May 2015 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

The rambling, largely unfocused, sanity report

I have noted that this past winter was tough. The cold. Attending four funerals in the first ten weeks of 2015. One of my library buds leaving work at the end of January. Black History Month stuff. Friends of the Library stuff.

Plus the family sickness chain. The last week in February – the Daughter, the week before her church play. By March 1, she was better, but I felt awful. Yet I had an adult education class to teach, scripture to read during the service, and needed to attend that aforementioned play.

I said, OUT LOUD, that day, “If I didn’t have all these things to do, I would have stayed home.”

So you would think I’d have listened to myself and stayed home the next day; I did not. But I felt so miserable, I left as soon as I could, which was two hours later because the buses out of Corporate frickin’ Woods run infrequently in the middle of the day, then I stayed in bed the next couple days.

Why on earth did I go to work? Because we were shorthanded at work. One of the librarians was on maternity leave for December, January, and most of February, which, I rush to note, is a good thing.

The weekend of my birthday, March 7, I was better, but my Wife was definitely becoming ill. Then the next week, the Daughter.

The week after that, my lungs felt as though they were underwater. I went to the doctor’s and got some meds, but the situation was slow to clear.

I went for a massage several days later, and she pressed my back; the noise from my lungs sounded like the special effects sounds of a horror movie. It was actually quite entertaining to listen to – I wish I had recorded it! – aside from the fact that it was emanating from me. I missed choir for three weeks during Lent – my favorite time of the church year – during which both the Wife and the Daughter got sick AGAIN.

I missed seven workdays in March, five of them sick days, two vacation (one of which involved going to the fourth funeral). Plus, in April, some weird thing was wrong with the Daughter’s foot.

But now it’s May. It’s warm (or hot, or occasionally a bit cool.) We can ride our bikes. Everything is both hunk AND dory. Well, almost. There’s the live bat we found in the house, the first in several years. And the noisy neighbors: after telling them to keep it quiet at 11:30 Sunday nights, I called the cops on them a few hours later when their volume returned.

Work still is a slog. Trying to get done with four librarians what we did with five is difficult.

Almost the whole staff statewide attended the annual training meeting in mid-April, where the librarians talk about things we can do for our colleagues. Every year, this has inevitably meant a spike in the number of questions that come into the library, and it was true again, especially the last three days of April. We had traditionally offered a week’s turnaround time, but we didn’t finish the April questions until May 13.

There’s a part of me that says that I oughtn’t to take time off. But a greater part says that I NEED to. I have a couple of weeks of vacation, and close to six months of unused sick time.

Here’s something that is more than a rumor: we may be moving out of Corporate (frickin’) Woods by the end of the year. One unit on our floor, affiliated with SUNY Albany, is moving in September to a building near Stuyvesant Plaza, which is also close to the campus.

A woman from another unit on our floor, affiliated with SUNY Central, as are we, says that her group is moving somewhere downtown, once parking issues are resolved. I assume the same will be true for us as well, though we’ve heard nothing official.

If we were in downtown Albany again, which we left in May 2006, I would be SO thrilled. Access to restaurants, stores, the post office, my bank. I could attend events, such as the weekly talks of the Friends of the APL. Plus, there’s a Farmers Market every Thursday for at least half the year. In other words, there’s a THERE there.

In the winter, I could take one bus to work, and one bus home, rather than two each way. I’d have the flexibility to take one of at least three buses that would get me home, and I’d get there sooner. Plus both my dentist and my eye doctor are downtown, so when I need an appointment, it’d be a quarter day off, rather than a half-day.

In fact, the ONLY downside is that I’d have to go to Corporate (frickin’) Woods every 28 days for my allergy shots, but I could still get to work by 10:15 if I take the usual two buses to CfW that I take now.

Well, there IS one thing I’d miss if we move downtown. There is always a cadre of new folks coming out to CfW , having difficulty navigating the buses. Having the need to be useful, I’ve helped more than a few people out.

Recently, one of these twentysomethings was texting his 10-year-old nephew and was puzzled by a question he received: “When is a door not a door?” Heck, I knew that, straight off. My daughter would know it. I was glad to help.

You do know the answer, right? “What is ajar?”

Can you defend public libraries and oppose file sharing?

Falkvinge doesn’t seem to understand how libraries work.

The always entertaining Alan David Doane wrote on Facebook this month: “I’m curious what my favourite librarian, Roger Green, makes of this argument.” Rick Falkvinge stated that one cannot defend public libraries and oppose file-sharing because “they are one and the same phenomenon. One is just vastly more efficient.”

