It’s just come out that the iPhone creates a secret file on user’s computers without their knowledge or permission which has a record of their geo-location information. Unsurprisingly, this has privacy advocates up in arms. Jessamyn West wrote about this and linked to a small app you can download which can help you visualize what […]
Tout is a new social media site that combines elements of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to allow you to do 15-second video status updates. “Some moments in life just can’t be reflected in text. Tout delivers “life as it happens” in full-motion color and sound, as opposed to ‘life as it’s written in 140 characters […]
There’s been lots of social media activity this election as expected. Two of my main aggregators of news & viral content are Twitter’s #exln41 hash tag and Reddit’s Canada sub-Reddit. Here are a few things that have caught my eye recently: ShitHarperDid.com (and related hilarious YouTube videos) (MetaFilter) VoteLab – interesting idea but I suspect […]
The quote that gives this post its title comes from Sue Gardner who is Wikipedia’s Executive Director and who Fast Company magazine recently called “The Librarian to the World“. Most of the time, I have a very positive view of Wikipedia – in fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the […]
It’s a rare post that allows me to combine the three pillars of this blog – libraries, technology and politics. But today, the Canadian Library Association released their analysis of the various party platforms, identifying the areas which would be of specific interest or have an impact on libraries. (Now if they’d just included a […]
I’m very interested in the impact of e-books on libraries and have been doing a lot of reading on the subject lately. I came across this article about the unprecedented fall of Blockbuster (which is contrasted with the rise of NetFlix) and it makes me wonder – are libraries more like Blockbuster? Or are they […]
A few random thoughts on Internet (or lack thereof) during our recent week-long holiday in Cuba… I am happy to report that I didn’t have any seizures or meltdowns after a week without Internet access of any kind. (In comparison, even when we went to Mexico in 2003, I ended up going to a nearby […]
What Man Understands That He Is Dying Daily? – great carpe diem article about life, love and fatherhood (via RM Facebook post) The Economy of Cuba and Cuban Convertible Peso – insight into how the Cuban economy works 2011 : The Year of the Librarian – The Atlantic makes the connection at SXSW 2011 Behind […]
Last Friday, I wrote about Chat Roulette Love Song which was the extremely successful proof of a guy’s Masters thesis on viral video. Speaking of Friday, another recent viral video that blew up even bigger than Chat Roulette Love Song is the video for “Friday” by Rebecca Black which has gained over 30 million (!) […]
If you’re not familiar with ChatRoulette, read this old post first. As I say in that post, a good portion of Chat Roulette’s participants appear to be young men looking to expose themselves to unsuspecting (although if you’re on ChatRoulette, it won’t take long to become “suspecting”) viewers. Occasionally though, Chat Roulette breeds some incredible […]
