Because I Require Stimulation

When I was in college I needed a second hard drive in my computer. The first one was filling up with important classwork, research notes, and papers. It was horrible. There was barely any room left for my MP3s and pornography.

So I bought a new hard drive. Unfortunately it came with absolutely nothing to mount it, even though it should have. Oh well, these things happen and I made use of what I had in the flat to mount it in my computer. In this case I used poster putty and cardboard.

Don’t knock it. It worked. As a matter of fact, when I sold the computer a year or so later the hard drive was still in there and working just fine, thank you very much.

Since then, I’ve had a real appreciation for people who do technologically cool things with simple materials. I’ve seen some really impressive stuff, but this iPhone based document scanner made completely out of cardboard is undoubtedly the best so far. Sure, you wouldn’t want to scan a whole book with it, but a couple of papers for class or work that you might need to access later? Yeah, this will do the job.

It fills me with a gleeful energy when I see expensive devices mated with cheap crap to make something wonderful.

Hunter gatherers are known for doing just that, hunting and gathering. No surprise there but we modern folk like to think we’re above that sort of thing now, don’t we? After all, we’re intelligent. We raise food so we don’t have to hunt it. We create farms and grow food so we don’t have to gather it. We do our hunting and gathering at the local grocery and it’s not so nasty and brutish as the caveman.

Still, evolutionary habits die hard and hunter gatherers were gathering more than wild berries and nuts. They gathered information as well and, as it turns out, not much has changed in that arena.

Dr. Tamami Nakano of Todai (Tokyo Daigaku or Tokyo University) recently completed some research indicating that humans subconciously time their blinking. Why? Because we don’t want to miss some vital bit of information. These days, that vital information may only be what happens next during the movie. A hundred thousand years ago, that vital information may have been the sudden movement of a predator or prey. In other words, early human survival depended on the information the eyes gathered, so no blinking during the important parts.

The Anglophile in me gets a little giggle when I read what they used as a test to see how people blink in response to things happening before their eyes. They used Mr. Bean videos.

Obviously I know a lot of librarians and library professionals. It’s a testament to the popularity of tattoos when I can say that at least 90% of them have some kind of ink work. Some designs are very elaborate and took lots of time to make. Others have these little images that you don’t even know are there unless they tell you or show you.

Needless to say, I have no issues with the ink job, especially on librarians. So when I happened across a calendar of tattooed librarians in Texas, you know I stopped to take a look. You should too. Perhaps you should even help a librarian out and buy one.

My contribution to Library Day in the Life.

5:30am Woke up because my son decided it was time to get up. Got up and hopped online for a bit. Checked e-mail, got my daily webcomic fix, and read through my RSS feeds while the kiddo watched the telly.

6:00 The girl awakens and I get her out of her crib. She wants breakfast now and I make breakfast for her and her brother. Do the dishes, start the laundry, do a little general pick up, and dress the girl.

6:30 Checked in on the wife who is dead to the world in bed. Let her sleep and went to play with the kids.

7:30 Wife is up and about and wants to go to the gym. I pack my lunch and work clothes because I have to be at work by 11:00. She eats a quick breakfast and we get the boy dressed and ready.

8:00 We’re just about ready to leave for the gym. I needed to find some workout clothes and the boy took forever to get dressed.

8:15 Left for the gym.

8:30 Dropped the kids off at the gym’s kid care centre and I went to the stationary cycles. This circ jerk needs his cardio, dammit. Did a 30 minute stretch on the cycle. Went and lifted weights after that. Wife went swimming and did her thing. No I’m not a health nut. I’m an asthmatic hemophiliac with a bad back. There’s a decent chance my time on this planet is severely limited, so I’m going to make sure I stay around as long as I can.

10:00 Left the gym. Headed for work. It’s a bit of a drive so we wanted to make sure we left early.

10:25 Arrived at the library. My branch is a green building and, to promote bicycling or walking to work, there is a shower onsite. So I took a quick shower, shaved, and dressed for the day.

10:45 Walked out of the bathroom and got my first issue of the day. Our money handling system occasionally doesn’t talk to our ILS. So we wind up with little weird accounting bits on the patron statuses. I took the print out, went to my desk, brought up the account, and cleared up the issue. Took less than five minutes.

11:00 I’m “officially” here and on the clock, but I’ve already checked my e-mail and responded to something from my boss regarding a programme. My branch has a library band and we’re going to do a performance/workshop for the kiddos in a couple of months. This is going to be awesome.

11:02 Checked the daily schedule my boss prepares. I’m off desk the first hour. Nice, I can get a few things done!

11:15 Sent out an e-mail to my branch co-workers and my friends in the library system. I finished editing the opening sequence for my online documentary series last night, and I hoped they might want to check it out.

11:30 Cleared up some problems with missing items on the request to fill (RTF) list. I’ve been lax all throughout July because so many of the things I declared missing in June turned up. So I figured I’d wait until our summer reading extravaganza was over.

