What a fortnight…

It started with a presentation Chris Miller and I made at the Upstate New York Science Librarians Meeting on cloud computing, which ended up going rather well; you can check out the LibGuide Chris threw together as supporting materials here, if you’d like. (And my sardonic commentary on it here.) What’s really telling is that when I started writing this post I initially thought it had just been this past Monday, as opposed to two Mondays back. It’s really been that kind of Autumn, flying by like a reckless teenage driver and often feeling as dangerous. Or at least as heedless to its surroundings.

Seems like every day these last couple weeks has left my brain fried, unable to accept further input or produce further results; staggering home to dinner and maybe a touch of WoW seemed within my capabilities, but only barely. That being said, there’ll be something besides a level 76 rogue to show for my efforts before too long, some of which I’ll even be able to post about shortly. I’m shallow enough that the possibility of displaying the fruits of my labor makes the labor easier to endure.

And of course, this fortnight included Halloween, for which I finally provided some context to an oft-used icon by dressing up as Doc Gnosis: hero, pulp adventurer, and man of science.

This made me happy in a way which only confirms my earlier statement about shallowness. Sadly, my idea of using NaNoWriMo to write a longer tale involving the Good Doctor and the Raptormen of Venus has not materialized in any way. We’ll see if that changes, but considering how this week, fortnight, month, and season have been going, it does seem unlikely.

It’s about time this happened to someone other than librarians

Thanks to the imagination of David Malki ! and the diligent effort of one Liam Cooke, the internet has now obviated the genre author.

Fight Gone Bad IV

On September 26th — less than one week away! — I’ll be taking part in Fight Gone Bad IV, a fundraiser to honor and support our injured service men and women and the thousands of people fighting and living with prostate cancer.

Fight Gone Bad IV benefits Athletes for a Cure and the Wounded Warrior Project. Last year they raised $627,000; this year, they are going for $1million. The event itself is a grueling workout, but I’m looking forward to the opportunity to raise money for some worthy causes. If you’re interested in donating, click on the link below to connect to my personal fundraising page.

https://www.rapidreghost.com/fgb/php/frpage.php?frID=28388

Matters of interest to the literate

Yesterday I discovered through various means two links, each detailing a forthcoming work from an author to whom I’ve taken more than a passing fondness.

The first is from Scott Lynch, who many of you may know from The Lies of Locke Lamora and its excellently piratical sequel.* While he’s working on the next Lamora book, he’s also publishing a serial planetary romance novel for free on his website, called Queen of the Iron Sands. It’s tough to say which bit of the previous sentence sold me on the project, but initial testing indicates that it was somewhere around “also”.**

The second is from Scott Westerfeld***, author of The Risen Empire****. His new book is called Leviathan, and it’s set in an alternate WWI being waged between the Clankers of Germany and the Darwinists of England. But the reason I’m writing this is to link to very keen video trailer that the publisher’s produced to promote the book:

I’ve already requested that CUL get a copy. I’m not made of stone.

* I first got to know his writing when he did a very cool supers RPG called Deeds Not Words, but that’s neither here nor there.
** There’s some margin of error.
*** Huh, two Scotts. I feel like I should’ve leveraged that into a pun for the title of this post.
**** Which I’m definitely going to review at some point, I promise.*****
***** Fine, here’s the review: The Risen Empire (and its sequel, The Killing of Worlds) doesn’t just walk the line between “hard sci-fi” and “space opera”, it slams down the line at .1 light speed firing nanoweapons and accounting for relativistic effects. It’s got solid characterization, an engaging far-future setting, and heroes trying to make sense of a conflict waged between post-human AI-worshiping cultists and the undead. Highly recommended.

Apparently, I oughta be in pictures

Several weeks back, I mentioned that I’d made a presentation to the ILR Extension Leadership Team, but noted that the story portion wouldn’t work as well without the verbal component. Well, thanks to the fine work of Don Bazley, ILR’s Multimedia Producer, you can now enjoy the full experience.

I think it came off pretty well, considering that it was done with no notes beyond my slides (which is why I keep glancing back at the laptop). It’s much less fun without a room full of people to play off of, though. That being said, I think Don did a great job on the videos, and I hope we get to do more of this.

Semester’s end

My final papers are handed in for the semester, and my brain is mush. Thus, I fall back on the joy that is Wordle, and present this blog and my workout blog as interpreted by its most virtuous algorithms!

The Nascent Librarian, as of today:

Jim vs., as of today:

Have a great and restful weekend, all!

Three links for a busy weekend

Working on my final assignments for the semester: a pair of issue briefs documenting net neutrality and internet filtering, respectively. With that in mind, here are three fun links that are worth a gander:

The Secret Of Google’s Book Scanning Machine Revealed

Using Dropbox for library document delivery

My presentation from Wednesday’s meeting of the ILR Extension Leadership Team, from prezi.com. Be warned: the “story” portion doesn’t make a lick of sense without me talking, but the software’s just plain keen.

Back to the grind.

EDIT: I have not forgotten about my promise of book reviews. They will come after I wrap my classes, possibly accompanied by one of When Gravity Fails, which has gotten off to an amazing start.

A doubly-interesting day

…at least, for those of us who deal with the world of work. 

Today is both Workers Memorial Day, which honors those who have been injured or killed due to their jobs, and Equal Pay Day, which marks the symbolic date on which the average woman’s earnings catch up to the amount a man earned in the previous year.

 

The links above will take you to posts I made on the subjects over at the Catherwood blog. For more info on Workers Memorial Day, visit the AFL-CIO site; to learn more about Equal Pay Day, visit the site from the National Committee on Pay Equity.

Jim vs. recursive blog linking

So, because I’ve got so much time on my hands, I started another blog. This one’s dedicated to personal fitness, and it’s called “Jim vs.” Why am I posting about it here?

1. Because I’m doing my part to keep blogs alive, baby.
2. Potentially, some of you might be interested. Anything is possible.
3. Because the name came to me at CiL2009, when I realized that I was giving all my workout report emails to buddies back in Ithaca subject headers like “Jim vs. Pull-ups” and “Jim vs. 400m Runs”.

See? It all hangs together.

I’ll be back later this week to review Scott Westerfeld’s The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds.

Wow on multiple counts

So, my Day 3 retrospective on CiL was driven from my head by my absolutely awful trip home. Rather than dwell on that, I’ll put together my thoughts on the whole shebang this weekend, perhaps with a discussion of trendy vs. viable.

Until then, check out something glorious (that some of you have probably seen already, but hey).