...that he's had a substantial impact on international relations and the way we think about race in this country simply by being the first black person (or even first not-plain-old-white person elected to the presidency of this country). That's a major accomplishment in the vein of MLK Jr. in itself. Don't get me wrong, I was surprised; I think everyone was. I'd like to see some significant progress in re-thinking the drug war and marriage equality before deciding one way or the other about him. But it's not my prize. If you don't like it, get your own internationally prestigious peace prize and give it to someone else.
He's a municipal employee. I don't know about San Francisco, but where I live, state or local government employee means union member, which in turn means he's very difficult to fire, except for the most egregious offenses. He's probably had an extensive disciplinary history to reach this point, which means he had ample time to see it coming and set this all up in advance.
I'm pretty sure I went to high school with you. Let me guess: you also think the beer is way better in Germany, freeways should have no speed limits like the autobahn, the coffee in America sucks, and we'll never understand real Gummi Bears over here, right? Oh, and you've never been wrong about anything.
The point you're trying to make here would be all well and good if we were talking about (or, you know, speaking) German. But we're not. And while English has plenty of Germanic roots, it's also got plenty of other roots. Furthermore, you cite a few very specific examples of words with flexible definitions (in a foreign language, under specific circumstances) as part of your little hissy fit about 'grammar freaks', but at some point, words have to have definitions and language has to have rules, or its functions (communication, higher cognition) are limited. I'm sorry that cramps your style, but that's the way it goes.
For starters, not every field has as much info online as the sciences. Secondly, if you haven't been to the library even one time, one wonders if you're as good a student as you think you are. There's no doubt that there's an abundance of information (particularly scientific) online, but there's still plenty that isn't. And you don't know about it or how to find out. I do have a dog in this fight, being a librarian. I've gotten tired of having this conversation over the years. Curious that the guy who made the extinction timeline clearly doesn't take it seriously (and asks that nobody else take it seriously on his blog), yet everyone seems to be taking the part about libraries seriously. Where's the article about the end of uglyness? The fact is, people have been talking about the end of libraries since before the internet was a household phenomenon. But the reason these libraries have the funds to build new facilities is that across the country people are using libraries to check out books--outmoded and frustrating though it is, tracking book circulation is still our primary funding vector--as well as hang out, hop in wi-fi, get a coffee, etc, at unprecedented rates. Circulation has been trending upward in all of the libraries I've worked in in the past decade and there's no reason to believe it won't at least stay put for a while, the 'net, Project Gutenberg, the Kindle, NetLibrary, Audible, Amazon, or whatever other supposed chimera pops up next be damned. Libraries will be dead when BSD is dead. It'll be announced twice as often.
It's Lethem who's a product of structuralist lit-crit classes, not me.
So you don't actually know what you're talking about, then?
For that matter, it doesn't even sound like you read the essay; he's not saying anything of the kind. It's more of an on-the-shoulders-of-giants position that a there-are-really-only-3-stories position.
(Funny quip about everything is regurgitated. Though having giggled at it, I can't help wondering if you're actually mixing the author up with Jonathan Safran Foer.)
It is precisely that kind of thinking that will get you no response from your library. Nobody is going to read your mind. If you have desires or concerns, voice them. Ask questions, ask for services, write letters to the director, the board of trustees (or the county administration, depending on what the structure of your library system is). If you come off defeatist (which you do in this thread) or like a jerk with an axe to grind (which far too many of the people we get complaints from do), you probably will not get anywhere. But if you make a determined and reasonable case, most library systems will do what they can to help you--as long as it wont get their asses sued off or otherwise run them afoul of the law.
That sound you don't hear is the other people in the world who give a crap. Public libraries feel compelled to contract with the companies (who in turn feel compelled to use the DRM the MPAA forces on them) who sell these services in order to stay relevant and keep up with an increasingly modern, less book-oriented public. In my library, we haven't gone to video yet, but we have DRM'ed downloadable audio books (from Overdrive) because that's the only way we can offer them without getting our asses sued off. I don't like it, but we don't have the budget for a precedent-setting legal fight; someone else will have to win that for us. And you know what? Most people don't care. A few Mac users are bummed. I haven't had a single comment or question about the DRM or about whether or not they'll play on Linux.
So it's DRM or drifting away into irrelevancy as people decide that Audible is just easier than going to the library and jeez it's not really that expensive... And once a critical mass of that kind of thinking is reached, the public library as an institution could face extinction. And most of us in the field wouldn't have gone into the field if that idea didn't horrify us.
Elizabeth Eisenstein makes a compelling case in The Printing Press as an Agent of Change that if not for the advent of the printing press, the Renaissance might not have occurred at all.
They also had no constitutional right to block those nominees. But why would they let a little thing like the Constitution get in the way of their partisan bickering?
Yeah, you know, maybe they should just skip the whole confirmation process altogether and just let the president appoint anyone he wants to, completely unvetted and unopposed. That'll foster democracy.
I have used every single Mac OS since system 7.1 in 1993 and I think that Torg does have several good points.
Man, I used to play on a (now-defunct) MUD whose #1 badass (at least the toughest monster not reputed to be unbeatable) was a dragon named Torg. I can't stop giggling.
Slashdot Mirror
I work for the government, you insensitive clod!
...when I say, "Thanks. And good luck with whatever is next."
...that he's had a substantial impact on international relations and the way we think about race in this country simply by being the first black person (or even first not-plain-old-white person elected to the presidency of this country). That's a major accomplishment in the vein of MLK Jr. in itself.
Don't get me wrong, I was surprised; I think everyone was. I'd like to see some significant progress in re-thinking the drug war and marriage equality before deciding one way or the other about him.
