It's been a very culturally uplifting September for the philosopher and I. Our little corner of Alabama doesn't offer much in the way of live theater or classical music performances, and occasionally we get the urge to partake in such things. So we look a bit further afield... not too far, not so far that it would require an overnight stay, but a day trip to get away from the "country" and take in a show or two. (Yes, that's one thing I miss about our five years in northern Virginia - there was always something wonderful going on in DC!)
So Labor Day weekend, we headed over to Atlanta to the American Shakespeare Tavern and saw "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It was superbly well done, (and the tomato basil bisque was fantastic, too). This is Shakespeare done like it was meant to be done - simple sets, talented cast, small audience, and just a bit of bawdiness (which goes along well with the English draft on tap!) Definitely not highbrow, but definitely a great time.
Then we went to other end of the spectrum this past Tuesday. The university where the professor teaches occasionally brings in concerts and performances in conjunction with local partners. This time they brought in the Tokyo String Quartet. They performed some Hayden, some Barber, some Schumann and a encore by Debussy. I enjoy chamber music, and we own some pieces on CD that are are auditorally stunning. But oh. my. goodness. To hear this quartet LIVE. In an acoustically superb recital hall. I wept. From the first notes they drew across their strings, it was a masterful performance. If you're interested, there are a few clips of them performing on YouTube. But that's nothing.... NOTHING compared to seeing them live.
OK, so now that I'm done waxing rhapsodic over our little burst of snobby culture (haha), I think I'll go back to digging holes for shrubs and planning our Christmas vacation. Disney was our first thought, but after some comments from a friend who's a seasoned Disney-goer, we (ok, "I") decided to hold that thought. Instead we're now considering a return to the city where we went for our honeymoon - New Orleans. A quiet B&B, some really good eating, and lots of browsing the antique shops would be a great way to round out 2010.
Showing posts with label nerdy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nerdy. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Are most librarians funny?
My friend over at Billy Ockham asked that question recently, and I replied with an off-the-cuff (amusing) answer. I said we had to have a sense of humor because otherwise we'd go insane when someone (I'm looking at YOU, Google Books) tried to catalog Jane Eyre in Architecture. But I've been thinking about it, and wanted to actually comment with a little more thought and seriousness.
I read a lot of blogs. And one blog I find side-achingly funny is the Midwest Conservative Journal. He's got a rapier wit and can skewer a news story with awesome commentary, or write a bit of fiction that is worthy of Douglas Adams. And he's a librarian! I'm also on several library listservs - one for the Association of Christian Librarians, and two through the Association of College and Research Librarians. Now, most of the content is typical library stuff, but often we - ahem - digress. Stories about wild animals loose in the building. Wonderfully brilliant satire. Off hand comments leading to a treasure trove of one-liners and witty repartee. And of those many comments, it's not just one or two comedians making everyone laugh... it's most of the regular contributors!
I am part of other groups, and read lots of other blogs. But there's a really high concentration of witty folk out there in library land. So why is that?
Yes, I have a hypothesis - it's a vast oversimplification, but a hypothesis nonetheless. We can be funny because we love books. And we love books, in part, because we love to read. And because we love books and love to read, we're quite literate. (I mean that in a very broad sense - not just in the sense that we can read at a certain grade level.) So when we get to telling stories, we can do it well. And because we're literate, we can do it well in writing. And in my case, and possibly others, I tell stories *better* online than I do in person because I'm the quintessential librarian introvert! We can easily dip into Tolkien's vast "Cauldron of Story" and pull out bits that seem good because we've been steeped in that literary tradition. We've read good literature, and good history, and good writing on an amazing spectrum of other subjects, from science and engineering to philosophy and criticism. And we've read bad writing too, but because we've read *good* writing too we can tell the difference!
So when we write, whether about rogue wildlife or Anglican investigators, we tell our stories well. Because we've learned how to do it by reading so much of others' writing.
Of course, there are lots of people out there who are not librarians but who also love books and love to read and are also very witty... like the Joneses, for example. So that leads me to believe that anyone who loves books and loves to read .... can write well! So read, darn it, read! Yay, BOOKS! ::librarian cheer::
I read a lot of blogs. And one blog I find side-achingly funny is the Midwest Conservative Journal. He's got a rapier wit and can skewer a news story with awesome commentary, or write a bit of fiction that is worthy of Douglas Adams. And he's a librarian! I'm also on several library listservs - one for the Association of Christian Librarians, and two through the Association of College and Research Librarians. Now, most of the content is typical library stuff, but often we - ahem - digress. Stories about wild animals loose in the building. Wonderfully brilliant satire. Off hand comments leading to a treasure trove of one-liners and witty repartee. And of those many comments, it's not just one or two comedians making everyone laugh... it's most of the regular contributors!
