The Longest Now


RL Easter Egg : Happy V-Day
Sunday February 26th 2006, 1:56 am
Filed under: indescribable

It’s a bit late, but oh so sweet. 

I found an Easter Egg in RL last month, near the Harvard Sq T-zone in Cambridge.  Go all the way down the stairs, stand 5 feet to the left of the last change machine, and look up.  There was a fully-inflated Valentine’s Day balloon stuck to the ceiling next to one of the lights.  It remained there for well over a month…

RL Easter Egg : Happy V-Day …



Simmons GSLIS blog takes off
Thursday February 23rd 2006, 1:45 pm
Filed under: %a la mod

Kudos to the Simmons grad school of library and information science, who are taking the modern connotations of their full name seriously.  They have started a group blog for the school, and are thinking of a school-wide wiki…

I still find the notion of ‘librarianship’ and of libraries themeslves an unappreciated anachronism in our world culture; even among professional librarians.  People who spend their lives gathering hundreds of thousands of volumes in order to allow those in the target audience who can gain physical access to them to read them for free, rarely fail to look askance at the idea that they might provide searchable databases of public information; even a database of book citation information.  The OCLC still haven’t quite decided to do such a thing, despite their meta-collaborative nature [above and beyond the implicit collaborative nature of all library work].

Simmons GSLIS blog takes off …



Simmons GSLIS blog takes off
Wednesday February 22nd 2006, 7:08 pm
Filed under: %a la mod

Kudos to the Simmons grad school of library and information science, who are taking the modern connotations of their full name seriously.  They have started a group blog for the school, and are thinking of a school-wide wiki…

I still find the notion of ‘librarianship’ and of libraries themeslves an unappreciated anachronism in our world culture; even among professional librarians.  People who spend their lives gathering hundreds of thousands of volumes in order to allow those in the target audience who can gain physical access to them to read them for free, often look askance at the idea that they might provide searchable databases of public information; even a database of book citation information.  The OCLC haven’t quite decided to do such a thing yet, despite their meta-collaborative nature [above and beyond the implicit collaborative nature of all library work].

Nevertheless, the persistence of the idea of providing free access to physical materials goes to show the power of custom and professional culture…

Simmons GSLIS blog takes off …



Wednesday February 22nd 2006, 6:55 pm
Filed under: %a la mod



Clinton and Janeane Garofalo
Sunday February 19th 2006, 4:17 pm
Filed under: popular demand

So I landed on a random “brushes with celebrity” page while stalking my favorite American actress, and found this charming vignette about our Prez– :

In the fall of 2004, right before his bypass surgery I was sitting around the parking lot of Central Park’s ‘Tavern on the Green’, and out walks this handsome looking guy with white hair and a suit, casually leaving the place like he was Joe Schmo.

I looked at this guy long and hard and realised that it was Bill Clinton.

Apparently, so did dozens of other people. Someone (who was apparently a Republican) heckled him about raising taxes. Now, normally when a former president encounters a loser like this, he smiles waves and gets whisked away in his limousine.

But, Bill Clinton started debating him! The secret service guys were going nuts as an entire crowd of blue-staters formed to watch the former president and this dude with a stroller arguing over economic policies.

Then he took questions from the normal people off the street that gathered around him. NYC parks officials were called down to patrol the scene. He also took pictures with tourists, mostly young and female.

Bob Zmuda, Eat your heart out.

Clinton and Janeane Garofalo …



Clinton and Janeane Garofalo
Sunday February 19th 2006, 2:47 pm
Filed under: Glory, glory, glory

So I landed on a random “brushes with celebrity” page while stalking my favorite American actress, and found this charming vignette about our Prez– :


In the fall of 2004, right before his bypass surgery I was sitting around the parking lot of Central Park’s ‘Tavern on the Green’, and out walks this handsome looking guy with white hair and a suit, casually leaving the place like he was Joe Schmo.

I looked at this guy long and hard and realised that it was Bill Clinton.

Apparently, so did dozens of other people. Someone (who was apparently a Republican) heckled him about raising taxes. Now, normally when a former president encounters a loser like this, he smiles waves and gets whisked away in his limousine.

But, Bill Clinton started debating him! The secret service guys were going nuts as an entire crowd of blue-staters formed to watch the former president and this dude with a stroller arguing over economic policies.

Then he took questions from the normal people off the street that gathered around him. NYC parks officials were called down to patrol the scene. He also took pictures with tourists, mostly young and female.

There’s something to the willingness to debate anyone sane, to defend one’s ideas against all comers, that helps define a certain kind of philospher and speaker.  It has its own strengths and weaknesses, but definitely inspires a certain confidence….