But it's not my prize. If you don't like it, get your own internationally prestigious peace prize and give it to someone else.
And it makes a delicious curry.
Think I might go out for some goat tonight. Thanks for mentioning it.
Homogenic, yes.
Homogenous, no.
I don't know who you're talking to. My name is Shackleford; Rusty Shackleford.
He's a municipal employee. I don't know about San Francisco, but where I live, state or local government employee means union member, which in turn means he's very difficult to fire, except for the most egregious offenses. He's probably had an extensive disciplinary history to reach this point, which means he had ample time to see it coming and set this all up in advance.
College? I got this joke after 7th grade Life Science.
I'm pretty sure I went to high school with you. Let me guess: you also think the beer is way better in Germany, freeways should have no speed limits like the autobahn, the coffee in America sucks, and we'll never understand real Gummi Bears over here, right? Oh, and you've never been wrong about anything.
The point you're trying to make here would be all well and good if we were talking about (or, you know, speaking) German. But we're not. And while English has plenty of Germanic roots, it's also got plenty of other roots.
Furthermore, you cite a few very specific examples of words with flexible definitions (in a foreign language, under specific circumstances) as part of your little hissy fit about 'grammar freaks', but at some point, words have to have definitions and language has to have rules, or its functions (communication, higher cognition) are limited. I'm sorry that cramps your style, but that's the way it goes.
For starters, not every field has as much info online as the sciences.
Secondly, if you haven't been to the library even one time, one wonders if you're as good a student as you think you are. There's no doubt that there's an abundance of information (particularly scientific) online, but there's still plenty that isn't. And you don't know about it or how to find out.
I do have a dog in this fight, being a librarian. I've gotten tired of having this conversation over the years. Curious that the guy who made the extinction timeline clearly doesn't take it seriously (and asks that nobody else take it seriously on his blog), yet everyone seems to be taking the part about libraries seriously. Where's the article about the end of uglyness? The fact is, people have been talking about the end of libraries since before the internet was a household phenomenon. But the reason these libraries have the funds to build new facilities is that across the country people are using libraries to check out books--outmoded and frustrating though it is, tracking book circulation is still our primary funding vector--as well as hang out, hop in wi-fi, get a coffee, etc, at unprecedented rates. Circulation has been trending upward in all of the libraries I've worked in in the past decade and there's no reason to believe it won't at least stay put for a while, the 'net, Project Gutenberg, the Kindle, NetLibrary, Audible, Amazon, or whatever other supposed chimera pops up next be damned.
Libraries will be dead when BSD is dead. It'll be announced twice as often.
Something catchy. How about Mr. Fusion?
So you don't actually know what you're talking about, then?
For that matter, it doesn't even sound like you read the essay; he's not saying anything of the kind. It's more of an on-the-shoulders-of-giants position that a there-are-really-only-3-stories position.
(Funny quip about everything is regurgitated. Though having giggled at it, I can't help wondering if you're actually mixing the author up with Jonathan Safran Foer.)
It is precisely that kind of thinking that will get you no response from your library. Nobody is going to read your mind. If you have desires or concerns, voice them. Ask questions, ask for services, write letters to the director, the board of trustees (or the county administration, depending on what the structure of your library system is). If you come off defeatist (which you do in this thread) or like a jerk with an axe to grind (which far too many of the people we get complaints from do), you probably will not get anywhere. But if you make a determined and reasonable case, most library systems will do what they can to help you--as long as it wont get their asses sued off or otherwise run them afoul of the law.
That sound you don't hear is the other people in the world who give a crap. Public libraries feel compelled to contract with the companies (who in turn feel compelled to use the DRM the MPAA forces on them) who sell these services in order to stay relevant and keep up with an increasingly modern, less book-oriented public.
In my library, we haven't gone to video yet, but we have DRM'ed downloadable audio books (from Overdrive) because that's the only way we can offer them without getting our asses sued off. I don't like it, but we don't have the budget for a precedent-setting legal fight; someone else will have to win that for us.
And you know what? Most people don't care. A few Mac users are bummed. I haven't had a single comment or question about the DRM or about whether or not they'll play on Linux.
So it's DRM or drifting away into irrelevancy as people decide that Audible is just easier than going to the library and jeez it's not really that expensive... And once a critical mass of that kind of thinking is reached, the public library as an institution could face extinction. And most of us in the field wouldn't have gone into the field if that idea didn't horrify us.
Nuh-uh. Not cool.
You've never seen an ATM with a touch screen? Where do you live, Namibia?
Uhhh, yeah. What are you, new?
Who modded this tripe up?
Capitalism is the perfect system that fits human nature -- human nature is competition.
Sez you.
I say human nature is cooperation. And, hey, look, I presnted just as much evidence as you did.
Sounds like someone has never suffered through a nasty virius.
Oh, so that's why gas prices in Oregon are so much higher than in California and Washington! I see. Wait, they're not? Hmmm.
Elizabeth Eisenstein makes a compelling case in The Printing Press as an Agent of Change that if not for the advent of the printing press, the Renaissance might not have occurred at all.
They also had no constitutional right to block those nominees. But why would they let a little thing like the Constitution get in the way of their partisan bickering?
Yeah, you know, maybe they should just skip the whole confirmation process altogether and just let the president appoint anyone he wants to, completely unvetted and unopposed. That'll foster democracy.
Hird?
I have used every single Mac OS since system 7.1 in 1993 and I think that Torg does have several good points.
Man, I used to play on a (now-defunct) MUD whose #1 badass (at least the toughest monster not reputed to be unbeatable) was a dragon named Torg. I can't stop giggling.
phatty