“Don’t photograph people without their permission.
This is common etiquette in any public place, but it’s especially sensitive when so much skin is involved. Just because someone is comfortable enough to let it all hang out doesn’t mean they don’t value their privacy. Take a quick photo for posterity if you must—of yourself, or of the beach itself—but then put your phone away and enjoy the view in the flesh.”
“In college dorm rooms in the 1970s and ’80s, High Times magazine was famous for the same reason Playboy was: its centerfolds.
Where Playboy delivered brazenly exposed totalities, the centerfolds in High Times depicted feats of horticulture: close-up photographs of plump marijuana plants and glistening buds. Hang a High Times centerfold on your wall, acquire a few Grateful Dead concert tapes, tie-dye a T-shirt and you could plausibly reinvent yourself as a hippie.”
“The Pike Place Market Digital Collection courtesy of the Seattle Public Library brings nearly 500 items from the 1920s to the 1980s right to our fingertips.”
“Perhaps the most famous independent bookstore in the world, Shakespeare and Company can feel like something of a literary utopia, where money takes a backseat and generations of writers—Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, William Styron, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, among others—have found a Paris home. Chronicling the life of its late owner, the eccentric, irascible, and visionary George Whitman, Bruce Handy meets Shakespeare’s greatest asset in the age of Amazon: Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia.”
“UNC-Chapel Hill students who want to visit the Great Barrier Reef, the Louvre, or even the moon can now do so without leaving campus.
Thanks to a new Liquid Galaxy display system on the second floor of Davis Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, visitors can call up any Google Earth destination in a surround-screen immersive environment.
The installation, made up of seven screens joined in a semi-circle, invites exploration with a high-resolution display and intuitive navigation. The Library knows of no other Liquid Galaxy in North Carolina.
“From the moment the installer closed his tool box, students have been lining up non-stop to try the screens,” said Amanda Henley, one of the Library’s two Geographic Information Systems librarians.”
“When Amazon introduced an updated version of its flagship Kindle Paperwhite last year, it took the easy way out — after all, tweaked internals, improved software and slightly better lighting do not a thrilling e-reader make. The 2013 Paperwhite wasn’t bad by any stretch, just a bit boring. Now, a year later, Amazon has put together a reader that’s anything but. Say hello to the Kindle Voyage.”
“TiVo’s Winter Update nears release. And, as you can see from the pic above, it’s headlined by mobile streaming enhancements along with the previously disclosed Amazon and Vudu apps. While Vudu and its Ultraviolet library tie-in an entirely new (and welcome) TiVo offering, Amazon Instant is a long overdue update that brings the full fledged streaming app experience… and finally includes access to oodles of “free” Prime content.”
“Older men like Playboy’s Hugh Hefner and actor Michael Douglas have sung the praises of Viagra, but now scientists say the erectile dysfunction pill is not only good for your sex life — it’s good for your heart.
In the bedroom, Viagra allows greater blood flow to the penis. But in the heart, the “little blue pill” can prevent heart muscle thickening and early-stage heart failure, according to research published today in the open access journal BMC Medicine.”
viagra is a commercial produced medicine containing Sildenafil citrate, which is used to treat male erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
DrWeb adds.. yes, that’s how it works. Get a subpoena or search warrant, from a court or judge. Police don’t get private personal information without it.
“The True American Diner is a casual sit-down restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner—all three meals—all day, often for all twenty-four hours of it. Time has no meaning in the presence of eggs, steak and hash browns. Portions are large but not obscene; sides are available with nearly everything. The food is sturdy and simple, a few strong flavors and techniques. Nothing in a True American Diner couldn’t be made by a moderately skilled cook in their own kitchen: corned beef hash, club sandwiches, and a variety of scrambles.”
“When the Ebola outbreak in West Africa began to escalate a few months ago, the writer Richard Preston was working on a children’s fantasy novel. He dropped that and called David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. “I said, ‘I’ve got to get back to Ebola,’ ” Mr. Preston said. “I’ve got to cover this.”
Mr. Preston first incited public fears about Ebola 20 years ago with “The Hot Zone,” his thrillerlike narrative that details the virus’s origins and scientists’ struggle to understand and stop it. The book, which has sold 3.5 million copies, could perhaps be classified as dystopian nonfiction.”
