I haven't posted anything on multitouch stuff for a while, mainly because I haven't seen anything that's really that new or exciting - I haven't been looking too hard either, so feel free to correct me in the comments.
Today, though, Mike tweeted a link to a video of NUI Group building a 20' multi-touch screen for an event in dubai.
pointers are this video explaining pointers is awesome.
I was talking about the US election with a friend recently. He's a historian by degree, though not by trade. We were discussing the different ways in which you could choose to understand speeches by Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin and how much we really knew about their background.
The reason for the conversation was lost by the end, we started out trying to decide what McCain had meant by something he'd said. I can't for the life of me remember what it was.
Karen Calhoun and Roy Tennant od OCLC have recorded a podcast with Richard Wallis as part of the Talking with Talis series (disclosure: I work for Talis). The podcast discusses the recently published changes to OCLC's record usage policy. I wrote about the legal aspects of OCLC's change from guideline to policy before and why OCLC's policy changes matter. It's great that they've come on a podcast to talk about this stuff.
I do think it's a shame though that this podcast didn't form November's Library 2.0 gang. There are several regulars on the gang who would have some great angles to pick up on in this discussion. I guess it just didn't work out right in everyone's diaries.
There have been quite a few great posts and ideas circulating on how to respond to OCLC's change in Record Usage Policy. The key thing is to act now - you really don't have long to stop this if you want to. OCLC wish the new policy to come into effect in Spring 2009.
This change is important as it moves the policy from being guidelines, that member libraries are politely asked to adhere to, to part of your contract with OCLC, that can be enforced. That's a major restriction on the members and far from being more open.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="FUD truck by John Markos on Flickr"]
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NB: This is my own blog. The opinions I publish do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. I am not a lawyer, but I did ask James Grimmelmann for his thoughts.
I got a chain email forwarded a week or so ago that I came oh so close to actually joining in with... Then I remembered that no good can ever come of an email chain letter, no matter how good the idea.
So, I've decided to start an equivalent game of blog tag. The topic? One of my favourites - FOOD!
This post also appears on the n2 blog.
More than two weeks on from my last look at the OpenLibrary authors data and I'm finally finding some time to look a bit deeper. Last time I finished off thinking about the complete list of distinct dates within the authors file and how to model those.
I was chatting to a guy a few weeks ago, a Technical Account Manager at a reasonably good consultancy. We got chatting as we're both "in IT". I don't actually consider myself to be "in IT" but that's another story.
The conversation was somewhat one-sided, with this chap, let's call him Harry, wanting to tell me all about what he does and his illustrious career with a wide range of technologies. He wasn't interested in what I did, so I listened.
I hadn't bothered to read Seth's Blog for a while, not sure why other than having 26,132 other unread posts in the feed reader.
But, scratching around for new and interesting things last night, I spotted his post asking Is effort a myth? and was intrigued. Of course, I was hoping, as you secretly are now as you click on the link, that it turns out it is a myth and that you can make loads of money, be hugely popular and find deep and long-lasting love without having to do anything at all.