Friday, September 10, 2004

Blogdigger in Action at UBC. [automatic knowledge concentrator node - outcome depends on the quality of the ingredients just like good cooking -- BL] More fun for Greg at Blogdigger ;-) My colleague Brian Lamb shared some nifty web resources for a class he is teaching at University of British Columbia. Remember, Rip-Mix-Burn... Specifically, he has created (rip) a Bloggdigger Group (a collection of chosen RSS feeds), that is itself turned into an RSS feed (mix), and is embedded into his web site with our Feed2JS service that allows the compilation of the mixture to be inserted into the site (burn). See it in action: http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/textologies/links.html Nice use of "small pieces" Once in place, he has an ever, self-updating collection of resources, and it is unique to his purpose. Sweet. And a tip of the blog hat to Greg at Blogdigger for rolling out new features. Keep 'em coming! [cogdogblog] 7:32:01 PM      Google It!.

Oshkosh Library Co-sponsoring Political Blogging Forum. Candidate Forum, Blogger Style "Candidates for the Wisconsin State Assembly (54th District) have apparently agreed to participate in an online candidate forum--a candidate blog with a (not yet available) parallel constituent forum/blog. The candidate forum is '...sponsored by the Oshkosh Community News Network, the Oshkosh League of Women Voters and the Oshkosh Public Library and will be accessible from the OCNN Web site, Oshkosh News, and from the library’s Web site.' While Hintz, Palmeri and Underheim might be disappointed to realize the the links behind their "Learn More About the Candidates" options all point to Dan Carpenter's bio (which I'm sure will be addressed shortly), I cannot help but this that this is a fantastic idea. And it is sponsored in part by the local library! Talk about helping your customers get information..." [klyjen.blog, thanks, Jennifer!] This is indeed a fantastic use of blogging. It really highlights how blogging breaks down publishing barriers and promotes the dissemination of information, and I'm thrilled to see the Oshkosh Public Library participating in this effort. It's definitely going in my presentations. The OshBlogs are interesting, too, although I wonder why OPL hasn't made this page into a blog yet. Nice page about wireless access, though! [The Shifted Librarian] 7:27:47 PM      Google It!.

Movies Going Interactive with Cell Phones. Textual @traction "Textual @traction is a new film about text messaging which has been selected to compete for Best Short Film, Best Foreign Film and Best Drama, at this year's Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, reports icWales. The film centres on a young man who finds a lost mobile phone and starts replying to text messages from a mystery stranger. What makes the film unique is that the audience does not actually get to see the messages on screen. Instead, by pre-registering, they receive the texts to their own phones at the same time as the characters on screen." [textually.org] [The Shifted Librarian] 7:26:07 PM      Google It!.

Re-analysis of newly open-access clinical trials on the use of antidepressants in children. Re-analysis of clinical trials recently made open access has confirmed the link between suicidal tendency and paroxetine, a member of the class of antidepressants known as SSRIs. The link had previously been suspected but was difficult to establish because the studies were not readily available. Toshi A Furukawa. BMJ 2004;329:626 (11 September). The letter concludes: "There is one clear lesson to be learnt. All clinical trials, not only those conducted by drug companies but all of them, must be reported in detail and made publicly available as soon as reasonably possible. Without such policy internationally, neither healthcare professionals nor consumers can make sufficiently informed decisions." [Open Access News] 7:23:52 PM      Google It!.

Robot Walks on Water [Slashdot:] 7:21:35 PM      Google It!.

Gnomoradio: Creative Commons Music Sharing [Slashdot:] 7:18:11 PM      Google It!.

Do You Thrive or Crack Under Pressure? [Slashdot:] 7:14:00 PM      Google It!.

NY Times editorial: "It is now obvious that the administration does not intend to hold any high-ranking official accountable for the nightmare at Abu Ghraib." [Scripting News]NY Times editorial: "It is now obvious that the administration does not intend to hold any high-ranking official accountable for the nightmare at Abu Ghraib." [Scripting News] 7:10:32 PM      Google It!.

NY Times editorial: "It is now obvious that the administration does not intend to hold any high-ranking official accountable for the nightmare at Abu Ghraib." [Scripting News] 7:10:18 PM      Google It!.

OA music. Not all free online music swapping violates the will of the copyright holders. Where do you find digital online music that its makers and owners have consented to share freely? Jon Pareles lists a good number of sources in today's New York Times (free registration required). [Open Access News] 7:06:15 PM      Google It!.

SciX - Open, self organising repository for scientific information exchange. http://www.scix.net/ Via David Mattison came news of this 'repository' project from the European Union to enable open publishing of scientific literature. This is definitely more of the 'institutional' repository-type projects, but still lots of interesting stuff to learn from - check out the work packages they defined (who would have thunk to include "repository content" as part of the work) as well as a score of interesting papers they term their 'deliverables.' (P.S. Please forgive me if I end up posting a few things you've seen before over the next while - it's tough catching up a month's absence from the blogosphere). - SWL [EdTechPost] 7:05:07 PM      Google It!.

Theora Codec Ported to Java [Slashdot:] 7:02:52 PM      Google It!.

UC eScholarship taking off. There are a number of developments afoot in the University of California eScholarship Initiative. Here are some highlights. eScholarship Editions includes hundreds of Open Access university press monographs. The eScholarship Repository boasts 3472 papers to date. Included in the eScholarship Repository are a couple of niche monographic series, UC Publications in Zoology [Open Access News] 6:58:13 PM      Google It!.

Beware of Bots Bearing Messages. Next time a stranger sends you an instant message, don't be sure there's a real person behind the exchange. You may be conversing with Chatting AIM Bot, a free service for pranksters that spews out computer-generated conversation. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 6:56:44 PM      Google It!.

Transmeta ships 90nm Efficeon. But only in 'limited' numbers [The Register] 9:55:02 AM      Google It!.

Microsoft Sees Music Opportunity in Cell Phones. AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - U.S. software giant Microsoft is aiming to get its audio and video software into mobile phones before it is beaten to the 650-million-handsets-a-year market by rivals like Apple. [Reuters: Technology] 9:53:01 AM      Google It!.

Females 'work harder for degrees'. Female undergraduates work harder and are more open-minded than males, leading to better results, say scientists. [BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition] 9:49:44 AM      Google It!.

Excellent site on scholarly communication at UC. The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication has launched a very useful site, Reshaping Scholarly Communication. It has tips for scholars on how to maximize impact, retain copyright, and influence publishers. It recommends both OA archiving and OA journals. It offers background on the economics of publishing and the open-access alternatives. It links to a wealth of detail about what the University of California itself is doing. And finally, it maintains an incredible table of 3,300+ journals, showing the publisher, the list price, the impact factor, the number of online UC uses, and the average price increase over the past two years. [Open Access News] 9:48:35 AM      Google It!.