Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Machinations and more …

Remote Work Proves the Firm Library Is More Than a Physical Space – Marshall Voizard is a law firm reference supervisor. He shares significant insights into the profession in the time of COVID. Voizard states that the past 18 months have accelerated positive changes, illustrating to all that the library is no longer primarily a physical place, but rather an entire ecosystem of electronic legal information resources. Our expert guidance is needed more than ever.


6 Reasons Why You Should Use a Link Shortener

MakeUseOf: “Link shorteners are handy tools for both professionals and consumers. It allows users to reduce lengthy URLs into something more manageable. They can also use this tool to translate gibberish addresses into something more understandable. But is that all there is to it? Let’s take a look at the capabilities of URL shorteners today and what they can do for you…”


Machinations and more … 

An insider’s view: Barber Conable’s journal offers inside view of Congress



A pet dog ran off into the mountain wilderness. Four months later, rescuers found it trapped in 5 feet of snow. WaPo


Dolphins Have a Fully Functional Clitoris, Study Finds Gizmodo


Walk on: why 2022 should be the year of the pedestrian Time Out


Is your mask real or fake? CDC issues warnings on counterfeit N95, KN95 masks

ABC7News: “As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is considering updating its mask guidance due to the spread of the omicron variant, scammers online are selling counterfeit N95 and KN95 masks. The CDC says as people decide to upgrade their cloth masks to masks with a level of higher protection, like KN95 and N95, they should be careful and do their research before buying anything online. The agency reported that about 60% of N95 or KN95 masks in the market are counterfeit and do not meet the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) requirements.

Per the CDC, here’s how to identify a NIOSH-approved respirator:

  • NIOSH-approved respirators have an approval label on or within the packaging of the respirator (i.e. on the box itself and/or within the users’ instructions). Additionally, an abbreviated approval is on the FFR itself.
  • You can verify the approval number on the NIOSH Certified Equipment List (CEL) or the NIOSH Trusted-Source page to determine if the respirator has been approved by NIOSH.
  • NIOSH-approved FFRs will always have one of the following designations: N95, N99, N100, R95, R99, R100, P95, P99, 

I like  Paul Ford. He’s a pal even.

 But here’s my problem with Paul Ford, professionally: there are so many good lines and observations in the things that he writes that it’s difficult to do the absurdly simple thing I need to do in my work here, i.e. pick the “best” selection of a piece of writing to get you to click through and read the rest of it. This is a problem even for his short pieces, like

 A Grand Unified Theory of Buying Stuff from Wired. Here goes:

The problem is that certain kinds of stuff simply attract more stuff. The home is an obvious one: It craves sofas, sweaters, buffet cabinets, chandeliers. Computers are another; they grow USB tendrils. Smartphones beget earbuds, cloud backups, and music service subscriptions. I am jealous of the people who make it work with an Eames chair, a fancy ottoman, some nice art books, and multigenerational inherited wealth. Their iPads are so empty, just a few apps, whereas I have 60 terabytes of storage spread across a variety of blinking devices because I download large data sets for fun.

But also: “I often trick myself into thinking that the road to less stuff might be paved with more stuff.”

And: “The supply chain is fractal: Zoom in on your stuff and there’s more stuff, ad infinitum.”

Ok maybe just go read the whole short thing. that he writes that it’s difficult to do the absurdly simple thing I need to do in my work here, i.e. pick the “best” selection of a piece of writing to get you to click through and read the rest of it. This is a problem even for his short pieces, like A Grand Unified Theory of Buying Stuff from Wired. Here goes:

The problem is that certain kinds of stuff simply attract more stuff. The home is an obvious one: It craves sofas, sweaters, buffet cabinets, chandeliers. Computers are another; they grow USB tendrils. Smartphones beget earbuds, cloud backups, and music service subscriptions. I am jealous of the people who make it work with an Eames chair, a fancy ottoman, some nice art books, and multigenerational inherited wealth. Their iPads are so empty, just a few apps, whereas I have 60 terabytes of storage spread across a variety of blinking devices because I download large data sets for fun.

But also: “I often trick myself into thinking that the road to less stuff might be paved with more stuff.”

And: “The supply chain is fractal: Zoom in on your stuff and there’s more stuff, ad infinitum.”

Ok maybe just go read the whole short thing