so i'm venturing out in the "web 2.0" world once more by signing up for librarything.com. I nearly signed up for it a year and a half ago, but I backed out at the last minute after a small email conversation with its founder. Given that librarything's servers are located in the USA, their data is subject to that nation's egregious PATRIOT ACT. As I've said all along, I know that any data on me - aggregate or otherwise - doesn't amount to a hill of beans, but all the same, the stubborn, principled person that I am forced me to back down on the prospect of signing up. I eventually turned to Delicious Library to catalogue my library instead.
A serious hard drive failure (i.e. complete data loss) last December effaced my own mini-OPAC from existence, though. I can turn back to Delicious Library and begin to re-catalogue everything, but I instead began to reconsider LT.com, instead. So, a week or two ago, my quixotic person beat down that stubborn, principled person, and together went ahead and signed up, PATRIOT ACT be damned...
So far, in some ways, I'm liking what I've see.. I do miss Delicious's integration with a camera to catalogue my items by their ISBNs, but LT.com is pretty damn quick at searching Amazon to correctly match items to their original ISBNs. The folksonomic tagging system is pretty nice too. Who can't like folksonomy? Tags give us the chance to catalogue whatever we have by whatever we want, so go us - it definitely is the (false) reign of the individual in this aspect.
But I'm still a little confused by the point to it all. Delicious Library's mission is clear - to catalogue your Stuff. Librarything, on the other hand, loves to promote its social-networking capabilities. They're incredibly proud of the fact that we can find and connect with people who have "eerily similar" interests and tastes in lit. So what? Who cares? I guess this part just doesn't appeal to me; perhaps there are people out there who need the internet to find people who have similar tastes in books. Well, good on them and good on LT.com. For now, I think I'll just stick the cataloguing aspect.
(kinda hypocritical social-networking cite: link to my librarything account here.)
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
36. jeremy hinzman, returned
So the CBC has reported that Jeremy Hinzman is headed back to the States; the website's "comments" feature is awash with crazies on both sides arguing nonsense like "no nation wants a deserter" or that Canada was developed on the backs of refugees so he appeals should be granted immediately. Both have their merits, but neither really dig deep into the issue.
Don't expect me to dig deep into the issue, either. I'm just a simple guy who once met Hinzman when he was boarding with some friends here in Halifax. Hinzman is a nice enough fellow. He's got a peaceful look in his eye that declares "polite young gentleman" to you the moment you shakes hands with him.. He was, and is, smart, articulate, and courteous. I can recall looking at him and thinking that this guy could have tea with my grandmother in the afternoon, and then shoot down my neighbour at close or long range in the evening. I was impressed, and a little disconcerted all at once. Army-types do that to me.
Anyway, the thing with the Hinzman case that gets to me is the manner in which the media, and the public, refuse to deep into the details of his story. Of course this man volunteered for an all-volunteer army. He signed up, and he was ready to do the time. The plan was to go in, do his work, and then come out ready to get a college education payed for by his service with the Forces. And if I remember correctly, he already had completed one tour before having his change of heart and asking for non-combat status. Hinzman was, and i think still is prepared to do the time in the army, if only the army would have allowed him to enter into and stay in a non-combat position.
What gets me the most though is the concept of "Volunteer" in the US Forces. The media and the public, like I said, keep going on and on about the fact that he volunteered. I don't know if I'd call the US Forces a volunteer service though. For too many people in the rank-and-file, signing up with the forces is not so much voluntary act as it is one based on coercion, or an act taken up due to misinformation. Hinzman signed up at 18. Eighteen-year olds might have the legal authority to sign themselves over to the Forces or to vote, but I highly doubt anyone would sign their house over to their kids at 18. 18-year-olds are still incredibly immature, under-developed, and as we know with the US Forces, are all-too-often easily duped into signing up for a term or two. Recruiters chase down potential privates and corporals in the schools and at the malls, and too often people sign up thinking it's an easy-in, easy-out way to make some cash, either to help mom and dad, or to help themselves through college. It's not until you get to boot camp or to the desert that you realize what it means to have the shit hit the fan. And I'm sure the recruiters don't mention things like IEDs or Stop-Loss Programmes.
