I was talking with Christopher Armitage last night over dinner at the Convocation on Scholarly Communication. He said that when he teaches Shakespeare these days, he doesn’t focus on Hamlet’s issues with his dead father, or his issues with his uncle, or his mother fixation, or his girlfriend problems. Instead, he focuses on the political situation – that is, Norway marching on Poland through Denmark – and how this conflicted.. Read More
Thanks to Yvonne for bringing this one to my attention: Birth of an Industry: iPod Loading, from the NY Times On the one hand, just how lazy can you get? I mean, ripping a CD is something you can do while multitasking… it doesn’t exactly require your whole attention, does it? On the other hand: Consumers are realizing that the digital wonder that was supposed to unify and simplify their.. Read More
This should be interesting, in large part because “Information Commons” is one of those terms that means something different to everyone. Sounds to me like what they mean here is as a physical space, like a collaboratory. Very different from Kranich‘s definition, as a conceptual space, basically a sharium. Registration is now open for the TRLN Information Commons Symposium to be held on February 23rd from 8:30-4:30. There is no.. Read More
The asteroid 2001 DA42 was recently renamed after Douglas Adams, of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame! Apparently there was already an asteroid named after Arthur Dent – named just days before Adams died, in a strangely appropriate bit of fate. Interestingly, Alan Boyle, the author of this MSNBC article, first proposed the name. Asteroid named after ‘Hitchhiker’ humorist, from MSNBC On a side note, I can’t get this story.. Read More
I received my first comment recently from a reader who I can’t identify. I think I know who Trish is, but I can’t be sure. On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. Trish, that was not meant about you, it was a statement about anonymity online. Which is the whole point of this post. But before I get to that, let me write one more thing. Scott IM’ed me.. Read More
Speaking about theory versus practice: “I tend to get my hands dirty, rather than get my mind dirty” – John Bosley, of the BLS
This is wacky. I’m sitting in a meeting & surfing with some small fraction of my attention bandwidth, surfing NASA’s Cassini site, and came across this press release about Iapetus, one of Saturn’s moons. Here’s a better photo. As if Iapetus wasn’t weird enough before, what with having the leading hemisphere completely black and the trailing hemisphere completely white, now it also has a seam? When I was a kid.. Read More
One of our Ph.D. students, with whom I’m writing a paper, asked me the other day to edit the Acknowledgements section of our paper, and this got us into a conversation about the “rules,” such as they are, for including acknowledgements in a paper. I’m of the opinion that one should acknowledge everyone who will hold still long enough: the funding agency, personal contacts at the funding agency, the study.. Read More
I was at the Daily Grind earlier today and they’ve started carrying Aceh Relief Blend. (“For every pound of Relief Blend we sell, we will donate $1.00 to the fund.”) I of course had to have it, and I’m happy to report that it’s very tasty. More important, though, it got me thinking, could you eat and drink nothing but food where a portion of the cost goes to some.. Read More
NIH Revises Plan for Quick, Free Access to Study Results, from the WaPo The original proposal called for NIH-funded research to be made publicly available on the web within six months of journal publication. The revised plan ups this to a year. Well at least the proposal wasn’t canned entirely. But I’m amazed that the Director can say with a straight face that the NIH didn’t buckle under industry pressure… Read More