“From places to go for kindly advice to havens of hush, libraries play a special role in cultural life. With councils up and down the country sharpening the axe, Book Week Scotland has launched a campaign to get readers to write love letters to their favourite temple of reading. Wherever you are in the world, share your memories with us.”
via Love letters to libraries: share your tribute to your favourite | Books | The Guardian.
“If we can end the elitism and teach more science fiction to teenagers and young adults, we can change the world. This assertion, while bold, may not be hyperbolic.When asked why she starting writing science fiction, the late legendary writer and MacArthur Grant winner Octavia Butler once told Charlie Rose, “Because there are no closed doors, no walls.”
Sci-fi has a reputation for being a clubhouse for white-boy nerds, but for Butler, an African American woman from Southern California who endured a series of degrading low-wage jobs while developing her voice as a writer, reading and writing science fiction actually enabled her to transcend racism and sexism.
Science fiction-by letting her imagine and create new worlds on the page-was a conduit to feelings of citizenship.”
via Why science fiction matters – Vox.
“Glen A. Larson, the wildly successful television writer-producer whose enviable track record includes Quincy M.E., Magnum, P.I., Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and The Fall Guy, has died. He was 77.
Larson, a singer in the 1950s clean-cut pop group The Four Preps who went on to compose many of the theme songs for his TV shows, died Friday night of esophageal cancer at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, his son, James, told The Hollywood Reporter.”
via Glen A. Larson, Creator of TV’s ‘Quincy M.E.,’ ‘Magnum, P.I.’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ Dies at 77.
“With an expanded convention center now a derailed dream, San Diego’s hospitality industry is stepping up its efforts to entice its most beloved convention, Comic-Con, to stay in town through 2018.
Well aware that rival cities like Anaheim and Los Angeles still have a keen interest in luring a convention of Comic-Con’s size and worldwide stature away from San Diego, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is appealing to local hoteliers to hold the line on future room rates during the July meeting when demand for lodging is the highest all year and rooms the costliest.”
“Thomas Lean, interviewer for An Oral History of British Science, writes:
This week the The Imitation Game, staring Benedict Cumberbatch as mathematician, logician, wartime codebreaker, and computer scientist Alan Turing, is released in British cinemas. Recognised as one of the fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence, Turing’s mathematics research in the 1930s led him to the concept of the Universal Turing Machine, an idea which predicted the ability of stored program computers to perform any task they were programmed to do. He spent the Second World War working on ultra top secret code-breaking at Bletchley Park, devising the Turing-Welchman Bombe, to automate part of the process of decrypting German codes. Postwar he joined the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) where he designed one of the first stored program computers, the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE).”
via Computer Memories of Alan Turing – Sound and vision blog.
The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History.
Great history site for the Manhattan Project.. try and catch the miniseries on WGN if you can.. well done series… http://wgnamerica.com/shows/manhattan
Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton Homepage.
A very special observatory… read about its history, telescopes, and more…
“DEL MAR — Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner California Chrome likely will race at Del Mar on Nov. 29, according to his trainer Art Sherman, in a race that could affect the outcome of Eclipse Award voting for Horse of the Year and top 3-year-old.
Sherman said Wednesday that he nominated the 3-year-old son of Lucky Pulpit to the Grade I Hollywood Derby at 1 1/8 miles on the turf course for 3-year-olds that day, and the Grade III, $200,000 Native Diver at 1 1/8 miles on the Polytrack against older horses on the same card. Sherman said he prefers to run California Chrome on the turf.”
via California Chrome to run at Del Mar Nov. 29 | UTSanDiego.com.
“DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO — San Diego hired Misty Jones this week to lead its library system into a future that will include remodeling older branches and coping with major changes in technology that face libraries around the world.
Jones, 41, came to San Diego just over two years ago from South Carolina to help plan and coordinate the opening of the $185 million downtown central library, a nine-story building that’s been popular since opening last fall near Petco Park.
She was named interim library director in July, when Deborah Barrow retired after six years at the helm of the 36-branch system.”
via Misty Jones taking over San Diego’s 36-branch library system | UTSanDiego.com.
