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Friday, March 24, 2006

"Not much of a farmer. But I DO so love his cookies!"


Still taking your questions...
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About.com has articles about How to Start a Blog. As a reformed ex-non-blogger, I offer it those of you who are thinking about taking the plunge:
Free Blog Software/Hosting
To Blog or Not to Blog? - How Blogging Can Impact Your Job Search
Where Can I Host Images For My Blog?
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I really like that IBM commercial where everyone is lipsynching to the Kinks' I'm Not Like Everybody Else - fun use of irony. But I don't know what they are trying to sell.
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I was doing the Next Blog thing, something I don't do nearly as much as I'd like because of time. In any case, I came across this post which describes www.librarything.com/:
Catalog your books
Easy. Catalog your books online or keep a reading list.
Social. Show everyone your library, or keep it private. Find people with the same books as you. Get recommendations from readers like you.
Powerful. Search Amazon, the Library of Congress and 30 other world libraries.
Tagged. Tag your books as on Del.icio.us and Flickr (eg., wwii, magical realism, sexuality, christian living, cats).
Safe. Export your data. Import from almost anywhere too.
Free. Enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life).

Anybody out there using this? Sounds intriguing. Apparently it started last August. If it's as good as it sounds, it'd be this librarian's dream.
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Another Next Blogger describes Short Term Syndrome that behavior some people do when they're leaving their jobs, behavior that would otherwise get someone fired. If you're displaying these habits and AREN'T leaving your job, you may be leaving your job involuntarily.

And speaking of getting fired, a piece on How to Get Fired.
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How the birthday paradox works. (You're in a room with 30 people and two of them have the same birthday.)
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I was working on a reference question about goat milk (yes, goat milk) last week and I came to this site, which is nice enough for what it is. But the company name is Fias Co Farm, so the URL reads fiascofarm, which doesn't exactly breed confidence. (Choice of verb was intentional.)
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This next piece is pretty dry on the face, though important, because they leave off the best part:
State Tax Commissioner Andrew S. Eristoff today urged New Yorkers to be cautious of an e-mail scam that promises a tax refund from the Internal Revenue Service but is really designed to strip people of personal information such as social security or credit card numbers.
E-mail confidence schemes of this nature are called "phishing" scams because they "bait" unsuspecting victims into providing confidential information.
To view the entire document, please visit: here

The BEST part ios that the reason the Commissioner was writing about it was that the would-be crooks tried to bait HIM. No word as to whether he fell for it.
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Buy The Exonerated on DVD and Help Support New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty-
A portion of the proceeds of the sale of this DVD will directly benefit the organization. For more information and to purchase go www.nyadp.org.
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John Stuart Mill on Military Intervention, via the English Prof.
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Truthout has a multimedia page. See W answer Helen Thomas' question, "Why Did We Go to War?" and much more.
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Of local interest:

From Panels to Panel: A Graphic Novel Workshop
May 19, 2006 12:45-5 Albany Public Library, Main Library
Free to students with proof of enrollment!
Professionals only $15!
For more information, including a list of participants, and to download the registration form, go here.

Perhaps something like this is playing in your area-
Come to the main branch of the Albany Public Library at 161 Washington Avenue in Albany at 6:30 PM to see screenings of the ACLU's "Freedom Files". Each night will feature a different civil liberties topic and a discussion will follow.

Monday, April 3rd "Racial Profiling" with moderator Al Lawrence: Racial profiling may have fallen off the radar screen for most Americans, but for those affected it remains a series problem.
Monday May 1st "Dissent" with moderator Katherine Levitan: "Dissent" tells the stories of everyday Americans who were practicing their right to free speech and protest only to be thwarted, harassed or arrested.
Monday May 22nd "The PATRIOT Act" with moderator Sarah Birn: "Beyond the Patriot Act" features ordinary Americans whose relatives were victims of months of detention, secret deportation, and repeated interrogation. The show also tells the uplifting story of a growing grassroots campaign in opposition to the Patriot Act.
Monday June 5th "The Supreme Court" with moderator Steven Gottlieb: "The Supreme Court" tells the story of a teenage girl from Oklahoma who fought her high school's mandatory drug testing policy and brought her case all the way to the Supreme Court. Viewers will get an insider's view of the high court and the justices who serve on it, as told by attorneys who have argued cases before them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny that you brought this up. I just posted about this on my site.

I am using LibraryThing.Com and I like it for a couple of reasons. The look/layout could be better, but it has plusses over another site I ran across.

The things I like about it are that you can upload book cover images if what the search engines spits out doesn't match your edition. Or if it's that old that it can't find one to begin with. I also like how you can post reviews and read others. Though some of the reviews are really short. And you can sort them by the tags (which you set up as genres or other categories you want).

I am not sure if there are any better sites out there, but LibraryThing is good for what it is.

Anonymous said...

I've been using Library Thing for a few months now and really find it useful. I like having some of the stuff I read linked to my blog as well. You could always try it and remove it if you don't like it.

Anonymous said...

Hi Roger,
I saw you mentioned the IBM ad in your blog, but didn't know what it was advertising. Here is an article about the ad campaign if you're interested. (I found it through http://slashdot.org.) From the slashdot page I thought it might be an April Fool's joke (see slashdot today if you want to see what I mean.), but I don't think so.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/264995_ibmads31.html

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LYDIA. Her photos are adorable. She looks so happy.