Driven by Design, from the Chronicle The students were exultant that the driverless Volkswagen Touareg SUV they built had just snapped the tape at the Grand Challenge, a robot race through the Mojave Desert. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, the competition carries a $2-million prize. … The first race — held in the Mojave in 2004, at a cost of $13-million — had been a bust, with no.. Read More
An Open Letter to All University Presidents and Provosts Concerning Increasingly Expensive Journals, reported on in the November 8 Library Journal Academic Newswire: We recommend the following policies. (i) Universities should assess overhead charges for the support services of editors working for journals that have basic library subscription rates of more than a threshold level of cost per measured unit of product. (ii) University libraries should refrain from buying bundled.. Read More
I finished reading Olympos, by Dan Simmons, just last night. I won’t even try to explain the plot lines — it’s wicked complicated, involving the Fall of Troy at least 2500 years in the future, a “race” of robots named after Hans Moravec, and the next stage of human evolution. Anyway, one of those post-humans comments at one point that all of the “posts” are post-literate. Again, I’m not going.. Read More
Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style has been turned into an operatic song cycle. I’m not kidding. “The Elements of Style: Nine Songs” … had its gala premier Oct. 19 in the main reading room of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.
So I survived my video-panel at ASIST on Monday. But only barely, and only with much audience participation. As I was standing up at the front of the room I did a rough count of the audience: I’d say that at a very rough estimate, there were 100-120 people in the room. That’s a big audience to wipe out in front of. Speaking of audience participation, I owe several people.. Read More
UNC is in the news! We’re above the fold on CNN’s front page, as of my writing this (1:15 pm). The CNN article is about the new exhibit in Wilson, Slavery and the Making of the University. Unfortunately, the CNN article does not mention the library at all!
Yvonne & I are heading to Charlotte tomorrow. The ASIST Annual is of course the reason I’m going. But the reason Yvonne is coming with me is that we’re going to see the new Cirque du Soleil show, Varekai. I’m very excited about this — the last Cirque du Soleil show we saw was Quidam in 1998, in New York. We also saw Alegria in 1995 or so, & Saltimbanco.. Read More
My last post, in case you were wondering, was me testing out the StoryStarters system, currently under development by the Information Institute of Syracuse, & currently in beta. My response appears on the StoryStarters site here. Critique of using StoryStarters from the point of view of an answerer: pretty damn good, guys. Nice work by the IIS, once again. So far there’s only a plugin for WordPress, though more are.. Read More
Joseph Liklider was the head of DARPA and helped create the Internet. One of his landmark contributions was a paper called (I think) “the Galactic Network”. Where can I access a copy of that paper? Thanks for asking this really interesting question! I have not been able to locate any paper or book by J.C.R. Licklider with the title “The Galactic Network,” or any variation on that. Instead, what I.. Read More
Carol Tobin tried to comment on my recent Interesting job posting at Duke posting, but for reasons unknown authimage was giving her grief. So here’s her comment, promoted to the status of actual post. Actually Duke is just getting on board with position that they have had at NCState for a number of years and that we have had planned for years at Chapel Hill. It finally got funded for.. Read More