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So, have you appreciated your librarians lately, especially those that work in Youth or Children's or Teen Services? Many of them are under the impression that what they do is not enough, because someone else always seems more dedicated and more able, or because they aren't A Name in the profession, they aren't really good at their jobs. None of which is true, but changing your self-perception takes a lot of effort and support. And the pressures to be the super-awesome rockstar librarian are increasing, not decreasing.
Youth librarians do awesome things for underprivileged people as part of their jobs, you see, the kind of stuff that's really good, but because things seen as "women's work" are immediately devalued to near-nil, that awesome is similarly devalued, even within a library. And it really has nothing to do with whether or not the person in front of a user conforms to their expectations of a librarian, or any other element that, in other situations, would be the grounds for a discrimination lawsuit or a serious discussion on intersectionality. The way the culture is set up, in both society at large and in many libraries, youth librarians routinely sell themselves short and devalue their own contributons, considering their extraordinary work to be just ordinary expectations. You giving them outside appreciation, orally and/or in writing, will remind them of the awesome that they do on a daily basis and will help them remember to believe that they are valuable. Because they are valuable - perhaps one of the most valuable - staffers, because they are in charge of seeing whether or not the next generation appreciate libraries and votes for their funding. Because they do cool things that capture interest and promote lifelong learning. Because they validate confused adolescents and tell them that they are okay, exactly the way they are. Because they help set kids on a course that includes reading as a fun and useful thing to do, no matter what format it takes. Because they help teach kids how to navigate systems, how to think critically, and how to evaluate sources and search results. Youth librarians do a metric fuckton to really awesome shit on a daily basis. And they don't get near as much kudos and thanks as they should. Give them some.
Oh, and if you don't read, and are proud of it, uh, would you please look at this webpage with a nice easy way of getting you back in the habit of reading...and follow it? Because we could use more readers that admit they read stuff.
Finally, librarians are constrained by certain rules about how they discard things, so don't give them shit about discarding books that haven't circulated in twenty years into a recycling bin - it's the best place for them.
The use of mindfulness meditation as a thing to do for health benefits is not backed by rigorous scientific studies, and may produce effects intentional to Buddhist practice, but very surprising and difficult to those who haven't been told about them. So meditation is best undertaken knowing what the risks and likely effects will be.
An avalanche on Mount Everest has resulted in the deaths of Sherpas, the guides and attendants to the mountain that make it possible for tourists to climb, and that end up taking care of the trash left behind as well. Everest is now an industry, instead of a thing to do for only the truly dedicated.
A recent study suggests that the United States has ceased to be a country that has even token gestures of majoritarian democracy and is instead run by the wealthiest and their special interest groups. Which isn't news to anyone, really, but now there's a methodology attached.
Every second on the Internet, a lot of things happen. Which leads to interesting visualizations, like a map of the internet, with the use of each website represented by a proportionally-sized dot, or auralizations, such as Listen to Wikipedia. Or columnists saying that media outlets using tabloid-style hype is good because it draws the clicks, and then can link to more serious reporting. Tell me again how non-Page 3 publications with those overwrought headlines are doing, again?
Motion pictures being recorded in digital makes localization of visual elements significantly easier, as this series of screenshots from a Captain America film shows.
Conservatism backpedaled furiously from supporting Cliven Bundy and his sovereign citizen outlook when Bundy repeatedly, and on tape, made racist remmarks suggesting African-Americans were better off as slaves. Thing is, as the Maddow Show points out, the whole sovereign citizen thing is basically rooted in white supremacy, so this was, in many ways, inevitable. What's novel is the Memory Hole approach being taken.
The Great Saint Reagan is too liberal for the conservatism of 2014.
Having gotten tired of waiting for Congress to act, the Justice Department is signaling their desire for commutation requests for nonviolent drug offenders serving sentences under old mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines, so that everyone can be treated equally under the newer fair sentencing laws.
In addition to their usurious prices, in-flight WiFi providers may be spying on you more than the law requires. To keep everyone safe, of course.
By collecting user credentials for the HR managers at various companies, criminals are able to collect necessary tax forms and data, file fraudulent returns, and have any refunds due shipped off to money launderers, with the victimized employees none the wiser until the IRS informs them that their taxes have already been filed. Charges filed against an Ohio man alleging these activities disproves Experian's claim that no consumers were hurt by the routine sale of identity data to an identity thief. And, apparently, doctors and medical personnel have been hit hardest by this form of fraud.