Pulses, Zeitgeists
Friday February 17th 2006, 10:30 pm
Filed under: metrics

Wikipulse is gone . But its spirit lives on.  Perhaps it can be revitalized on a New Machine.  We can rebuild it. The Six Million Dollar Analytic>

Pulses, Zeitgeists …



Manypedia – what WP is best at
Friday February 17th 2006, 6:58 pm
Filed under: %a la mod

I was researching publication of Muhammad cartoons not long ago, to
update the main article about them on Wikipedia.  They had listed
the Daily Illini
as the first US college paper to have republished some of the cartoons
last week, which sounded wrong to me (it turns out they were close
tothe first, but the Salient at least was a day earlier). 

I had momentarily forgotten the best place to find such lists online,
and laughed out loud to see the reference I wanted was another
Wikipedia page.

[[List of newspapers that reprinted Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad cartoons]]
is just what you might expect; a list, with dates and references and
hyperlinks, of all newspapers that have reprinted some or all of the
cartoons in response to the controversy.  Ordered separately by
publication date and by country. 

As it notes at the start, “This list is probably not complete.”  Surely not.  But with over 120 entries, it is a start…  Two other favorite lists : [[List of interesting or unusual place names]] and the infamous [[List of lists of lists]], which has become something more and less than a list over time… see also [[Controversial newspaper caricatures]].

Manypedia – what WP is best at …



Qwika rocks the casbah
Wednesday February 15th 2006, 11:50 pm
Filed under: %a la mod

Everyone who feels that special need to search multiple languages and
projects at once, check this baby out. Oh, and wikiwax is back
up!  Hooray…

Qwika rocks the casbah …



Brian Mingus is always right
Tuesday February 14th 2006, 4:58 am
Filed under: %a la mod

Brian Mingus, that devilishly cognitive Colorodan, is a remarkable fellow.  Besides which, he is always right.  Or so it seems sometimes… for instance, LibraryThing.  One look is enough to tell you that it is, in fact, the sexiestWeb 10” site around.

I yearn for the day this kind of brilliance turns into a free and globally-editable annotated citation database.    Tim Spalding is my official hero of the week.

Brian Mingus is always right …



Simmons update
Tuesday February 14th 2006, 4:52 am
Filed under: Rogue content editor

Well, that rocked.  A room full of bright, attentive, occasionally opinionated people.  They asked some good questions.  We ran a bit over; noone seemed to mind.  And most of them were beautiful women…
Let’s see if the dozen or so who signed up for more information come to one of our wikimeets.  A few were positively eager to help with upcoming projects, which makes me feel good about the other local university outreach efforts…



Presentation on Wikipedia research tonight!
Monday February 13th 2006, 3:31 pm
Filed under: popular demand

On Monday, February 13th, at 7 pm, join the Boston Wikipedia Meetup Group
and the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Alumni Board in the Special Functions Room, first floor, Main College
Building of Simmons College for an introduction to researching
effectively with Wikipedia. We will cover finding information, cross-referencing and validating information, and contacting original authors.

We will also explore where to ask for help, how to make changes to articles, other ways to contribute to the community, and Wikimania.  Also local wiki groups and ways to get yourself or your group involved with local wikiphiles.

Directions to Simmons


Dinner
afterwards at Thornton’s Fenway Grille, at 9 pm. : call 617.529.4266 for help getting there

Directions to Thornton’s



How much is this coin worth?
Monday February 13th 2006, 2:09 am
Filed under: chain-gang

One cannot put too high a price on not sucking.

How much is this coin worth? …



The $1,000,000 artwork… Tew style
Saturday February 11th 2006, 11:45 am
Filed under: %a la mod

This just in.  The milliondollar homepage may be finished, but
don’t despair!  Now you can own your piece of [one of a hundred]
similar work[s] of artistic genius, while supporting the world’s finest
knowledge initiative 🙂  Someone pseudonymously named “Clemens”
is kindly fronting the web real-estate and domain.  Consider this
an exercise in good will….

The $1,000,000 artwork… Tew style …



Britannica may rule the waves, but Wikipedia waives the rules
Friday February 10th 2006, 2:31 pm
Filed under: poetic justice

Wikipedia’s nationality is at risk.  Arguments have started up this week about whether Wikipedia has nationality, and whether it is associated in people’s minds with the US.  World Citizenship has not apparently been suggested. But the discussion turned up this gem, from (you guessed it!) dpbsmith:

“Britannica may rule the waves, but Wikipedia waives the rules!”



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