Internet Site Censorship in France

Sarkozy's latest plan for "civilizing" the Internet: a Great Firewall of France that government agencies to add URLs to without judicial oversight or public scrutiny on the basis of broad, nebulous criteria.

Well, that's pretty troubling.

Google vs. the Content Farms

Google says it has tweaked the formulas steering its Internet search engine to take the rubbish out of its results. The overhaul is designed to lower the rankings of what Google deems “low-quality” sites. That could be a veiled reference to so-called online “content farms” such as Demand Media's eHow.com.

- Google tweaks search to punish ‘low-quality' sites, Globe and Mail

Google doesn't like content farms. They updated their algorithms. But did it work?

The Konomark Project

If you happen to see a little pineapple in a circle on a site, it might be a konomark. The gist of the thing is that a konomark on digital content is an invitation to ask permission to use that content, which is pretty interesting copyright-wise.

What is the konomark philosophy?
The konomark philosophy is that it’s often a good idea to share copyrighted content for free, even though there are many circumstances under which even extremely generous people understandably deny permission. For example, if someone wants to use your snapshot from your trip to London to illustrate a blog post, you’re probably fine with that. But if some high-end fashion magazine wanted to use your photo, you’d probably want them to pay you for it.

Yes, there is a reason it's a pineapple.

The Lisa Simpson Book Club

And now for something silly:

The Lisa Simpson Book Club, a tumblr dedicated to all things read by Lisa Simpson.

This one was always a favourite, but Lisa's reading list is generally much more impressive.

Bonus: three Coreys! I almost used the 'good clean fun' tag until I remembered this thing is on tumblr. WATCH OUT FOR TUMBLR, PEOPLE.

5 Myths About Google

Why not get the first Google entry of the new year out of the way quick? How Stuff Works presents The Top 5 Myths About Google:

5 - Google Doesn't Make Any Money
4 - Google Is Making You Dumber
3 - Google Knows Everything About You
2 - Google Earth is Spying On You
1 - Google Wants to Own the Internet


I'll admit part of number four irks me:

Defenders of the Internet make the opposite argument: Google has made us infinitely more intelligent by giving us instant access to all the world's collective knowledge. They argue that Google is the smart solution to a technologically "dumb" and outdated library system. With Google, we can gather up-to-the-minute information from myriad sources with blazing speed.

You can't find everything on Google!

The Kindness of Reddit

I am posting so much stuff from LISNews today. Anyway! Here is an article about the Top 25 Most Awesome Things Reddit Users Have Done. I'm only at item four and I'm already sniffly. I should check Reddit out more often.

20 Things Learned From Browsers and the Web

A cute little online book* made by the folks at Google called 20 Things I Learned From Browsers and the Web. This site explains internet workings in simple terms and is probably a good starter. It refers to Google a whole lot but the info's still good.


* Not an ebook, more like an actual book. That is online. With pages you turn. Just go see.

Remembrance Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, when the sacrifices of fallen soldiers are remembered. As I rode the bus on my way to college I passed by streams of people wearing red poppy pins on their coats; a bright colour for a solemn sight, but good to see nonetheless. Even if we don't agree with wars being fought, we need to take some time to honour the brave men and women who volunteer to protect us. 

The Memory Project is dedicated to hearing the stories of veterans.

To the left is a poem written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Army in May 1915. I have always found this poem particularly touching.

Thank you to all the veterans out there.

More Book Social Media Sites

Along the same lines as SPINEBREAKERS, a few more book-related social media sites are popping up. Scholastic's 'You Are What You Read' site sounds particularly promising, though SPINEBREAKERS is still the best named site.

The site is free to anyone, and people can log in via Facebook or create a Scholastic account. Features include an interactive web that shows how users’ Bookprints are connected and a tool that lets people compare their Bookprints to participating celebrities—on the site, they’re called “Names You Know”--and find out if they share any books in common. Among the celebrity profiles are ones by Taylor Swift (whose books include Eat, Pray, Love and Big Bird’s Day on the Farm), Al Roker (Green Eggs and Ham, The Bonfire of the Vanities), Sir James Dyson, Scarlett Johansson, Venus Williams, Jodi Picoult, Malcolm Gladwell, Judy Blume, and President George H.W. Bush.

I'm still liking this idea.

Penguin Books' Spinebreakers

First off, kudos for coming up with a badass name about reading. I almost want to join just to say I am a member of SPINEBREAKERS. Instant street cred! Sadly, I am too old. The site is for teenagers 13-18.

Inspired (?) by Facebook, Penguin Books has introduced a social site dedicated to reading. Site founder Anna Raffery, managing director of Penguin Digital, said:

"There are too many distractions out there for teenagers which pushes reading down the list of hobbies. Even other social networks are a major distraction for teens, which is why I hope giving reading its own social network, which is written and edited by teenagers, will help keep reading relevant in the digital age."

Though not intended to be commercial, the site does feature brand-related promotions, but does not have any commercial advertising (and more kudos are given for that).

