Blog Posts

I am having an enormously difficult time coming up with things to write about in this here blog. It's not something I feel accustomed to doing and I still feel fairly self-conscious about it. I guess I'm unconsciously avoiding it, but that's definitely not my goal. Is anyone else suffering from blog-block? Are others in the class experienced bloggers? Are people commenting on each others blogs? Mine feels static and isolated which I think adds to my subconscious desire to distance myself from it. Maybe I'll go post a comment on someone else's blog and hopefully get some crosstalk going.

An Unforeseen Consequence of the eBook Era

I stumbled upon a comic with LIS relevance and therefore feel it is my duty to share. I have to say that I'm very surprised this didn't come up during our discussion in LIS2000. Enjoy.

Zotero Tutorial Screencast

Here it is, the first true cinematic masterpiece of the 21st century: my Zotero Tutorial. Enjoy!

Double Up

Glancing at the syllabus today made me realize that I'm one post short here so I'm going to follow up a bit on the last one by providing links to two books about math that I've really enjoyed. The first is Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife which chronicles the origins and history of the number and all that it represents, including the concept of nothingness and its complement infinity.

The second book is The Mystery of the Aleph by Amir Aczel. This work follows the many mind-bending discoveries (the bulk of which dealt with properties of infinity) of mathematician Georg Cantor and the lapses into madness which too often followed.

If anyone is actually reading this sorry excuse for a blog, I hope you feel compelled to pick one or both of these books up.

Linked

I'm really loving the extent to which the readings for LIS 2000 and 2600 are dovetailing with my own interests. I was especially pleased to come across information about Paul Erdos, an incredibly prolific and delightfully eccentric Hungarian mathematician. I've always liked books about advanced math for laypersons (as I have pitifully little talent for the subject myself), but I especially like learning about the sometimes extraordinary lives and personalities of the individuals involved. If anyone else's interest was piqued, here's a link to a documentary about Erdos produced before his death. It's pretty dry, but interesting nonetheless.

N is a Number Pt. 1