The New Readers

Do you ever wonder how reading print and reading online differ? Click on the above image to enlarge the confusing diagram.

From the New York Times article "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?"

My Portfolio

I wouldn't say that I have necessarily "seen the light," of the participatory web. It's clear that it is a powerful tool to create, communicate and learn with and it is essential for the future of libraries. But I still think it's important to remain critical about issues like privacy, literacy and how the Web is changing the way we think.

Please enjoy my portfolio of work.

Genius of the Shore

Please enjoy Thoreau - Now with links!

Errata: My external style sheet does not work. Does anyone out in the interworld know why?

Please take a look at my code if you've got a moment.

My undying thanks to the wiz who figures this one out.

Addendum: The error in my code has been fixed! Many thanks to my friend Laurie for her sage advice:

Remove the two "style" tags from the CSS sheet, because "an external style sheet ... should not contain any html tags." (http://www.w3schools.com/CSS/css_howto.asp)

"Yay, collaborative coding" indeed.

Rolling up Our Buffaloes

As I dip my fingers (gently) into the sea of computer programming, I have uncovered decades-old frustration linked to grade school math class. I never quite understood the basic math concept--that problems were abstract ways of thinking about moving units around. I always treated arithmetic like it was a passage of poetry I had to commit to memory. I didn't fully understand the foundation. Moving on to more complicated levels of math left me feeling lost and irritated. Because computer programming relies on math to function, similarly it builds on previous algorithms and formulas.

I felt quite frustrated using Google Page Creator because in its effort to be user friendly, it hid all of the html and CSS language. I felt lost because I didn't understand what the program was doing for me.

Inspired by my friend kinaka49, I decided if I were ever going to be able to understand programming, I was going to have to learn how to make a website from scratch like she did. She checked out some books from the library, read a few tutorials from W3C and taught her own damn self. How punk is that? I did the same and under the virtual tutelage of Dave Raggett, I made a simple site using TextEdit. What follows is an excerpt from Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, formatted to recreate the look and feel of an early edition of this work. Confession: I don't find its 19th century look too convincing and I don't expect my readers to either. Baby steps people:

Daxsu's Old-timey "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"

photo from Bold as Love

Drawing a Line Around Your Space

Using this icon on your website says:

1. You are opposed to the use of corporate advertising on blogs.

2. You feel the use of corporate advertising on blogs devalues the medium.

3. You do not accept money in return for advertising space on your blog.

The creators of Ad-Free Blog believe we "live in a culture where advertisers directly influence and in some cases control and create the culture at large." Rejecting ads preserves the credibility of your blog and ensures that you actually believe what you are writing and you are not just selling a product.

Get your icon here. (<-----is this an ad?)

Let's Get Digital, Digital

The digital catalog at The Free Library of Philadelphia "lets you download bestselling audio books & music to your PC anytime you want. Titles can be transferred to supported portable MP3 players and many can be burned to CD. Now your library never closes!"

Maybe someday it will work for Macs.

I wanna get digitaaaal!

Scroogle Scraper: Ethical Searching

Scroogle intends to do exactly what its name implies--screw Google. Scroogle offers an add-free search, called the Scroogle Scraper, which boasts "no cookies," "no search-term record," and "access log deleted within 48 hours." This means Scroogle can show you Google's search results without their ads. Their Secure Socket Layer encryption protocol option allows you to block your computer with the same little yellow padlock you see when shopping online.

"For Scroogle, SSL is used to hide your search terms from anyone who might be monitoring traffic between your browser and Scroogle's servers. This encryption happens when you send your search terms to Scroogle, and it also happens when Scroogle sends the results of your search back to you. No one snooping between your browser and Scroogle can figure out what you were looking for, because the information is encrypted and looks like gibberish."

Scoogle says showing Google's results without their ads is a political statement. The action protects users' privacy and helps prevent click fraud. Scroogle intends to pressure Google to develop more socially responsible sources of income.

Gotcha! Adeona Fights Laptop Theft

These fine young gentlemen were caught red-handed with a stolen (or lost) laptop. The owners used Adeona, an open source system for tracking the location of a lost or stolen laptop. It works by storing location information (like IP addresses and local network topology), that can be used by the owner to determine its current location.

"The Mac OS X version also has an option to capture pictures of the laptop user or thief using the built-in iSight camera and the freeware tool isightcapture. Like your location information, these images are privacy-protected so that only the laptop owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can access them."

Adeona is the first open source tracking system. Users do not have to rely on a proprietary service. Just install and go!

Thoreau

I've used Google Creator to format a fragment of Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Creator does not give you much freedom to experiment with the page's look and feel. I intend to experiment with Kompozer this weekend.

