Heh I shared this on Reader as well with my personal favorite "Please do the needful" as a comment. - Erica Baker

Reminds me of a recent episode of Radio Lab on NPR. I never knew about tonal languages before hearing it. Fascinating. - Harvey Simmons

The title is misleading. Languages have been spoken imperfectly by foreign speakers since time immemorial, but has that impacted the way the standard dialects are pronounced? Also iiuc you don't have what's defind as a dialect until you have a group of native speakers. - j1m

@jim Yes. Language is ever mutating in large part to cross-cultural saturaton. Every language historically shows this. - Michael W. May via twhirl

I thought it was mostly right. - Eric Burke

@cindy because what I do as my daily job since Nov'04 is open source product series - and I see gap between reality and your post. - silpol

Silpol, if you are working on an OS project for your job, then you aren't part of what I'm talking about. I clearly delineated those companies who OS their software. - Cyndy

@cyndy no, it is not just project - it is long standing program on exploring into open-source as way of thinking in whole company, and we do often go VERY close to what is open source "there, outdoors"... like running particular small projects intentionally as non-company one's... or running it with low costs incurred still outdoors... and going through juggling with licensing nightmare... I can make it longer to make you clear how close we are to true FOSS. - silpol

the only true problem is legal one - US is worst legal territory in world, it is merely shark pool with no real value... I would personally sign order to carpet-bomb whole place if I knew how to get all lawyers in one place (no, this is NO joke), just to clean up and show rest of world what shall be done with all US legal system. - silpol

yikes silpol bin ladin - Noah David Simon

Wow, silpol, tell us how you really feel. - J. Phil

silpol, we do have a mess, but we aren't the only country like that. Tech moves way too fast for laws to keep up in any country. - Cyndy

@bleys yes, but also awfully orange... i.e. eyeball attracting ;) - silpol

btw, how about submitting you OWN art, huh? :) - silpol

I'm no artist =) Besides, I'm not sure a pink-and-black "Ma Emo" is a potential winner - Alex

trying is no crime either :) you've said pink'n'black? "Ma Emo" also makes interesting connotations too - you've got to be participating, even with fun project, you'know ;) - silpol

Emo MUST be pink-and-black, that's for sure. I'm thinking about what I can put together, and maybe about co-opting somebody who can draw. - Alex

The discrepancy is that even if IP addresses alone aren't personally identifiable, a list of videos watched correlated by that unique identifier may be. Consider AOL's problematic release of 'anonymized' search data. The unique ID had no personally identifiable meaning, but linking searches into a search history did, since some of those searches were for their own name, address, or even SSN. In YouTube's case, a watch-history that includes some very rarely-watched videos in addition to the more popular videos can give an accurate picture of who the user is, especially when they watch the personal videos that they themselves uploaded. - Kevin Fox

A problem with "owning" part of the Internet. Better would be millions of distributed video content sites, not owned by anyone. - nadim

I don't think anyone who simply watches needs to be worried. Youtube merely streams videos. Even if one were to stream copyrighted content, no copy is made by the viewer, unlike say, a VCR. Youtube may have exhibited without permission however I suspect any user lawsuit will be for uploading. On the other hand, Youtube's use of filtering technology gives them a defense against a contributory infringement claim, but their own content "standards" kill a DMCA safe harbor defense. IANAL, though. - Andrew Feinberg

Nadim, it's called Bittorrent, and it exposes your IP much more freely. What exactly constitutes "personally identifiable" is a very complex issue -- as Kevin points out, almost anything can be personally identifiable with enough data processing or in combination with other data sources. The judge and Viacom are the guilty parties here, trying to blame google only distracts from that fact. - Paul Buchheit

Google's choice in this matter is keeping those logs in the first place. They can't hand over information they don't have. If the information is useful to them in aggregate they can not log IP addresses/username information to begin with. That way they can't hand it over, period. Of course, I have no idea what value this data collection provides to Google, but the choice is still theirs. - nadim

This "don't store it" argument is silly. Should Google also not store my email in case Viacom decides that they want a copy of that as well? What we need is actual legal protection. Saying "don't store it" is just running away from the problem. Viacom will soon be getting access to your PC and government mandated ISP logs, and it won't matter what Google has saved. - Paul Buchheit

