Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts

I felt a little tired on the train in. Then I drank some coffee and still felt a little tired. Then I took a light nap and did not miss my stop. I'm still a tiny bit groggy.

When I got in to work, I went to my main focus right now, weeding out the business management books. We have a lot of really old material. Mixed in with this is a lot of new material which I ordered. One of the books I ordered is Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Nothing like new economy headgames. Hopefully, this book should be interesting to read.

I was feeling "googley moogley" as The Ferocious Beast says from Maggy and the Ferocious Beast children's cartoon, so I pulled a Youtube video of Don Tapscott about the book Wikinomics. Or if you want to be a little more focused "googley", adjective-- like google the search engine. Not googley like googley eyes. Now for some corporate speak directly from the Google Blog. "What Makes A Design Googley." http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-makes-design-googley.html

A book came in for me this afternoon, Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. It has an appropriately themed purple haired, purple eyed sexy android on the cover. The main character is named Freya Nakamichi and is a femmebot. Human beings went extinct sometime in the 21st century, and society is run by androids. I like the premise of the book. It should be interesting.

Morning Thoughts

Some things don't change that much. The Standard Oil Octopuss from 1904



Morning Thoughts

I started reading The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria on the train last night. It has been interesting reading so far. I think he misses some important points. There is too much emphasis on BRIC (Brazil India China) and not enough on some of the European countries and Australia which are quickly rising to become leaders in standard of living and quality manufacturing. Still, it is quite interesting to read.

Things are changing at a face pace in the world. Hopefully, we will have leaders who can create a situation where a rising tide of economic and social benefits helps all over the world. This is of course a dream. Despite what people are seeing on television, there are a lot less despots and a lot less wars.

I spent more time weeding the 650-659 dewey number collection this morning. I am going to order books to fill in many of the gaps I am finding in the collection. Part of the issue with ordering business books, especially accounting and finance books is many of them are very expensive and very academic. Some of the academic business titles are too complicated for lay readers. As a public library, we don't actively purchase textbooks. Even some of the non-academic material is in the hundred plus dollar range per book for business which is out of our budget range.

On the train home, I finished reading The Post American World.  I have mixed opinions about the book.  In some ways it is interesting.  I think it is a bit predictable and clearly aimed at an American audience.  I think there was a lot missing from the view he was presenting.

I also started reading Crystal Rain.  I rather like the Caribbean style future culture clashing with an Aztec future culture.  It makes for some interesting science fiction.

The Future of the Internet And How To Stop It-- Jonathan Zittrain-- Thoughts

The Future of the Internet And How To Stop It-- Jonathan Zittrain-- Thoughts



The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain is about the difference between generative or open technologies and tethered or controlled technologies. The author takes the position that free and open generative technologies are the best technologies for the internet.


The central thesis is that there is a conflict between having an open, disruptive, creative, often unsafe internet versus having a tightly controlled, monitored, and surveilled internet. Various connotations come to mind freedom versus safety, open access versus closed access.


The book also traces the origins of the internet starting with the Hollerith punch card machine, going through the early telelphone system, to the modern personal computer. Jonathan Zittrain talks about how the internet was created by academics and other professionals. It was based on rough consensus. He quotes the saying, "No presidents, no kings, no voting."


There is an unwritten vision of two different internets, one where we access the internet from dumb terminals through a router to a fixed access point with high security, and another where we have very powerful personal computers with firewalls, cloud computers, and a policy of open access and freedom of use.


The book brings up many more questions than it answers. The writing is complex, at times confusing, and often deeply interesting.


Jonathan Zittrain views the generative internet as the best possible world. He uses Wikipedia as an example of a superb invention created by the free exchange of ideas. He points out that it is often inaccurate, subject to scurilous content, and cannot be cited as an authoritative source most of the time. Still, his description of how Wikipedia is self correcting and employs many mechanisms to protect its data is very interesting.


In contrast, he describes what would be called, the situation of perfect enforcement, where everything is under universal monitoring. Your cell phone listens to your calls, your computer tracks which websites you visit, camera phones watch everything you do on the street, your tivo lets everyone know what you are watching, and everything you buy is tagged with RFID (radio frequency identification.) You are not the only one being watched. You are watching the police and bureaucrats with camcorders (a la Rodney King), reporting on your local politicians in blogs, and watching the police and bureacrats. In other words a totally monitored society. This is a very real potential future.


