I will be going to SXSW again this year and doing one new thing (presenting/moderating) and one old thing (library meetup).

NEW THING:
I will be moderating and contributing to a panel entitled Kicking Ass with Controlled Metadata.  Also on the panel are Tom Conrad of Pandora.com and Tim Spalding of LibraryThing.  I think it will be awesome to hear people telling everyone from Web 2.0 that good expert-created metadata can be more useful and moneymaking that crowdsourcing tagging.  But that is my hobbyhorse, ain’t it? Follow the link for deets on attending.

OLD THING:
Library Worker Hoedown Lunch 2009– I have been running this for three years now, which is shockingly long to me.  I’ve met some of the coolest people at this thing.  And, best of all, non-librarian techies come and tell us all the dirt on how much they hate their tech hating librarians. :)  A lot of people from all kinds of gigs come and we’ve been getting a lot of law people, directors, IT peeps.  It’s a good time and especially good for new people who come to the conference alone and know no one.  It’s Sat. Mar. 14 at 12:30 at Iron Cactus on 6th and Trinity.

I will also be having an “important” birthday the day after these two things.  Doing two awesome library metadata things and then drinking to excess with excellent Mexican food is my ideal way to celebrate the one-two punch of Pi Day & the Ides of March.

So if you are coming to Austin (or already there!) let me know! We’ll have tacos.

Is your day to day gig being dissed in the New York Times?  Cuz mine is!

Papers object to a requirement that they allow The A.P. to apply its electronic tags to the articles they publish in order for the papers to qualify for the discounted fees.

The tags are bits of computer code, invisible to readers, that are intended to make Web pages rank high in Internet searches. While The A.P. says that most member papers have signed up for the tagging program, the largest newspapers, including The New York Times, have developed their own tagging systems and so far have not switched to The A.P.’s.

I think “bits of computer code” is the most antiquated sounding description of something technical I have heard in a long time.  Also,tags really aren’t just for high Google rankings, but who am I to bicker?

A lot of my freelance business includes people looking for search engine optimization.  I can do some of that, but it’s not my specialty.  If anyone can recommend a good SEO person, or, better yet, one that does freelance, I would love the recommendation.  Comment or email me.

If you were to say you could write me a fictional story that included dog cloning, beauty queens, skipping bail, a mormon sex scandal, and criminals posing as Irish deaf mute actors, I would have said, “Pshaw!”  But there is such a story.  And it is true.

Woman riding a donkey fights off lion with machete

You don’t even need to read this article, because it will ruin the awesome mind picture you now have.  Accept that this story cannot get any cooler.

I am a poor time estimator. I am an extremely visual learner.  This is while Lego time tracking my work week looks awesome.  It’s not because I want a reason to have legos on my desk, I swear.

The Netflix Suggestion Engine gave me some funny recommendations today.  Why did it think I liked Beyonce and Cher, I wondered.  Oh, because of stereotypes.

 The Beyonce Experience: Live
Because you enjoyed:

When the Levees Broke

Clearly these two films are very similar.  Anyone who cares about the most racist miscarriage of justice in contemporary America must also love Bootylicious.

Cher: The Farewell Tour

Because you enjoyed:Showgirls

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Oh, the shame.  I like trashy films and Dolly Parton.  Damn you, Netflix, I do not like Cher.

There are not many thesaurus themed t-shirts, but this one is great!

While many things the American Family Association does would probably offend me on many levels, now they seem to be messing with me personally.  Via Sarah, they are replacing the word gay with homosexual in all AP stories.  That’s all fine by me except when people have the name Gay.  Hey there, I work hard to make those stories not get homosexual.  Way to mess up my hard work, jerks.  Ah I love that Tyson Homosexual, don’t you?