“California has become the first state to mandate open access for the products of some taxpayer-funded research. On September 29 Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act, coauthored by Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R–Palm Desert) and Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D–Los Angeles). AB 609, as the bill is known, ensures that those who stand to benefit most from state-funded research, such as healthcare providers, students and professors, biotech professionals, and anyone with an interest in the field, will have access to current research results free of charge. Beginning January 1, 2015, the products of more than $200 million in annual research paid for by California taxpayers will be freely available—with some restrictions: AB 609 applies only to research funded by the Department of Public Health.”
via AB 609: California Leads on Open Access to Publicly Funded Research.
“The interim director of the city of San Diego’s library system took the job on a permanent basis Tuesday, according to Mayor Kevin Faulconer.”
via San Diego Public Library System Gets New Director – Times of San Diego.
“LIKE millions of retirees who assumed their companies had taken care of them, Ronald Tussey never thought that his retirement plan might be flawed. He trusted his company so much he kept his money in his 401(k) long after he left.
Having worked as an engineer for 37 years, ultimately at ABB Inc., where he retired 11 years ago, Mr. Tussey said he never paid much attention to the fees in his retirement plan and “assumed the company was looking out for my best interests.”
But after seeing a television program on the negative impact that 401(k) expenses can have on retirement savings, he hired a lawyer, who filed a class-action lawsuit in 2006 against ABB and plan administrators.”
via Finding, and Battling, Hidden Costs of 401(k) Plans – NYTimes.com.
“History of Veterans Day
World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France.
Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. This photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect.”
via History of Veterans Day – Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs.
“Alternate title: Armistice Day
Veterans Day, in the United States, national holiday (November 11) honouring veterans of the armed forces and those killed in the country’s wars. The observance originated in 1919 on the first anniversary of the 1918 armistice that ended World War I and was known as Armistice Day. It was commemorated in 1921 with the burial of an unknown soldier from World War I at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Other countries that had lost soldiers in the conflict, such as Italy and Portugal, conducted similar ceremonies that year. The previous year, unknown soldiers had been interred at Westminster Abbey in London, Eng., and at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.”
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/129283527
via Veterans Day (holiday) — Encyclopedia Britannica.
“President Obama had a clear message for the FCC this morning: The future of the internet shouldn’t be bought.
In an open letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the agency’s four commissioners, President Obama urged the commission to reject a proposed “fast lane” for the Internet that had been lobbied for by cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable. That “fast lane” would artificially slow traffic to smaller or competing websites, which would allow ISPs to create an extrajudicial toll to have equal speech on the web.
“Simply put,” he wrote. “No service should be stuck in a ‘slow lane’ because it does not pay a fee.” ”
via The President May Have Just Saved an Open and Fair Internet – Esquire.
“On Tuesday, fans get first crack at a DVD and Blu-ray set containing all three seasons of Sherlock, with outtakes, interviews, new commentaries and even collectible resin mini-busts, depicting the show’s two leading men.
Once fans devour this material, they’ll discover Sherlock’s last season gave more information than ever about the mysterious detective’s history — details Cumberbatch recites in our interview with the rapid-fire cadence from one of Sherlock’s famous speeches filled with deductions.
“You find out about Sherlock’s background,” the actor says. “You find out that he comes from a truly stable home. It was a gesture in the first episode, but you see that in practice in the third. You see that, as a boy he was deeply insecure — it begins as a taunt [from his older brother, Mycroft] … and that comes back to haunt him and he feels like a child. He’s reduced to feeling like a child.” ”
via ‘Sherlock’ Star Benedict Cumberbatch: Show’s Last Season ‘Really Freudian’ : NPR.
“Berlin Wall, German Berliner Mauer, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany, including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals.”
via Berlin Wall (wall, Berlin, Germany) — Encyclopedia Britannica.
“A yellowing piece of parchment covered in Latin, the Magna Carta now on view at the Library of Congress is as charming as a tax form. Hey, no one ever said cornerstones of constitutional law and civil liberty had to be pretty.
Magna Carta (experts drop the preceding “the”) got off to a rough start. When King John signed the “Great Charter” in 1215, on a field near London, he had no intention of appeasing its authors, barons who chafed at too-high taxes. But because they’d captured London, the king had no choice, says Nathan Dorn, curator of “Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor,” a new exhibit at the Library of Congress.”
