Everything you've ever read is wrong.

If you read a book published before 2010, then you'd best forget about it. That book was written for someone less enlightened than you, with your social networking and facebooking and tweeting.

In case you haven't heard, reading has changed. It is no longer the solitary pursuit once prized by eggheads. Readers used to sit quietly with their books, read the words, then have deep thoughts about them. The words were fixed on the page allowing for our thoughts to coalesce around them. The words became part of us as we found ourselves experiencing the same emotions and ideas that the author intended for us to share. And these emotions and ideas could span generations and give us a link back through time as we formed empathetic bonds through those printed words.

But reading has evolved. We no longer read for ourselves, but for others. We read to share. We highlight words in our ereaders and share those words with others. We tweet our favorite passages to others so they can witness our intellectual transformations. I read to better myself through your eyes, not my own. I don't exist without your retweets.

So these are the ebook and ereader questions: is the act of reading changing because the medium has changed? Do people still read for the same reasons that they did when the medium was paper? Is reading evolving into a social activity?

You could argue that it's always been a social activity: books communicate between the author and the reader; plays communicate to the audience; picture books are read aloud to children; book clubs discuss the work among the group; poetry communicates to, um, no one since 1967, and on and on.

But the act of reading has always been a solitary act. I seek a quiet place to read free from distractions, then I open the book and read. I am alone with the words.

But what about ebooks? These are designed for devices that perform a multitude of other tasks. They allow for annotating, highlighting, saving, possibly forwarding to other devices. The device makes for easy sharing.

So if ereaders change the way we read by giving us all these methods for sharing what we read and how we think about what we read, then will the books change? Will books become more social?

Are there books with spots at the end of the chapter that say, "Twitter break" or "tweet this!" What about embedded tweet functionality? As soon as you highlight something, tiny box opens to ask "What do you want to do with this? T(witter)? F(acebook)? A(mazon) B(uzz) L(ibraryThing)?"

What about the length of the chapters? Are they written shorter to be read during those few minutes when we can devote attention to the book? Like are new books written with 2 page chapters?

Seriously, is the act of reading changing? I mean, there really is book called How to Read a Book. It was published in 1940. It is outdated? One of the most important rules for reading is to read actively, to analyze what you are reading, its purpose and the author's goals in writing it. Is this rule obsolete today with so much hogging our attention?

Does this new medium negate serious reading (see the Annoyed Librarian for her definition of a serious reader)? You can spin molecules on you iPad screen and you can hold your screen up to the world and have your iPad tell you more about your place in it. So no, the technology doesn't destroy the reading experience, but it provides enough distractions that the serious reader can't be blamed for succumbing to its many charms.

Reading shouldn't be the same as simply looking at words. It should also be more than just knowing the difference between dog and frog. But, again, is the act of reading changing?

Anyway, if there is any point to this, it's that the solitary act of reading is dead and interactive technology done it.

And then, when serious reading is dead, would it be wrong to read Walden on your ereader?

For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.
[project gutenberg]

Will anyone ever read Walden on an iPad? Will the iPad explode from the irony? Check your warranty and tos; it's probably in there somewhere.

Burning down the house.

Imagine telling your library patrons, "I'm going to take 20 books based on some decision where you had no input and that's all you get to read."

No, this isn't Cuba. This is a library-loaned ebook reader. And yes, before you get all nitpicky on me because Comic-Con is over and you didn't get to ask if The Avengers or Tron or blah blah blah will blah blah, I know that some libraries allow patrons to download new titles to the Kindle and that some libraries use ebooks to satisfy some ILL requests. I'm not an idiot; I just don't care. And you haven't figured that out yet.

I keep falling back on how much technology fucks with us. And I don't see any real benefit from what's new this month compared to last year. So we have ebook readers. But that proves my point. What does it do that's new? It has a screen which is guess is newish. But I still need to type and tap and click stuff. So now I need to learn a whole different way to read.

It doesn't zap the book directly into my brain, so what's the point? It's one step forward, three steps back.

Each time we need to learn a new interface, it's three steps backward.

Don't try to convince me that you are the progressive librarian because you are not. Ebooks have more limitations than printed books. At least, for libraries.

Oh, the.effing.librarian, you are just stuck in the past. You don't want to empower your users.

Ok, I'm reading a book. How many ways do I need to know to read a fucking book? How is making people feel stupid going to empower them.

Librarian:
Yes, sir, click that and move that and slide that and shake that, and, Look! you're reading the first page of an ebook! Welcome to the new world! Now do that 461 more times to read the whole thing!

Library Patron:
Go fuck yourself.

