Cycho Librarian

After our video Thing , we come to our audio Thing : Podcasts. I don't know why, but for some reason podcasts make more sense to me than video blogging. Maybe it's because I was raised on NPR, so audio broadcast of information just clicks with me. I'm also used to listening to NPR while I'm doing other things, and podcasts let me do that as well. So I'm a big fan of podcasts, even though I've never used them in the truest sense of the term-- that is, automatically downloading them onto my iPod. Usually, I just stream them as I need them. Naturally, being raised on NPR, my most common source of podcasts is NPR . Not only can I hear articles that I missed and share articles that I especially enjoyed, NPR also offers other streams that I really like, especially their " Song of the Day ." This has helped me discover all sorts of new music that I might not have checked out otherwise. The other musical feature that I really enjoy is the full-length st...

YouTube is awesome. I know, a lot of people see YouTube as the next great time waster on the web-- people spending hours poking around for videos of bikini-clad exhibitionists or public brawls. But as with so many of the complaints about the Internet, the salacious anecdotes overshadow what's truly remarkable about this sort of website. Many of my views about sites like Flickr and Wikipedia and YouTube have been influenced by Clay Shirky's book " Here Comes Everybody ." The overall theme of the book and what links these sites together is a sort of economy of scale. Whereas in the past it took a great deal of energy to spread any sort of information, now it's easy for anyone to put any sort of information out into the public square. These sites are essentially information aggregators on a scale that has never been seen in human history. The scale is so vast that we tend to miss what it is accomplishing. In the past, it would have taken the few people who wer...

Yes, I need to apply myself. I've consistently been behind on my 23 Things , and now I have less than a week to complete them all! So I'm going to knock out Things 17 , 18 and 19 all in one post. Shocking, I know. But there is a consistent theme here: Apps. Especially with the iPhone we've all been hearing a lot about Apps lately, but what's most interesting to me is how the concept of apps has completely taken over computing. When I first started using computers, it was all about just running individual software. You bought the program, stuck the disk in the computer, and ran whatever program you wanted to run. Windows began the change away from this restricted view of what the computer was capable of. Suddenly you could run more than one program at once! What's funny is how much this seemingly simple change began to change how we thought of the computer. Computers stopped being tools that could only do one thing. They started being nexuses where many thi...

I've recently had a number of conversations about homosexuality and Christianity, probably because of Prop 8 in California, and I thought I should put down my thoughts on the matter for everyone to see. Honestly, I've never had any problem reconciling my beliefs as a Christian with acceptance of homosexuality. Like most heterosexual men I went through a period of mild homophobia until I had been around gays long enough to realize that 1) they weren't interested in me and 2) they were a lot of fun to be around. But I never had any conflict between my religious beliefs and homosexuality. The obvious question then is why do so many others have this problem? Ultimately it comes down to a few key passages in the Bible. I'm not even going to get into the fact that we are obsessing about three or four passages in a text that contains hundreds if not thousands about poverty, forgiveness, and peace. What follows is my reasoning about why these few passages do not constit...

Yeah, so I was hit by a car Tuesday night. I was going through the intersection at Broad on Grant when I suddenly see a car turning left right into me. I had no time to react. All that stuff you hear about time slowing down is absolutely true, and the further away from the event you get the more you can parse out what happened. I remember seeing the hood of the car just about to hit me and thinking "You stupid..." I remember rolling onto the hood of the car and then somersaulting over the top of the car. I later found out that in doing so I caved in her windshield. As it happened I didn't notice the pain of hitting it though, just rolling up and over. I remember feeling my arms tossed around like rubber as my backpack came off. Then I remember landing on all fours in the intersection and collapsing. My first thought was "is anything broken?" I sort of did a system check and gingerly pushed up off the ground and thought "holy crap, nothing's brok...

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of liberty; Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet, Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered; Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might, led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. L...

Things 15 and 16 bring us to "wikis." Once again, we have a term that's probably become so over-used that it will eventually be meaningless. But the concept behind it is brilliant. Everyone knows about the biggest wiki out there, Wikipedia. Wikipedia has generated plenty of controversy on its own, but one thing that seems to be constantly overlooked in the criticism is the fact that it's actually pretty effective. So why is Wikipedia effective? Surely if we turn the entire world loose to edit an encyclopedia however they see fit we'll have information anarchy! But as with all things Internet, the answer lies in the scale. For every vandal, there are hundreds of people who care enough about the entry to fix it. Basically, why would a vandal want to waste their time messing with an entry that will be reverted to its original form seconds after it was altered? In this large example there are several clues as to why wikis are a good idea generally. First, any...

It's that time of year, folks! Time to make the Internet explode! That's right, it's time for NaBloPoMo! Okay, I admit it, I just like saying that. National Blog Posting Month is another one of those Internet oddities that grew up seemingly out of nowhere, sort of like International Talk Like a Pirate day . A couple people get a crazy idea, a few more people like it, and next thing you know it's everywhere. I do remember, however, that's it's awfully hard to post something every single day. Fortunately, this year I have my 23 things to spur me along (since I have to finish by December 2nd). Flash drive here I come! In the meantime, I challenge all you Learners and Players itching for an even bigger challenge to join up with NaBloPoMo. C'mon, everyone else is doing it!