“Like the great space epics of the past, Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” distills terrestrial anxieties and aspirations into a potent pop parable, a mirror of the mood down here on Earth. Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” blended the technological awe of the Apollo era with the trippy hopes and terrors of the Age of Aquarius. George Lucas’s first “Star Wars” trilogy, set not in the speculative future but in the imaginary past, answered the malaise of the ’70s with swashbuckling nostalgia. “Interstellar,” full of visual dazzle, thematic ambition, geek bait and corn (including the literal kind), is a sweeping, futuristic adventure driven by grief, dread and regret.”
Some minor spoilers in the review, but nothing major. Hope to see the film this weekend…
“In a 1980 essay titled “Why I Live Where I Live,” Walker Percy (who lived in Covington, La.) wrote: “New Orleans may be too seductive for a writer. Known hereabouts as the Big Easy, it may be too easy, too pleasant. Faulkner was charmed to a standstill and didn’t really get going until he returned to Mississippi and invented his county.” In an earlier essay Percy praised the city for its lingering friendliness: “If you fall ill on the streets of New York, people grumble about having to step over you or around you. In New Orleans there is still a chance, diminishing perhaps, that somebody will drag you into the neighborhood bar and pay the innkeeper for a shot of Early Times.” ”
via The Big Easy – NYTimes.com.
“Welcome. Here you can listen in on William Faulkner’s sessions with audiences at the University of Virginia in 1957 and 1958, during his two terms as UVA’s first Writer-in-Residence. Under CONTEXTS you’ll find an introduction to this archive as well as essays, news articles, photographs and other materials to provide backgrounds to the writer, the times and the place. BROWSE allows you to read and play transcripts of those sessions, one tape recording or one question&answer at a time. Use SEARCH if you want to hear something in particular, such as Faulkner’s comments on one of his works or on writing or on the Civil Rights movement of that time.”
via Faulkner at Virginia.
“The exploration of space stands as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. While history has hailed the men and women who reached the cosmos, and those who helped them get there, much of the infrastructure that sent them skyward lies forgotten and dilapidated. Roland Miller has spent nearly half his life chronicling these landmarks before they are lost forever.”
via Fascinating Photos of NASA’s Abandoned Launch Sites | WIRED.
“Information wants to be free. At least that’s what Internet activists and many consumers say in support of free online content.
But when we stream a new film online or listen to music on Spotify, we don’t always consider — or care about — the artists who are losing out.”
via Picking The Locks: Redefining Copyright Law In The Digital Age : NPR.
“McDevitt’s work is a counter to all the apocalypses and dystopias so prevalent in science fiction these days. McDevitt holds out hope for humanity’s future, and sees our time as the great time of scientific and technological progress. By setting his story in the far future, McDevitt is able to create in the twenty-first century reader nostalgia for our own time and all its accomplishments. Reading Coming Home revitalizes proper pride in humanity – what it has accomplished today and what it will design, do, and discover tomorrow.
I love reading McDevitt. Every chance I get I devour one of his novels. They are quick but entertaining reads, wonderful for a weekend trip or snuggling up with by a fire. They are SF in the classic mold. The Alex Benedict novels, in particular, are an encomium both to history and the future wrapped gently in the blanket of a heartwarming tale of friendship and fun-filled adventure.
PS: Long-time readers of McDevitt will also appreciate the mention of Priscilla Hutchins that appears in this novel.”
via BOOK REVIEW: Coming Home by Jack McDevitt – SF Signal.
“SEATTLE — Few golden geese in technology have survived as long as Office has for Microsoft.
The suite of applications that includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, first released in 1990, generated nearly a third of Microsoft’s revenue during its last fiscal year — about $26 billion of $87 billion in total. By some estimates, the software accounted for an even higher portion of the company’s gross profits.”
via Microsoft Changes Tack, Making Office Suite Free on Mobile – NYTimes.com.
“TNT is returning to the world of its hit The Librarian franchise with a brand new series from Electric Entertainment and executive producers Dean Devlin, John Rogers and Marc Roskin. Rebecca Romijn (X-Men), Christian Kane (“Leverage,” “Angel”), Lindy Booth (Dawn of the Dead, The Philanthropist) and John Kim (Neighbors, The Pacific) star in the series as the newest protectors of the world’s mystical treasures, with Emmy winner John Larroquette (“Night Court,” Deception) as their reluctant caretaker. Noah Wyle (“Falling Skies,” “ER”) serves as executive producer and recurs as Flynn Carsen, the role he played in TNT’s movie trilogy. Also reprising their roles from the movies will be guest stars Bob Newhart (“The Big Bang Theory,” “The Bob Newhart Show”) and Jane Curtin (“Kate & Allie,” “3rd Rock from the Sun”). Today, “The Librarians” has debuted a new trailer, which you can check out in the player below.”
via TNT Debuts a New Trailer for their Upcoming Series The Librarians – ComingSoon.net.
