"He used the library analogy: The hard drive size was compared to the amount of shelving for books. The CPU speed was the librarian's quickness on his/her feet (this was a full service library), and the RAM was the size of the table at which one sat. Larger table meant more books could be opened simultaneously. When the table had been covered with books, each time a new book was to be opened, one from the table would have to be closed (pagefile). The last part seemed superfluous in this scenario, but the overall description, with a few stated benchmarks and questions about the grandchild's habits, seemed a much better than average sales transaction."
- Sir Shuping
from Bookmarklet
thought this was an interesting comparison and way to explain how a computer works
- Sir Shuping
I've used library shelf space to compare to various kinds of removable storage media (floppies, CDs, DVDs, etc.) - this is interesting!
- Webgoddess
A-fraking-men. I joked with my wife that I was going to make her a Tshirt that had a big arrow that wrapped from front to her back with a legend that read "Epidural Goes Here". The amount of crap given to her regarding "natural" methods was just horrid.
- Jason Griffey
I always tell my friends to take the drugs. Going through that kind of pain is unnecessary nor does it prove you are a woman. If you can handle it, more power to you but the very fact that a woman has become a mother is proof of her womanhood (this is not a slight on women who choose not to have children, this is simply a show of support for women who decide to take the drugs).
- Daenel Vaughn-Tucker
Really, they got crap for that? Shanon delivered Luke through natural childbirth and Nick through more currently conventional means with epidural, induced labor, etc. She vastly preferred the latter method. I think when it comes to pregnancy, delivery, nursing, and child rearing people need to STFU unless asked.
- s t e v e
Daenel, when you tell your friends to take the drugs, do you also mention all of the possible negative side effects?
- Rochelle
I expect that just like anyone else, dani tells her friends about her personal experiences, and then like the librarian she is she suggests they do their own research into their options so they can make the best decision for themselves.
- Jenica
from iPhone
Should I hide this thread now, or make popcorn?
- s t e v e
No need, Steve. I just like to ensure that women are given full, accurate information when they make decisions like these. There's a lot of misinformation and antecdata out there on the topic and I feel that women are too often swayed into poor decisions (either one way or the other) by pressure from family and friends, what they read on pregnancy bulletin boards online, etc.
- Rochelle
Aw, geez, rational discussion? ;) Yeah, talk about it with the person who will deliver the kid. If you don't see eye-to-eye, find another person to deliver the kid. And for your own sake, stay off the parenting websites.
- s t e v e
Wow. I was all for being drugged up - Alex was so early & fast that I couldn't be and I'm insanely jealous of Rothman's & Griffey's wives for getting that blessed relief from the pain. Ouch. Anyway, this is similar to the breast-feed/don't breast feed decisions - nobody else's business but yours!
- Webgoddess
Unfortunately, ppl get grief either way, drugs/no drugs, induction w/out indication/none, breastfeeding/not... [edited to add: public/private school, circumcision/not...this list could go on for a while about what parenting-related things ppl are judgy about]
- Rachel Walden
I've found that the judgmental business tapers off quite a bit after about age 3... (as long as you don't tell people you're still breastfeeding, of course!)
- Erika Sevetson
Co-sleeping, TV, sugar cereal, car seats, church, video games, it goes on and on. The parent is not broken.
- s t e v e
I would totally steal "the parent is not broken" except nobody on the parenting <strikethrough>fight clubs</strikethrough> discussion boards would get the joke.
- Catherine Pellegrino
Well, some parents are broken. But I'm biased because my wife works in child protection services.
- DJF
Also, Steve Martin's movie "Parenthood" was one of the most accurate depictions I've ever seen ;-)
- DJF
Yes, DJF, for sure. I think I just mean that in the absence of evidence of neglect or abuse, we should assume that people are making informed choices and/or doing the best we can. Or at the very least, that it's none of anyone else's damn business.
- s t e v e
Steve, absolutely. Most parents are doing what they think is right, and the best that they can do. And kids are pretty resilient.
- DJF
It's scary the amount of women I encounter who don't make informed choices when making decisions about pregnancy and labor. They're just doing something because their BFF knew someone who knew someone who said something. It's frustrating to me.
- Rochelle
which is why information literacy skills are so important! /librarian
- Jenica
Jenica, agreed. Also a sense of social boundaries.
