Law and logic

I just heard of a new case of a publisher (actually several) threatening another librarian with a defamation and libel suit.  See http://www.yousendit.com/download/UW13SU5OUnF0TW5FdzhUQw

The very first paragraph of meaning (after all the preamble of introductions), they claim:

By placing all four of our client's companies on your "list", you have published facts about these companies, by claiming that each and every company is a potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publisher.  These statements are false, in that our client's companies are not, in fact, predatory publishers.

 Is it me, or are they trying to claim that the four companies in question are BY DEFINITION not predatory?  In essence  that's what these words say to me.  They are saying that it is false that each company is a possible predatory publisher, among other things.  By saying this, they are saying that it is not possible that they are, meaning that, in all possible worlds, Redfame Publishing, for example, is never predatory.  They are claiming logical necessity or an analytical truth, or that these companies are, by definition, not predatory.  I would love to watch the legal proceedings in that case.

Now I know that legal terms are not always to be understood by their proper non-legal definitions, and lawyers are certainly not philosophers or logicians.  But at some point, "The Law" needs to follow some basic logical rules.  You can say that things are not possible simply because the current incarnation is so, unless you're talking about one plus one equaling two, or all bachelors being unmarried.  What I think they really should be calling foul on is the SUGGESTION that these claimed possibilities are indeed facts.  If my name gets put on a list of possible ax murderers, I'm not going to say that couldn't possibly be an ax murderer (although I do not own an ax) since I may go completely insane tomorrow and visit Canadian Tire's ax aisle.  What I will complain is that such a list may make people think that there's some good reason for being afraid of my ax-wielding future endeavours because of this list.

If such a case is allowed to be successfully argued, can we even use the term "possible" anymore?  Everything lies in the realm of possibility to some degree until certainty is achieved.  What we usually mean by "possible" is that we have some reason to believe that this might be the case BUT there are not enough facts to even be practically and publicly certain.  The argument against even the common understanding of "possibility" needs to be on the criteria for making such a judgement.  (Of course, the letter barely mentions these criteria, only arguing that the number suggests lack of justification.  And nowhere does it take to task these criteria specifically.)

(Here's the Scholarly Open Access site itself, complete with blog and the offending lists.  Arm yourself with knowledge.)

Testing out Bitstrips.

2.0 hits the Shore

"Soaps 2.0"? It caused me psychological pain to read through the entire article "Soaps 2.0: MTV's New WatchWith App Enables Your "Jersey Shore" Addiction On A Second Screen". It was mostly industry talk so it wasn't as bad as the title suggests.

In fact, there was an interesting "2.0" aspect to it. I'm not used to reading of Jersey Shore et al described as "soaps" but there were two things that seemed to have contributed to the use of the phrase. It talks about the "'second screen experience,' an industry term used to describe the smartphones and tablets people turn to alongside TV". So it's a reference to the use of technology, and mobile technology in particular, in the context of these shows. Then it adds the engagement aspect of it when it talks of "[MTV's] WatchWith and VH1's Co-star app, fun, interactive platforms that enable viewers to engage with each other during live broadcasts."

Oh, and sorry for the title. Just try to imagine giving the Shore a couple left hooks of your own.

The library's gone to the dogs... or the other way around?

At the Yale Law Library circulation desk, students have been signing up this week to check out Monty, a 'certified library therapy dog,' for 30-minute sessions of unconditional, stress-busting puppy love.

Ok. I love libraries and all, and I love the idea of libraries trying out new things and exploring new roles but this seems to be pushing the boundaries a little bit.

We are about providing access to information, people! (And entertaining media when we include public and school libraries.) Therapy dogs are a great idea. I'm aware of the literature supporting their effectiveness. And academic environments certainly need stress reducers. But I'm afraid that providing resources like this will dilute our usefulness and our authority as research and academic activity support. "I'm sorry, Doctor Brown, I can't complete a literature search for you to support your grant-producing and possibly life-saving research: I've got to go take Marty, the library's golden retriever, out for walkies. Can you hand me that plastic bag?"

What do you think? Is it making libraries more irreplaceable? Is it an appropriate connection to our role in society?