I don't have anything against the Amazon Kindle if you want to buy one for your library to educate your users to what an ebook reader is, to have some fun playing with it, but don't try to convince me that 10 or 20 of those hunks of plastic are going to solve any real library issues. Not with DRM and Amazon's ability to delete books, and the possible privacy issues with Amazon tracking what people highlight on their readers, and even with just keeping a running log of all the books that have been downloaded, or not offering any real library-friendly or open source business model, I don't see any of this being in the library's interest.

We loan DVDs, but we don't loan DVD players. We loan books about using software, but we don't loan the software so you can read the book to learn how to use it.

There are lots of decisions we make already that limit your fun in our library. I like to think that our library is mostly fun and we express that each time we answer, "F. U." when you make some stupid demand.

Every time you embrace a new and different technology, you are only adding convenience to an increasingly limited supply of materials for an increasingly limited borrower population. So you are reducing your patron's freedom of access to information. So don't brag about intellectual freedom while you reduce the overall volume of materials available.

And don't brag about digital access when providing it requires the user to leap all new hurdles in our technological bureaucracy:

Do you have a wireless enabled device? Wifi? 3G? 4G? Do you have desktop or laptop computer? Windows? Linux? Macintosh? Have you installed the software from the link provided on our website? Do you run the security update? Did you connect the wireless device via the USB cable connector? Did you sync the device
and enter its unique ID? Did you choose a password? Did you interrupt the download process by scratching your ass and creating an electrostatic charge? Because that voids the warranty.

This is just as bad or worse than storing all of your print collection in a distant building "in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of The Leopard'."

I had two patrons in the last week who called about their recently purchased Nook ebook readers. One guy just followed along with me until I heard, "Got it. I'm downloading it. Yeah, got it. Thanks. If I need anything else I'll call you."

And during the other call, all I heard in the background was, "Tell him it's a NOOK. Did you tell him it's a NOOK?" while the guy didn't seem to understand anything I said. So tell me how "library 2.0" or mobile or chat reference or digital or progressive is going to help that second guy because the only way he's not going to shove that Nook back in the box and never look at it again is if I tell him to bring it into the library (with his laptop) to show him how to download and transfer ebooks... well, not show him, but do it for him... two or three times...

Screencast? Stop. I'll need to make a screencast just to show him how to watch the screencast.

Why my stupidity, paranoia, cheapness is good for you.

So I'm reading this story about someone whose email gets hacked:

"Like many people, I have given over much of my life to Google. I manage several addresses, including my domain email (xxxx {at} lxxsecxxxxxlibrarian {dot} net) through a single gmail sign-on."

When I tweeted fuck "the cloud" a few weeks ago, I meant this shit.

Thankfully, I'm not important. I don't need to manage 200 things. I don't need to be online all day to deal with shit. I can let most stuff go for 48 hours and it won't make the house burn down. So I don't need all my eggs in "one basket" as this person does, or did (if she learns her lesson).

I don't have a single password or account for anything, and it terrifies me when I think that one day, Yahoo or Google or Hotmail will force me to consolidate all my identities into one superuser. At that point, I would just abandon all my emails and start fresh. Again, one of the benefits of being unimportant.

What I do have is a single text file for all my passwords on my flash drive. And before you say that's a stupid idea, let me add this tidbit: yes, I know it's a stupid idea.

And what's worse, all my passwords are in code. And each code is different. Like I have a password here that says, "'safe' minus birthday." I don't even know what that means off the top of my head. I have to remember two pieces of information and then do some sudoku or look at a scrabble board, I think, to remember the password and access that particular account." And even the location where the password fits is in code.

Here is one that says, "Hotmail = Yahoo - 1." Fuck if I ever get into that account ever again. But it's safe as hell. At least, safe from me.

Another thing, I don't click on any links in my email. If a friend sends a link to a video or some pictures, I call him on the phone and ask what it was he wanted me to watch because I delete anything with links or attachments, then he tells me what it was and we laugh about it. Is that better or worse than clicking the link?

I don't know if I'll ever get a smartphone and then use it to access every account I have. I don't understand that technology enough to trust it.

But as far as I know, no one has ever gotten spammed by one of my accounts. Because it was hacked.

But if you ever get mail bombed with ads for "METAL ASS 2," the new book of the blog by the.effing.librarian, then yeah, that was me.

THERE'S AN APP (Shhh), sorry, there's an app for that.

Librarians want you to know that you all are too loud. But different librarians will deal with you differently.

The blog Closed Stacks says, "when patrons are being loud or don’t get off the phone quickly – to deal with this I have developed a hand gesture/whisper shushing method that is usually fairly inoffensive."

I am not a woman and I don't pretend to be a woman, for less than $500. So I don't know how difficult it might be for women to get library patrons to shut up. All I know is that I look like a crazy person who stores body parts in the staff refrigerator in bags marked "giblets." So most people listen to me. I also never ask people to comply with policy. I don't ask anyone to talk quietly; I tell them to end the call or take it outside. I'm not the effing librarian because I picked the name out of the dictionary.