- s t e v e
What's right is for parents to make medical decisions based on the best available evidence. I get judgey on those who don't.
- David Rothman (☤)
from Android
I would encourage this. I don't know if I'm the person to take advice on this sort of thing, tho, since I once hand-wrote business cards on party invitations.
- Chris Z.
I Think maybe we SHOULD, Melissa. It would be an open-format, platform-agnostic way to avoid all the data-entry involved in swapping contact info.
- David Rothman (☤)
DO EET. Be cutting edge. I think they'll eventually pick up here. We just didn't have the mobile tech culture that Japan has until about the past 18 months. I may steal the idea for my next set of moo cards.
- Sarah G.
Don't use it for simply repeating the info on your business card. Use it to promote my latest musical endeavor :)
- Jason S. Shapiro
I printed a QR code directly onto my most recent business card, via MOO. The code points at my website.
- Jason Griffey
This would also be an awesomely geeky tattoo. Esp. because 15 years from now you would get to explain over and over again what QR codes are.
- Sarah G.
I haven't used the QR stickers yet, but I leave a space on the back of all of my business cards to put a sticker with the name of the presentation and the URL of the support wiki on it for each presentation I do. I'm not sure QR codes are quite "ready for primetime" yet, but hey - if no one uses them, they never will be, right?
- Webgoddess
Feel free! Sticky label-type things are so cheap from places like Vistaprint that they are super easy to create a bunch, then spend a few minutes sticking them on the back of my card. The hard part is remembering to take them with me when I go...
- Webgoddess
"if no one uses them, they never will be, right?" -- I say the same thing about PGP-signed e-mail, and it hasn't caught on yet (unfortunately).
- Peter Murray
Peter, the problem with PGP signed email is that there are so many steps to go through to get everything set up. If creating and publishing the public key was just part of the account creation process, then everybody would do it.
- DJF
While I am, actually, all for homoerotic bondage, tumblr certainly chose to cut the rest of my sentence off at an interesting spot. Looks like my account got hacked. :-)
- Jason Griffey
Funny you should like this, Josh - I'm on my second glass and already more buzzed than I was when I went out drinking with you! And I drank a LOT that night!!
- Webgoddess
YELLING ABOUT KNITTING IS EVEN AWESOMER.
- Webgoddess
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO KNIT. I JUST LIKE YELLING.
- ÉllbeeÇee
I COULD YELL ABOUT MAKING MOSAICS THOUGH!
- ÉllbeeÇee
I'LL YELL ABOUT KNITTING, YOU YELL ABOUT MAKING MOSAICS, WE'LL ALL BE SOOPER-AWESOME. I DECREE IT SO!
- Webgoddess
WELL IF WE ARE GONNA BE SOOPER-AWESOME THEN WE MUST YELL SOME MORE ABOUT KNITTING: MY FINGERS ARE GONNA BREAK OFF, BUT ROYCE WILL GET HIS FLIPPING HAT!
- Mary Carmen
There's something awesome about a bunch of librarians randomly yelling =D
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
THIS IS LIKE A QUESTIONABLE CONTENT HOLIDAY SPECIAL
- ǎňňǎ
I had several movies I watched so much just because they were there and we didn't have cable. I was shocked when classics like Moscow on the Hudson and Dragnet were not everyone's favorite movies, nor classics.
- Eric @ CSTechcast.com
Who has experience with customizing Media Wiki? What skills do I need to customize the background/looks of all of the pages and to make it as easy as pie for people to add content to the wikipages? Any good books?
As you might guess from the lack of responses, customizing Media Wiki can be a bitch. There are templates out there, but they are sort of difficult to work with (I think, I've just stuck with the standard look because they *seem* so difficult to deal with). I have a book at work that I've used in the past, I'll check it tomorrow and DM you the info. Good luck!!
- Webgoddess
Geek: Maybe some of us are ducking the question, since Meredith F. and I both had the same reaction to Roy Tennant's attack on wikimarkup in his blog today--that is, we both agreed that wikimarkup, and in particular MediaWiki, is awful. (And my experience with wiki books, admittedly two years ago, was that what was available--edited as a wiki, of course--was so badly written and fawning that I gave up after 50 pages. Maybe there's been better since.)