In this specific case, I believe not storing the information would have prevented the information from being disclosed to Viacom. They are going after the low hanging fruit, and Google has what they need readily available to hand over. Going to individual ISP's would be much more work, and currently I don't think ISP's are prepared for these kinds of requests (correct me if I'm wrong). You're right that in the future this may change, and we do need a legal solution either way. - nadim

Paul, there is a huge difference between storing my email and tying my IP and ID to views. And Google arguing with the EU that they had the right to do exactly that for things like ad targeting is what got them into this mess in the first place. - Cyndy

wow. - edythe

Sergey Brin comes off as a real gem. Looks like 'don't be evil' is morphing to 'let them eat cake'. Amazing what a 40%+ drop in share price can do. - Peter Simard

I found it odd that NYT quoted Sergey multiple times but each quote was disputed by Google PR after the fact. Seems like their PR folks are trying to do some "damage control"? - Alex Barbara

$57,000 just for someone to watch your kid? Remind me to not have kids for a while.. - Alex Barbara

Slowly but surely the shine will finally come off of Google and reality will set in. - AJ Kohn

The sense of "entitlement" is pretty stunning to an outsider who is an occasional visitor. It's pretty obvious (to me) that the "gimme" attitude is going to be an albatross around Google's neck when the time comes that their stock price returns from the stratosphere and settles around something reasonable and in line with the true value of the company. - Jason Wehmhoener

Geez. I don't know one solution that didn't generate new problems as a result of its having solved an old problem. Can't win no matter what in the eyes of the media. Also, this is news-worthy enough to be in the Times? - Ginger Makela

I have no thoughts on the day care issue in and of itself but people changing "don't be evil" into "do no evil" makes me grind my teeth. http://www.google.com/search?q... - Erica Baker

@Paul, agreed -- it's a strangely written story. The writer's bias is clear. Using heresay from employees then vaguely referring to the official statements. - Sprague D

$57,000 was for two kids... and after the price reductions, it won't be that expensive. - Michael Leggett

The author feels that employee-provided day care should be a requirement just like health insurance (not sure I agree), but fails to applaud Google's effort to make it available to those that want it. A 700-child waiting list (over 2 years) is unreasonable as is Google paying a $37,000 subsidy per child. I love working at Google... and I want them to stay around. Paying that large a subsidy is irresponsible to its employees and its shareholders. - Michael Leggett

You could argue that they should just lower costs then... but the main cost is the teachers (as it should be). Google believes teachers should be paid more and I'm proud that they are putting their money where their heart is by doing just that. If you don't want to pay so much, you can always find day care else where, right? Am I missing something? - Michael Leggett

When I visited HP I noted that they don't have the coffee carts anymore that they used to have. The employees noted that other benefits had gone away too. When the high profitability phase of a company ends, the benefits usually go away. At Microsoft they tried taking away things too, like towels in locker rooms, and the employees rebelled. - Robert Scoble

wonder what is average daycare costs there, in area? - silpol

It's absolutely incredible that day care would cost more than the mean national income ($48,201 according to Wikipedia). I understand that this is Silicon Valley, and therefore not applicable to the rules of the rest of the country, but still...it's astounding. - Spinn

We were paying $21,000 a year for two kids and that was top of the line in Charlotte. In theory I like the idea of company sponsored childcare but in reality I don't want my employer to have any influence over my kids. - Lori Reed

I posted this to reddit and got on the front page :P - Bjorn Tipling

probably I have to stop bitching about local tax - I pay monthly for not-full-day at kindergarten in about 100 meter from my house about 130 EUR, for full day it might reach 200 EUR/month max, i.e. annually 2400 EUR (~3600 USD)... hmmmmmmm - silpol

"Google can’t just have low teacher-child ratios — it has to have the lowest of anybody." - Shouldn't it be high teacher-child ratios? Unless they want more children to less teachers. - nadim

