set it up.

Creating a web based email account consists largely of filling out forms. It can be time consuming and tedious, but it is rarely particularly difficult. So there's really no reason, if you want a web based email account, not to set it up yourself. It avoids conversations that go something like this:
"I can't log in to my email account." "
Are you sure you typed everything in correctly?"
"Yes."
"Go ahead and click on Password Recovery. That'll get you your password."
"It says What's your frequent flyer number. What's that mean?"
"Just type in your frequent flyer number in that box. It's your secret question."
"I don't have a frequent flyer number. Why is it asking me for one? Am I supposed to set one up?"
"When you set up your account, you chose a secret question. It's whatever you put for your answer."
"Oh. My friend set it up. Is it his frequent flyer number? I don't know what his frequent flyer number is."
(No, but he knows your username, password, and secret answer. Maybe he changed the password and that's why you can't log in. In fact, even now he could be sending threatening emails to the President of the United States from your email account because he thinks getting you a visit from the Secret Service would be reeealy funny.)
You might need to contact your friend and get that information from him.

Remember, if two people know a secret, it's only a secret if one of them is dead. Don't let your friend set up your email account for you ranks just above Don't tell anyone your password on the How to keep your account secure list.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

MARS

No, not the planet. The Machine-Assisted Reference Section of ALA. Every year, MARS releases a list of the best free reference web sites of the year. There's also a combined index. Past (and even present) winners are not checked for continued existence, free-ness, etc., so that's something to keep in mind when using it. The combined index dates back to 1999 and, unlike the current year's list, is not annotated. So, here's 2009 and the combined index. All in all, a useful resource.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Learning 2.0 Wrap Up

So, my thoughts on Learning 2.0. I used lots of stuff I probably would never have even looked at otherwise -- Google Docs, Flickr, and Bloglines, to name a few. Some I'll keep using, like Flickr and Bloglines. Even more than doing this myself, I enjoyed helping others. Do I think it was worthwhile for me to do? Yes. Despite my tech rep, I really am afraid of some of this stuff. This has helped with that. It's also been nice to show other people that I don't know everything. All in all, I think it was worthwhile.

Downloading Audiobooks with Overdrive

This was pretty easy for me. I've done it before, but went through the whole process again just for the practice. I was able to do the Windows Media Player security update with no problem, following the instructions. I wasn't sure I'd be able to, since that kid in the library the other day couldn't. He did everything right, just wasn't able to get to it. The error message did give a website to go to, and he was able to download from the site. Still, it was frustrating for all four of us -- the kid, his mom, the first librarian to help him, and me. (He had a laptop, it wasn't one of our computers.) I even transferred a book to my iPod. It was easy using the transfer wizard (or whatever it's called). I left the default setting for downloading, so it took longer than if I'd followed the suggestion to change the setting. Still, like I said, easy. For me.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Facebook

My mom is on Facebook. We're Facebook friends. She joined because her friend in American Eskimo Dog rescue asked her to. It had nothing to do with me, or my brother, or our cousins who are all on Facebook (and who are now her Facebook friends). Until the Eskie lady asked her to join, she "didn't want to put a bunch of personal information out there" and it was "too hard." (It's still hard, but she makes up for it by being able to drive a standard transmission. More than two pedals, and I'm in the passenger seat.) Like a lot of people, she joined because of a particular cause or group or interest. In her case, Eskie rescue. In some other people's case, a political cause, or social action, or Learning 2.0. Facebook lets people connect with others who have similar interests, share a hobby, went to the same school, like the same TV show, or think their Attorney General has wittier press releases than other state's AGs. (The group Our State's Attorney General is Funnier than Your State's Attorney General has 88 members as of this writing.) Then there are the fun apps (applications) like bowling and pieces of flair. Can people get in trouble on Facebook? Sure. It's easy, really. But just remember, never put anything on Facebook you wouldn't want a potential employer to see. Or your Mom.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Podcasts

I looked at Podcast Alley, and decided to browse, rather than search, topics. Naturally, I went to education, since that's what libraries tend to get lumped into. And what should I find but Grammar Girl. I frequently forget about Grammar Girl, and am always pleased when I find it again. I knew about the blog, but was not aware of the podcast. After listening to some episodes, I feel even better about "me." "Me" as in the objective first person pronoun that, between you and me, I believe is a perfectly good word.
Putting my inner grammarian back in her room, I did a keyword search of "library 2.0" (without the quotes) and found a lovely podcast about primary sources. There are differences in what constitutes a primary source depending on the subject. For example, a journal article is probably a primary source in science, and probably not a primary source in history. The podcast is from the Library Survival Guide at Emory University found here: http://guides.main.library.emory.edu/podcast.

