Goodbye, Blogdex (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I used to love Blogdex, but today’s “most contagious information currently spreading in the weblog community” are measured by a grand total of three links. So I’ve taken it off my blogroll. (I can’t remember the last time I did that.) The last announcement was posted in October of 2004, and…
—Gibby’s Game Room (Nescapades) That’s my first computer on the bottom shelf, a Texas Instruments TI-99 4A (c. 1981). The key combination that produced “+” was “shift+equals.” The key combination that produced “System Reset” was “namelessbutton-right-next-to-shift + equals.” One day it started smoking, so we took it back to the store. I didn’t see an Atari…
Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed. In the past four days…
You Get Transported To Another Dimension and Find This Weird Machine In A Maze And Then Some Other Stuff Happens, It’s Really Cool —Jacqueline H. Lott —The Stupid Title Comp What a stupid title for an adventure game.
Although the English word weblog is known in other languages, this has not prevented translations to appear. In Spanish, for example, weblog in general has apparently been translated using the journal-style kind of definition. In effect, in Spanish, weblogs are more commonly referred to as bitácoras, even though the word weblogs is well known. The…
Are libraries and librarians willing to support initiative to provide weblog support for their community? The University of Minnesota Libraries think so: “It is our goal to develop a blog server through which everyone in the university community (faculty, staff, and student) can have access to their own individual blog” (University of Minnesota Libraries, accessed…
Super-volcano, robotic rebellion or terrorism? Kate Ravilious asks 10 scientists to name the biggest danger to Earth and assesses the chances of it happening. —What a way to go (Guardian) Just in case you’ve gotten lax and started feeling optimistic or something, and you were planning to get a good 8 hours sleep tonight, this…
Although not traditionally the domain of special collections, I have chosen to use the donation to create a new collection in the area of interactive fiction, specializing in the early works published by Infocom. Interactive fiction is a genre of computer game that is more literary than most computer and video games popular today. Also…
How can I get rid of That Old Typewriter Smell? Hey, some of us like it! But we’re perverse … Seriously, it’s a common problem, especially with portables–and if you’re allergic to mold, it can be a real health hazard. Yes, the smell is caused primarily by mold, combined with decades of dust and cigarette…