- Walt Crawford
I love the (apparent) ease of adding new pages to wikis and making editorial changes--but "easy as pie" to add properly-formatted content or import content from elsewhere: Not so much. My job for 2.5 years has been to cope with MediaWiki as content editor; we're moving to Drupal, which has its flaws but at least--AT LEAST--uses HTML. Which is both reasonably standardized and reasonably coherent.
- Walt Crawford
we use media wiki at work - i can't imagine it being as easy as pie - ever. are you determined to use media wiki?
- Christina Pikas
It's probably too late, but I say yes. Make it a really good lecture, though (imagine all the great reactions you'd get to your jokes) and let them know what they missed next time. You'll either be the greatest professor ever or the craziest. Win-Win!!
- Webgoddess
World’s leading race cars and motorsport technology website. Engineering for racing cars – F1, NASCAR, rally, Daytona, Le Mans | Racecar Engineering Magazine
- Doug Patterson
Doug, I really want to like some of your posts, but I really don't understand most of 'em. Cars have a gas pedal, a brake of some sort and a gas tank. That's the limit of what I "get" about them... Oh - and sometimes, when I'm not paying attention, they go really fast... ;)
- Webgoddess
LOL! Well, keep reading and ask lots of questions. Tab and I will eventually make a race fan out of ya. :)
- Doug Patterson
Please say hello to people the Humanities Matter! conference here in Wyoming! And if you have any humanities related blogs, Twitter feeds, or what have you to recommend, please do that, too.
Nope. Some day...honestly, we've been better on seeing the world (we're not big driving fans), and since I've never been asked to speak in Wyoming...
- Walt Crawford
Well, if I'm ever in a position to do so, I'll invite you to speak in Wyoming, Walt. . . although if you don't like driving, you will be at some disadvantage here. But there's some lovely country, both in the parks and out of them.
- laura x
Hey now...some of us east coasters would not mind speaking gigs in the great state of Wyoming young lady.
- ♫Geek in the 410♫
when the kids move away and my wife gets smart and leaves me for a younger man I'd move to Wyoming in a heartbeat... wide open spaces plus straight roads to dive fast on & beautiful mountains plus twisty roads to drive quick on :)
- Aaron the Librarian
I almost wound up working in Montana. It's magnificent country.
- D0r0th34
Don't listen to Aaron the librarian!! He considers anything above 0 degrees F to be shorts weather!!!
- Webgoddess
I'm with Aaron. It needs to be less than 50 for the lightest of sweaters. I don't break out my super-heavy thick sweaters until we have single digits.
- Katy S
It's been a high of 50 here. My house is set at 65 during the winter
- Lindsey is Fierce!
Well, I will be wearing a long sleeve shirt under my sweater all under my jacket. Definitely a hat. It's FREEZING.
- Admiral Anika
Y'all are just now coming off of triple digit weather, right? I can understand why you'd feel cold. I always do if we have an extreme dip in temperature right after it's been warm. Eventually my body adjusts, though. Plus, I'm a cold-weather climate person.
- Katy S
I always think the cold is better, because I can cover myself up from it. Ain't the same with heat.
- Parth Awasthi
With the heat you can just get naked and that's way better than being bundled.
- Admiral Anika
from fftogo
you know what i hate sometimes, those few minutes right before we open when people start pulling and banging on the door wanting to be let in. it's great they want to come in, not so great that i can't let em in so i have to hide
running of the stairs? sounds like a bad horror movie :)
- Sir Shuping
The adult computers are upstairs in our building with the non fiction. TimK can attest better than I, but it's literally people running up there.
- Abigail
wow...the only equivalent i have is guests running for a computer. we only have 2 of them and they swarm us at opening on the weekend
- Sir Shuping
Our patrons have to run downstairs to get to our PCC (which is completely full - all 30 computers - at 11 minutes after opening today) and I'm always holding my breath on Sunday mornings, waiting for someone to trip and cause a 20-person pileup at the bottom of the stairs...
- Webgoddess
A young kitten spent the last hour and a half thwarting my attempts to rescue it. It did consent to eat copious amounts of cat food, though. I'll come back tomorrow and try again.
NO! Hopefully finding a co-worker to foist it onto.
- lris
"onto which I can foist it." Never end a sentence with a preposition.
- DJF
LOL - my son came to me the other day complaining that he's getting teased because I insist on proper grammar at home. He said something like that and one of his friends started calling him grammar boy. I was so proud...