I’ll have a caveat that I shared this with several librarians, and none of them were 100% sure exactly what he meant by file sharing. I’m assuming he’s talking bit torrent. The exact model of what this theoretically might look like in a library setting is a little fuzzy to me.

Still, if I am understanding the argument correctly, the real problem is that he’s wrong, in three specific ways, one of philosophy, and two on the facts.

Overrated

Falkvinge’s implication through the piece is that “efficiency” is an incontrovertible good; this is incorrect. Generally, checks and balances have an important place in processes, especially when it comes to government. The argument in favor of the renewal of aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act stems largely on the fact that it would be more “efficient” to have all that phone metadata, for which the government can select those presumed terrorists, rather than doing this process more on a case-by-case basis. I’m rooting for inefficiency, thank you.

I’m a Presbyterian, and they are, most likely, some of the most inefficient people on the planet. When they make a decision, it’s been hashed out within an inch of its life. But all sides know their voices have been heard.

Purchase

More to the point, though, Falkvinge doesn’t seem to understand how libraries work. Libraries BUY books – one of their primary expenditures – and then LOAN them to other people, exposing them to people who might not have been aware of them. Moreover, authors receive MONEY because libraries purchase works, and an individual copy is generally read, one person at a time (SO inefficient!), by many people.

Not incidentally, in the main, it costs librarians more money to have digital copies of books than print copies. Indeed, in many of the contracts that libraries have with electronic publishers, the library doesn’t even OWN the book. So it can’t sell it, like it can for a book it no longer needs. The library is essentially leasing e-books until a certain date, or until a couple dozen readers check it out.

Thievery

File sharing is essentially a manufacturing process, reproducing products that NO ONE is purchasing. NO money is going into the pockets of the creators. Borrowing from my friend Steve Bissette, file sharing “is thievery and impoverishes creators/authors by reproducing work sans payment. There is no ‘loan’ in file sharing: it is a transfer of property, in a material form (here, place this file on YOUR computer). It proliferates [and, I would add, encourages] copying sans payment – VERY different from public libraries.”

As for the panicked 1850s book publishers Falkvinge mentioned: one can take almost ANY technology or innovation, and there will be arguments that the old way was going to be supplanted by the new. Still, showing movies on television did not eliminate movie theaters in the 1950s. It made movie makers more likely to make films that could not be experienced at home. I used to make mixed tapes, recording an assemblage of songs on cassette tape, and the music industry swore it’d ruin them, but it didn’t. (You can argue amongst yourselves what DID wreck the music industry, and threaten theatrical movies, but it wasn’t your local library.)

Libraries are good

Moreover, the article seems to suggest that the ONLY thing libraries DO is loan books and other material. The library is so much more. The staff answer reference questions, provide guidance for computer users, assist with Internet access to those who do not have it – oh, just read this article. There are plenty of reasons to support your public library.

Librarians are, by training and practice, sensitive to issues of copyright and fair use. Such restraint does not seem to be in the DNA of file sharers, who seem to believe more is always better.

It’s likely that your local library is on the front lines against government surveillance. I cannot speak to whether file sharers are in the fight or not.

I think the argument that file sharing is anything like what libraries do is BOGUS.

Pete Townshend is 70

‘A little! That’s good. Love is universal. Limitless.’

As I’ve noted, I really enjoyed the Pete Townshend autobiography, Who I Am. It was a warts-and-all look at his family and other relationships, his music, and especially his not-always-appropriate behavior.

I’d previously noted my favorite songs by the Who. Here’s just a few Townshend solo songs, mostly from two albums, though I own at least eight of them, mostly on vinyl.

6. Give Blood, from White City – A Novel. As a long-time blood donor, I approve of the title, though that’s not what it’s about. In fact, the song’s construction was quite peculiar. From my second-favorite Townsend album.

5. Heart to Hang Onto, from Rough Mix. This is from the album Pete did with Ronnie Lane in 1976. During the recording of it, Lane was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; he suffering from the disease for 21 years, before dying in 1997 at the age of 51.

4. Empty Glass, from Empty Glass. Back in the days when my friend Fred Hembeck was living in Rensselaer County, across the river from Albany County, I once took a bus to visit him. On the way there, I walked by some department store, and went inside, for some reason. (I THINK it was raining.) I found the Empty Glass album as a cutout. (If you’ve never seen a cutout album, it has a slit into the cardboard in the upper right corner.) In any case, I LOVED that album, and still do.