11:39 Answered a question from a co-worker about how Overdrive works with iPods and iPhones. Short answer, not well. Overdrive just does not impress me. Oh well…

11:50 Hopped on Twitter and found out Les Lye died. (aka Barth from You Can’t Do That On Television) Feeling a little bummed out now. Checked my @ replies and brought up one more look at my work e-mail.

11:53 Made coffee. GAWD I need coffee. Time to go process the held items we received from other branches in our system! And you know what that means, it means I sit at a computer in the back of the library, check stuff in and LISTEN TO INTERNET RADIO, BABY!

12:00 Did some troubleshooting and fixing on our self check in and sorting machine. Every now and again, something goes sideways in its software and it need a reboot and some swearing.

12:05 Helping out a new transfer and getting her up to speed on the different things we all do out here. Processing holds is easy and she knows how, so we’re both working on them. That’ll get this crap done much more quickly!

12:06 At my desk with holds cart. Time for tunes. I prefer SomaFM and their Space Station Soma channel. But Groove Salad is pretty awesome. Today, I’ll listen to Mission Control, the channel where they play ambient tunes with back ground audio from NASA mission control, moon launches, and that kinda thing. As an astronomy nerd, it makes me giggle. Got a cup of coffee and fired up the laser gun.

12:50 Finished my cart (I have a slow printer.) Just enough time to refill the coffee and get ready for my first front desk shift of the day in ten minutes.

2:14pm Off the desk and done with training the transferred staff member. She knows this stuff, so basically we just sat and talked for an hour while helping people. Good times. She went home after that and I’m off desk for a couple hours to work on things. First up, an in depth conversation with the Youth Services folks on the merits of The Wiggles and Sam vs Greg.

2:20 Went and took a quick break. Back at…

2:40 Got some items here that were supposedly on hold for us but aren’t but they were flagged as if they were and I’m thinking the only way to educate some people about this little discrepancy involves a game of “Ax, Ax, Who’s Got The Ax?” Got an interlibrary loan that needs to go home too. Tagged them for their destinations and ran them to the shipping/receiving room in back.

2:50 Checked and responded to various administrivial e-mails and tasks

2:57 Damaged item question. A book found on the shelf had a slight bit of dog chewing along the bottom of the spine. Meh, I’ma mark it damaged and let it go back out.

3:08 Checked my news feeds, especially those related to library, science, and information science news.

3:35 Discussed the merits and disadvantages of requesting references with the two folks in charge of volunteers. They decided to ask anyway and use them as needed. Good idea as sometimes you have two really good candidates, but you can only choose one. We flirted with the idea of going Highlander with such a decision, but decided that swords weren’t within our budget.

3:46 Quick blogged a couple things in the midst of taking care of timesheets. Normally my boss handles the timesheets but she’s on holiday this week.

3:56 Announced the all new Hyperlinked History programme on LISNews and Twitter. This show is gonna be a lotta fun to do!

4:00 DINNER!

5:00 Out on the desk for the next three hours. We close at 8, so this could get interesting. Then again Tuesday isn’t our busiest night. It will require coffee however, but that’ll come later.

5:01 It’s later. Getting coffee.

5:07 Helped a patron insert a bullet point into their Word document.

5:10 One of our regular little girls got herself a pair of glasses. She’s very proud and feels very grown up!

5:17 Helped another patron merge their cover letter with resume so they could send them both to an online job site.

5:19 Had a lovely little conversation with one of our more bubbly happy patrons. In a parallel universe, I’m probably sleeping with her.

5:26 My coffee has spawned coffee desire in a co-worker. She’s off to the back to get herself a cup.

5:32 First weird question of the night: “Do you guys use library cards?”

5:43 “Yes, you can return the books in the bookdrop.” Sigh

5:56 Helped a patron with a web question. It is not a series of tubes, but the drive up at the bank is.

6:00 Renewed and accepted payment for a non-res card. Given the status of libraries in the neighbouring counties, some people happily pay US$50.00 a year to access our branch. We love those people if for no other reason than they see us as something valuable.

6:01 Helped a volunteer get signed in.

6:12 Fought with a computer to convert a resume that’s a Word 2007 docx to Word 2003 doc file. Websites which don’t yet accept the .docx format are friggin’ broken. As y’all can see, there’s a lot of job-search related stuff going on these days.

6:33 The night is starting to slow down a bit. People are mainly doing the self serve thing and only asking for our help when they really need it.

6:39 “Nah it’s okay. Sometimes I think those self check out machines were made by some mutant with his own three hands and in the basement of a disused laboratory.”

6:56 “This movie isn’t checking out.”

7:01 Yes, ILL can be a bitch. Here’s a website called the Advanced Book Exchange. Just buy a used copy. See? Twenty bucks. Yeah, it is pretty sweet!

