|
Friday, September 24, 2004 |
Campus Life Comes to Second Life.
Teaching online isn't unusual, but professors are taking advantage of
Linden Lab's 3-D metaverse to shape meeting spaces to their needs and
provide an added dimension to learning. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News]
8:11:56 AM Google It!.
|
|
Moiell teaser.
Almost a year ago I wrote about adding sequences to Loell. I did a few
attempts but failed. Then a month ago I implemented continuations in
Javascript. (It's not pretty.) After that it went pretty smooth. All
languages may by Turing complete, but some language features can make
the difference between being able to solve a problem or not. … [Sjoerd Visscher's weblog]
8:10:20 AM Google It!.
|
|
Lancet supports OA to genome data. Keep genome data freely accessible,
The Lancet, September 25, 2004. An unsigned and OA editorial. Excerpt:
"[W]hile free and open access to [scientific] data is a boon to
science, it carries some risk: among the genome sequences freely
available on the internet are those for more than 100 pathogens,
including the organisms that cause anthrax, botulism, smallpox, Ebola
haemorrhagic fever, and plague. It is possible that a government, a
terrorist organisation, or even an individual could use data from these
repositories to create novel pathogens that could be used as weapons.
Concerned about this possibility, several US agencies...commissioned
the National Academies of Science...to convene a scientific panel to
evaluate the risk and recommend policies to govern access to such data.
On Sept 9, the panel released its report Seeking security: pathogens,
open access, and genome databases. The panel concluded, rightly, that
current policies should remain unchanged....The panel noted that the
threat of misuse is not as great as some might fear....But even if
sequences were identified as being particularly dangerous, the panel
noted that it would be 'difficult, expensive, and probably
counterproductive' to try to restrict access to these data....The
current system also offers tremendous benefits. The panel pointed to
the recent experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as
an example of the power of an open system....But beyond the practical,
open-access policies of the genome database repositories serve another
purpose. One that might, in the long run, be more important. They
present the world with a model of international cooperation, trust, and
altruism that offers a compelling alternative to the worldview of those
who would use bioweapons to impose their political and ideological
views." [Open Access News]
8:06:39 AM Google It!.
|
|
WorldCat Goes Bookmarklet!. worldcat bookmarklet - get it
"Thanks to Steven Cohen and Michael Fagan and Andrea Mercado [and me, and Michael and Andrew whose emails with similar code I didn't get til this morning], the WorldCat Lucky Bookmark lives! While I agree with Sarah
that we can't expect our patrons to grok the bookmarklet thing, as much
as we might like them to, this one is [nominally] for staff. Go nuts
team!
Lucky 'Cat [in same window] Lucky 'Cat [in new window] " [librarian.net]
And as always, Jon Udell provides more help:
"I could have switched LibraryLookup over to this technique, but
never did because it only works with Amazon. I've always liked the idea
that LibraryLookup can also work with isbn.nu and All Consuming
and other book sites. (It'd be cool if they all emulated Amazon's
metadata pattern, but they don't.) Still, in the context of this
excellent new WorldCat hack, I thought the non-ISBN-dependent solution
might be useful. So here it is:
Amazon/Google/WorldCat bookmarklet: A/G/W (drag to linkbar) "
Most excellent - nice work, everyone! Another ringing endorsement for open, web services-based back-ends for library catalogs. [The Shifted Librarian]
8:03:21 AM Google It!.
|
|
© Copyright 2004 Bruce Landon.
|