But, and this is a big "But," I rarely tell someone to take it outside until another patron has complained. I don't care how loud you are unless it bothers others. (Mostly.)

But "Closed Stacks" brings up the point that this is a constant battle for librarians, so is there a cell phone application that can get this shushing job done for us? Is there something that monitors the voices on the call and interjects a pleasant "Shhhh" when they get too loud?

Can we force a download as each person enters the building? Or maybe the app could just be a fun, free app that people want to download, like maybe Halle Berry could say, "Oh, baby, say it softer," Arnold Schwarzenegger could bark, "Shut up, asshole," and Samuel L. Jackson says, "Keep it down, motherfucker."

I think this could be something. A shushing app could work. Or I could just continue to smack them in the head with a phone book and point to the door. Oh, didn't I mention the phone book?

Petitions make everything better.

This is about the 21st "Century Library Information & Technology" centers.

The CLIT Center? Right off, I'm not crazy about that title. But it's what I got from abbreviating this new "viral" library movement for "21st Century Library Information & Technology" centers. It's from an open letter written by a mom who forgot to ask librarians which words she should keep very far apart when naming her movement. Maybe she needs to watch the "Jingleheimer Junction" SNL skit again to learn why Katie "Kindness," Carla "Caring," and Umberto "Unity" should think twice about adding a new member to their club.


[if it hangs up, download it from here.]

The online petition is here. I'm guessing this site was created for regular people to post their wants and for all of us to "tweet" our support until a massive grassroots movement forms and gets a response from the target. It's basically a letter to President Obama asking for stuff. I'm just not sure what this stuff is. For example:

"Dear President Obama & staff:
Please ensure that any revision to American education policy converts existing school libraries to 21st Century Library Information & Technology centers, led by a certified teacher-librarian trained in technology integration."

Yeah, I don't know what that means. I don't know what a "teacher-librarian" is, but I think it might involve cloning or transmogrification or major organ transplantation. Either way, I hope the new creature gets to keep the "sexy parts" from the teacher, especially if she looks anything like my 3rd grade teacher, Miss Simpson. And "technology integration" sounds like we're talking about The Borg.

"Every American child should receive a virtual portfolio space (along with a desk on their first day of school). The portfolio would not only serve to archive their work and prepare them for college admissions/employment, it could prove to be an incredibly insightful safety net to catch children that are struggling."

Again, whoosh, right over my head with this. Kids would get "virtual portfolio space" that tracks everything they do from the first day of school to the last? From age 6 to age 18, schools will track their every assignment, grade and disciplinary action? Talk about something "going on your permanent record."

"More robust and equitable funding for educational technology is necessary along with an investment in professional development that equips administrators,
teachers and librarians to master emerging technologies."

No idea. But they use the word "robust" so it's got to mean something good.

"A 21st Century Library Information & Technology Center would support all literacies, classical and emerging."

Please explain what emerging literacy is. Is that like functional literacy? Is it like complete illiteracy? Or is it that texting shorthand crap that no one should know?

I think people mean well when they make these petitions, but then they overreach and include terms like "emerging technologies." I don't even know what "emerging technology" is. Is this new technology that's still in its infancy? Is it an Alien "facehugger" emerging to lay its egg in my stomach? It's like those commercials for some pill which say, "emerging science suggests" that blah blah will blah your blah.

If it's only still emerging, don't bother to name it until it's born. I like the name Tito.

Why Ebooks are Dead.

Like many of you, I search for library news. Okay, fine, I search for library porn news. And this came back: "Online 3D porn library unveiled."

And that is why ebooks are already dead. I don't care how easy the "e ink" technology used in the readers resembles ink on paper or how little energy the reader uses to display text. I don't care about the thousands of books I can carry in my hand. Like millions of you, I care about naked people.

The porn industry understands what people want. Sure, some people will continue to read books on some electronic device, but more people want to view full-color, HD, and possibly 3-D, naked bodies on their portable devices.

"For several decades, the adult entertainment industry has driven adoption of every significant new entertainment delivery system - the VHS home-video craze in the 1980s, the satellite television mania in the 1990s and the present day internet," said Bad Girls producer Lance Johnson.

No one wants to invest in ebook readers when 3-D, wireless, flexible e-paper, HD porn is just around the corner. So libraries should wait until next year before they spend money on some product with a very finite shelf life. Ebooks as we know them now, will be gone soon. Well, not totally gone, I mean some people still use beepers, right?

Your library can still subscribe to an ebook service that provides for downloads of books for your patrons, but don't go spending ten grand on a bunch of readers to loan out. Unless you still have a shelf full of 8-Track tape machines that continue to circulate: you know, if your library mission is to maintain a collection of obsolete technology.

When it comes to technology, follow the money. And from what I can see, the big money is in naked people. So I say to librarians everywhere: follow the naked people.