Hinzman volunteered for the Forces, and deserted. But before we once more make that claim that all volunteers have signed up knowing all the benefits and disadvantages of the service, let's think about what it means to "volunteer" for something when economic circumstances make "Option A" the only option or what it means to sign on the dotted line when the fellows holding the paperwork haven't given you the entire document to read first.
I don't know if Hinzman was completely duped, but I think he was misled about what the Forces could offer him, and what the Forces expected back in return. The Army doesn't play a fair game; he found that out only a little too late. Poor dude.
Don't expect me to dig deep into the issue, either. I'm just a simple guy who once met Hinzman when he was boarding with some friends here in Halifax. Hinzman is a nice enough fellow. He's got a peaceful look in his eye that declares "polite young gentleman" to you the moment you shakes hands with him.. He was, and is, smart, articulate, and courteous. I can recall looking at him and thinking that this guy could have tea with my grandmother in the afternoon, and then shoot down my neighbour at close or long range in the evening. I was impressed, and a little disconcerted all at once. Army-types do that to me.
Anyway, the thing with the Hinzman case that gets to me is the manner in which the media, and the public, refuse to deep into the details of his story. Of course this man volunteered for an all-volunteer army. He signed up, and he was ready to do the time. The plan was to go in, do his work, and then come out ready to get a college education payed for by his service with the Forces. And if I remember correctly, he already had completed one tour before having his change of heart and asking for non-combat status. Hinzman was, and i think still is prepared to do the time in the army, if only the army would have allowed him to enter into and stay in a non-combat position.
What gets me the most though is the concept of "Volunteer" in the US Forces. The media and the public, like I said, keep going on and on about the fact that he volunteered. I don't know if I'd call the US Forces a volunteer service though. For too many people in the rank-and-file, signing up with the forces is not so much voluntary act as it is one based on coercion, or an act taken up due to misinformation. Hinzman signed up at 18. Eighteen-year olds might have the legal authority to sign themselves over to the Forces or to vote, but I highly doubt anyone would sign their house over to their kids at 18. 18-year-olds are still incredibly immature, under-developed, and as we know with the US Forces, are all-too-often easily duped into signing up for a term or two. Recruiters chase down potential privates and corporals in the schools and at the malls, and too often people sign up thinking it's an easy-in, easy-out way to make some cash, either to help mom and dad, or to help themselves through college. It's not until you get to boot camp or to the desert that you realize what it means to have the shit hit the fan. And I'm sure the recruiters don't mention things like IEDs or Stop-Loss Programmes.
Hinzman volunteered for the Forces, and deserted. But before we once more make that claim that all volunteers have signed up knowing all the benefits and disadvantages of the service, let's think about what it means to "volunteer" for something when economic circumstances make "Option A" the only option or what it means to sign on the dotted line when the fellows holding the paperwork haven't given you the entire document to read first.
I don't know if Hinzman was completely duped, but I think he was misled about what the Forces could offer him, and what the Forces expected back in return. The Army doesn't play a fair game; he found that out only a little too late. Poor dude.
35. killing time
Here's another one playing on the idea of time and the manner in which its effaced. I mentioned yesterday, you might recall, that my time this past week had been eaten up by work. Sometimes our time is swept up by activities, while at other times, time languishes (or is even left languished by) our activities. But this morning, I'm being active in my relationship with time. I'm taking control and killing time, myself. Today I'm the agent of time's destruction. Similar to my episode with the paper shredder several months ago, this morning I am the god, the monster, and the ogre to petty time. I control it. It is in my hands to do what I want, and this morning, I choose to violently murder it by doing nothing at all except read the internet and the talk about how I am willingly, and happily, letting time die, die, die. so meta.
tomorrow morning I will switch hats from creator to lecturer. I spent much of the early week dithering about and creating various handouts and notes on how to nail down that perfect thesis statement for a class i'm conducting. i dare not use the term "teaching" because this ain't teaching. No way. Sure, I've got some knowledge, and I'm happy to share it. But these next two days have gotta be as informal as it can be, for the kids' sake, and for mine. Giving introductory classes on the importance of writing solid thesis statements and topic sentences can get dull, super fast. So there won't be teaching. There's going to be a sharing of secrets and nothing more. I'll tell them how to get a solid thesis not for their own sake, but for the sake of their GPA. Results. We all want results. they want results. They want As. And I just want to make it through the day in one piece and without too many yawns on their parts. So goodbye Strunk and White, Hello essay outlines, caffeine, and internets.