YouTube

Well, having just said in my previous post that YouTube could be used for booktalks, I decided to look for booktalks on YouTube. Lo and behold, there are bunches! Many of them lack descriptive titles, simply calling themselves "book talk" or something similar, with no indication of what the subject of the book talk is. That wouldn't be so bad if the first sentence of the description says what it's about, but that isn't always the case either. Library Lowdown indicates the subject of the talk in the description, such as this one on books dealing with Antarctica. Cool.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Award Winning Web 2.0 Sites

Alas, BBC Player left me disappointed. While radio stations are available most places, video is only for those in the UK. Rights agreements. So, no free Dr. Who episodes for me.



One Sentence is cool. A complete story in only one sentence. My favorite is the person who sat on the grass near a rock. A rock that subsequently got up and walked off, showing itself to have been a bobcat in disguise. Some of the entries make me wonder why anyone would want the whole world to know about that. I can't think of a library use for this one.



I can think of uses for YouTube. No, it's not just a mindless time waster. There's good stuff on there. It could be a place to put tutorials or booktalks, or even do staff training. Instead of trying to catch everyone to update them on that cool new Sirsi feature, it could be posted to YouTube. There's always training at the annual Regional All Staff meetings, but they're on the same day, which means no-one can go to both. No problem, just record it and post it to YouTube. Of course, the training part assumes that one can set up a private channel.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Technorati

Once again, the hardest part is coming up with a user name. Now, in order to claim it, I have to put a bit of code in a post. Technorati Profile. And now that that's done, I did a search for learning 2.0. The results treated the search as two different terms, so I put them in quotation marks. That got closer to what I want, but a surprising number of hits on the first page were not in English. Interesting. Ahhhh, limiting to searching tags and blogs got me much closer to what I was after. Always a challenge to figure out exactly what strategy works best where.

Library Thing, Part II

Ah, Library Thing is up! I put a few things in. I notice that the only status categories available are "Currently Reading" and "To Read." A pity I can't have finished them, but there you go. As instructed, here's the link. My Library Thing.

Wiki

I liked the SJCPL wiki. It's like web picks on steroids. There's clearly a lot that libraries can do with wikis. Book reviews, subject guides, how to do its. Bull Run looks like it uses as wiki as a way to publicize events. These things can all be done other ways, of course. It's a matter of what works best for a particular library. If a wiki works best, then go for it! And if a more traditional approach works best, use that.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Library/Web 2.0 Perspectives

I found the perscpectives interesting. Technolust-- the desire to go with something that's shiny and new because it's shiny and new -- is a tempting enemy which must be fought. I thought Wendy Schultz's Library 4.0 looked a lot like Library 1.5 -- that place between commodity and product with comfy chairs and task lighting.
So, what's the best way to stay with the 2.0 ball? Chase after it, and you're always behind. Get ahead of it, and it could suddenly curve or hit you in the head. Never take your eyes off it and you risk running into a tree. What's the tree? Dunno. But I'm sure it's there.

Technorati

Apparently, the Technorati monster has escaped, so I haven't been able to explore it.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Delicious

I really like Delicious. Took me waaay to long to explore it after I knew about it. I have a surprising number of URLs memorized and can search pretty well, but there's nothing like having your favorites available. Professionally, I can have my favorite reference sites available to me no matter which branch -- or computer station -- I'm working at.

LibraryThing

Sure, I finally add a book to LibraryThing and they're down. Oh well. I'll look at it again later. There's plenty of other Learning 2.0 to do.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Rollyo

OK, so I'm doing these a little out of order. I Rollyoed a business information search and love it. I used some of the sites I'd saved in Delicious (we'll get to that) when I took an online business sources class. I then searched for (without the quotes) "balance sheet" and then for "Spokane demographics." Both got several hits. Cool. Here's the link: http://rollyo.com/brunra/business_information/. I can certainly see a use for this little tool. It can be used to search sites that the user already knows and trusts. It can also provide a far more focused search than, say, Google. The results are also a little more manageable than Google, with tens of thousands of alleged hits rather than tens of millions.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Image Generation


Other Learning 2.0 websites are a good resource. I used one to find the image generator that let me make this cartoon.

