friday fun
jdupuis | December 24, 2010The Librarian's Guide to Etiquette is one of my favourite blogs -- always whimsical and cruel at the same time. Gentle and yet going for the jugular.
Basically, taking the piss out of the library profession since 2005.
Here's some favourite posts, recent and non-so-recent:
Sweaters, Holiday
A good librarian should have enough appliqued holiday sweaters so that he or she can wear a different one each day from Thanksgiving to Christmas. If you wear the same Rudolph sweater over and over, you may inadvertently subject your library coworkers to the condition known as festive fleece fatigue.…
jdupuis | December 17, 2010Nice article by Rob Mifsud in the Globe and Mail the other day combining two of my favourite things: food and books!
First, some pointers. Ditch the superstore and head to a shop that specializes in cookbooks. As Jonathan Cheung, co-owner of Appetite for Books in Montreal, points out: "I have personally cooked out of at least 700 of the cookbooks in the store. So we have a personal knowledge of how certain books could work for certain people."
Understand your cooking limitations, expectations and audience. Mika Bareket, owner of Toronto's Good Egg, tailors her recommendations based on a…
jdupuis | December 10, 2010Er, sorry. Apparently it's one of those weird Internet twitter meme things today that all the kids think are really neet-o and groovy.
Anyways, here's a couple from the blastr post:
@StuartPownall: Stormtrooper armour to be investigated after recent firefight leaves no survivors.
@MaxReboYouKnow: Death Star construction oversight committee recognized vulnerable defense point in exhaust port, considered it "secure"
@deathspal Series of Droid mutilations baffle storm troopers. "Their arms are just ripped clean off" Said one trooper
@dclas: Leaked memos re: Bespin mining colony raid prove…
jdupuis | December 3, 2010I generally try and avoid reality TV at all costs, mostly seeing as a sign of the coming apocalypse. But this new one shocks even me and seems to stretch the bounds of sanity. Sometimes I think only a wordsmith like HP Lovecraft could describe the existential horror these shows provoke.
Cracked has a scorching take on it here.
On E!'s Bridalplasty, 12 brides-to-be have to live in a house together, away from their fiancees, competing in challenges for four months. If they do well in their challenges, they'll get a new cosmetic enhancement each week but, if they do poorly, they could get…
jdupuis | November 26, 2010Whenever I'm feeling lazy about digging up something for these weekly (yes, I did just type weakly and then correct myself) posts, I always know that The Onion will save my bacon. And who knows, maybe one day The Bacon will save my onion.
In any case, submitted for your approval, Pop Culture Expert Surprisingly Not Ashamed Of Self.
Shelham, who spends 10 hours every day consuming news updates on various entertainers and then commenting on their activities on an entertainment website, has reportedly shown no signs of humiliation or self-hatred over the way she spends the bulk of her time, and…
jdupuis | November 19, 2010Yeah, this one's true. *shudder*
From the science fiction news site blastr, Scientists discover unknown lizard species ... at lunch buffet.
We can only imagine how thrilling it must be for a scientist to discover a previously unknown species. But for a scientist to discover a previously unknown species being served at lunch buffet ... well, THAT we don't even want to try to imagine!
But that's what happened to herpetologist Lee Grismer. When Grismer heard from a colleague at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology about an undocumented species of all-female lizard in the Mekong River…
jdupuis | November 12, 2010Ah, The Cronk. The higher ed gift that just keeps on giving.
Here it is: Student Found Assessed to Death in Campus Bathroom Stall.
The University of West Kansas has prided itself on its excessive commitment to outcomes assessment. Chang's parents have accused the college of going too far with its efforts to measure everything. "This was at least the thirteenth survey my daughter was asked to fill out in the past two weeks," said Chang's mother.
"Oh, you can never do enough assessment," said director of leadership initiatives and assessment, Peggy Kolby. "We're already writing a survey to…
jdupuis | November 5, 2010The Cronk News is an endless supply of silly, higher ed-mocking fun. I just can't get enough: Hoarders Ruins Doctoral Student's Life.
"She's been working so hard on her dissertation," said Dowling. "Her office wasn't fit for human consumption. I don't know how she could focus or get any work done in that room. I knew that Dr. Z would be able to help."
The crew of the show, including Dr. Robin Zasio, arrived at the house prepared to remove the hoard and provide cognitive therapy to Peeples.
"She had some sort of off-campus staff retreat for her graduate assistantship," said Dowling. "We went…
jdupuis | October 31, 2010Canadian horror/dark fantasy writer Kelley Armstrong has a nice list of 10 favourite horror novels in a recent issue of the Globe and Mail.
Here it is:
The Shining by Stephen King
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
The Turn of The Screw by Henry James
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Hellbound Heart: A Novel by Clive Barker
Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
Misery by Stephen King
Armstrong talks about the entries in the original article.
I've read…
jdupuis | October 29, 2010A second Halloween-related post, with the happy day coming up this weekend. My "give a scary book" post came on Monday.