"We rowed leisurely up the stream for several hours, until the sun had got high in the sky, our thoughts monotonously beating time to our oars. For outward variety there was only the river and the receding shores, a vista continually opening behind and closing before us, as we sat with our backs upstream; and, for inward, such thoughts as the muses grudgingly lent us. We were always passing some low, inviting shore, or some overhanging bank, on which, however, we never landed."

My Most Secret Shelf

My most secret desire is to fill my meatspace bookshelf with these comic books. Until then, please peruse my virtual shelf in Koha, an open source ILS.

Epileptic, David B. ~ Maus, Art Spiegelman ~ Maus II, Art Spiegelman ~ My Most Secret Desire, Julie Doucet ~ Ice Haven, Daniel Clowes ~ Girl Stories, Lauren R. Weinstein ~ Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel ~ Fun Home, Alison Bechdel ~ Palomar, Gilbert Hernandez ~ Locas, Jaime Hernandez ~ The Art of Jaime Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez ~ The Crystal Ballroom, Frank Thorne ~ 100% Pope, Paul Pope ~ Stylish Vittles, Tyler Page ~ The Ganzfeld 4, Dan Nadel ~ Art Out of Time, Dan Nadel ~ Notes for a War Story, Gipi ~ Houdini, Gipi ~ Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware ~ The ACME Novelty Library, Chris Ware ~ La Perdida, Jessica Abel ~ Hey Buddy!, Peter Bagge ~ Scream Queen, Ho Che Anderson ~ Black Hole, Charles Burns

Understanding the Spime

Mr. Bruce Sterling helps explain the spime in relationship to the Web 2.0 meme.

Photo by Mr. Sterling.

Google Prostate

Techno Tuesday knows the haps on the latest apps!

Filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.

Google may not only be changing the way we search. According to Nicholas Carr, Google could be changing the way we think. In a recent essay in the Atlantic Monthly, he worries that Google is making us stupid.

"'We are not only what we read,' says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. 'We are how we read.' Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts 'efficiency' and 'immediacy' above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become 'mere decoders of information.' Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged."

14 Days to Have Your Say

Western Libraries asks:

"What would make our library perfect?"

Book 'Em: Books-to-Prisoners

Bookem' is Pittsburgh's radically awesome Books-to-Prisoners program. I saw this video at Progressive Library Skillshare 2007.

Go Steelers!

OFFSYSTEM as a World Library

OFF is blowing up copyright.

"OFF, or the Owner-Free Filesystem is a distributed filesystem in which everything is stored in reference to randomized data blocks, as opposed to a 1:1 copy of the original data being inserted. The creators of the Owner-Free Filesystem have coined a new term to define the network: A brightnet. Nobody shares any copyrighted files, and therefore nobody needs to hide away.

OFF provides a platform through which data can be stored (publicly or otherwise) in a discreet, distributed manner. The system allows for personal privacy because data (blocks) being transferred from peer to peer does not bear any relation to the original data. Incidentally, no data passing through the network can be considered copyrighted because the means by which it is represented is truly random."

Let Jing Show You How

Visit my desktop and learn how to install the del.icio.us buttons.

Photo of our lovely kitchen from Mariel Antonia.

Obsolete Grandfather

From Philadelphia's own Andy Rementer. Just beautiful.

Ubuntu @ the Library

Jessamyn West will learn to screen cast one of these days. Until then, her library will be running on FOSS Ubuntu.

Slow Reading

Slow readers get sensual with their information.
Slow reading is an art form.
Slow reading is a community event.
Slow reading is part of the larger Slow Movement
Slow readers support local libraries.
Slow reading is an act of resistance!

From John Meidema's essay, Slow Reading: A Third Way of Reading

"There are many different kinds of reading, both fast and slow. Fast reading is greatly facilitated by digital technology. For a time, we thought that digital technology would replace books altogether. We were wrong about that. Print and books are more prevalent than ever. We are in the middle of a cultural shift that is still learning the proper place of digital technology. Fast information is terrific when we need a quick, rough answer, but like fast food it often leaves one hungering for something more substantial. Digital technology is terrific for finding information and reading short snippets, but print and books lend themselves to slow reading, a form of reading that is more pleasant and often is the only way to really understand a concept."

World of World of Warcraft

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Inside Sugar Labs

Created by Walter Bender, former executive director of the MIT Media Lab, Sugar is the interface originally designed for One Laptop Per Child. As I mentioned previously, OLPC is now offering a Microsoft operation system.

"Sugar reinvents how computers can be used for education. It promotes sharing and collaborative learning and gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms. Children — and their teachers — have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, and content. Sugar is a community project; it is based on GNU/Linux, a free and open-source operating system."