“There’s a scene in the movie “Her,” a love story between a lonely writer and an artificially intelligent software program, that shows dozens of people riding the subway, deeply absorbed in their smartphones, oblivious to the world around them. They all seem much more comfortable interacting with their devices than with one another. That scene was disturbingly familiar — and seeing it from afar cast it in an unsettling light.”
“It was as if the Giants had been here before. Which they had. The Giants do not always make the playoffs, but when they do, celebrations ensue, and now they are trying to win their third World Series in five years.”
“ESCONDIDO — The owner of the defunct Escondido Country Club has spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars supporting Proposition H, the ballot initiative that would allow him to build up to 430 homes where a decaying golf course now sits.”
“Ebola, in full Ebola virus disease, formerly called Ebola hemorrhagic fever, contagious disease caused by a virus of the family Filoviridae that is responsible for a severe and often fatal viral hemorrhagic fever; outbreaks in primates, including gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans, and domestic pigs have been recorded. The disease is characterized by extreme fever, rash, and profuse hemorrhaging. In humans, certain ebolaviruses can cause fatality in 50 to 90 percent of cases.”
“This year, the Museum of London welcomes an exciting new exhibition, delving into the mind of the world’s most famous fictional detective; Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes – London’s first on the detective since 1951. Going beyond film and fiction, visitors to the museum will be transported to the real Victorian London – the backdrop for many of Conan Doyle’s stories. Here are just some of the early photography, paintings, artefacts as well as more recent props on display to see. The exhibition opens to the public on Friday 17 October, at the Museum of London.”
“San Diego County Library (SDCL) is the proud winner of a 2014 Digital Government Achievement Award. This national award is given out by e.Republic’s Center for Digital Government and honors SDCL’s innovative use of self-service technology in providing library services to the public. The library technology emphasized in the award includes SDCL’s book sorters, mobile app, and the 24/7 Library To Go kiosks.”
“Drought conditions will likely ease in much of the West this winter, but not in most of California, according to a new climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The report, released Thursday, indicates that conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which include a developing El Niño weather pattern, may prompt above-average rainfall for the southern third of California over the next three months.”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“In 2011 Samsung unveiled a smartphone so big it looked as if it must have been a joke, a mistake or a turn toward conceptual art.
With a screen measuring 5.3 inches diagonally, the device, the Galaxy Note, was met with instant and slightly unhinged criticism.
A writer for the Boy Genius Report, an industry blog, called the Note “the most useless phone I’ve ever used,” adding, “You will look stupid talking on it, people will laugh at you, and you’ll be unhappy if you buy it.”
“What if the rise in marijuana smoking prompted by legalization brings more than just tolerable negative side effects? What if it is actually good for public health?”
“In the infamous 1930s propaganda film Reefer Madness, some innocent teenagers’ experimentation with marijuana leads to a hit-and-run, an attempted rape, hallucinations, an accidental shooting, suicide, and insanity. The drama may be dialed down these days, but paranoia-stoking scare tactics when it comes to pot have not exactly disappeared: when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd tried a marijuana-infused candy bar in a Denver hotel room in June, she wrote that she “lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours.” The column became its own kind of instant camp classic.”
English: one high-quality “bud ” nugget of marijuana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“In the Hidden Language, Nat Towsen interviews an insider of a particular subculture in order to examine the terms and phrases created by that subculture to serve its own needs. This is language innate to an insider and incomprehensible, if not invisible, to an outsider.
Jeff Teller is a bit hoarse on Monday afternoon, though he speaks fluidly, with a genial familiarity. Tuesday is his one day off from working 13 or more hours a day as the head chef at M. Wells Steakhouse in Queens, New York, where running an open kitchen visible to diners keeps him in the spotlight.”
“Nothing embodies classic Americana quite like small towns. Here are destinations with populations under 30,000 that have a vibrancy of their own and year-round appeal. The list is made up of detour-worthy towns all over the country that have strong cultural offerings or great outdoor adventures — in addition to standout dining and lodging options.”
“We have exciting news to share! New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand will be in San Diego to discuss her extraordinary memoir, Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World, in a conversation moderated by attorneys Johanna Schiavoni and Sarah Boot. In this memoir, Senator Gillibrand shares her personal journey in public service and galvanizes women to reach beyond their busy lives and make a meaningful difference in the world.”