Take this as your official invitation to come visit the Uncensored Interview Blog, where I will also be blogging, generally about their awesome interview vids, the indie lifestyle, music, etc.  My first post, about Kid Rock (oh, the high quality of my musical interests), is here, but you can generally follow my posts here.  Will be sidebar linked as well for future reference. While you’re there, the videos are really cool.  And they are looking for competitors in their corporate Guitar Hero challenge, so sign up if you think you can take them.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an expert on ocean currents, told The Sun a foot wearing a buoyant athletic shoe could float as far as 1,000 miles.

To become an expert means truly being able to answer questions you never thought would relate to your field at all. I salute Curtis!

Is anyone else riveted by this story?

Today I saw Tim Berners-Lee speak about linked data/ontologies/the semantic web.   In addition to being the inventor of the WWW, he has really interesting ideas about women in engineering/computery things.  Now I am no engineer, but in a room of a couple hundred people men, I saw maybe 10 women.  Now, first, this is not news. But maybe it’s working with a lot of librarians which has lulled me into a female-dominated, computer-haxx0r haze.  Seriously I cannot recall when I have been in a room with fewer women (relatively), and I went to a high school with a male to female 3:1 ratio.  In fact I think this is certifiably the only time in my life where I have been the most feminine person in the room by a LONG SHOT (I was wearing a dress.  With pink flowers on it.).  And also the only woman under…40ish (that I saw).  I am not uncomfortable in male-dominated situations.  I am not uncomfortable being the youngest person in the room (though when that is taken to mean I am an idiot, it starts to grate).  I am not uncomfortable at a tech conference.    Yet, I was uncomfortable in that room.  While I was not at the conference very long, not one person spoke to me.  They did stare doubtfully at me though when TBL asked if people were familiar with the topic he was discussing, and I was the only person who raised my hand at my table.

So what I am saying, is even in this area, TBL knows what he is talking about.

I assume this is impossible, but does anyone know any way to get internet access (dsl at least) without a contract?  I could supply the router and such, but I am hoping to work from home at my dad’s house and he doesn’t have a computer.  I don’t want to start a yearlong contract for him, obviously.  I am wondering if I could just move my plan over?  But I think that probably won’t work.  Anyone have any experience with this?

And he lives in a building of old people, so no one there has wireless I can steal.  And while I CAN work from Panera, I also have to be on hour plus conference calls so that won’t really work.

I never see anyone famous, mainly because I do not pay attention. I do enjoy the weird tension when a famous person does walk down the street and people pretend to not know who they are. I did see someone famous today so here’s my list of sightings thus far:

• Malcolm Gladwell (outside of the Gourmet Garage. I had previously met him at a book signing, so this was a TOTAL letdown. But the hair was awesome.)
• Kid Rock (in the elevator at work)
• Three Six Mafia (work elevator)
• Marky Ramone (in the audience at CBGB)
• Dustin Diamond (walking out of a Persian restaurant near the Whitney with his hand in a girl’s pants)
• Martin Scorcese (outside of the Pod Hotel, walking with grocery bag)
• Al Sharpton (today, outside of a parking garage/public library across from MOMA)
• Ira Glass (outside of a subway stop on the UWS, talking to a friend about how weird it is when fans recognize him.  I am not going to lie, I had to repress screaming like a Beatles fan)

This would seem to say I should only go to work and art museums.

New Yorker sightings I would love to have:

• Anderson Cooper
• Woody Allen
• An Olsen twin
• Lou Reed
• Chuck Klosterman

While looking for a news story about a cougar found roaming the streets of Chicago, I was suprised to find the high number of websites for “cougar hunting.”  Apparently some people consider women “cougars” when they are only 34!  That seems young to me, though another definition was “anyone more than 7 years your age.”  Frightening.  Go find out where urban cougars hang out in your city here.

I love drastic double meanings in language.  Keeps me amused on the internet, and in business.  Amen!

