Afternoon Thoughts

A little light reading.

Afternoon Thoughts

I read some more of The Future of the Internet on the train to work today. The book is quite complex. It may take me a couple more days to finish reading. One of the concepts in books is tethered appliances or computers specifically dedicated for unique purposes. Iphones, xboxes, and automatic teller machines are good examples of this kind of device. These devices are designed to be very secure and have limited purposes. They do not have open programming architectures.

When I got in to work, I focused on ordering business books. I basically plugged in the titles of the previous titles I had found from Barnes and Noble, Powells, and the Queens library. It really was mostly make work to finish compiling an order list.

Then I went through the last six months of monthly reports to compile program statistics for adult programs I had done. It was mainly attendance records with totals for programs done in the library and from outside agencies. We mainly brought in Service Corps of Retired Executives and the Womens Enterprise Development Center. In house, we had poetry readings and some films every month.

This afternoon, I also did some some more inserts of the law collection. Afterwards, I started on weeding the quarto or oversize graphic novels and comics. It is quite interesting looking at Fearless Fosdick, Little Nemo In Slumberland, Chas Addams, and Dick Tracy. We have a lot of anthologies of all the classic comics from yesteryear.

Today was a day for everyday activities that go with the job.

Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts

I have not been doing anything too exciting this morning. I took a few minutes to look at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online for business management book titles. I read some more of The Future of the Internet.

I read a little bit of the documentation for Opera. I also looked at Entrecard for a little bit. It has been a slow but steady morning. I even took a short walk around the neighborhood and bought a cup of coffee from the local deli. The coffee woke me up quite nicely.

Because everything is pretty quiet today, I went through and made sure all my links in my sidebar are still working. It is good to do this occassionally. Websites and blogs have a tendency to evaporate unexplicably. No dead links here if possible.

I also checked my Sitemeter to see where my web traffic was coming from. Most of it is coming from Google Blogsearch and Entrecard. There is a smattering of hits from Twitter, Yahoo, and Fuelmyblog, as well as a few individual websites.

I am doing housecleaning for the blog. If you want to, feel free to make any suggestions you think might help to improve this blog.

Morning Thoughts, A Word Quiz

O is for Opera, the browsing software.

Morning Thoughts

I am quite happy to say, my car passed inspection so I don't have to worry about this for another year.  I tried to drive over to the Queens main library, but there was a giant street fair and all the parking was taken.  I ended up driving for a little while, then heading home.

I am finding the Opera browser to be most satisfying.  It is even faster than I thought.  Browsing and loading websites happens very quickly.  It makes Entrecard dropping go fast.  I still haven't looked through all the features but I like it better than Internet Explorer.

I read a bit more of The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It.  I am up to page 88.  At this point in the book, the author is talking about innovation.  It is much harder for large companies to innovate because it requires them to focus on things which are not necessarily their major selling points.  There is also a bit on how customers create innovations with existing products.  For example, 20% of mountain bikers are likely to modify their bikes to make them easier to ride.   The author uses many general ideas in this work as well as ideas on the internet.

Just as an aside.  I've noticed that there are not as many Star Trek books as used to be put out.  I guess this is because the show is no longer on television.  In fact, I see no star trek books as part of the Locus bestsller list.  Star Wars seems to be a lot more prominent lately.  Dark Horse comics has been producing a lot of Star Wars comics, and Pocket Books has been producing a lot of Star Wars paperbacks.  There are a few series which I have not ordered a lot of which seem to be at a lot of libraries.  These are Warhammer 40K and Forgotten Realms.  Maybe, I like to have my science fiction paperbacks to have original stories.  I might order a few of these just to show we have them.  Also Halo is another popular series that is being put out as paperback books.