Unless it's a solitary naked guy following you home from the parking garage. At that point, you need to run. And yell for the police.

Top 10 (minus 7) Reasons Why We Already Live in The Matrix

Sometimes I think we are already living in the world of The Matrix. The only thing that brings me back to reality is that I'm forty pounds away from having Neo's trim 29-inch waist. If only I could cut out the donuts, I could move faster than speeding bullets.

In the movie, The Matrix was one big virtual environment. And what we saw on screen wasn't even the original version of it. So if the movie version of The Matrix was, say, Matrix version 4.1, Red Queen, then we exist in something like Matrix 1.2, Dodo.

1. Social Networking sites. Given. No need to explain this. But in case you're unaware.. each site is it's own little world filled with friends and unfriends and followers and unfollowers. Social networking sites are The Matrix Lite.

2. The Digital World. We live in a digital world and every file can be edited to our satisfaction. Think about all the activities where you participate in a virtual environment. From online shopping to chat to GPS navigation to microblogging. For now you can't take a dump online, but you can find the nicest place to do it. The reason I think The Matrix is here is that we have or will soon have a generation of people who don't know what life was like before. To them, there has always been "view all of xxxx's friends" on MySpace, texting, instant downloads and complete access to all the information in the world from the screen of a little black box smart phone.

3. Ebooks. Ebooks are going to fulfill the promise of every fantasy every reader has ever had. From fan fiction to interactive fiction, ebooks will allow the creator and the reader to transform the material to satisfy our every whim. Don't like Stephen King's latest ending? Purchase the license to reedit the book yourself. Or maybe he can write 10 endings and you can purchase the one you want. We're already accustomed to seeing Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner, it's going to be so much easier to rewrite for Scarlett or Holden or Hermione. Eventually, I see authors simply licensing characters to us to create their stories for them. The way everyone is talking about the potential for ebooks, vooks and schnooks, and the ability for authors to alter the reading experience, it's like none of them ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

In this world, anything that can be manipulated, will be. What if you don't like my avatar, but you like what I have to tweet? Why shouldn't you be allowed to change my appearance? We can just alter our realities through computers. Trust me, if you look anything like your avatar, I'm substituting Natalie Portman's smile. And Katy Perry's boobs.

When there is no longer one reality to connect us that does not exist outside of the virtual world, then that is The Matrix.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It is to me because like Neo and Morpheus, I can see it. But to the people living inside The Matrix, the ones who don't know, or like Joey Pants (Cypher), who prefer their life within it, that world is perfectly normal. All I'm saying is that it's here. It's not in the places where the people are too poor, but it's here. And while we are all online, those other people are searching for clean water to drink. Oh, sorry, did that just make you feel bad? Maybe you should tweet about it.

Money for Suck.

Here is an interesting proposal from Alex Beam of The Boston Globe: libraries should buy e-book readers for their patrons to show them how they suck.

He didn't actually say any of that, but he said to buy readers to show everyone "the possibilities and limitations of digital books."

Here is the full paragraph for context:

I worry that libraries, even the newest ones, risk becoming fortresses buttressed by books, protecting Gutenberg’s technology for reasons of principle rather than pragmatism. Librarians need to educate themselves, and us, about the possibilities and limitations of digital books. Right now, the Jeff Bezoses of the world - he is the rosy-eyed, huckster boss of Amazon - have the stage to themselves, and, as I write, consumerist lemmings are dropping $200 to $250 for e-readers, mainly because they are well promoted.

I understand his point. Like many libraries, we offer Overdrive ebooks to our patrons. But we don't have readers for them to borrow to experience what an ebook is and whether they might want to buy themselves a reader.

This is one area where libraries are ahead of the curve to the disadvantage of our patrons. We offer a service whereby they need to spend a lot of their own money to enjoy. In the past, from what I remember, libraries added DVDs to the collection after most people already had the players in their homes. And if someone still doesn't have one, he can get one from Kmart for around $20. And basic mp3 players for downloadable audiobooks are now around the same affordable price.

This is a similar situation with the computers we provide: these are big ticket items that many people can't afford. So the library buys computers and software to try to narrow the gap between the digital haves and the have-nots.

But with a new service like ebooks, once the library adds them to the collection through a company like Overdrive, it's like the library is choosing to actively ignore the set of our patrons who can't afford the readers. I can't think of another service we offer where the patron needs an expensive gadget to join the party.

So libraries should add this cost to the total budget for ebook subscriptions. If you have $20,000 for ebooks, pull off $3,000 for readers, and circulate those, too.

And maybe our patrons won't care about ebooks once they get a taste of them. Maybe they'll go back to their old reliable dead trees.

Or maybe libraries, as we currently know them, will cease to exist, replaced by download stations and a few USB cables, or a wi-fi hub and some vending machines.