Blogger Arrests on the Rise

According to the latest World Information Access Report, 64 citizens have been arrested for their blogging activities since 2003. The BBC reports that bloggers were arrested for criticizing public policies and politicians, and exposing corruption in government, abuse of human rights and suppression of protests.

Three people were arrested from the United States. One person for "violating cultural norms," and two for "other" or "no reason given." The report said arrests increased during times of political uncertainty. The WIA expects blogger arrests to grow in 2008 as more people are able to observe and report human rights violations.

"What Happens if You Put Electricity in This Thing?"

Oh that David Rees kills me.

Watch Out! That Information is Alive!

Libraries are more than simple repositories for books. A library is an extension of a community--a living entity that is in constant flux. A good library connects people with information packages and services that reflect that their most basic needs and wildest desires. An exceptional library cares for and exhibits its collection like a world-class museum. The British Library is an exceptional library. The library's new exhibition of sacred texts employs cutting-edge technology to unlock the contemporary relevance of ancient objects. Viewers can gaze upon the beauty of ancient Bibles and Korans, and then ask a scholar, an educator or an atheist philosopher a question about the books. This encourages people to move beyond basic aesthetic appreciation and encounter opposing theories. The experts attempt to answer heavy questions like What is sacred, and Is there truth in the text? I am just jazzed about this.

Wikis in Plain English

Nice and simple.

Scaling the Digital Divide

One Laptop Per Child, the organization that created a $100 computer for children in developing countries, has been redesigned. The new computer now looks like an e-book and costs $75 per device. The old design ran on free, open-source Linux, which gave children "the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content." But after pressure from Intel and potential buyers, OLPC ditched the open source software like they ditched the rubber, spill and dust-safe keyboard, in favor of a Microsoft Windows operating system.

Walter Bender, president of OLPC Software and Content until his resignation in April 08, stresses that these laptops are just the first steps in the effort to close the digital divide:

"None of us have been so naïve to think that a connected laptop is in itself a cure to the problems of poverty and ignorance; it is an agency through which children, their teachers, their families, and their communities can manufacture a cure. Computers are tools with which to think, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, measuring, composing, editing, mathematical thinking, programming, communication, and sustainable economic development."

He advocates for the use of free and open software as a way to get closer to a constructionist learning model.

"Constructionism is a theory of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert. Papert first started developing the theory as a student of Piaget in the early 1960s. Over the course of more than 40 years of research and practice, Papert and his students found that children learn best when they are in the "active role of the designer and constructor" and that this happens best in a context where the child is "consciously engaged in constructing a public entity" - something "truly meaningful" for the learner. Further, the creation process and the end product must be shared with others in order for the full effects to take root."

It is frightening to think that a benevolent project with such potential for social change could be pressured to revert to becoming simply distributors of PowerPoint. I know, I know, that's not really fair on my part. Let's hope that the potential for children to become creators and to understand how their machines work will not be lost.

Folksonomic Letters

Try it!

Hard To Tell If Wikipedia Entry On Dada Has Been Vandalized Or Not

From the Onion:
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND—The Wikipedia entry on Dada—the World War I–era "anti-art" movement characterized by random nonsense words, bizarre photocollage, and the repurposing of pre-existing material to strange and disturbing effect—may or may not have been severely vandalized, sources said Monday.

"This is either totally messed up or completely accurate," said Reed College art history major Ted Brendon. "There's a mustache drawn on the photo of Marcel Duchamp, the font size keeps changing, and halfway through, the type starts going in a circle. Also, the majority of the actual entry is made up of Krazy Kat cartoons with abstract poetry written in the dialogue balloons."

The fact that the web page continually reverts to a "normal" state, observers say, is either evidence that ongoing vandalization is being deleted through vigilant updating, or a deliberate statement on the impermanence of superficial petit-bourgeois culture in the age of modernity.

You Say Dystopia, I Say Utopia!

Dystopia! Utopia! Dystopia! Utopia! Let's call the whole thing off!

Epic 2015 is a speculative look at a near future where all information is aggregated, personalized and owned by an amalgamation of Google and Amazon. The story started as hard science fiction--a preachy cautionary tale. Now it pretty accurately reflects the state of the web today. Googlezon is already here, and here, and here, and here and here.

But is it really so horrible to have a customized information feed? What about a media monopoly? How will Google change us?

"What does the world look like through the lens of Google?; How is Google's ubiquity affecting the production and dissemination of knowledge?; and how has the corporation altered the rules and practices that govern other companies, institutions, and states?"

