June 30, 2004
My mail
American Rifleman
National Geographic
Columbia-from the Knights of Columbus
Mensa Bulletin
Popular Mechanics
Smithsonian
Wired (thrown away it smelled)
All showed up in the mail this week. I get too much crap.
Posted by Matthew at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
Talking head
The idiot that called a rhinocerous a rhino-serious on TV a few weeks ago just used the word microsm.
Apparently a microsm is a smaller group that represents a larger group in terms of diversity. A group of Iraqi-Americans (apparently that is now a politically correct term) met at a nearby hotel to celebrate the hand over of power to their civilian government. The journalist (journalist my arse) talked about the microsm of Iraq at the hotel because various flavors of Islam and other religions were represented.
Microsm, rhino-serious I certainly am glad I don't get my news solely from local TV news.
I guess J school is a microcosm of the US.
Posted by Matthew at 11:04 PM | Comments (1)
June 27, 2004
I hate traffic!
I went to ALA Saturday. I missed the meeting I wanted to attend; I-4 was a parking lot. However I did make it to the Florida State University School of Information Studies booth.
I did manage to make it around to about half of the exhibits as well. I really like the publishers’ exhibits and the Mexican and Spanish publishers exhibits had some great stuff. I wanted to load up the car with stuff. I could certainly do Spanish language collection development for a living.
One of the publishers was giving out free copies of the Qur’an. I have been meaning to get an English translation of the Qur’an for some time now but it never got to the top of my list. Now I have a free copy! The publisher is Tahrike Tarsile Qur’am Inc. . Now I just need to make time to read in.
So Sunday I have some other meetings I want to go to and I’ll be manning the FSU booth in the afternoon. Then FSU has a reception for our retiring dean and then I get to watch the duck parade at the Peabody.
I have a wonderful idea for research. I have noticed what appears to be a greater number of red haired people at the ALA annual than the general population. Now being a great fan of ruby haired lasses I think this would be a most interesting undertaking. The end product would be useless, but what fun the mechanics of the study would be.
Posted by Matthew at 07:27 AM | Comments (2)
Public school graduates, what a fine crop we have.
Random crap:
Ignorant and unaware is how most of the people I have worked with go through life. Some places it has been 51% some 99%. The only exception is hospitals where I find the vast majority people are with the program.
I think we have become a society that values self-esteem more than competence. We seem to care how people, especially children feel about themselves rather than if they have the sense God gave a snail. As long as I hold myself in high regard I’m sure others will too…until they realize that I am a complete dolt.
A fantastic work by Kruger and Dunning, Unskilled and Unaware sums it up. People in the lower quarter think they are smarter than almost two thirds of us. They lack the skills to know why they don’t know.
If we keep up this feel good education in our schools then we are going to have more and more people who are less and less able to function in society. A great hue and cry from the teachers union locally is that teachers must teach students to pass a state mandated test, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The teachers complain that they can’t teach students what they need to know because they are too busy teaching them to pass a test that evaluates basic skills in reading, comprehension, mathematics, spelling and grammar. This perplexes me, aren’t students being prepared for the real test? Life.
It is because of the failure to teach the basics needed to get through the day that the teen aged McDonald’s cashier asks if I “have the penny” when my total is $3.49. The penny for what? So you can give me $1.52 in change.
Teachers should be teaching the basics, and students should be allowed to fail. Failure is as much a part of life as success. It really does not matter how the students feel about it failure sucks. Get up, dust yourself off and move on.
It is all well and good to have a high school graduate who feels just dandy about himself, but if he is not literate and numerate then he will soon lose that wonderful feeling as he battles incompetence and unemployment. On a brighter note, service jobs can never be moved offshore. Someone local will always have to cook my hamburger and change my car’s oil. Unfortunately I must assume it is hard to raise a family on wages that those professions pay.
So teachers need to stop whining that they are ‘teaching to the test’ the test is life. If your students can’t pass these standardized tests they can’t survive in the workaday world.
Posted by Matthew at 04:07 AM | Comments (2)
June 23, 2004
92 million AOL users. Lord save us.
Some goofball sold the complete list of AOL screen names to spammers. 92 million of them.
Wow, 92 million AOL accounts, of course not all of them are active, but I wonder how many are active. Some of the people with whom I have discussed this feel that anyone who uses AOL deserves to get spammed. I really can't understand why people use AOL; I'll admit I used it for a month or 3 when it came free with something I bought - a scanner I think. This was quite some time ago, the early or mid 90's when I was still using dial up. I remember AOL downloading 'graphical updates' (there is no such word as graphical) over dial up. That's why I ditched it soon thereafter. I couldn't stand to be tied to a single browser.
So while traveling the state today listening to the radio there was a program called the troubleshooter with Tom Martino. I highly recommend it if you want bad advice. Someone called because their AOL screen name had been used to charge things to their debit card. (I can't make this stuff up.) Then someone was using their AOL screen name to instant message them and discuss personal things and even knew the names and addresses of their neighbors. Tom Martino the show host came up with the brilliant advice that AOL has five screen names per account and since the person had personal information about them it must be someone they know. He told them to file a police report for harassment.
Lets look at this again:
1) They have your AOL screen name
2) They have your AOL password to use AIM
3) They have your credit card number and have ordered stuff
4) They have looked up your neighbor’s names and addresses
5) They are giving you a hard time on AIM using your other screen names.
Can anyone say phishing? Tom Martino the troubleshooter and his staff never mentioned this.
Perhaps people who use AOL do deserve to get spam.