No, I don't don't think an ebook reader could replace me. Unless there's a model that breaks down all the time and whose battery overheats and catches fire, then, yeah, my job is over.

oh, if only they knew...

I don't know what kind of librarian I am. I'm not even sure if I know what a librarian is anymore. Or if I ever knew.

But I'm pretty confident that no librarian is really sure of what she should be doing to serve the public, to build and maintain the library collection, to feel useful.

Probably like your library, our library attempts to be more "welcoming" and to "maintain its relevance" by offering things like downloadable audiobooks and ebooks to our customers.

And I don't think that most people (or librarians) even understand how these new technologies can isolate them (the customers), frustrate them, and make them feel that the library is, in fact, irrelevant. And that they, the customers, are unwelcome.

I get emails every week from library patrons who are upset that they purchased some thingamajig that doesn't work with what we offer them. Instead of finding out how they will use the device and then purchasing the best hunk of crap that fills those needs, they blindly buy what some commercial tells them to buy and then blame us for not supporting their ill-informed hardware choices.

So it made me a little giddy when I read this article where someone gets it and explains it all for you:

"To help you sort through the muddle, we've explained below how the library's
media downloads work with some of the most popular portable devices...
iPhones and iPods: There's good and bad news,...[it] works with iPhones and iPods plugged into PCs, not Macs.
Blackberries, Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices: If you own one of these gizmos,... Your device can read Denver Library eBooks -- some of them, anyway.
Android phones: Suckers!
Sony Reader: Well, look at you, fancy-pants Sony Reader owner. Your little
thingamabob can read all of the library's eBooks, not to mention to its MP3-style audio books.

Joel Warner, Denver Westword, an independent weekly paper, so there's probably no reason
why I should give them a writing credit..

As you can see, it's nearly impossible to know which devices work and which won't, and then whether they might work in the future with software or firmware upgrades or patches or apps or cracks or...

All this crap, of course, diverts money from the purchase of print materials. The stuff we are told that no one wants anymore. But the stuff that pretty much everyone knows how to use. Go figure.

Cheap is the new black.

I keep reading news stories about people ditching their cell phones and dumping cable TV and saving money, but none of these people are my friends. My friends have everything: smartphones with full Internet, smart 42" LCD televisions, smart kitchen appliances, smartpants.

Me, I wear the same old dumb pants and my cell phone only makes phone calls, which I only make about 3-4 times a week. But it only costs me $7 a month. I don't need my phone to do everything, and especially not right now. I grew up in a time when you had to find a phone, so whatever I need to do or say can wait ten minutes. Really? You absolutely need to text someone "lol" right now?

The only thing I need right now is a massage; I don't care where. If you want to rub it, have at it.

I don't like to pay for convenience. I believe in God, so I believe in inconvenience. Inconvenience is proof that God exists. Otherwise, science, math and evolution would have solved all of our problems by now.

So Cheap is cool. Or so says The Ultimate Cheapskate. The one thing I disagree with is that America's economy has changed from a saving economy to a spending economy. Whole industries are built on constantly moving dollars, not stationary ones like in banks or CDs or treasury notes. Money needs to change hands very rapidly otherwise we will all see just how broke we really are. It's like a game of musical chairs with 10 people and 2 chairs; as long as we keep moving, none of us will end up on our asses.

So Cheap for America shouldn't be about saving; it should be about spending. But spending in a way that creates jobs. Cheap is putting people to work.

And since we love our smartphones so much, I think we should combine the two and use our phones to create jobs.

I think we should go back to having telephone operators like the ones you see in the movies where you pick up the phone and speak to someone and ask them to get you a number. But not just for land line telephones, for cell phones and smartphones, too.

So you open your phone and say, "Marge, can you get me 555-1122?" And Marge politely puts your call through.

Or you say,
"Marge, can you text, "omg (space) nfw" to 10086 for me?"
And Marge replies with a cheery voice, "You betcha, honey."

What about social networking from your mobile phone?
"Marge, can you tweet, 'I just had the turkey, no mayo, which left room for cheesecake. Yum.'?"
And Marge says back,
"Are you sure you want to say that, again? You just sent that same tweet two days ago."
"Oh, no. I would look so stupid. Marge, you are a savior."

"Marge, can you google Ted's number at the Ramada in Dayton for me?"
"Goo-gol? Can you spell that?"

But sometimes Marge is such a smartass.

No Stupid Questions? They're ALL Stupid Questions!

Why do librarians continue to claim that "there are no stupid questions?" (see recent addition here.)

Where is the librarian who says, "they are all stupid questions?"

No, he isn't me. I'm not that smart that I can say that all questions are stupid. Although we look alike, I'm not Dr. House. I might say seven-eights are stupid questions, but I'm not cocky enough to claim they all are.