I had a hard time believing this was a NY Times article when I first saw it. Talks about child care at the beginning, then references a blog post talking about how Google is not a good place to work and then goes on to detail the child care issue. - Turker Keskinpala

@Michael -- $57G's .. not expensive? ... I don't even make that much in 2 years anymore .. - Steven Hodson

"If Google had really wanted to do something path-breaking about its day care crisis, it would have spent less time creating elitist day care centers and more time figuring out how to “scale” day care for everybody no matter what their salaries." - Gabe Schaffer

Even $33k for 2 kids seems like a lot -- at $16/hr it seems like you could just hire a babysitter for 8 hours a day to watch your two children. For $57k you could just hire a child psychologist full time. - Gabe Schaffer

@Steven I didn't mean it wasn't expensive. It is expensive. I meant it won't be as much as $57k. Maybe I'm not being fair... but I thought the article was bias (not invalid). It does raise some interesting issues... are companies responsible for providing child care? Something seems backwards with how we live when we work so much that we expect our employer to take care of our children. I don't know the answer... but good things to think about. - Michael Leggett

This same guy also wrote the weird 'open letter to Jerry Yang' the other week: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06... - j1m

So basically by having my wife stay home and do a superb job of taking care of the kids and the house during the day she is worth about $90,000 a year. Thank you babe! You are awesome! - Christian Burns

But what about people who don't have kids, should Google pay them because they are saving the company money? And what about those people who want to have kids, but can't meet the right person, should Google pay for dating services? Google is an awesome place to work, and sometimes they go overboard. Witness the swimming in place pools with lifeguards that almost nobody used. Let's agree to compare them with other companies. It's only fair. - Chris White

Once upon a time it was perfectly acceptable for apartments/condos to specify that they were "adults only". Had not so many developers become greedy and abused this privilege, these kinds of places would still exist and people like me -- and the parents who get tired of the complaints -- would be a lot happier. - Cecily Walker

I was a be seen and not heard if unappropriate or get my ears boxed or backside slapped child. Louder children today, you say? hmm - Michael W. May via twhirl

Michael, that's how I was raised as well. Sometimes I'm surprised by what parents let their kids get away with. I was spanked, but rarely - all my mom had to do was give me "the look" and I knew to behave. - Cecily Walker

*nod* Rarely needed that spank myself. The Voice and The Look worked well, but without knowing what came after, I doubt they would have. - Michael W. May via twhirl

This is more an issue of parenting than anything. I think parents are afraid to actually raise their children anymore. They're far too interested in being their child's friend than teaching them expected social behavior. </rant> - Kyle Hebert

I agree with Kyle, so many of today's parents simply don't take parenting seriously and it impacts ALL of us, not just noise, but behavior, education, manners, responsibility, etc. And there are far better ways (in fact wildly more effective) than corporal punishment. If you're not willing to really be a parent, then don't have kids. - AJ Kohn

@ajkohn care to elaborate on "better ways than ..." ? ;) - silpol

@silpol: Set expectations. Treat them as a human being, not some substandard adult knockoff (aka - they're smarter than they think), use time outs and naughty rug, follow-through on your warnings/threats (aka - do that again and we leave the park, they do it again, you MUST leave), make sure they have enough sleep and good food, take every opportunity to teach. - AJ Kohn

I could go on, but in the end, is it acceptable for an adult to scream like a banshee? No. Then it isn't for a child. When an adult does do this, do you go up and hit them? No. Then you don't for a child. - AJ Kohn

The only time screaming kids really annoy me is when I'm having a late dinner at a nice restaurant (say, 9 - 11pm) and there is a screaming toddler. Either that restaurant needs to adopt a curfew for kids, or the parents should know better. - J. Phil

Have to agree with most here. This is a parenting issue. On the weekends my wife and I prefer an early dinner out. At 5PM a mostly empty restaurant and they seat us next to the table with three kids standing on their chairs making a racket. The staff should also know better. We asked to be seated somewhere else and I think they were upset with us. My kids are 19 and 20 I can assure you they never acted like that in a public place. - Kevin Shannon

And I must add, we never hit our kids, we just took the time needed to teach them the right way to behave. - Kevin Shannon