Get this for an itunes mix: The Show Must Go On by Pink Floyd - possibly the worst song in my collection, followed by some 1957.
tomorrow morning I will switch hats from creator to lecturer. I spent much of the early week dithering about and creating various handouts and notes on how to nail down that perfect thesis statement for a class i'm conducting. i dare not use the term "teaching" because this ain't teaching. No way. Sure, I've got some knowledge, and I'm happy to share it. But these next two days have gotta be as informal as it can be, for the kids' sake, and for mine. Giving introductory classes on the importance of writing solid thesis statements and topic sentences can get dull, super fast. So there won't be teaching. There's going to be a sharing of secrets and nothing more. I'll tell them how to get a solid thesis not for their own sake, but for the sake of their GPA. Results. We all want results. they want results. They want As. And I just want to make it through the day in one piece and without too many yawns on their parts. So goodbye Strunk and White, Hello essay outlines, caffeine, and internets.
Get this for an itunes mix: The Show Must Go On by Pink Floyd - possibly the worst song in my collection, followed by some 1957.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
34. blended
the past six days have been a blended series of contracts and papers and jobs eating up my time (*). I've been stuck in a serious rut of "get up in the morning, do one thing for one pay, then do another for another pay, oh my god its 8pm!" routine. the money's okay, for a student. the money would be great, if it were 1995. but i'm willing to make due for now. i think i'll actually carry on with some of these contracts so long as they're offered to me (the big daddy seems to be long-term, so long as the american economy holds out) in order to keep a sock-drawer full of cash on the go, and also to pay down some of the student debt. yay student debt.
i booted up an old laptop today. I hadn't turned it on since at least 2005, but it may have been since at least 2003. It's a little difficult to be precise on this date. Most of its files are from a pre-wedding time period, but every now and again I encountered something from 2005, post-wedding, when looking over its contents. the neatest things discovered are the cultural and personal relics from a past time, though. the desktop is plastered with a photo of El Cohen, which The Pineapples noted was once a livejournal icon I used. The "My Computer" icon is renamed Zinedine Zidane, likely in honour of Zizou's antics at Euro 2004, while the hard drive is titled "Sweet Homewrecker", in honour of Joel Plaskett. I'm not big on Plaskett, but I do like his album titles.
It looks like the machine was set up to be a simple MS Word and LJ-ifying beast. I had reformatted the hard drive - this much I can remember - but most of the documents sitting on it now are old Word and Access documents, and various temporary files used by Semagic, the offline LJ-writer. For a moment there I nearly logged in just to say "Hello world out there." Oh live journal, how did we ever come together, only to stray so far apart? Excuse me for one more precious moment as I head off to write a wondrous ode to your cyber-social-constructive ways.
(* - It's funny that I talk, that we all talk about how our work eats up our time. Our work is our time. It is part of our lives. That shouldn't be ignored. It shouldn't be dwelled upon, either. But it shouldn't be ignored.)
i booted up an old laptop today. I hadn't turned it on since at least 2005, but it may have been since at least 2003. It's a little difficult to be precise on this date. Most of its files are from a pre-wedding time period, but every now and again I encountered something from 2005, post-wedding, when looking over its contents. the neatest things discovered are the cultural and personal relics from a past time, though. the desktop is plastered with a photo of El Cohen, which The Pineapples noted was once a livejournal icon I used. The "My Computer" icon is renamed Zinedine Zidane, likely in honour of Zizou's antics at Euro 2004, while the hard drive is titled "Sweet Homewrecker", in honour of Joel Plaskett. I'm not big on Plaskett, but I do like his album titles.
It looks like the machine was set up to be a simple MS Word and LJ-ifying beast. I had reformatted the hard drive - this much I can remember - but most of the documents sitting on it now are old Word and Access documents, and various temporary files used by Semagic, the offline LJ-writer. For a moment there I nearly logged in just to say "Hello world out there." Oh live journal, how did we ever come together, only to stray so far apart? Excuse me for one more precious moment as I head off to write a wondrous ode to your cyber-social-constructive ways.
