Another Great Thing About Reddit…

…it’s a great resource to get non-traditional thoughts, pictures and feedback on local news and events.

Just like my recent post on the value of Google Street Maps as a way to “travel” without leaving home, Reddit can help you do the same, especially when there is a current news event happening in a specific city.

For example, with the “Snowpocalypse” that’s happening in Atlanta, I visited /r/Atlanta to see what Redditors were saying and sharing about current events.

I did the same when the Rob Ford scandal was at its height by visiting /r/Toronto  and am now checking out /r/Edmonton regularly since we’re going there next month for a one week holiday.  (Don’t tell Pace as we haven’t told him yet!) 😉

The Greatest Software Misuses

Quora has a great question about the best software mis-uses that people have seen.

Because my family members read this blog, I won’t mention some that I’ve seen personally (ahem, Googling for a common web site instead of just typing it in the URL bar.  You know who you are!) but I will highlight a few other gems…

My grandmother would send emails by typing up her email on Word, printing it out, then giving it out to my grandfather to type into an email and then he would send it. We didn’t even try to show them the error of their ways lol.

Here’s another great one…

My mom confirming her password:

Password: password1
Confirm Password: yes

..and to be fair, a response to the pet peeve I mentioned of family members who Google the names of web sites they could just enter directly, this is actually a great way to ensure you end up where you want to be:

This is not a direct answer to the question, but a response to the most popular response [about Googling for web sites you could just enter directly]. I too used to laugh at people who did this. But it’s actually pretty smart behavior. An easy kind of malicious behavior is to squat a mistyped name (and think of a company like the erstwhile Sovereign Bank: would you trust the general population to always correctly type “Sovereign”?). By typing into a search box, you get spelling correction and thus, for the vast majority of popular sites, will be guided away from malicious ones that might cause you harm.

Of course, this hands information to search engines, suppresses sites with similar names, etc. But it’s also very smart consumer behavior. Basically, Internet DNS is an idiot savant: it’ll do exactly what you ask for (modulo DNS record poisoning). Think of a search engine as an intelligent DNS.

Music Monday – “It’s the same hate that’s caused wars from religion/Gender to skin color the complexion of your pigment/The same fight that lead people to walk-outs and sit-ins/It’s human rights for everybody/There is no difference”

In our digital age, where we are (or should be) trained to be skeptical about everything we read and see – was that model photoshopped? Was that anti-vaccine information published in a scientific journal or by a non-PhD holding, former Playmate?  Was that B-level celebrity’s meltdown just an attempt to gain publicity and attention? – I especially enjoy coming across moments that reveal genuine emotion.

Last night, the Grammy Awards had just such a moment.

Macklemore & Lewis took the stage to perform their equality anthem, “Same Love” and near the end of the song, Queen Latifah came out and performed a brief ceremony to wed 35 couples – gay straight, inter-racial, young and old – all at the same time.

Witnessing the emotions of the couples getting married would’ve been enough (er, if you can overlook the Moonie overtones!) but even better was seeing the celebrities in the audience, most of whom have been probably been media-trained to be near robots (“when you see a camera – any camera – big smile!”) crying and hugging and smiling widely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwlNbLdP7fo

Same Love” – Macklemore & Lewis

On a similar note but focused on humour, I love this parody of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” performed by a “unique” looking man on ChatRoulette.  Normally, ChatRoulette videos result in a range of emotions.  But usually that range is limited to horror, revulsion and disgust.

The beauty of this clip is not one onlooker, no matter how “cool” or “detached” they try to stay, ends up doing anything but smiling, laughing, or singing along when they see what’s popped up on their screen.

Again, I just love the genuine humanity of the reactions in this clip – no cynicism, no attitude, just pure unfiltered human joy…

Wrecking Ball” (ChatRoulette Parody) – Steve Kardynl

Travel The World Without Leaving Your Laptop

The day before we left for Hawaii a couple years ago, I did a post summarizing how much of a role various web sites – from Google to Reddit to Trip Advisor – played in helping to plan and just generally build excitement for our trip.

I mentioned Google Maps in passing in that post but didn’t really talk about the best feature of that service – the Street View option which allows you to drop yourself right on any street, pretty much anywhere in North America and beyond.  From there, you can use your mouse or keyboard to move or look in any direction.

I have to admit I’ve become a bit addicted to this site.  It started awhile back when I decided to try to see if I could find a White Castle fast food restaurant Shea and I stopped at when we passed through Detroit.  (Why trying to find this restaurant occurred to me, I have no idea!)  😉

I couldn’t find the White Castle but while looking around, I stumbled upon some streets in the Motor City that shocked me.  I knew the economy was hurting in Detroit but there were images of burned out homes, people (with their faces obscured as per Google’s privacy rules) using drugs and in one case, apparently urinating on a dumpster!