Three million consumer credit and debit cards have been potentially stolen from Michael's and Aaron Brothers stores in an eight month breach period. So, the list is Sally Beauty Supply, Target, Michael's, and Aaron Brothers so far. And while many of these are technology-facilitated attacks, understand that people will work around security procedures if it gets in the way of their workflow. Which means designing unobtrusive security.
And also not putting infrastructure unguarded on the Internet. The SHODAN search engine is designed to find unguarded Internet-connected devices. An excellent name choice.
Phishers have been spoofing communications from title companies, telling their targets to wire transfer their earnest money to accounts the phishers hold instead of the proper escrow accounts the title company has. If all transfers had to be completed by bank draft in person at a location, that might help cut down on the phishing some.
A look at the distribution that Edward Snowden used to communicate anonymously and securely with reporters. In addition, things that network operators, OS creators, and ISPs could do to make communications more secure across the Internet. And then, Mr. Snowden questioned whether Vladimir Putin also has a surveillance network in Russia. Mr. Putin, predictably, denied that he did, and is probably also lying like United States intelligence officials lied to the people charged with their oversight about the extent of their own surveillance. The NSA regularly proves paranoia is correct with regard to government surveillance, after all.
The Heartbleed vulnerability can apparently also be used by servers to read information from clients that are using vulnerable versions of OpenSSL. So, basically, update everything? Then change ALL THE PASSWORDS?
The United States Department of Justice wants to be able to warantlessly search a cell phone, because they fear remote lock and wipe features can be used to destroy evidence. Local law enforcement wants the ability to remotely disable or wipe any phone when it is stolen. So, civil liberties violation on the one hand, the ability to stop crime using stolen phones on the other. And who will win? Probably both of them.
The Canada Revenue Agency stopped accepting tax returns electronically for a short while after they discovered someone using the Heartbleed vulnerability to steal social insurance numbers, for which a 19 year-old has been arrested.
A 38 million gallon reservoir in Portland is being drained after a teenager was caught urinating in it through an iron fence. Apparently, that's some fairly strong urine to force a drain, or something, because otherwise the contamination would be miniscule. And doesn't reservoirs usually have a filtration system they pass through before hitting the pipes?
There exists in the universe a planet of size comparable to Terra in the habitable zone of its star, suggesting that the happy accidents of our planet may have been replicated elsewhere.
A technology called Spritz purports to help people read information faster by presenting it to them one word at a time, but with the placement of the word such that the eye does not have to move to read the words.
An open source design for a prosthetic is preferable to a much more expensive one, for one man. Preferences, yes, but the real story is the advancement of printing to the point where it's cranking out prosthetics. Once things get small enough, we'll probably be living in something akin to Doctorow's Makers. And then everyone can have workspace tables designed for cat owners.
Pictures of the past, including some things we think are relatively recent. And a showcase as to why Hayao Miyazaki's characters feel entirely real.
Having been dismissed and replaced by a ghostwriter on their own series over creative differences, the creator of the Vampire Diaries series is showing the world their intended path through officially licensed fanfic to be sold on Amazon. The secondary story, here, though, is READ THE GODDAMN CONTRACTS that are presented, as the people publishing are often intending to take away more than you should probably give.
Additionally, your editor is usually trying to help you, and you should always take the copyeditor seriously.
Language is forever changing, and sometimes, errors in "proper" pronunciation of the past create "proper" pronunciation now.
Mothers can influence their children's conception of body image in bad ways as well as good, and especially when there's a world out there that has definite opinions about what size a woman should be.
Unsurprisingly, young women are the fastest-growing comics demographic, but how much of that will be sustainable when they discover the "best" of everything continues to be written by white men, with all the problems that implies? Because there's a definite bias toward running certain types of stories, and they usually don't end well for women. So, in addition to the need to write different stories for women characters, there needs to be conscious selection of those stories, instead of sticking with what's already there.
Write people as people, including writing those off the gender binary as they want to be written.
Last for tonight, an OECD sudy shows only three countries of their membership where girls feel more comfortable with math than boys. Pair that with studies that show, despite that self-perception, girls and boys are almost equally competent at maths, and you have a Problem. And no, just saying that it's a crisis of confidence, when you acknowledge openly that women who show confidence are punished harshly and seen negatively isn't going to pass inspection.