Friday, February 6, 2009

... the behinder you don't get

I've been having scads of fun helping my colleagues with Learning 2.0, but we all get super busy sometimes. Fortunately, Learning 2.0 is self paced. Just because the "things" go up every week doesn't mean they have to be done that week.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Help


Teaching others is a great way to learn. Right now, I'm showing a collegue how to upload pictures to a blogger post.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Dogs


These are, from left to right, Ezra, Jaden, and Leo. Ezra is a terrier mix, Jaden a Portuguese Water Dog (one of Pres. Obama's possible breed picks), and Leo a Chow Chow. The captioning was done using fd's LOLCat Flickr tool.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

A New Favorite Reference Question

The patron had a paper with a picture and some information: it's the second largest memorial in the nation, it's a veteran's memorial, it was begun in 1925 and dedicated by FDR on June 14, 1936, and has 16 doric columns that are 39 feet high and weigh 98 tons each. It's round and looks a bit like the Jefferson Memorial. What is it? It's the George Rogers Clark Memorial, that's what it is! I found the info not in one of the day-by-day books, the almanacs, or the FDR info in Biography Resource Center. I looked all those places before heading to Google. After a couple of failed searches I hit on memorials doric "39 feet" as the winning search strategy. It's not a veteran's memorial, though it commemorates an American Revolution battle, and it got the green light in 1928 rather than 1925. But those columns are 39 feet high, thank goodness. I love this question, and I love that I was able to answer it. (The poor patron had been searching the internet himself for hours on end, which made victory even sweeter.)

Bloglines

I made a brief, unsuccessful foray into the world of RSS some time ago. Here's hoping this time goes better. I'm pretty sure it will. I already feel more confident about using it, which is half to two-thirds of the battle. I found the "related feeds" tool useful. I subscribed to Library Link of the Day, and Bloglines suggested several related feeds. Some of them I'd just unsubscribed from, but I did find Librarians Internet Index, which I like. That site let you choose which RSS reader to use for subscribing, which was nice. Some of the others I looked at didn't give a choice when I clicked on the feed button. Bloglines wasn't able to find the feed for our Learning 2.0 blog. I suspect it's because its on the intranet, so can't be accessed by "outside" tools. Sydic8 let me find Libraryman. There is apparently a new librarian Horde guild, for those WoWers who might be interested. Barrens chat.

LOLFlickr

OK, I admit it. I like the LOLCats tool. (If you're not familiar with LOLCats, check them out here: http://icanhascheezburger.com/.) Find your picture, add your caption, and LOL away.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Yahoo! Flickr

So, since I had to have a Yahoo! email account to use Flickr, I looked around at Yahoo! email. I've had an account for years that I don't use, and was finally able to delete it, along with an old MSN email account I don't use. What a relief. It's not that people email me on those accounts, they don't. I set them up for specific events long since over and done with. But I didn't really like the email address out there hanging around. Every once in a while I'd start thinking "Don't I have a Yahoo! email account? What was it again?" I found it... mildly annoying. So now I have a bright, shiny, new Yahoo! email account, set up for a specific event. Oh, well.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Cursor you, City of Heroes!

With Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa heading to the MMORPG graveyard, NCSoft gave me free time on a couple of its other games. One of them is City of Heroes, a superhero game my Seattle brother plays and that I've played a little at his place. I have Windows Vista at home, which gives the option to use programs in a way compatible with previous versions of Windows. I decided to give it a shot with CoH, just to see what would happen. With most previous versions of Windows, the cursor was invisible -- not a superpower it's supposed to have. With one (either XP or ME/2000, I forget which), it changed shape and color, making it easier to see than invisible mode but harder than Vista mode. The cursor -- it's technology, and it interests me.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Satanic Hostages

Ah, the joys of "high risk" items. The patron didn't have ID on her, so I took her jacket hostage while she uses the Satanic Bible. Reminds me of the kid who used to leave his sweatshirt with us when he looked at The Anarchist's Cookbook.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

7 1/2 Habits

So, the most difficult (for me) of the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Learners? That's a firm "It depends."
Let's say I wanted to learn how to rebuild an engine so I don't have to pay someone to do it for me. My end goal would be pretty straight forward -- be able to rebuild an engine. My confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner, though, would be practically nil. Good thing I know a good engine guy.

Habit 1 -- beginning with the end in mind -- is the most difficult with this Learning 2.0 project. Which end? The personal satisfaction? The ability to help customers when they have problems with 2.0ish stuff? Bragging rights? The cool prize? The easiest is Habit 4 -- have confidence in yourself as a comptetent, effective learner. I'm confident that I can learn this stuff. I've already learned to blog!

Getting Started

Wow! I've set up a blog. Is that cool, or what? I'm on my way with Learning 2.0 and looking forward to a great time.