Seeing that inspired me to jump to Beverly Hills California and “walk” around looking at various mansions, trying to wrap my head around the disparity in wealth that exists in the United States (unsuccessfully, I might add.)

Since then, when bored, I often jump into Google Street View, sometimes when a specific location or landmark occurs to me, other times, by dropping myself at a completely random location.

Last night, I had a very similar experience to that first “trip” from the mean streets of Detroit to the golden streets of Beverly Hills.

I looked up the location of Dodger Station to see where the first NHL outdoor game in a warm weather location was being played in front of a wide range of celebrities and wealthy fans.

Looking at the stadium’s location on the LA map, I saw “Skid Row” labeled on a nearby section of the map, directly south of the stadium, and had the strange realization that Skid Row, a place I knew of conceptually and which has come to be short hand for any destitute area of a city anywhere in the world was an actual real place that not only existed but even showed up *as* Skid Row on a map!

I likely wouldn’t do it if I was physically in Los Angeles but I was able to spend some time “walking around” the area to see (again, with faces obscured) the reality of life in that area.

I ended up using Reddit and a few other sources to do some more reading and learning about the area.  Reddit led to all kinds of articles and even a YouTube vlogger – not sure if he’s a homeless guy or not but definitely seems to live in the area – who posts clips of his experiences on the street.

Google Street View is an amazing resource – to experience both the best and the worst of our world – without leaving the comfort of your computer.

I’d encourage you to try Google Street View out yourself sometime if you haven’t – just go to Google Maps, find a random location and then drag the “Pegman” figure onto the map to got to Street View and begin exploring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyJiOr_1AE4

Saturday Snap – What a Crappy Game!

I recently bought Pace the Lego “Creationary” game.  Basically, this is Pictionary but instead of drawing different things, you try to build them with the various Lego pieces that are included with the game.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised by one of the game cards (although Shea and I did have a good laugh joking “Well, at least there’s one thing that Sasha can create – and she doesn’t even need Lego!) 😉

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Friday Fun Link – Cards Against Humanity (Library Edition)

I haven’t had the opportunity to play Cards Against Humanity but have heard enough about it to know that the Library Edition would be especially hilarious, at least for a small subset of people I know! 😉

Here’s a demo of the original game so you can get a sense of how it goes…

The Correlation Between Unionization and Poverty Rates Around the World

(h/t to MF on FB)

Restoring Classic Film Theatres in Saskatchewan: Rural and Urban Success Stories @officialrpl #sask #yqr #indianhead #wolseley

The Nite Hawk Theatre that I grew up with in my hometown of Indian Head, Saskatchewan was recently facing the threat of being closed and sold to developers after the long-time owners decided to retire rather than pay for the necessary upgrades to digital equipment.

This would be a terrible loss as the theatre is a major part of the town’s (and indeed western Canada’s) history.  Depending on which article you read, the 110-year old building was the only opera house west of Winnipeg at the turn of the last century or the only one between Toronto and Vancouver.  Either way, it’s the longest continually operating theatre in western Canada. Beyond that, it’s a great source of entertainment, employment (both my sister as well as a couple cousins and many friends worked there over the years), and a gathering spot for the local community, especially the young people who are so important to having a vibrant rural community:

According to Neill, 65 per cent of the patrons who had been using the theatre were under 18 years old.

A group comprised of local fans of the theatre, arts lovers and former residents banded together raised nearly $100,000 of the $150,000 required to buy the building in which the theatre is located, with the local Credit Union underwriting the rest.

A similar story played out just down the road in Wolseley where that community was able to also raise a six figure sum to upgrade their drive-in to digital (one of the few remaining drive-ins in the province, if not the country) and, as with the Nite Hawk in Indian Head, allow it to continue to play an important role for in the lives of the people of Wolseley and surrounding communities.

Finally, here at RPL, we also have a similar success story of moving from outdated to new technology.  The Regina Public Library is very fortunate to have a single screen art house cinema that also needed upgraded to digital to meet the needs of today’s film industry.  This was done in December and although I haven’t had a chance to attend a showing in the new theatre, I’m sure it’s a great improvement.

This post makes me realise that you can draw a pretty straight line through all three of these theatres and how they’ve played a role in my life – the Nite Hawk is where I saw some of my first movies on the big screen (I still remember “ET” being so packed that the owner *must’ve* broken fire code to let people sit in the aisles) to the Wolseley drive-in, which became my movie viewing destination of choice when I was older and had a driver’s license to the RPL theatre which was a popular place to go when I was doing my undergrad degree – especially for their annual showing of “The World’s Funniest Commercials” as well as being memorable as the first place I saw “Clerks” by Kevin Smith, the first film to ever garner an NC-17 rating just for the language it contained! 😉

Here’s a great article from The Walrus about the transition from 35mm theatres to digital with lots of info about the Nite Hawk and featuring quotes from a high school friend of mine who still works at the Nite Hawk as well as with a Indian Head-based film restoration company.