“The smartest students in the United States may not be at the most prestigious university, according to new data.
If we’re made to believe data released by memory and attention stimulating game creator Lumosity, Washington University in St. Louis has the smartest student body, topping the site’s “smartest colleges in America” list.
MIT came in second, with Princeton University, Northwestern University and Carnegie Mellon University rounding out the top five, respectively.”
via Did Your School Make The Cut? Here Are The 50 ‘Smartest Colleges In America’.
“A needle-free Ebola vaccine is getting a lot of attention at a convention taking place this week in San Diego.
The nose spray, which is not yet named, is the latest effort against the Ebola outbreak. So far, it’s showing promising results, according to the vaccine’s creator Maria Croyle.”
via Needle-Free Ebola Vaccine Tested | NBC 7 San Diego.
“On Tuesday, voters in five states considered proposals to significantly expand legal gambling and approved three of them. The two proposals that went down to defeat, in California and Colorado, had something in common: They faced strong opposition campaigns bankrolled by gambling operators in the state that would have competed with the newly authorized gambling.”
via The Strange Case of States’ Addiction to Casinos – NYTimes.com.
“When Star Trek’s Captain Picard presses his communicator badge, he can instantly speak with any member of his crew — even when they’ve beamed down to a planet or a nearby spaceship.
A company called OnBeep has made the Star Trek communicator badge a reality (well, except for the spaceship part). It even looks like the real deal.
Onyx, OnBeep’s communicator, clips to your shirt and connects to your cell phone with Bluetooth. It then lets you add other Onyx users to your network and communicate with them instantly with a press of a button. (They have to press a button to answer.)”
via The Star Trek communicator is real — and it’s now on sale – Nov. 5, 2014.
“It will take nearly $17 million to prolong the life of the historic World War II battleship that has been a floating veterans memorial, living classroom and economic driver for the state for more than 50 years.
Docked across the Cape Fear River from downtown Wilmington, the Battleship North Carolina has been a self-sustaining attraction for veterans, students, tourists and the film industry for decades.
But now, with portions of its steel hull deteriorating – officials say it’s paper-thin in some places – ship supporters across the state are conducting fundraising campaigns to keep the ship from becoming scrap.”
via Statewide fundraiser underway to keep Battleship North Carolina afloat | CharlotteObserver.com.
“Ask me to create my “Top 10 Favorite Sci-Fi Writers” list and I’d probably have a difficult time narrowing that list down. Coming up with my “final ten” would be difficult — who to include and who just didn’t make the list would easily vary from year to year or even decade to decade. But… there are these two. Two authors with titles I find myself reaching for again and again, year after year, reading and re-reading both their new and older stuff. And I’m going to share one of them with you.
His name is Jack McDevitt, and his science fiction short stories and novels are not to be missed.”
via Coming Home – Jack McDevitt’s Latest Alex Benedict Novel – GeekDad.
“It’s official: Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective (and Benedict Cumberbatch’s famous alter ego), is in the public domain.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case brought by Doyle’s estate, which claimed that authors who wanted to publish stories about Holmes needed to pay the estate a licensing fee. This leaves intact a June decision by 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, which held that most of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories are no longer protected by copyright.”
via Sherlock Holmes belongs to us all: Supreme Court declines to hear case – LA Times.
“The future of marijuana hangs in the balance as voters go to the polls on Tuesday.
Residents of Oregon and Alaska will decide whether to follow Colorado and Washington, which in 2012 approved the world’s only regulated markets in the drug. The vote could double the number of states where adults can buy, sell, and consume cannabis—which includes marijuana in all its forms—and set the table for 2016, when at least six more states are expected to decide whether to tax and regulate what President Nixon once called “the scourge of youth.”
Most Americans support plans to legalize marijuana in theory, according to the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. But Tuesday’s pivotal trip to the ballot box is as much a decision about the specific initiatives in Oregon and Alaska as a referendum on the success of those unfolding experiments in Colorado and Washington.”
via Pot at the Polls: Oregon, Alaska Cast Pivotal Votes on Legal Marijuana – NBC News.com.