- Webgoddess
David, that comment bespeaks a strictness up with which I will not put.
- lris
One more grammar note: That really isn't a rule. Rather, its an attempt by some upper class snobs during the 18th century to separate themselves from the lower classes with a (terribly misguided) attempt to apply latin-based rules on English. That's why some of these constructions end up being so awkward - they really aren't meant for English.
- Katy S
As far as the kitteh goes - hooray for saving kittens!! If you feed it, it will soon be friendly.
- Katy S
Katy, I love you for pointing that out! The fact is, English has NO grammar rules, only traditions & habits. One of the reasons why I love the language so much.
- josh neff, geek at large
That's the hope, Katy. I'll go back tomorrow and spend some time sitting there and feeding it. Maybe I'll bring a towel and a cat carrier too... *schemes*
- lris
that's how we acquired two cats last summer. well, that and the neighbor boy got arrested, and the landlords would have nothing to do with making sure his cat was taken care of. :(
- Elaine Nelson
Iris - if you have a cat toy on a stick - or even some ribbon - you can entice a cat closer through play. Growing up on the farm, I did this all of the time with the feral and semi-feral cats that came around.
- Katy S
I tried that, Katy, but while it REALLY wanted to play with the end of my earbuds, they were ultimately still too close to me to be safe. I hope to overcome that shyness via food.
- lris
Katy & Josh, yes, I know that the "rules" are things that somebody made up based on latin (the split infinitive one is really dumb, since in latin the infinitive is a single word, so there's nothing to split). Mostly I'm ok with ending sentences with a preposition, but that doesn't mean I can't be pedantic to humourous effect.
- DJF
Yeah, the split infinitive thing is dumb, although I still can't bring myself to split them. But I'm sort of sad that we've lost the distinction between shall and will (the former is emphatic in the 2nd and 3rd person, while the latter is emphatic for the 1st). But I accept that I am one of probably three people who feels this way.
- laura x
Has anyone put a program together like The Big Read or One Community One Book and not gone through the actual company? I'm trying to program something like this, but keep costs down. OR...maybe you have done the program with a company...which one and how was it received?
We've done both. For the one we did on our own, our Foundation just bought a bunch of paperbacks of the book, and the author, who is local to Wyoming and loves libraries and will thus come for gas money and a six-pack of Rainier Ale, cans preferred, came to talk for all three libraries. We also did a Big Read program. Both were fairly well-received. We relied a lot on local talent for associated programming with the Big Read program (local profs giving talks, that kind of thing).
- laura x
We've just done the home-grown thing. Our Collection Dev. librarian is in charge of it and she's genius at getting local experts and such to come in and talk about themes of the book during the events. I don't think we've ever used a company to manage our program.
- Webgoddess
@Laura and @ASimpleSailor, both are exactly what I'm getting at! I guess for now, I'm just trying to come up with a way to pay for the mass of paperbacks that are bought. I'm just in the early stages of planning...but want to do it sometime this Fall!
- Becca
Yeah, whatever, Jenica. I'm headed for Queen of the Universe. We might have to fight it out.
- ÉllbeeÇee
LBC, we can tag-team it and assign duties to Christa. :)
- Jenica
Well, I often want to claim "Queen of the World"
- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
awesome. We always need someone for Other Duties As Assigned. :)
- ÉllbeeÇee
I'm pretty happy with Web Goddess. I think I'll be keeping it. Though I'd be happy to start assigning duties to Christa!
- Webgoddess
I'm the gooey, cheesy topping that makes the library pizza taste sooooo gooooood.
- ǎňňǎ
If you don't think being a Walmart Greeter makes me a Unique Individual, then you're stupid. Good Day.
- Kaia Olatunde-Glassmeyer
@owlie - erm. You didnt have a corner on the market of using that phrase - it appears quite often. In recent application letters I've seen, even. You can call yourself whatever you want :)
- ωαřмaiden, MFA'd poet
It was normal while I was hosted with them. It's why I moved. VERY happy with http://synhosting.com/ I hardly ever hear from them and that's JUST the way I like it. (There was one incident about a month ago with a really bad DDoS against their whole infrastructure, but they managed it like pros.) I DO NOT WANT to think about my webhosting. Synhost means I don't hafta.
- D0r0th34