“To enhance the law library user experience, we are creating Libguides on popular legal topics. Libguide is a free online content management system that allows us to share information with you online. You may conveniently access Libguides from the comfort of your home or office.”
“If you’re concerned about Google neglecting Chromecast lately, take heart: The tech giant has not forsaken the $35 TV stick. On the contrary, this week the company finally delivered on Backdrop, a new feature it first promised at the Google I/O developer conference last June.”
English: Google Logo officially released on May 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Libraries, archives, and museums have vast numbers of resources within their four walls “that the Web can not see or use,” according to the press release introducing the Libhub Initiative. This project, which had its official launch at the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual conference this summer, aims to raise the web visibility of libraries’ resources by allowing search engines to see inside a library to the item level.
Libraries “need to speak in a way the Web can see and represent consistently. Our users live on the web and rely on the Web to deliver information resources, yet the lack of access to harvestable library data and a consistent way to understand that information has removed libraries from view of Web users,” the site’s FAQ section states. This effort will allow the Googles of the world to harvest data from library catalogs and make sense of their contents.”
“Michael Benson tells the thrilling story of the discovery and description of the universe in a new way. Selecting artful and profound illustrations and maps, many hidden away in the world’s great science libraries and virtually unknown today, he chronicles more than 1,000 years of humanity’s ever-expanding understanding of the size and shape of space itself.”
“One of the District’s least highlighted gems is getting some national love. Tuesday, The Aspen Institute issued a report called “Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries.” The document is the work of the institute’s Communications and Society Program, which put together the Dialogue on Public Libraries to study how the facilities can be better equipped to deal with a rapidly changing information world. As it turns out, the District is doing pretty well in that regard.”
“Chuck Yeager, byname of Charles Elwood Yeager (born February 13, 1923, Myra, West Virginia, U.S.), American test pilot and U.S. Air Force officer who was the first man to exceed the speed of sound in flight.”
“The real-estate website Movoto says that San Diego’s 92121 ZIP code is not only the best one in the county, but the sixth best out of 28,061 in the United States.”
“Now technology is of course changing how Americans read and in many ways it is opening up exciting new avenues for learning,” Clinton said. “We don’t have enough research, but I think what we are learning is that the earliest years before a child is 2, televisions, iPads and screens are no substitute for actual parent-child interactions like talking, reading and singing.”
“Once again, Christina Morua found herself in the South Dade library longer than she would like on a school night. The 28-year-old single mom sat in the bustling children’s section on a recent Thursday, waiting for her fourth-grader to get on a computer and start some online math homework.
“We don’t have any Internet at home,” Morua said as her oldest, 11-year-old Abel, clicked through an assignment on a library laptop while Alina, 9, waited for her turn at a desktop. “We just reserved a computer. We have to wait 70 minutes. He got one of the last laptops.” ”
“The state of Hawaii, the city of Washington, D.C., and Oakland County, Mich., are home to the best government websites in the nation. These sites topped the 2014 Best of the Web awards, a joint project of Government Technology and e.Republic’s Center for Digital Government, which highlights the public sector’s evolving capabilities on the Web. Winners were announced Oct. 7.”
“J.J. Abrams traces his love for the unseen mystery –- a passion that’s evident in his films and TV shows, including Cloverfield, Lost and Alias — back to its magical beginnings.”
“Robots can help build cars, they can vacuum your floor, they can even engage in galactic war . . . well, maybe eventually they can do that. But can you check one out at a local library?
“From a Canadian bookshop opened by Alice Munro in the 1960s to one in the island of Santorini started by drunk Oxford students, some of the world’s most exotic booksellers feature in The Bookshop Book, published as part of a UK-wide Books are My Bag campaign to support the bookselling industry in the run-up to Christmas. Its author Jen Campbell introduces some of the finest.”
“More than four decades ago, Alice Waters, a pioneer of farm-fresh California cuisine, opened Chez Panisse in a jewel-box Craftsman-style building just north of downtown Berkeley. Other outstanding food purveyors followed, but this being a university town, Berkeley’s culinary landscape remained heavily colonized by frozen yogurt vendors and cheap burrito and ramen joints.”