The troubleshooter's other advice was nonsense as well, he says Travelocity arbitrarily changes flight times and that is why he and his staff never use Travelocity. Of course the person who called in to complain that their flight times had 'changed' noted that they did not read the confirmation email but only glanced at it. He also considers collectible items kept in a safety deposit box liquid investments.
What a wonderful country it is in which we live. Anyone is free to dispense advice. Who needs professionals; doctors, lawyers, accountants, librarians? Just call a radio show, or watch TV.
Posted by Matthew at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
Beheading & cowards
Several thoughts:
1) Beheading is too nice a term. Murder is more appropriate. Why do the cowards that hide behind balaclavas and towels execute people as a political statement? I make political statements by putting stickers on my car and working for a particular cause or person.
I am angered by these killings. I can almost understand why these terrorists (the media should stop calling them militants, militants have a just cause) would kill Americans, but killing a South Korean man shows their inhumanity.
2) Why do you cowards hide your identities? Why do you use the masks and scarves? Are you so ashamed of Islam, so ashamed of your actions, so ashamed of what your friends and family would think of you that you have to hide behind a piece of cloth? Are you too afraid to publicly state your beliefs? Even the homicide bombers have more self respect than you. My cursory review of the Koran does not mention hiding, nor cowards. You are the most contemptible people on the face of the Earth. You are not following your religion, you are not fighting for a cause, and you are self absorbed, egotistical animals. You are not fit to clean the droppings from my cat's litter box. Disagree with me? come on over you spineless murderers.
3) If you are American hundreds of millions of people hate you simply because of where you were born. Hundreds of thousands wish you dead, and hundreds of these fine citizens of the world would kill you if they had an opportunity. How are you going to change your life? Me, I'm not making any changes. I'm still traveling and still working outside the US. If you want to kill me because of my heritage or beliefs feel free to try but I won't go quietly and I won't willfully submit. You have demonstrated your barbarism so I'll gladly bite off your nose and gouge out your eyes before I let you cut off my head.
4) Progressive, liberal? Think you have a better idea? Think we have any option but to aggressively combat terrorists and murders such as these- the same terrorists who killed thousands in New York?
5) I have Islamic friends and they are embarrassed by these events. One of my friends has even shaved off his beard and colored his hair blonde so as not to look Arabic. There are plenty of fine Muslims in the world, far more than the terrorists, homicide bombers and Arafat. It is incumbent on them to rein in their fellow Muslims. The longer this nonsense continues the less I think of their faith. If you want me to respect your faith, you need to control the extremists.
Posted by Matthew at 08:05 AM | Comments (1)
Book recommendation
I recommend Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. I ordered it from Easons in Ireland before it was published in the States. I suggest everyone order from there. They even have the Clinton book, although I am not rushing out to get it. If you can't order from Easons then go to a local independent bookstore. Barnes & Ignoble does not need your money and the locals do.
Remember if you do order from Ireland the Data Protection Act is quite strict. You will not be spammed nor have your information sold off. The penalty in Ireland for misuse of personal data is quite severe.
Posted by Matthew at 02:11 AM | Comments (3)
American Library Association Orlando annual
Well I am getting ready for the ALA meeting in Orlando. I will be driving up from Clearwater a few days and I will be staying at the Peabody (it has ducks in the fountain and a daily duck parade- seeing that I like animals more than people it was an easy choice).
Michael Moore's film StolenFromRayBradbury 9/11 is being shown for $10 with the money going to the ALA for scholarships of some sort for library students. While I have no problem giving ten bucks to the ALA for scholarships I really can't bear to see this film. I wonder how many seats there are. I could buy the tickets and give them to members of the NRA and the GOP...
The ALA is not by any stretch of the imagination a conservative or right-wing organization. In fact librarians are by and large 'progressives' as they seem to wish to be called. Liberal is another term but some consider that pejorative. Not that I have not known some librarians that were liberals for whom I have great respect and admiration, but I generally don't agree with their political point of view. Librarians have the ability to shape public opinion and it is important that they stay neutral when dealing with patrons, and I trust that their professional practice is indeed politically un-influenced. Their personal lives are separate from their professional lives, at least for the librarians I know. (This is not entirely true, librarians as a whole tend to believe in freedom: freedom to read what we want, freedom to publish what we want, and freedom to think as we wish. I guess that is political since they are jailing private librarians in Cuba. The ALA has not lodged a formal protest to this, but I faxed Fidel.)
Anyway, I am off to the ALA meeting this weekend. I was going to use it primarily for networking- finding a full time permanent library position. I am working at my Library School's (Florida State University School of Information Studies)[Yes it is a Masters degree to be a librarian for those of you unfamiliar with the program.] booth. Stop by if you want I think it is 1135 at the Orlando convention center. This week people keep calling me for interviews. I have no idea why really, I have been sending résumés out for months and getting 'thanks but no thanks letters' and interviews at a ratio of 1 : 50. Within the last 2 weeks I have sent 7 résumés out and 5 people want to interview me. I'm not sure why, but why complain.
So, off to the ALA I go. I hope no one beats me up.
Posted by Matthew at 01:32 AM | Comments (0)
MovableType
Well I installed Movable Type. It only took about 30 minutes. It would have taken 15 minutes if I did not screw up capitalizing MT (vs. mt). Then again it would have take 10 minutes if I could chmod correctly the first time around.
Well, we will see how this works, if this works. Oddly enough people seem to like my rants, although I have tempered them somewhat as I grow older. By the time I am 128 I should be fairly laid back.
Posted by Matthew at 01:08 AM | Comments (1)