I don't understand parents who push their screaming kids on others. Both Patrick and Milan only screamed when they needed something. Usually their problems are easy to solve. Bottle. Diapers. Etc. But if they were having a temper tantrum for some reason I sure wouldn't keep them in a restaurant where they could destroy someone else's experience. They would get a quick walk outside, to demonstrate that they need to care about other people's feelings too. - Robert Scoble

We brought our kids to FL this week and they were pretty good. I usually buy a round of drinks for the people around us on the plane, in anticipation of our noisy kids though. :-) - Steven M. Cohen

Hmm. Kids being loud = bad parenting? I think that is a stretch. Now I can understand this line of thinking if parents don't even try to keep kids in line, but occasionally kids are just loud. I agree with Robert that overly fussy kids should be removed from public situations to calm down. I have spent more nights in a hotel not sleeping due to drunk adults than noisy children... - Sean Brady

@Sean: Perhaps drunk adults were raised by parents who accepted noisy children and didn't teach them to be respectful of other people? - AJ Kohn

@Sean Not a stretch. The amount of unruly children in public and parents who let them be that way now compared to 20 years ago is sadly greater. That speaks to parenting and social norms. - Michael W. May

Well, the architects I know say that it is very easy to skimp on the acoustic separation between units. Building codes and unit design will become a bigger deal as the world population becomes increasingly urbanized. That having been said, I think that lower birth rates have made people less tolerant of children. - Steve Lynch

@ajkohn you went no further (so far) than local Finnish leaflet on parenting, yet it is not enough - _my_ kids do every sure thing to test limits till infinite and it takes me often effort to avoid going "short path" (read - body punishment)... and yes, I do time to time those old tricks from my military past just to avoid being too harsh - some of them true evil, but no physical touch or mental push, just "disziplin über alles" - silpol

@Sean Let me qualify. Kids being loud is natural. Kids allowed to be loud in public places where parents make no attempt to quiet them or teach them it's wrong - That's bad parenting. I sat at dinner 2 weeks ago for 20 minutes with a kid singing a song, walking around the table, while the parents and friends had an after coffee conversation. They encouraged the child telling them how cute the song was. Never once telling the child to sit and be quite... or just getting up to leave.since they were done! - Kevin Shannon

So I have a related question .. is there a rise of no-kids restaurants springing up? As for the apartment issue -- agreed with Cecily, new apartments could be made a lot more sound and vibration dampened to be attractive to young families. - J. Phil

@Phil I have not seen any NO KID places here on LI. When my kids were young we would take them to Friendlies, McDonald's, Nathan's, Chucky Cheese. I didn't really want to eat there but hey, we had kids and that's what we had to do. I don't frequent fancy places, Outback, Charlie Brown's medium priced steak houses. They seem to be the place people with 3 and 4 year olds go now. If I take my kids (19 and 20) to Outback were looking at $120. I'd like to enjoy that without kids running around my table. - Kevin Shannon

Ok we were all kids once...fricking awesome kids of course, and well I think the fairy tale that children are to be seen and not heard is very yesterday. WOW what an elitist thing to say..I mean they are PEOPLE not dogs. Crazy statement. - tanya

Tanya, I can only speak for myself, but I did say the only time I was annoyed was at a nice restaurant, and after 8pm. I do not begrudge kids being kids. I don't like screaming kids in R-rated movies either, but even that I will forgive faster than issue #1. As for the original discussion about families in apartments.. meh, what are you going to do? - J. Phil

@Tanya Can't tell what comments are setting you off. Well behaved children is not a fairy tale. I have two of them. I think parents today find it easier to argue that it's impossible instead of admitting that they may be causing the problem. Take a look at "Nanny 911". A crazy show but it drives home the point week after week that it's not the kids it's the parents. I love children and have spent many years working with them, Magic, Cub Scouts, Baseball. I have no problem with kids. - Kevin Shannon

@Tanya Not sure about the statement, kids are people not dogs. If you buy a dog and take no time training it and teaching it what's right and wrong it will be out of control. Kids are kinda the same. Take no time to parent and see what you wind up with. - Kevin Shannon