But dammit, librarians answer a lot of stupid questions. One of the worst is the email or IM for a specific book: "Does the library have the book, **********?"

I want to answer, "Hey, idiot, you just bypassed the catalog when you contacted me. The same catalog that has been online for over 15 years. But no, you're so Net savvy that you can chat with me for twelve minutes on your Crackberry or iTurd or whatever new doodad you think will make you cooler, about something you could have answered yourself in less than half that time. Whoo, you're a freakin' Internet wizard!"

And on the opposite end, you Internet-deprived jerks, don't call me on the phone and tell me to Google something for you: "Can you Google me a meatloaf recipe that uses peanut butter?" No. No I can't.

If you don't have something, you aren't allowed to tell other people how to use it. If you don't have a car, don't tell me how to drive. If you don't have a kid, don't tell me how to raise mine. If you don't have a penis, don't tell me how to pee so I don't get it all over the floor. If you don't have a life, don't tell me how to live.

So yes, there are stupid questions. Because we are people, and most of us aren't very bright. But go ahead and ask your stupid questions; I'm here to help.

Just don't expect me to choke back my opinion because if you ask if I think your question is stupid, you can be sure I'm going to tell you the truth. "Yes, that's a stupid question. But it's not the stupidest one I've been asked today. So stop worrying. You're not the dumbest person out there. See that guy over there; you should hear what he asked. He's the dumbest."

Any color so long as it's black.

"You can have any color you like, as long as it's black." This quote often attributed to Henry Ford is one of the most profound bits of wisdom I've ever read.

I was just reading the Unshelved story arc where the woman wants Dewey to let her use a scanner in the library, and it really reminded me of me.

(I would just link to the picture, but Bill is always complaining about how broke he is, so click the link to help generate some ad revenue.)

I dislike giving technology to patrons. Because they don't know what to do with it. You learn this the first time you trade your old black and white copier for color or get one with a document feeder that does double-sided copies. For years, all you heard was, "Why don't you have a color copier?" Or "Why doesn't this copier do double-sided copies?" So you gave in and upgraded.

And now those same people stand there for five minutes looking at the buttons, too confused to copy anything. Or they make 20 black and white copies then demand their money back because they wanted color.

It doesn't pay to give people too many choices. At least not in libraries. Maybe in a casino.

I came into the library game a little late, but I don't remember all this fuss when people first found out about books.

Put the "book" on a flat surface with the cover facing up and the open end on the right. Lift the cover completely and continue on that arc until the cover touches the table.
Now begin looking at the top left corner of the left page and read the words from left to right from top to bottom. And when you get to the bottom of the left page, move your eyes to the top left corner of the right page and keep reading. If you need help, move your finger along the words.
When you get to the bottom of the right-hand page, lift the page and move it just like you did with the cover.
Don't handle the page too roughly or else it will tear and the words will scramble off the paper and escape from the book.

Come to think of it, I don't understand how libraries ever got started.

I don't like to argue with people. I don't venture into labyrinthine or circuitous paths of patron illogic as they try to convince me to do what they want. Here's a sample a conversation I just had with a problem patron:

• How come I can't save to my disk?


• Is your disk in the computer? Here, let me show you.


• I'm just trying to save to my disk, man.


• Oh, I don't see a disk. Are you trying to save to the Desktop?


• No, my disk. My disk right here in the tray.


• Oh. You have a blank CD. Well, that's not a CD burner. We don't have any CD burners in the library.


• I just want to save to my disk.


• If you have a flash drive or a floppy disk, we can. But we don't have CD burners.


• Why can't I save to my disk?


• We don't have CD burners. You need a CD burner to save to that disk.


• So you can't help me save my file.


• We don't have a CD burner. You need a CD burner to save to that disk.

As you can see, I don't argue. I can repeat my point twenty times and never raise my voice. I work with some librarians who begin to discuss why we don't have the latest technology, about library budgets and computer security, blah, blah, blah. And this always makes the problem worse for the librarian, who gets more and more upset as the assistance devolves into confrontation. But my tactic is to repeat over and over and over until the patron gets sleepy and vulnerable to suggestion. And then I tell him these are not the droids he is looking for, and to give me ten dollars. It's the Jedi way.

I don't like adding new tech to the library unless we can severely limit the options. Like if we had a scanner, I would need to find a way to limit what the scanner can do. I'd probably allow only a save to full color 300 dpi PDF or JPG. And even with those few choices, our patrons would have more problems than I could imagine. That's why our library doesn't have a scanner.

Now that I've thought about, I'm getting rid of the copiers, too. And the books. Okay, maybe just the pop-ups. Someone could put an eye out.

Veni, vidi, youtubi.