Anyways, a recent post on Horrornews.net really resonated with me: Growing up as a horror fan. Mostly because I too grew up a huge horror fan, mostly watching cheesy old Hammer films on tv, the Dracula and Frankenstein ones having particularly strong memories for me. To this day, I'm a huge fan of some of their main actors such as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Island of Terror is non-Hammer film that I have vivid memories of watching when I was a kid -- as is…
jdupuis | October 25, 2010You know, there just aren't enough useless holiday excuses to give books to people.
Giving books as presents has to be one of my all-time favourite things to do in life -- especially the opportunity to give books to my family!
So, it seems that Neil Gaiman has a really, really good idea.
I propose that, on Hallowe'en or during the week of Hallowe'en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they'll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they'll enjoy.
I propose that stories by authors like John Bellairs and Stephen King and Arthur Machen and Ramsey Campbell and M R…
jdupuis | October 22, 2010Ah, The Cronk News. Always good for a laugh at academia's expense!
I like this one from a few weeks ago, an amusing take on the whole town vs. gown issue: Townies Make Preemptive Strike On College
Town/Gown relations in Norwich, CT deteriorated in record time this year when students returned to campus. For over fifty years, tensions between "townies" and college students have centered around student vandalism of locals' mailboxes, cars and homes. But this year, the townies took matters into their own hands.
"I was sound asleep and heard screaming and yelling," said Patrick Minchoff, a…
jdupuis | October 15, 2010A really interesting article on Tor.com from this past August by Ryan Britt, A Fondness for Antiques: The Future of Books According to Science Fiction.
In the past few years, media pundits and tech experts have been abuzz with variations on the question: "what is the future of the book?" Luckily, science fiction has been around a whole lot longer than Amazon, Apple, and Google, and as such, might be able to teach us a thing or two about the future of the printed word.
It's a really terrific look at some futurism from the past -- the old "Where's my rocket pack and flying car!" but this time…
jdupuis | October 8, 2010Ah, The Onion. I haven't used them in a while for my Friday Fun and it was feeling like it was way overdue.
As usual, classic stuff: Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks:
A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at the National Geographic Society to announce they had "entirely fabricated" ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of Western civilization.
The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction created by a team of some two dozen…
jdupuis | October 1, 2010You can always tell it's Nobel season -- because that's when the Ig Nobel prizes are announced!
The 2010 laureates have been announced. Here are some "highlights:"
ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse,…
jdupuis | September 24, 2010I'm a life-long fan of science fiction, mostly as a reader but occasionally as a book reviewer. Way back, when dinosaurs walked the earth, I even took a couple of science fiction literature classes.
And, as readers of this blog well know, I love nothing better than a good list of books.
So combining all those passions is a big win for me.
Take a look at this, from io9, A syllabus and book list for novice students of science fiction literature.
I'll list the books here, but please head over to the io9 post for the rationales for chosing each book.
WHAT THIS LIST IS AND ISN'T
There are a few…
jdupuis | September 17, 2010Having started my working life as a software developer, I know a bit about epic bugs. Let's just say I've had my share and leave it at that. At very least, I can say I never caused any vehicles to crash or any companies to fail.
So, from ComputerWorld, Epic failures: 11 infamous software bugs.
Instead, this story is about outright programming errors that caused key failures in their own right.
Have I missed anything important? Consider this a call for nominations for the biggest bugs of all time. These are my suggestions; if you have any honorable mentions, bring 'em on. The worst anyone…
jdupuis | September 10, 2010It's nice to see the occasional Cracked post that is definitely SFW and funny enough to be worth highlighting here.
And The 5 Strangest Things Evolution Left in Your Body definitely qualifies on both counts.
If you don't believe in evolution, you have to spend a lot of time wondering about the useless shit the creator threw into our bodies. Why don't our wisdom teeth fit in our heads? Why do we need an appendix?
The answer is that evolution is a sloppy and haphazard process. Take a close look at your body and you'll see some of the leftover junk. Like...
In descending order:
Goosebumps…
jdupuis | September 3, 2010It seems like everything's dead these days: the Web, our attention spans, Microsoft, Apple, Google, whatever.
Harry McCracken has a nice post summarizing the casualties over at Technologizer: The Tragic Death of Practically Everything:
Wired Editor in Chief Chris Anderson is catching flack for the magazine's current cover story, which declares that the Web is dead. I'm not sure what the controversy is. For years, once-vibrant technologies, products, and companies have been dropping like teenagers in a Freddy Krueger movie. Thank heavens that tech journalists have done such a good job of…
jdupuis | August 27, 2010Classic, just classic: 15 Signs You're Talking To A Canadian.
Here they are:
We Are Completely Comfortable With The Term "Homo Milk"
We Correct You When You Say "Soda"
We Are Offended When You Ask Us If We Know A Friend Of Yours Who, Coincidentally, Also Lives In Canada. You're from Canada? Do you know my friend Tom? He lives in Canada too. Ever since Canada was invented, we've been asked this question. The American soldiers did this during the War of 1812. Good war, dude. Good war. I think my buddy Jacques lives up in Canada. Vancouver or some shit. Tall guy, eyepiece? You…