(* - It's funny that I talk, that we all talk about how our work eats up our time. Our work is our time. It is part of our lives. That shouldn't be ignored. It shouldn't be dwelled upon, either. But it shouldn't be ignored.)
Saturday, August 9, 2008
33. Caffeinated Hazy Mornings
[this post is a straight-up copy from my other blog, oregano. i'm toying with the idea of shifting to blogspot, for a number of conflicted reasons. there's no need to read both blogs, as they are one and the same (at least until further notice).]
le sigh. here's a list of stuff to consider.
1. i've had five nightmares in the past six nights. this is rather odd, since i hardly remember my dreams, let alone wake up from them. Several have involved zombies at war with other zombies, fighting for the soul (and brains) of mankind.
2. there is a mess of TaxMan paperwork still sitting on my desk. Revenue Canada won't go away. I've been asked for the third year in a row to send in all of my paperwork because I've been selected for a "periodic review". I'm suspicious. If Revenue Canada wants to audit me full-on, they should just do it already because i'm rather tired of these shenanigans. Go big or go home. As your boss says, RevCan, Fish or Cut Bait.
3. due in part (but still completely my fault) to the large mess of TaxMan paperwork sitting on my desk, i completely forgot to correspond with the Uni regarding my funding for September. According to their timeline, my funding is now in jeopardy, so I'll have to go to the bursar on Monday and beg for a reprieve. It'll all be good in the end, which is just as well, because I don't want to explain how it is that I lost their letter in the pile of Revenue Canada correspondence, who has now sent me so many letters in the past two months that the pile is over three inches high.
4. i don't think i'll have time to read the Mobe and Glail today. Sadness.
5. wouldn't it be nice to produce real thought-provoking work on a daily basis? oh, to be a snooty french philosopher. i'd love to wake up in the morning, eat some toast and jam, and mumble some words that the world finds profound but in all likelihood borders closer to nonsense.
5a. in all seriousness, if i ever became independently wealthy, i'd go find a nice comfy chair and just start thinking and writing. and i wouldn't stop until death becomes me.
6.Profound. What a neat-sounding word. Total non-sequitur: I need to go find and read Wilde's de profundis again. Perhaps after the 20th.
7. i love how wilde, for all his decadence (which we revere him for), was a closet catholic. so many victorians were.
8. to turn a phrase akin to marshall mathers III: "i guess there's a little catholic in all of us." har har.
9. j'aime du café.
le sigh. here's a list of stuff to consider.
1. i've had five nightmares in the past six nights. this is rather odd, since i hardly remember my dreams, let alone wake up from them. Several have involved zombies at war with other zombies, fighting for the soul (and brains) of mankind.
2. there is a mess of TaxMan paperwork still sitting on my desk. Revenue Canada won't go away. I've been asked for the third year in a row to send in all of my paperwork because I've been selected for a "periodic review". I'm suspicious. If Revenue Canada wants to audit me full-on, they should just do it already because i'm rather tired of these shenanigans. Go big or go home. As your boss says, RevCan, Fish or Cut Bait.
3. due in part (but still completely my fault) to the large mess of TaxMan paperwork sitting on my desk, i completely forgot to correspond with the Uni regarding my funding for September. According to their timeline, my funding is now in jeopardy, so I'll have to go to the bursar on Monday and beg for a reprieve. It'll all be good in the end, which is just as well, because I don't want to explain how it is that I lost their letter in the pile of Revenue Canada correspondence, who has now sent me so many letters in the past two months that the pile is over three inches high.
4. i don't think i'll have time to read the Mobe and Glail today. Sadness.
5. wouldn't it be nice to produce real thought-provoking work on a daily basis? oh, to be a snooty french philosopher. i'd love to wake up in the morning, eat some toast and jam, and mumble some words that the world finds profound but in all likelihood borders closer to nonsense.
5a. in all seriousness, if i ever became independently wealthy, i'd go find a nice comfy chair and just start thinking and writing. and i wouldn't stop until death becomes me.
6.Profound. What a neat-sounding word. Total non-sequitur: I need to go find and read Wilde's de profundis again. Perhaps after the 20th.
7. i love how wilde, for all his decadence (which we revere him for), was a closet catholic. so many victorians were.
8. to turn a phrase akin to marshall mathers III: "i guess there's a little catholic in all of us." har har.
9. j'aime du café.
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