Don't assume just because a child is behaving in a way that annoys you, that it's because the parent isn't doing his or her job. The parent may not agree with you about the best way to parent a child. That's just one of the risks we take in living in communities with other people -- we might sometimes have to deal with others whose values or priorities are different from our own. - nathan

Had to be my statement, which alluded to the the way I was brought up, which included my grandparents preaching that old saying, "be seen and not heard" when noisy children were inappropriate. Those words implied or else and we understood that. Same as my mother's look or tone implied it. And btw, I was far from a fairytale child and yet, even with all this, I still grew up with constant love and respect for those elders. - Michael W. May

@nathan I would NEVER assume a child behaving badly was automatically a parenting issue. And after re-reading my comments I don't think I said that. That's why I gave very specific examples. When a parent lets a child mis-behave for an extended period of time doesn't say a word and doesn't have any care about other people around them, that's bad parenting and also shows they do not respect living in a community. I have never said anything to a parent with a mis-behaving child. I play well in community. - Kevin Shannon

the way I play with my children is one that is not quiet. I would try to ensure it would be at a level that would not bug me if I were them, but I sound more forgiving. - RAPatton

@Kevin Shannon I guess my point is that your idea of misbehaving and another person's might not be the same. I put a very high premium on my kids' acting civil and respectful towards adults, and i don't typically take them to places where "childish" behavior would be disruptive, but at the same time I know how hard it is to quiet an ebullient toddler, say, in a grocery store or something. Now that I've got kids of my own I tend to withhold judgment of other parents. - nathan

@nathan Totally agree. I was where you are 20 years ago. A toddler having a tantrum in the grocery store is no reflection of a parents skills. God knows if it did then I would have to admit to being a bad parent. And for every example I offered to the extreme, we've had situations where we sat next to very well behaved kids... I give them credit too. You sound like me and my wife, we gave up fancier dinners during the years our kids were young. I kind of miss Chucky Cheese. - Kevin Shannon

I'm nervous about this very issue because I'm taking my wife and two kids to NYC for three weeks this month. We are not exactly a quiet family, used to living in our own house for the past decade or so. I read the article, and the behavior that they are complaining about is normal kid behavior -- getting up in the middle of the night, walking down the hall, playing with toys. I'll admit it would suck to buy a place for $1M+ that comes with the sound of a baby crying. - Todd Nemet

I wouldn't say it's automatically a reflection on the parent but, if you take a toddler to a restaurant and don't bring stickers and crayons or something to do and instead let them jump around and scream ... I will judge you. I just don't buy the 'kids are just noisy' stuff. It's the worst kind of stereotype. Kids should be kids. Be loud at the park playing, or when having a tickle fight. But there's a time for an 'inside voice'. If you expect it, you will get it. - AJ Kohn

Wow, this article hit a nerve, eh? :) I think many of us are in agreement here, and I also suspect that the vast majority (if not all) the parents on this thread are the sort of parents I appreciate and respect. I totally get that kids will be kids. But when they ARE acting up, I believe it's the parents' responsibility to take appropriate action... not only with their kids directly (setting an example, enforcing time-outs, etc.) but -- of more selfish importance -- minimizing the negative impact on others - Adam Lasnik

This means, for instance, taking the kid outside (of the restaurant, theatre, etc.). I've also been tempted to ask parents "could you kindly take your kid outside?" on airplanes, too, but that's a bit more problematic, admittedly. - Adam Lasnik

Don't get me started on the subject of child discipline. I've read it all from The Old Testament to Alfie Kohn. As American adolescence extends into the 30s, I see people who are intolerant of children until parenthood and then become incredibly indulgent of their children once they become parents. The article indicated that about half of the complains were unfounded, and half were valid. The real story is the lack of conflict resolution skills in these so-called adults. - Todd Nemet

Nice article. Thanks for sharing it. I've actually thought that this problem should be quite unique to Russia with it's small flats, large cities, thick walls and rude people. - Andrey Ivanov

