rebecca's pocket

» (Scheduled for the week I was gone, but my site exploded while I was gone. Here it is two weeks late.) This weekend is officially the end of summer. If you're planning a long, lazy weekend, pop over to your local bookseller for one of the recommendations here and notch another title into your summer reading list.

• NPR: Late-Summer Reads to Squeeze In Before Fall
• NPR: Further Under the Radar: More Books Not to Miss
• NPR: In the Deep South, Tall Tales and Tidal Emotions
• NPR: On the High Plains, Stories of Migrants and Murals
• NPR: From New York State: Science, Fiction and Bar Yarns
• The Chronicle of Higher Education Second Annual Reading List
• Boston.com: Work-life readings worthy of summer
• Westport Public Library Late Summer Reading Suggestions
• Writing Graphic Novels U.: Recommended Reading List
• Seed Summer Picks
• Updated: The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List
• Summer Reading: 5 Business Books to Feed Your Brain
• thestreet.com: Six Investment Classics for Lazy August Days
• More summer reading for the informed investor
• La Bloga: Not Too Late For Summer Reading Suggestions (with an emphasis on Latino authors and themes
• Elizabeth Barrette: Religion and magic in speculative fiction recommended reading list
• Exold's Top 15 Great Science Fiction Books
• An Eco-Reading List

Young people:

• Four books for teens, reviewed by teens
• The Common Room's Reading List for 8-11 year olds, more or less

 [ 09.07.07 ]

» Oh, brilliant. It's funny because it's true....  [ 09.10.07 ]

» Possibly not safe for work, and completely worth seeing: Body paintings of the zodiac. Beautiful. (via br)  [ 09.10.07 ]

» So far up my alley: Of Church and Steak: Farming for the Soul. It's got everything: an evangelical Christian raising Kosher beef, Dr. Temple Grandin, organic halal, and nuns.  [ 09.11.07 ]

» Pardon their dust: The upgrade to MT 4 has broken much of my site, and my host, Pair is working (slowly) to try to figure out how to fix all the problems. In the meantime, they upgraded my server, and that has broken the commands that call my stylesheets, so the entire site is now coming to you in glorious, unstyled HTML. At least I'm able to update again....

Update: Hoorah! Styling back in place, thanks to the very helpful folks at Pair Support. Now, on to the rest of the problems....  [ 09.11.07 ]

» For those of you who are looking for a better means of searching the academic deep Web, try OAIster (pronounced "oyster").

We gather all potential digital resources out there in an effort to build a comprehensive digital union catalog.

Eliminate dead ends. Users retrieve not only descriptions (metadata) about resources, they have access to the real digital resources. For instance, instead of just the catalog records of a slide collection of Van Gogh's works, users are able to view images of the actual works.

Heather Morrison has posted a lengthy list of other open access sources for librarians. (via irw)  [ 09.12.07 ]

» William Hertling—who has created 2 successful wikis inside organizations that weren't necessarily interested in having wikis—reflects on what it takes to get people to rely on (and contribute to) a new wiki.

When I launched my first wiki, I thought...I would put a few documents in the wiki, and presto - everyone would start using it. Of course, that wasn't enough. Odds are that people in the community of users that you want to attract are already sharing information - even if they're doing it in a disfunctional way. So it's not enough to put a few tidbits in there. You've got to make it compelling.

I disagree with Will's conclusion about Britannica, by the way, because I think it misses the point. Britannica is interested in selling information, not giving it away. My idea (and I've shared this with them) is that they should offer yearly (or even monthly) subscriptions to Britannica online, and they should focus on selling these subscriptions to their customary audiences: schools, libraries, and parents.

The price point for the individual subscriptions should be slightly below the cost of a basic cable television package—and that's the way they should advertise it. This would not only enable them to sell many more units to individuals than they ever have before (encyclopedias on paper are notoriously expensive), it would gain Britannica mindshare with the next generation, who would learn to associate "reliable information" with their brand.  [ 09.13.07 ]

» Beloit College's Mindset List For The Class Of 2011. My favorite: "Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil." (via tir)  [ 09.14.07 ]

» Reusable Water Bottles You'll Actually Want To Use. Laura Moser's testers gave the highest marks to my two favorites: the Sigg and the Platypus.  [ 09.17.07 ]

» "Bad Archaeology is the brainchild of a couple of archaeologists who are fed up with the distorted view of the past that passes for knowledge in popular culture. We are unhappy that books written by people with no understanding of real archaeology dominate the shelves at respectable bookstores. We do not appreciate news programmes that talk about ley lines (for example) as if they are real."

"In short, we are Angry Archaeologists."

"The aim of this site is to explore the main strands of thought within the 'fringe', to explain how and why they are different from orthodox archaeology. Although much of what we have written is aimed at debunking the misconceptions and distortions of the past promoted by fringe writers, we are always open to the idea that they may be able to tell orthodox archaeology something of value. The fringe is interesting and entertaining in its own right; this site can only scratch the surface of such a huge area of human endeavour but we will continue to dig away, exposing Bad Archaeology wherever we find it."  [ 09.18.07 ]

» Oh, dear.  [ 09.19.07 ]

» Maki asks (and answers) an important question: Why do Japanese people like wieners so much? Here is her list of examples.

Also, how much do you wish there was an English site like Cookpad?

People can post short responses to the recipes called tsukurepo, where they show a photo of their attempt making the recipe. A lot of recipes also note which other recipe on the site inspired the poster to come up with theirs. This is what makes the site unique - you can follow a complete genealogy of a recipe, and keep on discovering new variations on themes.

 [ 09.19.07 ]

» For Anil: LOLTHULU. (thanks, lizard!)  [ 09.20.07 ]

» Here's a great new blog, Food Karma Alert, by a food scientist/chemist who started out working at a major flavor and fragrance company, then left to focus on the policy governing food safety and quality. His formula is simple: identify food policy issues, explain why you should care, and then list a set of action steps you can take to affect that issue. Highly recommended. (via usfp)  [ 09.21.07 ]

» Publisher Chronicle Books has signed a "mutual-referral" deal with self-publisher Blurb. Chronicle will refer rejected manuscripts to Blurb (where authors would pay to have their own work published), in exchange for which Blurb will pay Chronicle a commission on those books' sales. "We'd love to be the Sundance Film Festival of the book world." Blurb CEO Eileen Gittin.

I don't know, this sounds like a fine deal for both publishers but no deal at all for the authors. A 100 page 6x9 inch, black and white book, perfect bound paperback costs $6.53 at Lulu. At Blurb, you'll pay $21.95 for a 100 page paperback. However, Kevin Kelly does recommend Blurb for photobooks (and Lulu for everything else).  [ 09.24.07 ]

» NPR: What's the best way to clean fresh fruits and vegetables? Skip the commercially available produce washes and use a solution of vinegar and water (or even plain water, according to one research team). (via jh)  [ 09.25.07 ]

» Still Waiting for That $100 Laptop? makes some good points about the drawbacks of Nicholas Negroponte's ambitious scheme.  [ 09.26.07 ]

» Oh my heavens, it's the KnitWiki. / (1) Comments / [ 09.27.07 ]

» One professor's quest to create a Doomsday Yawn. Also: can humans transmit yawns to other animals? (via tir)  [ 09.28.07 ]