Saturday, April 22, 2017

Creative World of Libraries and Huskissons

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have
— Henry James, born around this date in 1843

London. Big black old place, falling down, hardly any colour apart from a woman’s red hat going into the chemist with her string bag, and if you looked carefully, bottle-green leather shoes on that girl, but mostly grey and beige and black and mud-coloured people with dirty hair and unwashed shirt collars, because everything is short, soap is short, joy is short, sex is short, and no one on the street is laughing so jokes must be short too. Four years after the war and still everything is up shit creek.
~bathroooooom quote

You only live once? (YOLO)

False.

You live every day
You only die once


In Sydney terms, the beachside residents of Maroubra, Matraville La Peruse might be considered blessed: they wake to the breeze of the ocean and they live, as the crow flies, a mere swoop into any shop that stocks Zummer Bread and Ivy Mlieko ...

 On the regulatory definition of milk. [LawSci]


Shu-Yi Oei, The Surly Subgroup Turns One! Congratulations on one year of blogging from this group of distinguished tax academics

ATO, Finance, Treasury and Agriculture safe in Canberra: Barnaby ...

Making the Reserve Bank peoples bank Mervyn King Bank of England


Want To Be A Better Person? Read A Book You Hate



“Reading what you hate helps you refine what it is you value, whether it’s a style, a story line or an argument. Because books are long-form, they require more of the writer and the reader than a talk show or Facebook link. You can finish watching a movie in two hours and forget about it; not so a novel. Sticking it out for 300 pages means immersing yourself in another person’s world and discovering how it feels. That’s part of what makes books you despise so hard to dismiss. Rather than toss the book aside, turn to the next page and wrestle with its ideas. What about them makes you so uncomfortable?”

Our cult of “genius” is blinding us to true genius all around, say Leonardo da Vinci’s biographers Quartz

The world as 100 people, glimpsed over 200 years of history World Economic Forum

Whisner, Mary, Lexicographer for a Day (Winter 2017). Law Library Journal, Vol. 109, No. 1, Pp. 169-74 (2017). Available at SSRN:https://ssrn.com/abstract=2952980

“Law librarians get to research a lot more than the law. This essay discusses two examples when I got to dabble in lexicography: “race to the bottom” and “till forbid.” 




Technology is for the rich - Technological advancement is chipping away at the share of income that's doled out to workers. Is this our future?




 Amazon Has Become A Major Player In Literary Translations


AmazonCrossing, the publishing unit devoted to scouring the world for good tales, has in a short time become the most prominent interpreter of foreign fiction into English, accounting for 10 percent of all translations in 2016, more than any other publishing house in a field populated by small imprints.



Why libraries could soon need a national endowmentChristian Science Monitor (furzy). The gutting of public libraries is yet another sign of our decline as a society.
Welfare for Everyone Jacobin (UserFriendyly). Don’t entirely agree with the claim about Medicaid expansion. It was the component that was not designed by the health insurance lobby as a vehicle for gaming. And I have trouble with the argument that it was Medicaid expansion that prevented repeal. First, low income people are not an influential political franchise Second, there was tons of screaming about getting rid of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Third and most important, the Republican were at odds internally re what to do next, and there did have to be a next of some sort.



When it comes to cybersecurity, the good guys are always playing defense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to always be reactive. 

In the latest blog, Piret Tõnurist, OPSI Innovation Specialist, reviews innovation case studies from Iceland, Holland, and Canada that appeared in recently published draft report she has authored: “Working with Change: Systems Approaches to Public Sector Challenges”.  OECD Best Pratice

Smart city technologies are already with us, so what will the urban landscape look like in 2030? Read more 

The rise of reading analytics and the emerging calculus of reader privacy in the digital world, Clifford Lynch. First Monday April 2017 Volume 22, Number 4.
“This paper studies emerging technologies for tracking reading behaviors (“reading analytics”) and their implications for reader privacy, attempting to place them in a historical context. It discusses what data is being collected, to whom it is available, and how it might be used by various interested parties (including authors)


Boston Globe’s plan for digital reinvention: Be ready for constant change 

More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs Quartz

Scientists have created a device that sucks water out of thin air, even in the desert

When it comes to future challenges, one of the biggest will be water scarcity - on a warming planet we're going to have plenty of seawater, but not enough fresh, clean water in the right places for everybody to drink


Can You Spot the Fake?

It would be a good idea. As the FBI recently warned, speaking about the case of Michigan art dealer Eric Spoutz, who pumped at least 40 forgeries into the market over the past 10 years ...read more





Gawker founder’s next act: Something with internet forums


Matthew Desmond’s ‘Evicted’ Wins Nonfiction Pulitzer, And Housing Advocates Are Beside Themselves


Henry Grabar: “In short, Evicted the book that everyone who thinks about housing for a living has been reading or giving to their friends.” 









Colson Whitehead’s ‘Underground Railroad’ Wins 2017 Pulitzer For Fiction


“The Pulitzer comes after The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award, after it was selected for Oprah’s Book Club, and after Moonlight director Barry Jenkins signed on to adapt it for television.” 









Here’s Who Uses UK Libraries


“Around half of the population of the UK and Ireland continue to use libraries. Nearly half (46%) of people aged 25 to 34 still visit them according to the study – a rise of 2%.” 

 Reemergence of some famine conditions around the world.  I take this to be another sign of a broader breakdown of global order.

       Jozef Imrich published his book Cold River as an e-book last year, but wasn't satisfied with the results -- admitting that the book could use considerable editing. 
       He's taking an interesting approach to getting that done, publishing the book online (athttp://coldwarriver.blogspot.com) where he's soliciting outside help to fix things up (join in !) -- as well as in this way allowing readers to track the progress and changes of this work-in-progress  Online Prediting 14 years ago ...