I wept for the human race today. I was watching President-elect Obama on C-SPAN as he moved through a crowd today at a Washington D.C. high school one day (okay, I don't know for sure when this was recorded) before he is to be sworn in as our 44th President, and many people spoke with him and shook his hand. But some, and this is why I wept, could only look at Obama through the tiny screens on their phones or cameras. Obama was within two feet, and seemingly happy to meet any and all who wanted to reach out to him. He was noticeably exhausted, but with each new face, he found the energy to smile and look at each person and listen to their words. If I had any doubts about his ability to handle his new job, they vanished as I watched.

But look at those people, I thought. Look, Obama is right next to you. Look at his face; he wants to meet you. He's here to meet you. But these few idiots continued to look at him through their mini screens, as if nothing existed unless it was rendered into pixels.

I don't understand. I understand the power of television. And I understand the importance of having a cool video on you MySpace page, but when did that become more important than meeting a real person? Shaking his hand? Saying hello?

I have nothing against anyone who said hello and took some video. Those people have the best of both worlds. The people who have no video, well maybe their friends will believe they met Obama, and maybe they won't.

But those people who have completely abandoned this need for human contact, I don't know. Maybe reality is changing. Maybe nothing truly exists until someone clicks on it. If a video is uploaded on the Internet and no one plays it, does it make a sound?

Coming Soon: the SpiPhone.

It won't be long before every mobile phone call you make is stored on some server and converted to full-text and indexed for easy access.

Some people worry that the government monitors our private conversations, but I think it will be us who give away our privacy voluntarily because it will make our lives more convenient.

How many times have you wished you could remember exactly what someone said or what you said to someone over the phone? You get in the car and suddenly blank on why you're there. You access your recent calls by saying, "Find Mum today" until you hear mum's voice, "Johnny, be a good boy and go round the shops and pick us up a packet of crisps." And you remember, and drive off to get your mom a snack. (Sorry for my fake English "mum," but I just saw The Bank Job, so I'm temporarily suffering from Foreign Accent Syndrome.)

Voice recognition keeps getting better and storage is cheap, so it shouldn't be long before your cell phone can offer this service. Whatever you say will be converted from audio to text and available for email, or even blackmail. Imagine being able to produce a transcript of any call you make to prove someone said something they now claim they never said? Cool, huh? And fucking terrifying. Do you really want a written account of everything you say on the phone? As a testament to our pathetic worthless lives? (How many times do you say, y'know or right or um over the phone? Or just laugh and say something unintelligible?)

I'm guessing this is available now, right? Does the iPhone have this? How hard can it be? I know there are levels of this available now, but I'm talking about searchable data, about talking on the phone and then retrieving information from that call at a later time by requesting a search through every word that was said during the conversation. Maybe I'm wrong about the amount of storage or processing power needed to convert analog audio to digital and then to text and then to index it all. I see that the BlackBerry can currently only covert up to 3 minutes of speech to text.

So if it isn't available now, it should be soon. I guess the question then would be, how important is convenience? I always say, The road to Hell is paved with Convenience.


On a side note, I am playing with a text to voice site at AT&T and making Juliette, a French voice say to me, "Oh baby, you are the best." And I think I'm in love.

You text like a girl.

I was just reading a story on MSN about whether schools should continue to teach handwriting.

How can we continue to make fun of the boy with the femmy handwriting if we don't teach it in school?

How will we be able to identify the serial killers without that sharply angled "y" in their diaries? Will smileys and emoticons assist criminal profilers equally?

Oh, look, he told us he was preparing for a killing spree right here.

I don't know about you, but when I see someone who can only print and doesn't know cursive writing, I think he's kind of an idiot, like some ranch hand who can only make an X for his name. I think good handwriting says a lot about how your brain organizes information. Lots of corrections and cross-outs means you can't focus on one idea. Like when I write my blog posts, you can't see just how many mistakes I make when I type. If you could see this written out on paper, you'd think I was a serial murderer for sure.

Why MacGyver is fail.

I didn't live through the Great Depression (and I pray I don't have to live through "the Great-D 2.0"), but my parents did. And because of this, I think I know a little about making something from nothing. At any time, my pockets contain assorted useless crap like paper clips or rubber bands or twist ties, as well as a few Xanax (because I work with the public).

And I think others like me (old people), understand how to make do with less. But I just read something that makes me realize that young people can't possibly do without everything being available at every given moment.

Librarianinblack quotes this article from eSchoolNews:

"Students who took the survey said the major obstacles to their use of technology at school include filters that block the web sites they need..."

There are (according to cuil.com, who still counts these things) 124 billion web pages, and these self-described tech-expert kids can't find anything they need if Wikipedia is blocked. By comparison, you could block 79% of the Internet, and I could still find enough stuff to write a paper on any high school grade topic. Yeah, I'm bad.