A Word Quiz

This was a nice little entertaining quiz which I found while looking at the Oxford University Press Blog. http://www.oup-concisequiz.co.uk/  

Morning Thoughts, Evening Thoughts

Hollerith Card

Morning Thoughts

I think I finally got up on the right side of the bed today. I took the train in to work this morning. I napped most of the way in. But, towards the end, I started reading The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain. He has licensed it for free over the internet under Creative Commons license. http://futureoftheinternet.org/download

I think this is kind of interesting. It means you can look it over on the computer then see if you want to buy it in print. The book so far focuses on the difference between generative technologies like the internet and tethered technologies like mainframes. Generative technologies are open to use and programming by everyone, and tethered technologies are designed to be used for specific purposes. An xbox game console or an ipod would be a good example of a tethered technology. A personal computer would be an example of a generative technology.

I have various things piled up which I need to do. I have two copies of the New York Times Book Review to look through and a variety of legal material to process.

I think today should be interesting. I have to return all the numerous books, dvds and graphic novels which I took out for the weekend.

Several books have come in for me to read. By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber, Kellory The Warlock by Lin Carter, and The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria. One of the people who reads this site asked me to review The Post American World. I am going to read this after I finish reading The Future of the Internet.

Right now, I am just catching up on things. Doing things like writing monthly reports and checking how my work is going.

I worked some more on ordering for the graphic novels section. This of course includes newspaper comic strips. I went and picked up the Daily News and tried to order books on the comic strips that are in one of the local papers. I ordered books based on several comic strips including Zits, Pearls Before Swine, Sherman's Lagoon, Dilbert, Mother Goose and Grimm, and Rose is Rose.

I also ordered a few science fiction and fantasy titles.

As part of the process, I put a few titles on hold for myself to read, Slanted Jack by Mark L. Van Name which is the author's second book, Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson which is the seventh book in an excellent fantasy series, and Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. Saturn's Children by Charles Stross is supposed to be a tribute to Robert Heinlein's Friday. Saturn's Children is a tale for adults.

Evening Thoughts

I took the car out for a short drive in preparation for my road test tomorrow.  I drove around the neighborhood as well as down to the mall and stopped at Barnes and Noble.  I hope my car passes the state inspection tomorrow.  I have put over a hundred miles on it.

This evening, Internet Explorer was not working correctly.  I download Opera 9.51 and found it worked fine for my site.  Internet Explorer was not working with Entrecard or this blog.  It was also giving me errors with several other sites.  So far Opera has been doing a fine job.

Good Afternoon, Future of the Internet, Solar Concentrating

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Google DC Talks: The Future of the Internet

Good Afternoon

Good afternoon, I am not going to post a huge amount today. I started reading a bit of The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain. This book is about the excesses of the internet like Web 2.0, iPhones, Opensource, and various other slightly incomprehensible things. This book is attempting to suggest a practical way to deal with these things. Making these things seem practical is rather impractical to me, but it should be rather interesting reading.

I also learned something kind of interesting by following my stock, Capstone Turbine. They are working with a company called HelioFocus to develop a hot air powered turbine where the air is heated by solar concentrators. The concept is quite interesting.

http://www.capstoneturbine.com/news/story.asp?id=476

Mostly, I have been resting today and getting some extra sleep. I'll probably go drive around this afternoon a bit after I take a long nap.

Between the zinc tabs, the vitamin c, the tylenol, and napping, I sm starting to feel a lot better. My head doesn't ache as much.

I took a short drive on both the highway and the city streets. I think the car will pass inspection now. I drove down to Circuit City and looked at the computers. I still have an inkjet printer. Now, they sell these printers with a fas, scanner, copier, and printer all built into one unit for about $150.00. Also, I still don't have a flatacreen, which I can get for about $200.00. I have a big old clunky monitor. To tell you how old my computer is, there is a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive in it.

It still works. I keep on promising myself, I will get an upgrade. If I got the cheapest computer from Dell, it would still outperform my current computer. I have the patience to look for a package deal, computer, monitor, and printer as a bundle.

I do have a cable modem however. Fiber optic is much faster. I might look at Verizon which just got the right to sell fiber optic around New York.

I feel like I fell off the tracks today. I seem to be losing focus right now on this blog. I think I will be back on point tomorrow.