Link Smorgasbord, November 4 - 10
A Manifesto for the Truth
It should be obvious by now that I'm for privacy.
We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It
FFS. I know these efforts are anything but new, but I also have a huge problem understanding how anyone but ISPs think this is a good idea.
An exclusive interview with Bill Gates
I've got some respect for this man. "Bill Gates describes himself as a technocrat. But he does not believe that technology will save the world. Or, to be more precise, he does not believe it can solve a tangle of entrenched and interrelated problems that afflict humanity's most vulnerable: the spread of diseases in the developing world and the poverty, lack of opportunity and despair they engender. "I certainly love the IT thing," he says. "But when we want to improve lives, you've got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition.""
Battle of Orland Park library’s Internet porn policy heats up
The quote "I read the books so other parents won’t have to," just makes me shudder. I'm also not surprised the library told the mother that she couldn't use the kid's computers, I have yet to be at a library that DOES allow parents to use their children's cards to use public computers, regardless of the children are with them or not. I do think if a library has a policy that obscene materials are not allowed, then the responsibility does fall on the staff to deal with violations of the policy, but I also applaud the library for offering unfiltered internet access to adults.
Leaving Douglas County Libraries
This one is of lesser interest to those outside of the library field because you're not likely to even know who Jamie La Rue is. He's the driving force behind the Douglas County ebook program, where they built their own platform and negotiated their own content contracts with publishers. Other consortia are working towards different iterations of this, most notably Califa, which is taking Jamie's code and growing it into something more universal that can be easily adapted to different ILS.
Doody Decimal System: When Librarians Must Deal with Unwelcome Book Deposits
One thing I do miss from my previous library is the fact that we had a full time maintenance staff who took care of janitorial work. Which meant when the adorable toddler informed her mother that she needed a diaper change, and her mother replied "you're not wearing a diaper" I didn't have to deal with the mess on the tile floor. I'm a bit concerned about future incidents here based on the nice carpet we have throughout most of the library...
We’ve Reddit, have you? What librarians can learn from a site full of memes
Another poke towards getting me on Reddit, instead of just visiting it as a tourist periodically.
For the first time, Macmillan adds entire backlist to OverDrive Marketplace
Fine Text: this only applies if you're not buying as a consortia, which is often the only way smaller libraries can afford to offer this at all.
Valve’s Steam Machine is the anti-console. Here’s what it’s like to play.
I've been dying to play around with a Steam box. Once the Steam OS is out of beta and actually available, we have plans of converting a laptop with the free OS and experimenting. Quick note: we actually permanently have a laptop hooked up to our TV, it's how we watch DVDs and Netflix.
EFF shows how "metadata" collection is bad for freedom of association
I've posted about this before, but the story was more about how a bunch of groups you really wouldn't expect to band together were doing just that.
Want to protect your Android phone? Here's how to kill its crapware.
On removing that excess pre-installed bloat-ware from your phone's manufacturer.
It should be obvious by now that I'm for privacy.
We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It
FFS. I know these efforts are anything but new, but I also have a huge problem understanding how anyone but ISPs think this is a good idea.
An exclusive interview with Bill Gates
I've got some respect for this man. "Bill Gates describes himself as a technocrat. But he does not believe that technology will save the world. Or, to be more precise, he does not believe it can solve a tangle of entrenched and interrelated problems that afflict humanity's most vulnerable: the spread of diseases in the developing world and the poverty, lack of opportunity and despair they engender. "I certainly love the IT thing," he says. "But when we want to improve lives, you've got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition.""
Battle of Orland Park library’s Internet porn policy heats up
The quote "I read the books so other parents won’t have to," just makes me shudder. I'm also not surprised the library told the mother that she couldn't use the kid's computers, I have yet to be at a library that DOES allow parents to use their children's cards to use public computers, regardless of the children are with them or not. I do think if a library has a policy that obscene materials are not allowed, then the responsibility does fall on the staff to deal with violations of the policy, but I also applaud the library for offering unfiltered internet access to adults.
Leaving Douglas County Libraries
This one is of lesser interest to those outside of the library field because you're not likely to even know who Jamie La Rue is. He's the driving force behind the Douglas County ebook program, where they built their own platform and negotiated their own content contracts with publishers. Other consortia are working towards different iterations of this, most notably Califa, which is taking Jamie's code and growing it into something more universal that can be easily adapted to different ILS.
Doody Decimal System: When Librarians Must Deal with Unwelcome Book Deposits
One thing I do miss from my previous library is the fact that we had a full time maintenance staff who took care of janitorial work. Which meant when the adorable toddler informed her mother that she needed a diaper change, and her mother replied "you're not wearing a diaper" I didn't have to deal with the mess on the tile floor. I'm a bit concerned about future incidents here based on the nice carpet we have throughout most of the library...
We’ve Reddit, have you? What librarians can learn from a site full of memes
Another poke towards getting me on Reddit, instead of just visiting it as a tourist periodically.
For the first time, Macmillan adds entire backlist to OverDrive Marketplace
Fine Text: this only applies if you're not buying as a consortia, which is often the only way smaller libraries can afford to offer this at all.
Valve’s Steam Machine is the anti-console. Here’s what it’s like to play.
I've been dying to play around with a Steam box. Once the Steam OS is out of beta and actually available, we have plans of converting a laptop with the free OS and experimenting. Quick note: we actually permanently have a laptop hooked up to our TV, it's how we watch DVDs and Netflix.
EFF shows how "metadata" collection is bad for freedom of association
I've posted about this before, but the story was more about how a bunch of groups you really wouldn't expect to band together were doing just that.
Want to protect your Android phone? Here's how to kill its crapware.
On removing that excess pre-installed bloat-ware from your phone's manufacturer.
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