Then consider the problem of those at the top of the academic sphere in school who are not receiving resources that would help them maximize their potential, because of the focus on bringing those at the bottom up to speed, and noticing the inefficiencies becomes that much easier.
Youth librarians do awesome things for underprivileged people as part of their jobs, you see, the kind of stuff that's really good, but because things seen as "women's work" are immediately devalued to near-nil, that awesome is similarly devalued, even within a library. And it really has nothing to do with whether or not the person in front of a user conforms to their expectations of a librarian, or any other element that, in other situations, would be the grounds for a discrimination lawsuit or a serious discussion on intersectionality. The way the culture is set up, in both society at large and in many libraries, youth librarians routinely sell themselves short and devalue their own contributons, considering their extraordinary work to be just ordinary expectations. You giving them outside appreciation, orally and/or in writing, will remind them of the awesome that they do on a daily basis and will help them remember to believe that they are valuable. Because they are valuable - perhaps one of the most valuable - staffers, because they are in charge of seeing whether or not the next generation appreciate libraries and votes for their funding. Because they do cool things that capture interest and promote lifelong learning. Because they validate confused adolescents and tell them that they are okay, exactly the way they are. Because they help set kids on a course that includes reading as a fun and useful thing to do, no matter what format it takes. Because they help teach kids how to navigate systems, how to think critically, and how to evaluate sources and search results. Youth librarians do a metric fuckton to really awesome shit on a daily basis. And they don't get near as much kudos and thanks as they should. Give them some.
Oh, and if you don't read, and are proud of it, uh, would you please look at this webpage with a nice easy way of getting you back in the habit of reading...and follow it? Because we could use more readers that admit they read stuff.
Finally, librarians are constrained by certain rules about how they discard things, so don't give them shit about discarding books that haven't circulated in twenty years into a recycling bin - it's the best place for them.
The use of mindfulness meditation as a thing to do for health benefits is not backed by rigorous scientific studies, and may produce effects intentional to Buddhist practice, but very surprising and difficult to those who haven't been told about them. So meditation is best undertaken knowing what the risks and likely effects will be.
An avalanche on Mount Everest has resulted in the deaths of Sherpas, the guides and attendants to the mountain that make it possible for tourists to climb, and that end up taking care of the trash left behind as well. Everest is now an industry, instead of a thing to do for only the truly dedicated.
A recent study suggests that the United States has ceased to be a country that has even token gestures of majoritarian democracy and is instead run by the wealthiest and their special interest groups. Which isn't news to anyone, really, but now there's a methodology attached.
Every second on the Internet, a lot of things happen. Which leads to interesting visualizations, like a map of the internet, with the use of each website represented by a proportionally-sized dot, or auralizations, such as Listen to Wikipedia. Or columnists saying that media outlets using tabloid-style hype is good because it draws the clicks, and then can link to more serious reporting. Tell me again how non-Page 3 publications with those overwrought headlines are doing, again?
Motion pictures being recorded in digital makes localization of visual elements significantly easier, as this series of screenshots from a Captain America film shows.
Conservatism backpedaled furiously from supporting Cliven Bundy and his sovereign citizen outlook when Bundy repeatedly, and on tape, made racist remmarks suggesting African-Americans were better off as slaves. Thing is, as the Maddow Show points out, the whole sovereign citizen thing is basically rooted in white supremacy, so this was, in many ways, inevitable. What's novel is the Memory Hole approach being taken.
The Great Saint Reagan is too liberal for the conservatism of 2014.
Having gotten tired of waiting for Congress to act, the Justice Department is signaling their desire for commutation requests for nonviolent drug offenders serving sentences under old mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines, so that everyone can be treated equally under the newer fair sentencing laws.
In addition to their usurious prices, in-flight WiFi providers may be spying on you more than the law requires. To keep everyone safe, of course.
By collecting user credentials for the HR managers at various companies, criminals are able to collect necessary tax forms and data, file fraudulent returns, and have any refunds due shipped off to money launderers, with the victimized employees none the wiser until the IRS informs them that their taxes have already been filed. Charges filed against an Ohio man alleging these activities disproves Experian's claim that no consumers were hurt by the routine sale of identity data to an identity thief. And, apparently, doctors and medical personnel have been hit hardest by this form of fraud.