“Every single day, every single person seems to have a question they need answered. Most of us turn to Google – but not everyone. Some choose to go the human route.
The Seattle Public Library’s Quick Information Center has a staff of 25 people* whose job is to answer your questions, over the phone, in five minutes or less. They’ve been doing this since 1976.
“A kid called up who was doing a school project and he wanted to know the date that fire was invented. If we didn’t know the exact date, just the year was going to be okay,” laughed library associate four, Jon Triesch.
Jon has been manning the QIC phone lines since 1997.
“We still get quite a few calls, where people don’t have access to the technology themselves. We also talk to a lot of people who are kind of finding their way through our society. People like recent immigrants. Even just people who are new to the area here and they don’t know Seattle that well. So they’re trying to figure out how to do certain things that we all take for granted. Like, a lot of people will call up and ask, ‘Who do I call up to get my electricity turned on?'” ”
via Why Google when you can ask the know-it-alls at the Seattle Public Library – Blog – MyNorthwest.com.
“Circadian rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism’s environment.
Our biological clocks drive our circadian rhythms. These internal clocks are groupings of interacting molecules in cells throughout the body. A “master clock” in the brain coordinates all the body clocks so that they are in synch.”
via Cool facts about your biological clock | Human World | EarthSky.
“In November 2013, 310,095 writers embarked on a mission to pen a 50,000-word first draft of a novel in one month. That’s approximately 1,667 words every day for 30 days. The challenge is the crux of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an event that fosters creativity and community among writers of all ages and skill sets. Since its inception in 1999, when only 21 people took part, NaNoWriMo participation has increased exponentially, and the program has grown into a global phenomenon. Libraries have played an important role in that growth, opening their doors to host events throughout the month to help writers hone their craft.
“It’s a natural partnership,” Lissa Staley, public services librarian at Topeka and Shawnee County (Kans.) Public Library (TSCPL), tells American Libraries. “We have everything you need to write a novel.” ”
via A Novel in 30 Days | American Libraries Magazine.
“It’s the $10 trillion question nobody’s talking about. Though candidates are mum and it won’t appear on any ballot Nov. 4, the midterm elections tomorrow could determine how much money savers will have in their pockets when they retire. And by “savers,” we mean nearly 70 percent of American households.
Here’s the issue: Should the Department of Labor expand the list of so-called “fiduciaries,” financial advisers who by law must act in the best interest of retirement savers? Put another way, should financial professionals be required to maximize your gains even if it means a smaller profit for themselves? The issue’s provoked a huge political scrape between consumer advocates and Wall Street lobbyists. And with control of the Senate up for grabs, the White House has postponed any decision, apparently out of fear of losing more votes to conservatives. If Republicans do win control, they could be in a position to overturn any White House decision or perhaps just discourage the White House from moving forward.”
via The fight over protecting retirement savings.
“Few mammals are as unloved as the wolf. Not that the feeling is universal. Some North American Indian tribes traditionally honored the predator as a worthy fellow hunter. Other societies have shown comparable reverence. How can anyone bear a grudge against the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, mythological founders of Rome? Without her, would we have had all that glorious architecture, those inspiring Michelangelo frescoes, Sophia Loren? Still, in popular culture and many a metaphor this animal is far from adored. There it is at the door in hard times, disguising itself in sheep’s clothing, tormenting the likes of Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs.”
via For Gray Wolves, a Success Story Not Without Detractors – NYTimes.com.
“They’re coming out of the vault and into the digital age. In slow but meticulous work at the California State Library in downtown Sacramento, more than 10,000 old sepia-toned 3-D photos – most from the 1800s – are being dusted off and converted to computer-ready images.
Officially known as stereoscopic photos, they were a popular turn-of-the-century parlor activity, shared like postcards and viewed through hand-held viewers that turned the side-by-side double photos into a single 3-D image.
For decades, thousands of the cardboard photos have been sitting in the state library’s archives, viewable only by appointment. Now, they’re being uploaded to a photo sharing site that’s making them available to anyone anywhere.”
via Old becomes new: California State Library digitizes 3-D images from 1800s | The Sacramento Bee.
all things library and life.. from a librarian