I do prohibit my child from running around the house after 9pm and do not let him scream too much in public but even here in Russia where people are more antisocial, strict and rude than in nearby Europe everyone is sane enough not to complain about the babies crying at night so no sympathy for some of the "baby noise victims" the article mentiones. - Andrey Ivanov

in fact, in many cases, being unemployed is better than working your ass off in a dirty boring stressful job. - Irma Vermaat

it's ok for the gays to marry, just not each other - orie

nothing... - Josue Salazar

FriendFeed - Bwana McCall

nothing. it's only one measure of influence and I see Robert on TechMeme fairly often. - Alex Hammer

Think that means he's carrying the water, conversation wise, for a lot of bloggers. - Christian Anderson via fftogo

That it is the 4th of July? - Mark Dykeman

the end of the blogosphere as we know it - Steven Hodson

Is it possible to transcend the A List? Perhaps he's now on a higher plane of existence, blogging wise. - Todd McKinney

It means he is spending more time here, Qik, FastCompany.tv and on Twitter. - Steve Rubel

Blogging is so 2007? I agree with S Rubel. - Russellreno

Gabe's tweaking ?? :) - Charlie Anzman

@Steve. Totally agree. - Dave Martin

It means his style of blogging has changed - he in many ways *is* the blog - the things he does and uses are the technologies to watch. - Jesse Stay

Apocalypse? - Andy Wibbels

The enormously famous and powerful don't blog. What percent of Davos alumni blog? It's not how they manage their reputations and celebrity. - Phil Wolff via Alert Thingy

that means FastCompany.tv became one of permanent sponsors - open your eyes - silpol

Louis - on an unrelated note, I am looking forward to see your athleticsnation.com rank on ballbug's leaderboard. - Atul Arora

Atul, AthleticsNation is run by Tyler Bleszinski. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... (I am just there to help) - Louis Gray

It means I haven't been playing the game lately. I've been doing crappy blogging and spending almost all of my extra time on FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble

It also is interesting that we went to Washington DC, got some remarkable interviews, none of which have been on Techmeme yet. But here on FriendFeed they got lots of praise and discussion going. I could get on Techmeme, though, by writing something idiotic with some sensationalist headline that would get lots of bloggers to link to it. - Robert Scoble

I ONLY bring this up because Robert mentioned DC...but yeah...I mean hell, you could have sat down and done an entire interview - bringing your community's questions to people really in charge in DC from reps to senators to oh, heck, I don't know... Presidential candidates...and I bet ya techmeme wouldn't notice. Of course they'd be ALL OVER 'written' responses to other blogs. But some big old video exclusive...yeah, they would ignore that. ....lol. - Erin Kotecki Vest

Can't make the big bucks on Friendfeed, Robert, as much I like your activity on here. Don't want to see you relegated to some job that will keep you away from all this madness - Bjorn Tipling

Bjorn: you might be surprised. Companies want to get close to early adopters. Companies are sponsoring our shows not because we have large audiences but because we have early adopters and influencers. Of course FastCompany.tv is advertising on Techmeme, but mostly that's just me rewarding Gabe for adding a lot of value to my life over past few years. - Robert Scoble

"I could get on Techmeme, though, by writing something idiotic with some sensationalist headline that would get lots of bloggers to link to it." Scoble, you've hit the nail on the head. Life's too short for that. - Duncan Riley

That makes you a better man, mr Riley - Bjorn Tipling

I wrote my thoughts up here: http://scobleizer.com/2008/07/... - Robert Scoble

the end is here...;) - Jeremiah Owyang

I'm not really getting Roberts comments (and Duncan's either). Are you saying that it's not the Techmeme isn't linking to you, it's that you don't care about Techmeme? That before, you were creating content to specifically self-promote via that channel, but now you are getting paid for media that is based on early adopters and influencers and your personal brand marketing strategies have changed? Just wondering. - leigh himel

Leigh: the #1 way to get onto TechMeme is to talk about what's already on TechMeme. Note that my "waiting in line for iPhone is glorious" article is already at the top of TechMeme. How did that happen? I saw a headline on Techmeme, and wrote about it, but added something new. Those get onto Techmeme a LOT easier than some original thought that brings more value. So, if I stop reading Techmeme, or caring about it, yes, that TOTALLY makes it less likely I'll get onto it. - Robert Scoble