[ Inspired by "Checking Out Monty: Yale Law Students Can Reduce Stress With Therapy Dog" from abc NEWS ]

It's not actually too bad...

There's a few interesting things in this strip that made me want to put it here... after the roflmao's of course. lol

1. "Constant novelty saps my initiative."
   • There's actually two parts of this that made me pause. Firstly, the concept that constant new stuff could or would affect someone's creativity and productivity negatively. I don't think this happens to me. I find it's the other way around: I discover new tools and find myself pulling them apart, thinking about how I would improve them if I had the time or the ability. Or thinking of new or weird (or usually just librarian-centric) ways of using them. That's the constant novelty that I experience in the net. Mere informational novelty doesn't really affect me since I'm immersed in it every day as a librarian... it's really functional novelty. "I can do what now? That's cool."
   • The second is a little more meta than that. I've never really thought of the Internet as being a source, or rather a particularly unique source, of constant novelty. In a way, that makes sense... Thinking about your stereotypical pre-Internet horse-and-carriage, steam-locomotive, stone-tool kind of existence, I guess there wasn't as much sudden change, regular mass communication, constant input as there is today. But although there seems to be a lot more info-producers around, once the printing press got up and running, there was still more information than the average person could absorb in a lifetime. We just see the lists and streams of it better and we can dig through piles of it that were not quite as reachable as before.
     
2. "I'm gonna try to spend a weekend at home without Internet."
   • Try? Ok, I like the Internet. Correction, I LOVE the Internet. I spend my whole day at work on it. I come home to it. I play games on it. I plan my day with it. I write with it. I read with it. But I've yet to reach a stage where I couldn't pull myself away from it. I could spend a whole weekend off the computer as easily as I could spend a whole weekend on it. And why would I want to? It would be like saying, "I'm gonna try to eat for week without refrigerating anything." You could do it, and it might be an interesting experiment but there's no real ethical consideration here, which is what seems to exist when people talk about using computer or Internet related tools. It's a computer people, not a TV with a keyboard!
3. "I give you an hour."
   • Again the sarcasm. Ok, it's for the benefit of the joke, but it disturbs me to hear people first rage about the evils of technology or their bewilderment at the draw of something online, then respond with absolute certainty that it has you in it's clutches! You either understand a phenomenon or you don't. You either see something as inherently and obviously harmful or you don't. Have faith in your fellow humans that we're not mindless and pitiable automatons!

I guess all the interesting bits were in that first panel. Then the funny happens. Leave it to me to destroy all the humour in it for you... Go subscribe to xkcd if you don't want my commentary! lol

Wait... Is Dilbert a documentary?

Given all the companies and institutions that have an online presence, the length of time we've all had to trial-and-error our way through attempt after attempt, and the extensive research and study into how people scan text, process information and solve problems, it actually is kinda surprising how many bad interfaces there are out there. Perhaps it's all intentional, just as the Pointy-Haired Boss prophesied!

"I don't dare laugh, down at the library."

This is Carol Burnett portraying a library worker (she doesn't claim to be a librarian in the video, although she does suggest reference work in addition to shelving) on The Lucy Show.

(Update 20110628: Video has been removed from Youtube and I have been unable to find a replacement. See comment from 20101031.)

[ Found this through an RSS feed entry from one of my favourite library related comic strips, Shelf Check. ]

"Corn. Straight off the cob."

Watched Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire (1941) last night.

Although there were a whole bunch of "that wouldn't happen"s and "oh come on"s, I really liked the film. It was sappy and funny and intellectually intriguing.

Since a major part of the story line involves the creation of an encyclopedia, it made me think about the kind of work that would go into a project like that, particularly in that day: Would they really work alphabetically through the entries or would they jump around conceptually? Would they work together collaboratively, as they were doing with the dance they were trying to figure out, or would they rather work mostly independently in their own areas of expertise? And, whenever I'm presented with a story about exceptionally intelligent individuals, I'm always interested in how this intelligence is portrayed: full of knowledge but too often out of touch, which seems not intelligent but rather focused on something academic, which is often connected but not equivalent.