Three million consumer credit and debit cards have been potentially stolen from Michael's and Aaron Brothers stores in an eight month breach period. So, the list is Sally Beauty Supply, Target, Michael's, and Aaron Brothers so far. And while many of these are technology-facilitated attacks, understand that people will work around security procedures if it gets in the way of their workflow. Which means designing unobtrusive security.
And also not putting infrastructure unguarded on the Internet. The SHODAN search engine is designed to find unguarded Internet-connected devices. An excellent name choice.
Phishers have been spoofing communications from title companies, telling their targets to wire transfer their earnest money to accounts the phishers hold instead of the proper escrow accounts the title company has. If all transfers had to be completed by bank draft in person at a location, that might help cut down on the phishing some.
A look at the distribution that Edward Snowden used to communicate anonymously and securely with reporters. In addition, things that network operators, OS creators, and ISPs could do to make communications more secure across the Internet. And then, Mr. Snowden questioned whether Vladimir Putin also has a surveillance network in Russia. Mr. Putin, predictably, denied that he did, and is probably also lying like United States intelligence officials lied to the people charged with their oversight about the extent of their own surveillance. The NSA regularly proves paranoia is correct with regard to government surveillance, after all.
The Heartbleed vulnerability can apparently also be used by servers to read information from clients that are using vulnerable versions of OpenSSL. So, basically, update everything? Then change ALL THE PASSWORDS?
The United States Department of Justice wants to be able to warantlessly search a cell phone, because they fear remote lock and wipe features can be used to destroy evidence. Local law enforcement wants the ability to remotely disable or wipe any phone when it is stolen. So, civil liberties violation on the one hand, the ability to stop crime using stolen phones on the other. And who will win? Probably both of them.
The Canada Revenue Agency stopped accepting tax returns electronically for a short while after they discovered someone using the Heartbleed vulnerability to steal social insurance numbers, for which a 19 year-old has been arrested.
A 38 million gallon reservoir in Portland is being drained after a teenager was caught urinating in it through an iron fence. Apparently, that's some fairly strong urine to force a drain, or something, because otherwise the contamination would be miniscule. And doesn't reservoirs usually have a filtration system they pass through before hitting the pipes?
There exists in the universe a planet of size comparable to Terra in the habitable zone of its star, suggesting that the happy accidents of our planet may have been replicated elsewhere.
A technology called Spritz purports to help people read information faster by presenting it to them one word at a time, but with the placement of the word such that the eye does not have to move to read the words.
An open source design for a prosthetic is preferable to a much more expensive one, for one man. Preferences, yes, but the real story is the advancement of printing to the point where it's cranking out prosthetics. Once things get small enough, we'll probably be living in something akin to Doctorow's Makers. And then everyone can have workspace tables designed for cat owners.
Pictures of the past, including some things we think are relatively recent. And a showcase as to why Hayao Miyazaki's characters feel entirely real.
Having been dismissed and replaced by a ghostwriter on their own series over creative differences, the creator of the Vampire Diaries series is showing the world their intended path through officially licensed fanfic to be sold on Amazon. The secondary story, here, though, is READ THE GODDAMN CONTRACTS that are presented, as the people publishing are often intending to take away more than you should probably give.
Additionally, your editor is usually trying to help you, and you should always take the copyeditor seriously.
Language is forever changing, and sometimes, errors in "proper" pronunciation of the past create "proper" pronunciation now.
Mothers can influence their children's conception of body image in bad ways as well as good, and especially when there's a world out there that has definite opinions about what size a woman should be.
Unsurprisingly, young women are the fastest-growing comics demographic, but how much of that will be sustainable when they discover the "best" of everything continues to be written by white men, with all the problems that implies? Because there's a definite bias toward running certain types of stories, and they usually don't end well for women. So, in addition to the need to write different stories for women characters, there needs to be conscious selection of those stories, instead of sticking with what's already there.
Write people as people, including writing those off the gender binary as they want to be written.
Last for tonight, an OECD sudy shows only three countries of their membership where girls feel more comfortable with math than boys. Pair that with studies that show, despite that self-perception, girls and boys are almost equally competent at maths, and you have a Problem. And no, just saying that it's a crisis of confidence, when you acknowledge openly that women who show confidence are punished harshly and seen negatively isn't going to pass inspection.
Then consider the problem of those at the top of the academic sphere in school who are not receiving resources that would help them maximize their potential, because of the focus on bringing those at the bottom up to speed, and noticing the inefficiencies becomes that much easier.