I am part of other groups, and read lots of other blogs. But there's a really high concentration of witty folk out there in library land. So why is that?
Yes, I have a hypothesis - it's a vast oversimplification, but a hypothesis nonetheless. We can be funny because we love books. And we love books, in part, because we love to read. And because we love books and love to read, we're quite literate. (I mean that in a very broad sense - not just in the sense that we can read at a certain grade level.) So when we get to telling stories, we can do it well. And because we're literate, we can do it well in writing. And in my case, and possibly others, I tell stories *better* online than I do in person because I'm the quintessential librarian introvert! We can easily dip into Tolkien's vast "Cauldron of Story" and pull out bits that seem good because we've been steeped in that literary tradition. We've read good literature, and good history, and good writing on an amazing spectrum of other subjects, from science and engineering to philosophy and criticism. And we've read bad writing too, but because we've read *good* writing too we can tell the difference!
So when we write, whether about rogue wildlife or Anglican investigators, we tell our stories well. Because we've learned how to do it by reading so much of others' writing.
Of course, there are lots of people out there who are not librarians but who also love books and love to read and are also very witty... like the Joneses, for example. So that leads me to believe that anyone who loves books and loves to read .... can write well! So read, darn it, read! Yay, BOOKS! ::librarian cheer::
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
I Can Stop Any Time I Want To...really!
Have I mentioned lately how much I like having regular four-day work weeks? The ten hours of work on Monday and Tuesday are challenging, of course, but by Wednesday I'm already anticipating my three-day weekend. So I have Friday (on Thursday) and then First and Second Saturdays. (And I appreciate that Second Saturday as much as the hobbits covet their "second breakfasts.") Sundays are spent at church and doing whatever I can to avoid the dreaded "Sunday afternoon sleepies." So all in all it's a good thing.
So, I must now sheepishly admit that I spent much of my weekend cataloging our books. Seriously. For Valentine's Day I gave my beloved a lifetime account on LibraryThing and one of their little CueCat scanners (yes, it's cat-shaped!) And I do believe that was The Best Present Ever for him. (He got me strawberry plants, dinner at Johnny Rockets, and tickets to see Romance/Romance, so that ranked pretty high on the cool-gift-o-meter too.) Our LT username, you ask? Catalogingjointly. As in "Married, Cataloging Jointly". (We just did our taxes, you see...) We think it's a surefire way to prevent divorce - we hardly know whose books are whose at this point (well, the stuff in Greek is a dead giveaway) and trying to separate them now would be impossible. Voila!
Anyway, the philosopher and I have added over 1500 books so far, and there are more tucked away in boxes. I really am a frustrated cataloger, or at least an addicted one (I can stop any time I want to!) But I most enjoyed the challenge of finding *exactly* the right record that matched the work-in-hand. Those few times I had to add a book manually just made my day. And I wasted far too much time "cleaning up" the records, getting the authors and editors assigned their proper terms, and making sure the capitalization and punctuation falls in all the right places. Oh, and I shouldn't even mention searching for the proper book cover .jpg to display. It's probably a good thing LT doesn't use the MARC21 standards, because I'd really go nuts then. The fact that I can add call numbers is bad enough, right?
So that's how we spent our weekend - all three days of it!
So, I must now sheepishly admit that I spent much of my weekend cataloging our books. Seriously. For Valentine's Day I gave my beloved a lifetime account on LibraryThing and one of their little CueCat scanners (yes, it's cat-shaped!) And I do believe that was The Best Present Ever for him. (He got me strawberry plants, dinner at Johnny Rockets, and tickets to see Romance/Romance, so that ranked pretty high on the cool-gift-o-meter too.) Our LT username, you ask? Catalogingjointly. As in "Married, Cataloging Jointly". (We just did our taxes, you see...) We think it's a surefire way to prevent divorce - we hardly know whose books are whose at this point (well, the stuff in Greek is a dead giveaway) and trying to separate them now would be impossible. Voila!