7:05 thump DING! thump DING! thump DING! … Well, at least one self check out in is working like it should.

7:18 Walker, Texas Ranger Season 2, Wanted, and Mamma Mia? Which one is for your wife?

7:26 No honey, let’s not eat the DVD. It’s not a shiny donut.

7:30 Time to go count and balance my cash drawer.

7:43 Wife and kiddos show up to give me a ride home. Daddy’s girl is ecstatic to see me!

7:50 Closing announcement, flashed the lights.

7:55 Final warning.

8:00 Time to bounce!

8:15 Home. Dinked around on the computer, but I’m kinda tired. Gotta good book to read so….

9:00 Bedtime!

Some of you may remember that I created, write, and narrate a podcast called Hyperlinked History. It’s done pretty well, especially when one considers that it’s basically a radio show about history.

Well, when I first started out with this idea, I wanted to make Hyperlinked History a full show, like an online TV programme. At the time (a year ago) that just wasn’t feasible. I lacked equipment and I lacked skills. So I read up, studied, learned a few things, and now I think I’m ready to give this thing a shot. I have a new website specifically for the show and I’ve already uploaded the opening credits as a sort of teaser for the whole thing.

Episode 01 should go online sometime around the end of August, so stay tuned!

(Cross posted on my other blog…)

While a lot of libraries are switching to RFID for item tagging, many of them still use barcodes and most of the libraries using RFID continue to use barcodes.

Barcodes do have a few advantages over RFID. One, they’re cheap. Two, you can make your own. If a barcode gets damaged, you can replace it with a word processor, a barcode font, and a printer. I’ve done this myself on several occasions. A book needs to go out, but the barcode is ripped off. I find out the item number, pop open Word, open up a template I made that approximates our library barcode labels, type in the number, change the number to a barcode font, and print. That’s all it takes. I can’t do that with RFID.

Barcodes all work in the same way. You scan them with some sort of scanner, usually a laser, and the scanner reads the barcode by measureing the light reflected from it. Well, what if you had something similar, but that worked in reverse?

That’s the idea behind Bokode, a new technology in item tagging and identification using an LED and a special lens. The LED is covered by a lens with dark patches on it conforming to a code. To read the Bokode, you simply take a picture of it. Software scans the image, reads the codes, and you get information.

As a circ guy, this makes my nipples rock hard. Imagine a cart full of books and these books have Bokode LEDs in the spines. Take a picture and check the entire cart in. Or set it up so that the picture sets the entire cart to go to a different branch. Go to the shelves and take a picture. Even if a book is out of order, as long as it’s in frame, you’d find it. Take several pictures and in a short amount of time, you’d inventory your entire library with photography.

Sure, RFIDs could do something like this, but imagine, take a picture, and get tonnes of book and item information right now. Hell yes I want to try this. Where can I sign up?

I don’t own an iPhone. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have one of those things but as soon as I heard that Apple established exclusivity with AT&T, there was no way it’d ever happen. See, I freakin’ hate AT&T. I used to have them as a carrier, but at the end of my contract they wanted me to pay another fee to re-up for another two years.

I’ll repeat that.

After two years of service with AT&T, I actually wanted to sign up again and get a new phone. AT&T wanted me to pay more to do that. Unfortunately for them, they did this in a mall, in an AT&T store right down the hall from a Verizon store. I’ve been with Verizon ever since.

So the reason I don’t own an iPhone is because I refuse to go back to AT&T. Here’s yet another reason, among several others, why I won’t even consider it. AT&T has decided to censor its own web access. In their wisdom, because AT&T executives are oh so much smarter than anyone else, they have decided that you do not need access to 4chan. (CLICK THAT LINK AT YOUR RISK. HIGHLY NSFW!)

Now then, whether or not you like websites like 4chan, you cannot deny their influence on the web. LOL Cats? Started at 4chan. Rickrolling? 4chan started that. 4chan is like a warehouse of online culture and memes, it just happens to be a warehouse that stocks deviant sexual acts. We wouldn’t have the whole FAIL concept without 4chan. But AT&T says it’s filthy and depraved and you don’t get to look at because AT&T said so.

Never mind that you never paid AT&T to act as your parent. Don’t bother with the fact that, as an adult, you can make your own decisions. After all, AT&T is God. They have to be God because they have the Jesus phone, right?

According to later reports, AT&T eventually restored access to 4chan and confirmed blocking it because of the “practices of their policy department.” AT&T says they attempted to contact the owners of 4chan. Really? Well, why? Seriously, why do you need to contact the owners of 4chan? (Moot, the admin of 4chan, denies that they ever did and really, I think I believe him.) 4chan has been around for almost six years. People who would never go to 4chan have heard of 4chan. The entire idea of contacting Moot is ludicrous and stupid.

Needless to say, customers are pissed and they should be. It starts to make a customer wonder, what else has AT&T decided I shouldn’t be allowed to see?