Thank the Little Baby Jesus for Jim Bunning!

Bunning's boneheaded stand, and now cowering retreat, will be key elements in the tidal wave sweep by the Republicans this fall.

Jim, you're out.

Ball Four - Bunning walks - or will be walking soon.

The chump / chimp Senator from Kentucky is going to be looking for a new job so let's help him out. He certainly won't be looking in anything related to government, in an ongoing effort to limit same. One might think he'd be attending fittings for McDonald's or Dunkin Donuts' uniforms but that would be unlikely as he clearly lacks any ability to relate to the public.

So what will it be for the ex-pitcher?

Here's wishing him hours spent on long lines looking for assistance from the government he disgraces.

Internet 2 / W3C - Semantic web

Glad to know there are grown ups in charge of all this web mess!

I've read / heard about Tim ('scuse me, Sir Timothy) Berners-Lee for years and it was a real treat / privilege to hear him speak. And I really appreciated his simplification/clarification of the term 'semantic web' as data links: that was / is something I can begin to understand. The examples he offered didn't hurt either. A valuable 20 minutes or so.

He also articulated the larger, global picture in which 80% of the world's population has no connection to the web. The ensuing discussion of how 80% of the world's population did have access to cell phones and how those cell phones could be the 'on ramp' (that was Steve Lohr, NY Times, interviewer's term, not Berners-Lee's) to the web.

This was in the context of the newly established WWW Foundation that is going to try to make sure that the further development of the web is focused on serving all humanity, not just those who already have access to it.

Internet 2 is impressive along the same lines: an organization devoted to guiding web development in a direction that will be beneficial to all. I was fascinated by their work with 'dark fiber' (optical fiber that is currently not being used). Also I was impressed by their idea of a parallel internet where new ideas, improvements, etc can be tested before being rolled out into the plain, vanilla web we know and love.

Understandably, neither organization offers memberships to individuals. But that doesn't mean we / I shouldn't track their activity because combined they pretty much represent the future of the web.

Learning 2.0 = Bronchitis

Am I the only one or has everyone contracted bronchitis because of doing Learning 2.0. The minute I opened the MP3 player we got as a reward for completing the course I started coughing...and I couldn't stop.

I had to trade in the player for some antibiotics and I'm just now getting my breath back.

Other than this most recent development, I have appreciated Learning 2.0 no end. As August ended I could do none of what Learning 2.0 covered. Now I can do it all - some better, some really poorly - but all, nonetheless.

So the edict now is practice, practice, practice and keep learning.

Learnng 2.0, November 2009, NY Yankees 27th World Championship Edition

How do you make a Philly Cheese Steak? (there must be some baseball / Yankee dominance answer to this riddle but I don't know it)

Confession: a concerned family member told me about the above You Tube video when I signed up for the MLIS program...

Alan Watts (d. 1973) easily the biggest influence on my life, bar none. Give him a try...

eAudiobooks...well, how much time do you have? I worked in audiobooks from 1995 until earlier this year when Simon & Schuster, along with most publishers, laid many folks off. I was involved with Recorded Books and then by extension with their involvement with NetLibrary. Many publishers are now also using a company called Overdrive to deliver eaudio to libraries - there's a program called Listen NJ that Overdrive runs - that's what's used in South Orange, where I live.

While eaudiobooks through libraries all sounds (sic) very nice, for the authors it can easily be a financial disaster if the proprietors of the audio rights are not vigilant. But that's a story for another day...

Learning 2.0, part 455, d

Well, I started @ Omnidrive because I've always wanted another back up for my stuff in addition to the external hard drive I use. And the link from Learning 2.0's short list of award winners dated 5/9/8 is http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/omnidrive_officially_cooked.php which is an article about the demise of Omnidrive. And it's dated 5/2/08. Hmmmm.

So I figured that was just some weird hacked situation and I went to the Omnidrive site to get info.

There I found this notice:

Omnidrive is no longer available, we recommend Nomadesk

So I went to #2 in the Learning 2.0 survey (why take a failed company's recommendation?) and that link took me to the actual provider - Fluxiom @ www.fluxiom .com. But their prices seem quite steep: €89 per month for 40 GB!!! Maybe I'll never have a system crash instead. That sounds more in line with my budget.

I'll report back on how that goes...

Zoho Uno

Zoho...

Well, when Soho was first discovered by 'artists' in the mid 1970's a close friend who had lived on Sullivan street for years dubbed the movement 'So-what for the Ho-hums.'

That would make Zoho what?

Or is it the excact opposite? 'Zo-nice for ho-humans'? That's more likely....