Anyway, the philosopher and I have added over 1500 books so far, and there are more tucked away in boxes. I really am a frustrated cataloger, or at least an addicted one (I can stop any time I want to!) But I most enjoyed the challenge of finding *exactly* the right record that matched the work-in-hand. Those few times I had to add a book manually just made my day. And I wasted far too much time "cleaning up" the records, getting the authors and editors assigned their proper terms, and making sure the capitalization and punctuation falls in all the right places. Oh, and I shouldn't even mention searching for the proper book cover .jpg to display. It's probably a good thing LT doesn't use the MARC21 standards, because I'd really go nuts then. The fact that I can add call numbers is bad enough, right?
So that's how we spent our weekend - all three days of it!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Turing Bombe
Not a nuclear device, or something that might hang underneath a F-16 or a Predator drone. But the electromechanical device created by Alan Turing in World War II to break the German Enigma code - which likely ended the war several years early. It's an amazing invention. I saw the American Purple decryption device (very similar) when I visited the National Cryptologic Museum on the NSA grounds a few years ago.
I recently discovered the nifty audio lectures available for free on iTunes U. One of the random lectures I downloaded was about the Turing Bombe, given by a gentleman who works at the Bletchley Park National Codes Centre. (And, though he didn't say this, I suspect he was a cryptographer before he retired to be a tour guide.) After World War II, all the bombes were destroyed because of the secrecy in which the project was surrounded. In 2006 a team finally finished reconstructing one from the original blueprints, and now they give lectures and such at the Park for those who are interested in codebreaking during World War II, before the advent of computers.
Because the Bombe wasn't a computer. It didn't perform computational calculations. It was merely electromechanical, and relied on the human brain to tell it what to do and to understand the results it provided. What is most fascinating to me is that the bombe didn't search for the *correct* results. Instead it searched for all possible *incorrect* results, which thus by the process of elimination showed the proper settings for that day's key and settings, usually within 9 or so hours. The Germans changed the key roughly every 24 hours, so there was a tight turn-around. And when the Enigma has something like 129 million million million combinations, you can see how amazing this machine really is.
When I read about stuff like this, it leaves me in awe. For a man to invision this concept, and bring it to fruition.... wow. OK. My nerdy reminisces are at an end now, and I will continue with my regularly scheduled program. ::grin::
I recently discovered the nifty audio lectures available for free on iTunes U. One of the random lectures I downloaded was about the Turing Bombe, given by a gentleman who works at the Bletchley Park National Codes Centre. (And, though he didn't say this, I suspect he was a cryptographer before he retired to be a tour guide.) After World War II, all the bombes were destroyed because of the secrecy in which the project was surrounded. In 2006 a team finally finished reconstructing one from the original blueprints, and now they give lectures and such at the Park for those who are interested in codebreaking during World War II, before the advent of computers.
Because the Bombe wasn't a computer. It didn't perform computational calculations. It was merely electromechanical, and relied on the human brain to tell it what to do and to understand the results it provided. What is most fascinating to me is that the bombe didn't search for the *correct* results. Instead it searched for all possible *incorrect* results, which thus by the process of elimination showed the proper settings for that day's key and settings, usually within 9 or so hours. The Germans changed the key roughly every 24 hours, so there was a tight turn-around. And when the Enigma has something like 129 million million million combinations, you can see how amazing this machine really is.
When I read about stuff like this, it leaves me in awe. For a man to invision this concept, and bring it to fruition.... wow. OK. My nerdy reminisces are at an end now, and I will continue with my regularly scheduled program. ::grin::
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
This is Really Cool
I'm a nerd. Have I mentioned that? I'm also a librarian, which means I get really psyched when libraries do really cool things that combine antique texts integral to the book world and high-tech technology.
Today I discovered that the 1640 Bay Psalm Book (the first book printed in British North America) has been made available free online. The book itself is housed at the Boston Public Library, but it is owned by the Old South Church. And it's not just in the old boring pdf-style, but in a new flash-based digitized version where you turn the pages and it's in full color. It uses a system called the Earlybook Imaging System, where you can do all sorts of book imaging that used to be severely damaging to brittle texts.
So go here and check it out!
Today I discovered that the 1640 Bay Psalm Book (the first book printed in British North America) has been made available free online. The book itself is housed at the Boston Public Library, but it is owned by the Old South Church. And it's not just in the old boring pdf-style, but in a new flash-based digitized version where you turn the pages and it's in full color. It uses a system called the Earlybook Imaging System, where you can do all sorts of book imaging that used to be severely damaging to brittle texts.