3. A Little Is Enough, from Empty Glass (#72 in US Billboard). Townsend himself prefers this song to the larger hit from this album (see below). Pete tells this story: “Meher Baba’s secretary Adi Irani made a visit to London around this time, I tried to get his advice. ‘My wife doesn’t love me anymore,’ I said. ‘What should I do?’ ‘She doesn’t love you at all?’ he wobbled his head as he spoke. ‘She said she loved me a little.’ ‘Ah!’ Adi clapped his hands and smiled. ‘A little! That’s good. Love is universal. Limitless. So even a little is enough.'”

2. Face the Face, from White City (#26 in the US). This is a loud, bodacious song, especially the percussion near the beginning, with a big band feel. Townshend’s daughter Emma Townshend sings some parts.

1. Let My Love Open the Door, from Empty Glass (#46 in the UK, #9 US). I got annoyed with Townshend for being such a scold with his public for thinking this was a romantic love song. He claimed that was a spiritual treatise, and that “Jesus sings” on the track. Incidentally, there was a remake of this song – the E cola mix – and like most of these musical makeovers, I think it’s a lesser effort, though it’s twice as long.

Skyping the sisters

I’ll tell you the truth; I’m not a big fan of Skype.

I’m pretty sure this is true: I haven’t seen my baby sister Marcia (she’s in the foreground, above, a tad younger), or, for that matter, sister Leslie, since shortly after my mom died in 2011. I know the Wife and the Daughter went down to North Carolina some period after that, but that was four years ago too.

Marcia and I talk on the phone, though there was a big gap from before Easter to late April, mostly to do with my busyness. We email, and we even text occasionally, though I’m not a great fan. Apparently Marcia and sister Leslie text all the time. I think my disincentive is that the messages are SO long on my not-really-made-for-texting device that I cannot read the whole thing; I end up emailing the message to MY email and reading them there, THEN replying.

I HAVE invited her up to visit from NC to upstate NY, but it hasn’t worked out yet.

Marcia’s decided we need to do the Skype thing. I’ll tell you the truth; I’m not a big fan of that, either. It looks weird to me, like selfies. BUT I see the value of the exercise.

We have a small tribe: me with my wife and daughter; Leslie, her daughter and son-in-law; Marcia and her daughter. Provisions must be made.

It’s Marcia’s birthday; happy natal day, baby sister.

S is for skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism increases your understanding of the product.

Friend Dan wrote to me about the word skeuomorphism, which was not in my vocabulary. But I didn’t see the email right away since it ended up in my spam folder, because “It’s written in a different language than your messages typically use.”

So what IS it? The Technopedia explains:

Skeuomorphism refers to a design principle in which design cues are taken from the physical world. This term is most frequently applied to user interfaces (UIs), where much of the design has traditionally aimed to recall the real world – such as the use of folder and files images for computer filing systems, or a letter symbol for email – probably to make computers feel more familiar to users.

Yeah, sure. I hadn’t thought about it, but that was a really ingenious idea.

However, this approach is increasingly being criticized for its lack of ingenuity and its failure to pioneer designs that truly harness a computer’s superior capabilities, rather than forcing it to merely mimic the behavior of a physical object.

Wait, what?

Skeuomorphism has increasingly come under fire, largely because many of the nostalgic elements it attempts to portray – such as calendars, day planners, address books, etc. – are almost entirely foreign to younger generations of users. In addition, critics of skeuomorphism point to this reliance of physical objects in design as an impediment to making more useful designs.

In fact, skeuomorphism in computers is already starting to die.

But, but, but, without those cues, I’d NEVER figure out any devices. It’s hard enough for me, as it is. I agree with Matt Webb, operator of BERG, “a design company that makes electronic devices incorporating human faces and emotions”:

“People that criticise skeuomorphism say it’s pointless, but I say it isn’t. It increases your understanding of the product. Technology is getting so complicated that we’re going to have to find ways for people to understand what it can do without having to spell it out.”

Or as friend Dan put it, ” It’s not so much fake as a bridge between two things or systems.”

The term long predates computers. From The Economist:

The term skeuomorph was originally coined in 1889 to refer to an ornamental design derived from the structure of an earlier form of a particular object… Examples would be car seats made of plastic, but textured to imitate leather; plastic spoons moulded with patterns to provide an echo of engraved silver; or imitation wood-grain printed on furniture or flooring.

ABC Wednesday – Round 16