If you happen to be in Austin and of the library/info science/museum persuasion, please come to the hoedown:

Saturday, March 8, 2008
12:30 PM
Las Manitas
211 Congress Ave Austin, Texas 78701

Eat/drink with your fellow information professionals. Use the words gatekeepers and cherrypicking. Snicker about your out of touch colleagues. Ask for advice/help from others who’ve been there. Bitch about Michael Gorman. Mention how Otlet could have schooled all of
these SxSWers decades ago. Reminisce about the days of authority control as king. All with tasty food and drink.

Facebook
Upcoming
Sched

An office where you can shout, “All the orphans are dead!  I killed them!  I am so excited!  Look!  Ten thousand, all gone!” and the response is merriment.

So I will be heading to Austin for South by Southwest Interactive 2008.  I am doing a Librarian meetup again, so message me/comment if you’ll be there and want to meetup!  Or if you just live in Austin and want to hang out.

It occurs to me that I discuss Ol’ Dirty Bastard for work purposes a lot more than most people.

okay who’s going to ALA?  and, what’s good in PA?  I should be there fri night-sundayish, but I am only registered for exhibits, so I am mainly there to get free books and hang out with you, dear reader.  Comment/call/email if you’ll be there.

The band at the office xmas party ended their set with….”let’s get it on.”

really?  did they think that was an appropriate choice for a work function?  i hope they don’t play family reunions….

I think matryoshkas are the new “pirates.” They are everywhere. This is exciting to me because I love them. I have wanted some Yakov Smirnov ones for quite some time. These computer storage size ones though are my new favorites. Urban Outfitters is all over matryoshkas. They had some wall decals and this pillow. They also have a set of blank wood ones:

I have some of these someone was freecycling. I am completely excited about them, but what to do? I have 4 different styles of them, so I have a lot of choices.

I really like the plain wood look. But then I thought I could stain them in different wood colors. My original idea when I got them was to paint them with some of the vocabulary hierarchies from work. So like, Food and Drink>Beverages>Beer>Craft Beer.

The unification of crafting, taxonomies, and booze would be a beautiful thing indeed.

But I like these more modern matryoshkas, so any new ideas are appreciated.

I received the best question at my recent presentation.

Aaron: “Is that a Glock sticker on your laptop?”

Me: “Yes”

A: “Cool, Do you own a Glock?”

Me: “No, I live in NYC where it is impossible to own guns, and I prefer HKs.”

This Aaron fellow mysteriously disappeared, but it got me thinking we should institute Librarians with Guns at ALA a la Geeks with Guns at SXSWi.

Anyone going to Midwinter and interested?

I try to put as few words in my slides as possible, but my job IS words, so I am not amazing at it.  However, my slides from my presentation today may not make sense without the audio, which should be available later.  Here they are in pdf.  The wireless here is AWFUL so this may be a touchy link.  I will try to get something more stable ASAP.

You know those moments when you realize all the steps and mistakes and odd interests you’ve had in your life totally prepared you for this moment right here? That happened to me at work this morning when my boss screamed across the office for everyone to hear:

“JENNY, WHO IS JOHN HOLMES? IS HE REALLY A FAMOUS CELEBRITY? WHAT FOR?”

Alert!  I will be in Northern California.

Oct. 29-Oct. 31 morning–Monterey, CA.  I am speaking at Internet Librarian 2007.  If you are going, drop me a line.  At the moment, I am taking some shuttle from the San Jose airport to Monterey.  If you know of a better way, let me know.

Oct 31-Nov 4-San Francisco.  I probably will be telecommuting on the 1st, so technically working, but that’s up in the air at the moment.

If you live(d) in the area and know good cheap places for me to stay near transit, or awesome things to see, let me know.  Also, a coffeehouse I can stay all day in and get wireless so I can telecommute would be an great suggestion.

Asked of me by a coworker:

“Man you’ll agree with anything today.  Are you feeling okay?  You’re not usually this agreeable!”

If anyone out there is sitting on some easy to install (or web based!), free (or cheap) request or bug tracking software with an easy GUI, I would LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to know about it.

Well almost. All library related conferences for the next few years here. I am glad someone was OCD enough to do it.