But in the end, it's a pseudo-love story. I say pseudo, because, as my wife points out, it's not really convincing that she loves him. But that doesn't really take away from the light entertaining happiness that you CAN get out of it, if you just accept it. This is not a complicated love story. Just sit back and be amused by Gary Cooper's / Professor Potts' naivete and honesty, while patiently waiting for the revelation that you know Barbara Stanwyck / Sugarpuss O'Shea will have.

Dogbert is so wise.

Ideas are the enemy...

Although this is horrifying (in a very humourous way), it's also pretty true (except for maybe the death threat part). We don't like hearing the truth when it endangers our own self-worth. Let's just hope that the person who discovers the cure for cancer doesn't first show it to someone who would be put out of a job by it. Or worse yet, would end up doing more work because of it. *crossing my fingers*

I call it a "wheel"...

Reading "moving from the ivory tower to the community" by Margo Fryer from the October 2007 "Academic Matters"...

This is an interesting article about UBC's "Learning Exchange" - a facility with free computer resources and Internet access for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. As I was reading their description of it:

The... patrons are a diverse mix - former resource industry workers whose bodies gave out after years of hard labour, Aboriginal youth wanting to upgrade their education, women with babies needing adult company, immigrants who are participating in our ESL program, substance users trying to stay clean, and homeless people looking for refuge. One any given day, there will be people ... who have been coming there almost every day for years and others who have come for the first time.

...I thought, "My god. They've invented the PUBLIC LIBRARY!"

The cure for the blues...

Babies are not only the funniest creatures in the world, they are also under the impression that everything else is just as funny as they are.



This is a lesson for all of us bothered with spending too much money on gifts...

Dilbert's boss strikes again...

It's funny what occurs to you when you take the time to just sit and think. I wonder if it's Secretary's Day.

Double-whammy...

Ash Hole
Originally uploaded by mjthomas43.

Here's a classic from Dilbert! Yes, I AM a geek but I find this funny, ok? On both the immature-punny level and the "OMG, that's his boss!" level... LOL

And the only reason I saved the image in flickr is because they disappear from the Dilbert website and, being a librarian, I'm all about persistent access...

Young minds...

This is a little story my wife told me about a conversation she had with our daughter.

We saw a tree that had been topped, and Zoe said "Do you remember when that tree had leaves and stuff?" and I replied "yes"... she wanted to know what happened, and I explained some reasons they might have cut the top of the tree off. She listened, and then she told me that they probably had a garbage can in the kitchen, and they put the top of the tree in that. I told her that someone probably came and took the branches and stuff away. She thought for a moment, and replied that yes, I was right, a man probably came to take the tree away, and his name was probably Craig Houston! I started laughing, and told her that she was funny... and she got mad and said "Craig Houston is a good guy. You don't say he's funny, and you don't say he stinks! He doesn't smell like yucky, he smells like... good stuff. So you don't say that!"

Later she said that she thought Craig Houston was Grammy. We're raising a freakin' comic genius.

They weren't fixed...

I tried about a million times to get a different result but it always came out Beast. I know when someone's trying to tell me something.



I'm a superhero and a villain... Okay. I wonder who my parents were? Jaws and Garfield?



I take particular pride in this, since I'm terminally white.



Knight Rider kicks ass!!! I don't think this is a bad result at all! The only thing that could have been better would have been Air Wolf!

Four year old in third person...

This morning my daughter decided to play a trick on her mother by hiding under a blanket in the middle of the floor. This is how, in her words, she thought it would play out.

When Mommy come here she a say, 'what this lump here?' and then I a say, I mean the LUMP say , 'I not a lump, I Zoe!'

Of course, she forgot her own script when Mommy came around.

"Humane" Society...

Just when I thought that I was done finding funny sites... then this one found me.

Funny names...

OK... You've got to check this page out. Potty/chemistry humour at it's finest. And although it titles itself "Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names", the majority of them are not so much silly or unusual but just crude. Still funny though.

[ Check out "Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names" by Paul May from the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry ]

Now I am the teacher...

I'm just about to teach another Internet class for our customers [that's another thing librarians do... teach!] and although I like teaching, I'm really tired. Maybe I'll just tell 'em it's all done with magic and send them home early. I think they'll buy that.