Off the Mark

habitually probing generalist

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Entries from November 2007

Some things read this week, 18 - 24 November 2007

November 24th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Sunday, 18 Nov
Norman, Richard. “Holy Communion.” Eurozine [First published in New Humanist 6/2007].
Discusses New Wave Atheism and how it is aggressively antagonistic to religion, which is the wrong way to proceed. I most certainly agree with this.
When recent books by Dawkins, Hitchens and others began coming out I was excited at first. It was good [...]

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Tags: Articles · Books · CAS Project · Classification · Games · Information Retrieval · Language and word issues · Librariana · My Life · Philosophy · Relevance · Religion · Science · Society

Some things read this week, 11 - 17 November 2007

November 18th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Sunday, 11 Nov
Harris, Roy. The Language Connection: Philosophy and Linguistics. Bristol, U.K: Thoemmes Press, 1996. [Re-reading]

Introduction
Ch. 1: Questions about language

Rheingold, Howard. “The First Hacker and His Imaginary Machine” from Tools for Thought. [For LIS452]
Miksa, Francis. “The Genius of Library Cataloging and its Possible Future.” An Address for the ALA Lecture, GSLIS, UIUC, 6 March 2006.
Audio [...]

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Tags: Articles · Books · CAS Project · Cataloging · Classification · GSLIS · Language and word issues · Librariana · Morality · Philosophy · Society · Technology · Theory

Comment Timeout installed

November 11th, 2007 · 2 Comments

Following Walt’s lead following Jessamyn’s (and others), I finally installed James McKay’s Comment Timeout for WordPress.
For the last couple months, and more so the last couple weeks, spam has really been ratcheting up. In the last 24 hours it has been completely over the top (for me)—more than 10-25 x average.
I am hoping this plugin [...]

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Tags: Weblogs · WordPress

Some things read this week, 4 - 10 November 2007

November 11th, 2007 · Comments Off

Sunday, 4 Nov
Romero Guillém, María Dolores. “Graeco-Latin vocabulary in ESP texts and its pedagogical implications.” In Inchaurralde, Carlos (Ed.) Perspectives on Semantics and Specialised Languages. Universidad de Zaragoza, Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana, 1994: 285-293.
Green Rebecca. “Conceptual Universals in Knowledge Organization and Representation.” [Keynote Address] In López-Huertas, María J. Challenges in Knowledge Representation [...]

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Tags: Articles · Books · FRBR · Language and word issues · Librariana · My Life · Philosophy · Society · Web/Tech · XML

Das Leben der Anderen

November 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments

I just finished watching Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others).
How I managed to watch it on 9 November will remain forever a mystery. But after what happened to me today I needed a serious reminder that the lives of others are often far worse and I really needed to cry.
This is simply an [...]

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Tags: Film · My Life

“It’s a metaphor, if you know what I mean”: DDC’s fundamental flaw

November 6th, 2007 · 12 Comments

you could always hear the rub squeaking
of those two tree limbs
’til one day one of them came down
taken down by the wind
but on the one that’s still there
you can still see where the bark was
rubbed bare
it’s a metaphor
if you know what i mean
Ani DiFranco ¤ “how have you been” ¤ out of [...]

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Tags: Cataloging · Classification · Librariana · Music · My Life · Work

Commitments to others

November 4th, 2007 · 2 Comments

[For those who understand the import of this]
Today I made hotel reservations so I can visit my daughter and her boyfriend in Columbus, OH for Thanksgiving.
I’ll head over at some point on Wed. afternoon and head home Friday.
I also made at commitment to go to Jen!!s party on that Saturday. Hmmm. Would’ve been my 28th [...]

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Tags: Family · Friends · My Life

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

November 4th, 2007 · 1 Comment

03SaraXMAS2006crop.jpg
Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

Good Lord! How can you be 24 years old already?
I love you and am so very proud of you!
Happy Birthday!
Love, Dad

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Tags: Family · My Life

“Perhaps they’re better left unsung”

November 4th, 2007 · 6 Comments

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near, as it were your own?
It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they’re better left unsung

Grateful Dead ¤ Ripple ¤ American Beauty
As some of you [...]

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Tags: CAS Project · Conversation · Education · Friends · GSLIS · My Life · Society · Television

Some things read this week, 28 October - 3 November 2007

November 3rd, 2007 · 1 Comment

Sunday, 28 Oct
Davis, Hayley, and Talbot J. Taylor, eds. Redefining Linguistics. London: Routledge, 1990.

Ch. 4: Talbot J. Taylor. Normativity and Linguistic Form. (Sat-Sun)
Ch.5: Paul Hopper. The Emergence of the Category ‘Proper Name’ in Discourse. (Sun)

The Taylor chapter was particularly excellent.
Zwicky, Arnold M. and Ann D. Zwicky. “Register as a Dimension of Linguistic Variation.” In [...]

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Tags: Books · Conferences · Information · Language and word issues · Librariana · My Life · Ontologies · Philosophy · Politics · Relationships · Science · Technology · Theory · Web/Tech