I picked this up at the Tompkins County public library this weekend (shoutout to the reference staff!) and spent the next ten hours reading it, to the detriment of housework, gardening, exercise, and other weekend tasks. This is the story of a group of boys from Sudan who suffered unimaginable hardships during their country’s ongoing civil war, and were brought to cities across the United States as refugees. After three months of governmental support, these “Lost Boys” were required to support themselves in a world where everything was new: stairs, cleaning products, packaged food, the concept of pets. Despite an almost religious desire for education, these young men were introduced to a new form of poverty as members of the American Working Poor. The book follows the lives of four Lost Boys as they travel from war-torn Sudan to Atlanta, Georgia and learn to survive in their new home. Lions no longer lurk in the bushes, but after 9/11, drunk locals pulled a knife on a refugee and called him a terrorist.
Cartography Tricks
Maps are fun. Especially obedient maps. This blog catalogs some of the nifty things people have done with the Google Maps API. (from boing boing)
Here’s a trick. A couple of years ago, I moved to Ithaca, NY. It’s a good place to live.
Here’s Google’s map listing the Sushi restaurants in Ithaca:
For contrast, here’s a map showing the sushi restaurants in my hometown of Flint, Michigan:
{crickets chirp}
Now look what happens when you search in Flint for “Guns”:
Thanks everybody, next show’s at nine. I’ll be here all week.
New Schlock
Remember to properly label your librarian.
New librarian buttons and magnets at the Cafepress store.
Get some
Broken!
It was a fantastic 4th of July softball game. We played in Beezoo and Lexie’s sheep field. There were two friendly German shepherds, a handful of players, a famous digital librarian (whose name rhymes with ‘Hill Farms’), and bases made out of flannel shirts. Occasionally, the dogs would grab the ball and run around looking pleased with themselves. Hill Farms kept dropping the ball. Chris hit a home run with the bases loaded. At one point, five sheep and a couple of goats ran through the infield, bleating frantically. “Stop this madness!” they seemed to say.
I twisted my ankle running to third and felt a rather alarming ‘POP’. Once the adrenalin wore off, I realized I was having a difficult time walking. X-rays were taken, braces and crutches assigned, and I’ve been hopping around on one leg ever since. Yesterday I got downgraded from an avulsion fracture to a ligament something-or-other. I’ve been having fun abusing Advil and making up stories about what happened.
Conference 3
Julie, the wickedcool NSDL representative tells us that she doesn’t have any PowerPoint slides and there is a spontaneous burst of applause.
Conference part two
Cornell catering is trying to kill me. Every single entree or snack for every meal so far has contained nuts. Peanut chicken on a stick last night, pesto (with pine nuts!), nutty granola for breakfast, and peanut-laced snack bars at the break. I’m trying to suck the nutrition out of a cold cup of mint tea.
We’re starting up again. Ohboy PowerPoint! Constructivist learning theories? Cognitive supports within software? Ok. Here goes.
Conference
I’m liveblogging from the WDIL web conference, conveniently held where I work. I got shanghaied into this. I just wanted to meet the Wikipedia guy, but somehow I ended up going to the entire thing.
I’m no huge fan of conferences, as a rule. Usually the signal-to-noise ratio is insanely low, and I’ve got the attention span of a gnat when it comes to listening to ill-prepared speakers. Mercifully, coworker Rafe loaned me the office laptop, which is running Ubuntu, a very cool flavor of Linux, so I’ll be talking to you guys all day.
Microsoft Word took my Baby Away
You know what I like least about Microsoft Word for OSX? Besides it’s very bug-encrusted existence? When you do something simple like make a word bold, it defaults to making the ENTIRE DOCUMENT bold. The only way to avoid this is to click “undo” every time. Brilliant.
Alternatives, anyone? Help?
