Worthy Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- Google’s Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars (“In short, Google has taken a group of the world’s great research collections and returned them in the form of a suburban-mall bookstore.”) (via)
- Building a Nation of Know-Nothings (“It’s one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?”)
Bookish Linkage
- “Think of an e-reader as the cloth diaper of books.”
- Medieval copyright protection
Nonbookish Linkage
- An interesting story behind the forthcoming release of the latest in Bob Dylan’s official bootleg series.
- Blogger beware: Postings can lead to lawsuits
- Will our search for ET find artificial intelligence?
- io9 comes up with a list of 25 classic SF movies everyone must watch. I’ve seen 19.
- I presume TimeLife’s Torture Classics is an extremely well-done spoof.
- A U.K. company is offering to “press your ashes in a vinyl recording your loved ones will cherish for generations.” You (actually your family) will get 30 copies. Service also available for pets. (via)
These times are famine for the soul while for the senses it’s a feast
Title cut, Jackson Browne, Looking East
Although I write, teaching is my “day job,” and my students (re the know-nothing article) know literally nothing of the Bill of Rights: most don’t know the three branches of government. These are college students. We need a citizenship class–how to find objective sources of information, how to organize politically, how to recognize bias, how to participate–that starts at the first grade and goes up.
Never happen.