So go here and check it out!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
So what exactly does this say about me?
Check it out. Rank your favorite blogs. What a hoot!
But more seriously, I wonder what dynamic digital permutations they use in order to get this "reading level"? Is it the words themselves? The sentence structure? It would be very interesting to find out exactly what they base their scoring on.
I ran several other blogs (and other sites) through its machinations, and agreed with the outcome (for the most part). The Anglican curmudgeon was College Postgrad level, and Stand Firm was College Undergrad. But I feel like I'm in good company, because Mere Comments and T19 are also High School.
UPDATE:
I've done some research, and it looks like there are a couple of algorithmic possibilities, the Gunning-Fog Index being the most likely. I found another site that does roughly the same thing (though without the cool cut-and-paste graphic thingie!
Interpreting the Results
This service analyses the readability of all rendered content. Unfortunately, this will include navigation items, and other short items of content that do not make up the part of the page that is intended to be the subject of the readability test. These items are likely to skew the results. The difference will be minimal in situations where the copy content is much larger than the navigation items, but documents with little content but lots of navigation items will return results that aren't correct.
Readability Results
The following table contains the readability results for http://pygmypuffsandheffalumps.blogspot.com/ .
Reading Level Results
Summary Value
Total sentences 546
Total words 3674
Average words per Sentence 6.73
Words with 1 Syllable 2278
Words with 2 Syllables 681
Words with 3 Syllables 318
Words with 4 or more Syllables 397
% of word with three+ syllables 19.46%
Average Syllables per Word 1.68
Gunning Fog Index 10.48
Flesch Reading Ease 57.65
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 6.89
Gunning-Fog Index
The following is the algorithm to determine the Gunning-Fog index.
Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
Calculate the percentage of difficult words in the sample (words with three or more syllables).
Add the totals together, and multiply the sum by 0.4.
Algorithm: (average_words_sentence + number_words_three_syllables_plus) * 0.4
The result is your Gunning-Fog index, which is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content. The lower the number, the more understandable the content will be to your visitors. Results over seventeen are reported as seventeen, where seventeen is considered post-graduate level.
Typical Fog Index Scores
6 - Resources
8 - TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain
8-10 - Reader's Digest
10 - Most popular novels
11 - Time, Newsweek
14 - Wall Street Journal
15-20 - The Times, The Guardian
15-20 - Academic papers
Over 20 - Only government sites can get away with this, because you can't ignore them.
Over 30 - The government is covering something up
UPDATE AGAIN:
Because I was bored, I checked my Blog Readability again on June 24. Maybe it was the post I did on diversity, but now I rank at "College Undergrad" level! WooHoo!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
LibraryThing
I know, I know ... those of you world-weary, long-time bloggers and book-loving, computer-savvy folk ... this is nothing new for you. In fact, I even distantly remember discussions about LibraryThing in comparison to other online book cataloguing sites. But for me (because I just discovered it) it's a Cool New Toy.
You'll notice if you scroll down a bit on my blog that I have a "From the Bookshelf" thingie on the left side. That's from my list of books at LibraryThing! (Though I wish I could take credit for the cool html coding that makes the book covers change every time you visit. Alas, LibraryThing assumes that folks don't all do computer kungfu and offer it to you in a nice, simple copy-and-paste version.)
You can share book lists, browse other's lists, find folks with similar interests, write reviews, and even - this is what sold me - link to the Library of Congress and add a call number to your list. And if you wanted to be even more nerdy, you can buy a scanner and scan your book barcodes in directly. Wow. I'm going to show this to the philosopher... {{wicked grin}} ...this will put his excel spreadsheet to shame.
You'll notice if you scroll down a bit on my blog that I have a "From the Bookshelf" thingie on the left side. That's from my list of books at LibraryThing! (Though I wish I could take credit for the cool html coding that makes the book covers change every time you visit. Alas, LibraryThing assumes that folks don't all do computer kungfu and offer it to you in a nice, simple copy-and-paste version.)
You can share book lists, browse other's lists, find folks with similar interests, write reviews, and even - this is what sold me - link to the Library of Congress and add a call number to your list. And if you wanted to be even more nerdy, you can buy a scanner and scan your book barcodes in directly. Wow. I'm going to show this to the philosopher... {{wicked grin}} ...this will put his excel spreadsheet to shame.
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