I know I would've been all over this site as a teenager aged 13-18. I love talking about books but never had the opportunity to do so in high school. One reason why I enjoy my library technician program is that finally I have a large group of associates who like to read.

Instant Searching

Google Instant isn't really big news, though it does seem to be irritating people. Looks like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to me; searches function like they always did, and sometimes it is faster to just pick one of the suggestions from the drop-down bar. Does it really save that much time? No. Has it been done before? Yes, actually.

Also amusing: the Google Instant Alphabet.

Order in the Library Game

Order in the Library is a site with three games - a sorting game, a shelving game, and a rearrangement game, all as the tasks occur in a library setting, only with repetitive pointing and clicking instead of repetitive back strain. It amused me! Let it amuse you.

Handy Google Search Tips

Mostly I skimmed this article on Huffington Post from Catharine Smith and David Vines, but toward the end there were things I hadn't heard about before. Here's the full list in the article:

• Weather: Typing weather and a zip code will show you the weather for that zip code.
  
• Music: Searching an artist will allow you to listen to some of their songs.
  
• Calculator: Put in simple math problems and Google will solve 'em. Use * for multiplication, / to divide, and + and - to, well... you know.
  
• Convert Measurements: What's 5 litres in gallons (1.32086026), how far is 56 miles in kilometres (90.123264), that sort of thing.
  
• Dictionary: Define works like a dictionary. (Like define: lagomorph)
  
• Specific Site Search: You can get Google to only search a certain site by including site:www.whatever-the-site-url-is.com after your search terms.
  
• Directions: Not just driving! Also walking, public transportation, and biking.
  
• Time: Time in places you aren't at. Just type time: city, country-province-state-whatever .
  
• Area Codes: Type in any three-digit area code and Google will tell you where it's from.
  
• Feeling Lucky: Go immediately to the first result of your search, skipping the result list. I consider this one vaguely dangerous. There are things you cannot unsee.
  
• Convert Currency: Dollars to Euros! US dollars to Canadian dollars!
  
• Sports Stats: Search new york mets and get the stats for the Mets.
• Search with exclusions: Perhaps you want information on oil spills, but not the BP oil spill. Type oil spill -bp.
• Numerical Ranges: Now we're getting into stuff I didn't know about. Use like: canadian prime ministers 1934..1956.
  
• Document Types: PowerPoint presentations on whales? Search whales filetype:ppt. Neat!
• Stocks: Type in the stock's name, like GOOG for Google or AAPL for Apple, get stock information.
• Cached Pages: Google often has cached versions of pages stored when you look at your result list - older versions. Apparently helpful to get around employer-blocked sites and times when a site's current contents may not be available.
• Addresses: Don't bother going to Google Maps, just type the address into your search bar.
• Related Terms: A tilde (~). This shows you things related to the word you're searching, like ~scissors will call up results for the word scissors, but also the words clippers and shears.
• Traffic Forecast: You must go to the live traffic page, where you can change the traffic from current to forecast, complete with day and time (like Monday 8AM).
• Phrase Search: Put a phrase in double quotes and the results will be for the exact words in that order. Like looking for "upon the gears and upon the levers" will bring up the rest of that famous speech I couldn't remember last night. This is also helpful when you need to ID a song - I will try to remember a line or two from the song to look it up later. That works best by attaching the term lyrics to the "quoted search".
• Tracking Packages: UPS, FedEx, and USPS. Just put in the tracking number.
  
• Translation: translate.google.com allows you to translate cut and pasted text, upload documents, or put in a web page URL.
• News Archives: There's a timeline option to narrow your news results.

The Anatomy of a Facebook Meme

Dan Zarrella wrote an article about the anatomy of a Facebook meme, but really it's full of good tips for your Facebook page to get some action. Library pages included!

XXX

Finally, a domain just for porn!

On Friday, ICANN, the not-for-profit corporation that coordinates the internet's naming system, voted to allow the application of the controversial ".xxx" top-level domain name for sites that display adult content.

Beware Facebook

A good catchall blog article about Facebook and privacy from John G. at Urbana Free Library Picks: Life Without Online Privacy.

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.org

Snaked from Wired, who in turn link to the New Yorker website - No Secrets: Julian Assange’s Mission for Total Transparency.

Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts. He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org.

I don't know about you, but I kind of feel like a secret agent just reading about it.

Bookulating Suggest-O-Meterometer

The Bookulating Suggest-O-Mometer is a mostly cute book recommendation application. It is ever so slightly annoying for extended use. Do watch the intro!

I inputted my information and came out with a book suggestion I thought sounded very interesting; choosing options that didn't reflect me turned out book suggestions I didn't particularly care for. Worth a look.

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

The CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) has a shiny new webpage.

The Worst Sci-fi/Fantasy Book Covers

Good Show Sir is a site dedicated to finding the absolute worst sci-fi/fantasy book covers. And they have succeeded. This stuff is scary.