New York City is home to fantastic set of libraries, including the the mothership of libraries, the NYPL. My favorite library is one that is much smaller, located in the north of Manhattan on the campus of Columbia University: East Asian Starr. Quiet and compact, there are tall ceilings, dark wood, stained class windows, and reading nooks. When I enter, it feels like I step back in time (if I ignore the laptops, at least). When I was an undergraduate there, it was my library of choice and I logged many hours there and have yet to find a library I so love.
I also was fond of the place because of their discreet open door policy. When I was a student there, over a decade back, they were supposed to ask for you ID but they never did. When I returned back to NYC in 2007, I was thrilled to find this practice of ethical inattentiveness was still followed by the student works behind the desk. I always wanted to find out more about what sustained this practice but I never dared or was too lazy to do so.
So I was pretty saddened when I popped in the library on Friday to discover a new security system that requires you to scan your ID to get in. There were large signs also indicating such, clearly seething with some passive aggressive anger expressing disbelief that this library had managed to evade security for over decade. So while it is a real shame that this gem is no longer a place that one–anyone–can enter at will, it is nice to know that it took so long for someone to notice.
FLOSS Manuals is proud to announce a three day book sprint for the Pure
Data FLOSS Manual. This sprint will take place simultaneously in New
York City and Berlin from Saturday 4 April to Monday 6 April.
The Pure Data FLOSS Manual:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/puredata
There are possibilities to participate in person by coming to one of the
locations below, or remotely via the IRC interface built into the FLOSS
Manuals editing interface. Video conferencing may take place between the
venues as well.
To participate, create a login at the PD FLOSS Manuals page:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/login/TWiki/WebHome?origurl=/bin/view/PureData/Introduction&skin=floss2
Discussion may also take place in the Pure Data mailing list:
http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
If you are in New York or Berlin, please join us at these locations!
—NEW YORK CITY
* Contact:
Hans-Christoph Steiner: hans@eds.org 718 360 4872
* Location (bring ID, you’ll need to sign in):
ITP/NYU Conference Room
721 Broadway, 4th Floor
NY, NY, USA
email me or call in case you can get past security: 718 360 4872
* Schedule:
Saturday: noon-midnight
Sunday: 10am-midnight
Monday: 9am-5:30pm (if we go later, we’ll be in a different room)
—BERLIN
* Contacts
Derek Holzer: derek@umatic.nl +49 176 2812 5845
Adam Hyde: adam@flossmanuals.net +49 15 2230 54563
NK
ElsenStr. 52 (2.Hof)
Berlin, Germany
+49 176 20626386
http://www.myspace.com/enka52
* Schedule:
Saturday: noon-late
Sunday: noon-late
Monday: noon-late
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If you are in the greater or lesser NYC area, there is a conference on IP and circulation that has a pretty nifty line-up as well as a international perspective. If you are in the Montreal area, IP reformer James Love will be giving a talk “NGO efforts to reform the World Intellectual Property Organization and there is a semester long series (almost over) sponsored by the Columbia Society Fellows on IP with a fantastic line-up
After telling my friend about a talk on flow charts, brains, and psychology I attended today, my friend pointed me to his amazing art-a-gram of relationships as well as this even more out of this world biblegram. Damn.
Memefactory! :
What do you get when you combine a lecture, vaudeville and Double Dare? Memefactory! Three gentlemen with five computers and three projectors take the audience on a fast-paced, whirlwind tour of every major Internet meme, famous piece of Internet media and YouTube footage imaginable. The modus is not depth, but breadth, and constant audience participation is required. Over the course of the evening, the audience will produce an entry for every internet phenomenon possible, including but not limited to: LOLCats, Bouncing GIFs, Me Singing [blank], Reaction Videos, Folk Covers of Hip Hop Classics, FAILs, Redubbed music videos, and more. Some will become famous like Boxxy, most will drink beers and a brave few will be nude.
So, one of th raging debates in medical science over the last two decades concerns the importance of genetics vs environmental factors for diseases: Are diseases genetically based or due to environmental factors, such as pesticides and toxins? This debate is one that might soon change its course (and collapse) due to the fascinating field of epigenetics, which blows this binary to pieces, by examining how lifestyle and environment can alter the expression of genes. Nova has a fascinating video about epigenetics, which is definitely worth watching.
The more stuff like this happens, the harder it will be to pass this stuff.
I recently got to spend some time hanging with part of the FLOSS manual crew and they basically are as busy as ever holding sprints across the US and Europe to write documentation and manuals for Free Software. They are holding a mini sprint in Cambridge, MA and along with the FSF will be writing a manual on the command line in about two days. If the idea of writing documentation makes you feel warm and happy inside, then this is the even for you. They are always looking for volunteers and I assure you, the experience will be well worth your time, effort, and participation.
