Tag: i

Library and data geek stuff

universal broadband

Suddenly, I had a whole bunch of data geek links. These involve sources I used, primarily when working as a business librarian. While at it, I figured I’d plug in some local library events.

ITEM: New York State is approaching universal broadband through both access and adoption—and recognizes that affordability is a crucial barrier to adoption.

Late last month, I attended a meeting hosted by the local United Way and other entities, including the Albany Public Library, as part of a “listening tour” to identify shortfalls in broadband access.

You can guess some folks affected- poor communities, rural communities, and the elderly.  The day I went to the meeting, I saw this story on  CBS News about teens helping seniors learn to use technology. This type of innovative partnership could be replicated across the country.

ITEM: Discovering the American Community Survey – A comprehensive guide to survey information, data access, analysis, and statistics for America’s most extensive survey. If you know the history of the Census, you may realize that the current decennial census asks very few questions. The ACS gathers some of that more detailed data formerly collected from the Census long form.

Also, the new and improved Census Business Builder? Version 5.1 is “A Powerful Tool to Help Guide Your Business Decisions.” I know one of the people who developed this free product.

More tools: These NYS GIS Clearinghouse: Discover free public data, maps, apps, and other resources

Atlas of Urban Areas in New York State

How Can You Help the Internet Archive? This site includes the Wayback Machine, a means to find defunct or changed websites

Local library info

The National Library Week Soiree is on Wednesday, April 26 at 6 pm at the Bach branch of the Albany Public Library, sponsored by the FFAPL:get tickets here.

Book reviews and author talks at the 161 Washington Avenue branch of the APL in the large auditorium Tuesdays at noon.

April 11 | A tribute to the late poet Charles Simic, who published over 60 books, won the Pulitzer Prize, & was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, by Gene Damm of FFAPL.
 
April 18 | Author Talk | Patricia A. Fennell, MSW, LCSW-R, scientist & clinician, discusses her  book, Managing Chronic Illness Using the Four-Phase Treatment Approach: A Mental Health Professional’s Guide to Helping Chronically Ill People.
 
April 25 | Book Review | Number One Is Walking:  My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions, a graphic autobiography by Steve Martin & Cartoonist Harry Bliss.  Reviewer:  John Rowen, former president, Friends of APL.
I want to plug Patricia Fennell’s talk, as she’s a buddy of mine.
More library stuff
May 2 | Book Review | Milkweed Smithereens by Bernadette Mayer.  Reviewer:  Bob Sharkey, poet & member of the board, Hudson Valley Writers Guild.  (Rescheduled from 14 March, when a snowstorm closed the library.)
 
May 9 | Book Review | Myth America:  Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies about Our Past , edited by Kevin M. Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer.  Reviewer:  John McGuire, PhD, attorney.
 
May 16 | Book Review | Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers.  Reviewer:  Carl Strock, author & prize-winning journalist.
 
May 23 | Author Talk | Israel Tsvaygenbaum, artist, discusses & reads from his memoir, My Secret Memory.
 
May 30 | Book Review | Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond.  Reviewer:  Anita Thayer, attorney.
 
June 6 | Book Review | The Quiet Zone:  Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence by Stephen Kurczy.  Reviewer:  David Guistina, “Morning Edition” anchor & senior producer, WAMC.
 
June 13 | Book Review | The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.  Reviewer:  Andrea Nicolay, director, APL.
 
June 20 | Special Program | Dave Kibbe, an authority on Broadway musicals, will present From Oklahoma to the Austrian Alps: The Music of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
 
June 27 | Book Review | A Conspiracy of Mothers, a novel by Colleen Van Niekerk.  Reviewer:  Miki Conn, author, poet, artist, storyteller.

 

Lydster: Learning from my daughter

television

Maxwell Frost
Maxwell Frost

There are always things I’m learning from my daughter.

She has been following online Maxwell Frost, the newly-elected member of Congress from Florida. I knew who he was because I had been getting contribution requests from his campaign.

He was supposed to be sworn in on January 3. So he wrote about that the day before. But as the drama over selecting a Speaker of the House of Representatives dragged on, no one could be sworn in. So Frost reposted  that January 2 post, followed by the word “SIKE!”

Quickly, he was scolded by some folks who thought a Member of Congress should know how to spell Psych! But, as my daughter noted, people of her generation have been spelling it as SIKE forever.

Did I mention that Frost is the first  Gen Z Congressperson? “At 25, [he] will be the youngest member of Congress. He’s also in debt after maxing out credit cards to win Florida’s 10th Congressional District seat.”

Influencer

My daughter told me that Andrew Tate was arrested. I said, “Who’s that?” “He’s a former kickboxer and TikTok influencer.” I muttered, “I don’t care about some social media influencer.”

But a couple of days later, after I read about him on Reuters and other mainstream sources,  I knew WAY more about him than I wanted. He is a brutal misogynist. The  Romanian anti-organized crime agency DIICOT alleges he created with his brother and others “an organized crime group in early 2021 ‘with the purpose of recruiting, housing, and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content meant to be seen on specialized websites for a cost.'”

His feud with Greta Thunberg revealed that he was in Romania when a box from Jerry’s Pizza, a Romanian chain, was in his video response to her, which facilitated his arrest.

So my daughter, once again, was ahead of my curve.

Dick Wolf

During her winter break, my daughter watched a bit of television. Two shows were in the Dick Wolf franchise, Chicago Fire and FBI International. She seems to like to watch and dissect them.

In the one episode I watched, Chicago Fire had characters lying for no good reason. For instance, one firefighter tells a pregnant woman married to another firefighter that she’s “fine” seconds before she is rushed to the hospital. In another scene, the woman in a couple avoids telling her Significant Other she’s buying a door with another firefighter, which becomes obvious two scenes later.

The FBI scene involves the officers coming up to a suspect and saying, from ten feet away, “FBI.” The suspect runs away and eludes capture. Now I know what “hate-watching” is because my daughter does it.

I love learning how my daughter’s mind works.

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