"In the Speak Up survey, students said they generally use technology for online and computer gaming [BLOCKED], downloading music [BLOCKED], communicating through eMail, instant messaging and texting [BLOCKED], or maintaining a personal web site, such as a Facebook or MySpace page [BLOCKED]."

[BLOCKED] comments mine.

Oh, so this is what gets blocked, and this is the stuff they claim is an obstacle. This is the stuff they need. At least this explains it.

I wonder how kids are going to make it if the economy gets any worse, if they can't afford cell phones or all the other crap that's essential to their survival. Maybe they need to check their pockets: look, a AAA battery, a condom, a half pack of Mentos, a twist-off Bud Lite cap. Hell, with all that crap, MacGyver could make an artificial heart! Or a space shuttle! Or a porpoise! Or a ham radio! Or a....

Naked Lady Pen 2.0

You read about my love for the naked lady pen (of course, you did). And of course you also declared me a foolish person because the naked lady pen is a tacky, exploitative object that belongs back in the 1950's with the naked lady playing cards and Playboy club swizzle sticks.

But the naked lady pen concept is so much more. Thanks to a Google search visitor searching for "naked lady pen iPhone," it got me thinking about the ability of the iPhone (and other devices) to flip their screen displays to either a horizontal and vertical orientation. Well the concept of the naked lady pen is that the "image" changes based on vertical up or down so that the lady appears either naked or dressed.

Is there an application for the iPhone that lets you switch between two different wallpaper images as you flip the phone from vertical to horizontal?

If not, imagine as you flip the phone to imitate the effect of the naked lady phone, you would have two mostly identical images except that one would have matted or mapped area where
the third image would appear or disappear. The third image could be anything, a black shape to mask the naked lady or any image that appears and disappears just like any other "float" pen, a gradient, or a pattern. It would be like a liquid wallpaper.

You could make "lava light" wallpaper for your iPhone or reproduce Rorschach's mask (from Watchmen).

If this doesn't exist, please, get working on this. Doesn't it sound cool?

DRM babies.

I'm sick of hearing kids whine about DRM.

The minute the first song or movie was converted to a format you could download, you should have known that some company would find a way to interrupt your enjoyment of it. You live in an accelerated culture. And it's not getting better. Expect that after 2009 everything you've ever downloaded will evaporate. Or worse, still take up space on your hard drives, but be inaccessible. Or turn into Barry Manilow tunes.

This is Moore's law applied to the digital world:
Your perceived ownership of a thing will reduce by one-half every 2 years. The distance between usefulness and obsolescence expands or shrinks based on popularity. More popular items will need replacement faster as market saturation peaks sooner. Hence, books will always be around.

So you've never heard of planned obsolescence? Did you think you could use this crap forever?! Oh, look how convenient this is, that I can download everything! Convenience has been a trap since the 1920's. Convenience sucks.

Prepare for obsolescence. I have five DVD players in unopened boxes. I have a record player and a collection of record albums. I have a zombie Adolphe Menjou and zombie Irene Dunne in my garage to act out scences from my favorite films for me. Yeah, I dug them up and zombified them, so I won't even need DVDs in the future. And I'm converting all my albums and mp3s to eunuch. I got an authentic eunuch who memorizes all my songs and sings them to me on demand; he accepts all ID3 tags and has shuffle and repeat. He eats too much, but there's always a trade off.

Soon the only permanent thing we will have is printed text on paper. And what do we call it when you bind those pages between two covers? Kids? Anyone?

Welcome to the Inhuman Network.

I saw this Cisco commercial the other day:

Visual Networking
A phone that fixes a scooter. A billboard that adapts to an audience of one. A car that can see what's ahead. On the human network, video changes everything. (31 seconds)

(I tried to embed the video, but couldn't get it to work, so you can click the direct link for the annoying video here or visit the page with all the videos here and then watch it.)

And it offended me by the way it isolated every person from everyone else. Everyone is looking at a screen and not interacting with other people. Even the two people in the car are messing with the GPS and not looking at each other.

Didn't visual networking used to mean making eye contact with your audience?

(I know they have other, better videos, but this one bothers me.)

Where is my perfect cell phone?

I want a phone made for my world. For example, some asshole tried to run me off the road today. And it wasn't just my opinion since all traffic behind us stopped in expectation of the impending collision. But I avoided being hit and the asshole went on his way.

Screw the mp3 player, LG and AT&T; here's what I want in a phone:

Simple: let me mount it to the dash of my car.

Give me a voice activated camera to record the asshole who tried to kill me today: "Record video."

Give me voice-to-text trancription: "Transribe. Did you see that asshole try to run me off the road? Responses: yes. no. End transcription."

Give me the ability to broadcast to all enabled devices within a 100-foot radius: "Broadcast all. Collect responses."

"Send video highway patrol."

And don't count this against me, but in my dream world, my phone would also be chambered for .40 S&W and hold five rounds.