My friend Alexandra was on Gothamist the other day holding this huge pickle.
Her archivist colleagues are all so proud. Finally, an Archivist Poster Girl!
Geeky Gadget Reference
ViewScore aggregates gadget reviews from all over the web. If you are looking for a new digital camera or some other geeky device, you can view a well-designed sortable list of the best-reviewed gadgets, along with price and product details.
ViewScore is what Froogle wants to be, but is too huge to accomplish.
Take my Comics…please
I’ve started a library at work. My cataloging system is the whiteboard over my desk. My patrons are co-workers and student employees whom I bully into taking books. My material? Comics. I’m on a mission from Groo.
When I was a young Librarian Avenger, I spent many happy years working in the world’s largest cataloged collection of comic art, located at Michigan State University. There I met some majorly kickass librarians who were kind enough to allow me to shelve books, type tags, sort through boxes, occasionally catalog (ah, young dorkiness) and induge in a whole lot of secret in-the-stacks comic-reading.
As a result of this intensive training, I can now walk into any fluorescent-lit basement-level industrial-carpeted D&D-riddled comic shop and pick a fight. Ghost Rider vs. Punisher? No problem. Spawn eats them both. First edition copy of Watchmen? Own it. Portrait of myself inked by David Mack? Got it. Personalized CynicalMan convention souvenir by Matt Feazell? On my wall. Every issue of Scott McCloud’s Zot, stolen from an ex-boyfriend? Yuppers.
If I had several lives to live simultaneously, I would take out a loan and start a comic shop. I believe that some of the best art and writing of my generation can be found in the pages of comics. Transmetropolitan. Sandman. Optic Nerve. La Perdida. Dykes to Watch Out For. Fun Home. Understanding Comics. Kabuki. Y The Last Man. Zot.
So, lately I’ve been biking my trade paperbacks up the hill and distributing them. I need someone to talk to about this stuff. It’s lonely here at the top.
The Librarian
ARCIMBOLDO, Giuseppe
(b. ca. 1530, Milano, d. 1593, Milano)
The Librarian
c. 1566
Oil on canvas, 97 x 71 cm
Skoklosters Slott, BÃ¥lsta (Stockholm)
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Today I animated a vector image of a woman singing for an educational flash animation illustrating the difference between the larynx (humans) and the syrinx (birds).
What did you do at work today?
In my travels, I discovered that WikiCommons has a nice-if-random collection of GNU public licenced images, which led to a debate with Cow-Orker Rafe on the proper pronunciation of the word “Gnu”. Turns out we were both right. Geeks pronounce the operating system “G-noo”, and English majors pronounce the wildebeesty “Noo”.
Noo! Noo!
Blarg
It’s 4 am and I’ve got some sort of low-grade headcold. I can’t sleep. The only advantage to being awake in my house at 4am is the cat is so! happy! to see me! He’s overcome his usual aloofness and has wrapped himself around my neck.
We’re back from Austin, where much fun was had. SXSWi was twice the size as last year, which means it lost some of its outsider geek charm, but it made up for it with better programming, better planning, and a greater number of women both presenting and attending. There were actually lines in the women’s bathrooms this year, which I choose to see as an indication of a brand new influx of women in the I.T. professions.
Achoo. Ok, the cat is now upside down and dragging himself along the underside of the couch like a furry rock climber. It’s zero degrees outside and I have to go to work tomorrow whether I want to or not. People wear parkas here. Here’s some links.
Sheldon is a great webcomic about a 10-year-old dot com billionaire. I met Dave the author at one of the many social functions which have now blurred together in my sleep-deprived brain. I recall him being very funny. So’s his comic, so check it out. Start a few weeks back so you’ll catch up with the whole Zod thing.
There was a good dragon this year. Every year Cornell students build, parade, and burn a huge dragon. Dragon Day is a tradition, dammit. A century-old tradition that only makes the campus police slightly nervous. They skipped the riot gear this year, to the relief of all. Also, a giant rabbit was involved. I can’t believe I spent the last week complaining that nothing happens in Ithaca.
This is broken is a bad interface blog. It’s just like hanging out with an interface designer, except without the annoying tendency to critique interfaces while others are trying to enjoy themselves. Sorry friends and family. (yoinked from sivacracy)
Finally, you’ve been reading 50 Books haven’t you? Well why not? What, you don’t like books?
SXSW antics, continued
My ex-professor and information architecture guru Peter Morville is in town promoting his new O’Reilly book, Ambient Findability, which I’m going to buy and review, 
whether you like it or not. For all you digital librarians out there, he had a slide showing some attractive ladies that was meant to illustrate how metadata is sexy these days. Not exactly librarian strippers, but better than nothing.
I also caught the end of the web comics panel, which was so popular I ended up enjoying it from the floor in the back. Bill Barnes from Unshelved was talking about the future of his comic, and how webcomics can become financially self-sustaining. I recommend everyone buy his books RIGHT NOW. Bill also showed up at one of the parties in his library FBI jacket, wowing the geeks.
I met one of my favorite writers, Heather Armstrong from Dooce.com at a local coffeehouse along with fifty of my fellow slathering idiots. Heather was, of course, funny, kind and gracious. I was, of course, a big dork. Meeting your favorite blogger is an inherently awkward social situation. But not as awkward as last year when Chris’ mom asked us why we haven’t gotten married yet. In front of three of my coworkers. Several times. Really loud.
Seriously though, I have an enormous gratitude for Heather and for the story she tells. There are so many women in my generation who are trying to create a unique existence separate from the ones we were raised with. I’ve got a small family and I’ve always felt that I haven’t had many examples of women doing what I want to do, living a modern life, living a creative life, becoming mothers without losing themselves in the enormity of the endeavor. Heather, along with several of my friends and other women who write about their lives, have allowed me to consider possibilities that I wouldn’t have had enough information or inspiration to consider before.
Last night I wisely avoided the nuclear tacos, and went to Trudy’s for Tex Mex instead, along with my savior Jenny Benevento. The Google party we went to afterward had hired a terrible dj who was spinning hits from what sounded like an MTV Party to Go cd. Everyone scuttled next door to the Adaptive Path party once the free drinks ran out. Geeks are fickle.
Blarghahtpth…gurble
Hi guys – I’m on day four of a head cold. Meaning, my head feels like it was stuck on by something tacky and impermanent – like that stuff that holds posters up in dorm rooms. Anyway, I’m going to let others blog for me today instead of subjecting you to more tortured similes.
Here’s Mike at The Book You’re Not Reading blogging about a guy you’ll just love to loathe: The Beckoner. (Hi Mike. You are as funny as a British Adventuress could ever wish to be!)
Video Dog over at Salon has a highlights/lowlights reel of Superbowl commercials, for all you cat-hefting fuzzy-slipper-wearers like me who couldn’t be bollixed to watch the game.
Jessamyn has some commentary on the British Library’s wickedcool DRM-bashing. Nothing new to librarians facing superrestrictive e-journal licenses, I’m sure.
And finally, here’s a link to the first two episodes of The IT Crowd, a new British sitcom (I’m quite the UK fangirl today) written by the same guy who did Father Ted.