The author is arguing this may not just come about because of a police state, but because everything we do will become copyrightable media. This includes videos we place on youtube, personal songs, things downloaded from Ipods. There are already "black networks" of copyright infringers who share illegal downloads.


The book is very interesting. It is well worth reading. It will expand your horizons on issues that have to do with the internet. I enjoyed reading it a lot. I support the idea of a generative internet.


I personally don't like cell phones, ipods, and other tethered devices like xboxes which tie directly into large companies like Apple Computer, Sprint, and Microsoft. I do really enjoy my personal computer and would like to be able to be as creative as possible with it. I also like web suring and blogging as you can tell. Read this, it will keep you informed.

Afternoon Thoughts, Evening Thoughts

A copy of The Thinker by Auguste Rodin at Columbia University in New York.


Afternoon Thoughts

Tonight is my late night. It is a day for minor cleanup. I finished most of the ordering I plan on doing this week. Right now, I am sorting the boxes next to my desk to see what I will send to the recycling bins. I already sent several old phone books to the recycling boxes as well as some dated law material. We really can't save old phone books and legal materials because it ceases being accurate. Actually, this isn't quite true, we do keep a copy of the old phone book each year for the local history collection.

We have over fifty years worth of old phone books for our town. Occassionally people use this for genealogical purposes. Looking up old obituaries is also the main reason we keep the old newspapers on microfilm. People often send us letters requesting obituaries from the old papers. We search for them then print them up and send them out to requesters.

Someone wrote a review for this blog. I am posting a link to it here.


Evening Thoughts

I did some weeding of the business management and leadership sections the 650 dewey numbers. It looks like I'll have to replace a lot of the material on office automation. Most of the material was very outdated. I'll be ordering "administrative assistant" handbooks, office planning, home office books, keyboarding, and wordprocessing books.

I am looking at a copy of Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell. It comes before Ragamuffin in the series.

I have written a bit of the review for The Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain. It has been a slow, but steady process.

Afternoon Thoughts, Comics As History

Romulus and Remus Discovered by A Gentle Shepherd, From The Comic History of Rome (1850)

Afternoon Thoughts

I finished reading The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain this morning on the train. It was a quite enjoyable read. I will try and get a chance to write my outline for a review very soon.

When I got in this morning, I started off by weeding the oversize graphic novels. While I was weeding I came across a very interesting book, The Great Comic Book Heroes, The Origins And Early Adventures of the Classic Superheroes of the Comic Books-- In Glorious Color. Compiled, introduced and annotated by Jules Feiffer. Jules Feiffer is a very famous editorial cartoonist. This book is c1965. It is kind of interesting. It has the origins of Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel, Human Torch, The Flash, Green Lantern, The Spirit, and many other superheroes. I am mostly letting go of the 0lder books that people have not read.

After weeding the oversize graphic novels, I did a display. The display is a collection of graphic novels on history: Joe Sacco, Safe Area Gorazde, Howard Zinn, A People's History of American Empire, Osamu Tezuka Adolf ( a manga biography of Adolf Hitler), Art Spiegelman, In The Shadow of No Towers, and a few other titles. There are a lot of graphic novels that are based on history. The movie 300 is adapted from the Frank Miller graphic novel on the Spartans fighting the Persians. This isn't exactly accurate, but it is interesting.

This afternoon, I spent a little bit of time compiling a computer book order as well. Mainly it is titles I picked out from Queens Library when I visited their computer books section. I also went through and made some small orders for the Job Information Center and the social science books. I mainly ordered licensed practical nurse and practical nurse test books for certification.

Again, today has been mostly focused on doing everyday activities. I still have to go through and file some more inserts for the law books. I also plan on doing a little desk cleaning so my desk will be a little less messy. I have a big messy desk. Things tend to pile up on it.

There is a cart of uncataloged books from the order I placed. Quite a few of the books which I ordered were not in our library system. It may take a while for them to be cataloged so they can be added. I am interested in reading them. Sometimes, this makes me a little impatient. I like seeing the books I order go out to the shelves very quickly.