Siva Vaidhyanathan is exploring these questions and more in his upcoming book, The Googlization of Everything: How One Company is Disrupting Culture, Commerce and Community...and Why We Should Worry. I worry a bit about Google's far-reaching arm - in particular the fact that it has saved all of my email correspondence since 2005. I think it's imperative that we look critically at how the participatory web is changing us and continue to learn to hack the system.

art by Randy Siegel

Introducing: The Black Bloggerati

Ah. If only I'd had an all-pervasive Web in my life as a teen. I could have found snappy comebacks when classmates called me "oreo" or asked to touch my hair. Instead of connecting with other black teens who felt like me, I channeled my angst into the creation of a short-lived zine called Poop Ship Destroyer. But that little magazine (may it RIP), its papers collaged with Sassy cut-outs and stiff with glue, didn't have clickable links. Here's my fantasy blogroll, in hindsight:

News & Views
The black yuppie blog from NPR's News & Notes

BookishBlackGirl
A 20-something “African American” girl’s thoughts.

Blac (k) ademic
Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.

Afronerd

Putting the black bourgeoisie back on top (of the ghetto masses)

The Secret Council of American Negroes
Yes, the one your white friends keep asking about

and counting...

The Untapped Cognitive Surplus

Oversharing

Newbie bloggers (my self included), be careful! Blogging can ruin your life. Just ask Emily Gould. The former editor of Gawker, the NY gossip blog that doles out insults and snark with the staccato fire of an AK 47, is trying to start over after years of blogging seduced, absorbed and destroyed her.

Emily's story is on the cover of the upcoming NY Times Magazine. And it's a sad one people. In it she explains how she parlayed a life-long "knack for funny meanness" into a flashy career at the world's kewlist, nastiest, hippest blog. But she became addicted to "oversharing," or revealing more and more personal details of her life, and the quasi-fame that came from the exposure. She admits:

"The commenters’ compliments were reassuring. And though I was reluctant to admit it, there was even something sort of thrilling about being insulted by strangers. This was brand-new, having so many strangers pay attention to me, and at that point, every kind of attention still felt good. Occasionally, a particularly well-aimed barb would catch me off-guard, and I’d spend a moment worrying that I really was the worst writer ever to work for the site, or unfunny, or ugly, or stupid. But mostly, in the beginning, I was able to believe the compliments and dismiss the insults, even though they were both coming from the same place and sometimes the same people."

The most disturbing part was how her relationships were affected. Two of Emily's partners were uncomfortable with her revealing details about their lives to the world.

"As Henry and I fought, I kept coming back to the idea that I had a right to say whatever I wanted. I don’t think I understood then that I could be right about being free to express myself but wrong about my right to make that self-expression public in a permanent way. I described my feelings in the language of empowerment: I was being creative, and Henry wanted to shut me up. His point of view was just as extreme: I wasn’t generously sharing my thoughts; I was compulsively seeking gratification from strangers at the expense of the feelings of someone I actually knew and loved. I told him that writing, especially writing about myself and my surroundings, was a fundamental part of my personality, and that if he wanted to remain in my life, he would need to reconcile himself to being part of the world I described."

The article now has an astounding number of comments: 430 and counting! Most are harsh criticisms of the snarky nature of her posts that revel in her getting What She Deserves. There was however, a poster whose comments asked some questions that really highlight how the participatory web is changing us:

Stories like this frighten me. Will this sort of behavior - "oversharing" - become accepted in the next twenty years, as our generation ages into power? Or maybe it's people like Henry, aware of the possibilities of the internet, who will be tomorrow's politicians, because the "dirt" on them has been kept out of the public eye. It seems almost like being trapped between a rock and a hard place: either one shares too much, but accepts that it's public information, or shares little and it's assumed there is something to hide. To the author, I ask: what do you see as the long-term consequences of this kind of behavior, if you've ever thought of them at all?
— A.I., Ann Arbor, MI

Just something for new bloggers to think about before they hand the world the keys to their diaries.

Seriously, what IS this thing called Jing?

As far as I know, daxsu is a made up word. It holds no special meaning for me. It's nonsense. It would fit nicely into the string of cryptic words I've come across in my introduction to the world of Information Technology, like Foxmarks, Amaya, FileZilla, Daxsu, CMap Tools, Jing, Skype and Zotero. See, I just slipped it in there and you probably didn't even notice! These are some of the applications that I will learn to use over the next couple of months as I encounter Web 2.0. [Cue ominous music.]

I must admit that I am unfortunately unfamiliar with most of these applications. How will I learn all of this in such a short time? Where do I start? The beginning seems like a good place. Tim O'Reilly, widely credited with coining the term "Web 2.0," is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. He offers a detailed introduction to the concepts behind Web 2.o, he organizes the Web 2.0 Summit, and his blog watches the "alpha geeks." I'll be checking out these pages in the next few days and reporting back, dear reader. I think I am ready to engage this sector of the internet that I've been consciously ignoring. Deciphering this jargon and jibber-jabber will be a formidable task, but I think I'm up to it.