Indian Head, population 1,815, sits forty-five minutes east of Regina. Motorists speeding along the Trans-Canada Highway might recognize its grain elevator from Little Mosque on the Prairie, which was filmed here, but they have little reason to stop. Life was different in 1904, when the town boasted one of the first opera houses west of Winnipeg. Back then, it presented everything from chamber music and The Pirates of Penzance to the Chautauqua circuit.

A Day in the Life of a Branch Librarian

About once a week I work a 10-6 shift instead of a more typical 9-5 one.  With one staff member on holidays and one having called in sick, today happened to be particularly busy day starting as soon as I arrived, an hour later than usual.

So I thought I’d do a list of a few thoughts and events from the day…

– We had two story times, a pre-school one from 9:45 – 10:15am and a toddler one from 10:30 – 11:00am, both of which were super busy.

– Helped one person wanting to apply for jobs.  It makes me realise how much I (and society in general) take computer skills for granted.  The guy’s looking for a labour job but because he doesn’t know things that I consider basic (how to attach a file to an e-mail, how to use copy, cut & paste), something that should be straight forward turns into a stressful, time-consuming ordeal.  (You should see how happy he was when we found one job posting that had a phone number listed in addition to an e-mail, doubly so when he called and got an interview for 10am tomorrow!)

– And sometimes the basic things aren’t so basic at the public library either.  For security reasons, our public computers are quite locked down compared to what you can do with your own personal computer so things like adding an attachment to an e-mail or printing a PDF occasionally end up being a lot harder to than they should be.

– on that last point, I’ve discovered that the solution to 99% of problems patrons are having on our public computers is to let them log-in on a staff computer (mine or one at the front desk) and watch as the attachment now magically opens or whatever!) 😉

– I’ve walked by it a million times but someone wanted a book in our “Psychology” section and I couldn’t for the life of me remember where it was.  (One problem with a bookstore-style cataloguing system – things don’t necessarily make logical sense as to where they’re located.  With Dewey, he’d have said 301.035 or whatever and we’d have gone right to the book he needed.  But with bookstore style classification, you have to roughly know where the various categories are located in the branch or else!)

– after story time, a young mom wanted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle books for her 3.5 year old son.  We didn’t have any in so I checked the catalogue and ended up offering her a TMNT video game for the X-Box which was the only TMNT item I could find in our local collection…and which she took instead.  Can’t decide if giving someone who wants a book for their kid a video game as an alternate selection was good library service or bad! 😉

– I wrote a paper about the ethical obligations of librarians in library school (Should we give people information that we personally disagree with or know to be false?  How political should you be at work?  Is the library truly a neutral space? Stuff like that…) that I may post someday.  I thought of that as I contemplated a partnership offer from a local non-profit which makes sense for a lot of reasons but which I’m still not sure if it’s the right route for the library.  (Luckily, that’s a decision for someone at a higher pay grade!) 😉

– I used to be really active in connecting various librarians around the city and province, mainly through the monthly “Books to Beers” pub nights I organized as well as some social media stuff I did for local librarians.  When I hear about a new librarian that I haven’t met is when I miss that activity the most! 🙁

– beyond eating at home most days and paying less for gas each month than I did for my bus pass, I realised another way that moving to a branch will save me money: I don’t chip in as much for donations/gifts/”my kid is selling chocolates” type offers.  When I was at Central, I made a point of always donating to all of these offers (within reason).  I figure as a librarian, I’m the highest paid in-scope employee group and can afford it, it’s a nice way to get some good karma, and usually the requests *were* for good causes.  So I don’t donate as much as I used to now that I’m at a branch but I did remotely chip in for a good one today.

– had another patron who had frequently used our photocopier/scanner but couldn’t get her latest scan to open on our computers.  We tried a different computer, re-setting the scanner and a variety of other things with no luck (before I got involved, she apparently even drove home but the scanned PDF wouldn’t open on her home computer either.)  Tried the above mentioned solution of seeing if it would open on a staff computer but got the same “This file is corrupted or incomplete” message about her PDF.  As a test, I scanned the document and e-mailed it to my own e-mail which I checked on my iPhone.  There, it opened without any problems even though it still wouldn’t open on any other computer – staff or public – at the branch.  She did the same on her own iPhone – same result.  So I have no clue where the problem lies – perhaps a recent update to Adobe Reader on Windows machines has broken something?  Or an update is needed to un-break that something?  Very weird anyhow and I hate to be flummoxed, especially by technology stuff!

Music Monday – “Where people drown and people serve/Don’t be shy, your just desserts/Is only just light years to go”

I must’ve posted this as a Music Monday link (or just as a blog post generally) at some point in the past since I consider it the single greatest song ever written.

But for that reason, you can never hear it enough and so here it is again…

“Find The River” – R.E.M.