Being linked to a meme headline doesn't count in the leader board standings. So sure it would get you onto Techmeme but wouldn't affect your top 100 position. - leigh himel

Yes, if not more so. Skills taught in an MLIS skills go way beyond the public library sector. Metadata will still be needed, cataloguing will still occur. Digital repositories are receiving more and more funding. Journal & other publications are tiered based on bibliometrics. Authors' and researchers' authority & funding are also influnced by bibliometrics. As is academic funding - http://www.toosexyformybooks.c... Specialist libraries such as law and medical will always need information specialists. The need for mediated searching for time poor professionals is increasing. Financial and corporate researchers are still heavily drawn from the LIS pool. I got to final round interview with the leading 'black box' hedge fund for being 2IC of the data quality team purely based on my LIS skills. - Patricia Hanrahan

IR - a key MLIS area - is becoming recognised as being more and more important. A number of SIGIR members and conference attendees have a LIS background. Knowledge of vector space, Latent Semantic Indexing, td*idf, term weighting, precision/recall, relevance ranking etc - all ideas that have stemmed from the LIS sphere - are becoming recognised as being more & more relevant (heck, we've been doing for decades its just now that the tech world is starting to pay attention). Ontologies are an extension of taxonomies, thesauri, basic KO skills that form the backbone of an MLIS. Essentially a librarian's job is to take information, regardless of what its format, organise, index and structure it in such a way that it is retrievable. The old cliche of the librarian matching the reader to the book has not changed at heart, just in its wording - we now match the resource to the user. - Patricia Hanrahan

Oh and don't forget that slayers will always be in need of a good watcher :) - Patricia Hanrahan

Whoa, rock it, Patricia. :) - Ayşe E.

For the record, I agree with all that is said here, especially since my first two jobs after graduating were not in ibraries. I wonder, though, about those librarians who bemoan the changes that are absolutely required of us -- I'm primarily speaking of skillsets here, but a mental shift is required as well. - Cecily Walker

Wow... I feel so tiny, stupid, and inadequate *chuckle* That was awesome. - Michael W. May

Forbes has a list of the top 20 growing job fields, and library workers are on it with growth of 17.06%: http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/... - Ginger Makela

I've thought about jumping into LIS because I have an unnatural obsession with categorizing and organizing. It seems really interesting. (Note: I'm not saying because I think it's an easy thing, etc.) - Kirk Kittell

Ginger, I think that list is misleading. People who hold MIS/MLS/MLIS degrees are more in demand, but I don't get the same sense that library jobs are growing all that much. True, boomer librarians are starting to retire in large numbers (finally!), but in some library systems, those people are being replaced by staff members who don't hold master's degrees. When I graduated, I was one of four people who made a beeline for corporate work. Maybe that number has shifted somewhat since I finished in 2004. - Cecily Walker

What's also happening is you're seeing more and more schools of library science changing their names/focuses to information studies/information science. The University of Washington, Berkeley, The University of Michigan have all removed the word "library" from their faculty (even if they are still handing out library science degrees). Information science or information management somehow carries more weight in this knowledge economy than saying "I'm a librarian." It also means they can charge higher tuition - Cecily Walker

"Michael, I'm afraid I can't use Turbo Boost just to merge onto the Interstate." - Karim

i went to see what hasselhoff is up on google...lol @ top links and images http://www.google.com/search?h... - Hao Chen

Admittedly, this sounds something I would do... heh. - Michael W. May

I don't even need to read the article to know I like this. - Carla Thompson

they are really a little bit strange ;) - Nicole Simon

But I thought it was the *Finns* who got drunk! :) - Adam Lasnik

My 86 yr old German father would not spend his last dollar in a bar, but he would cheer the Swede. - Russellreno

Q: How do you keep Denmark beautiful? A: Escort a Swede to the ferry. - Dave Roth

Q: What is the difference between Denmark and Sweden? The Swedes have nice neigbours! - Baard Overgaard Hansen

If he was a real man he would have taken a swim, right? - Johannes Henkel