That's high praise and it's well deserved.

So what's Logicomix all about? The core is the story of Bertrand Russell's and his work -- the search for the foundations of mathematics, the most basic kind of truth: logic. His search takes us through the history of mathematics and philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both in terms of following the course of Russell's life and loves but also encountering many of the main figures in math and philosophy of the era: Frege, Hilbert, Godel and Wittgenstein all make appearances (the authors take some chronological and historical liberties to get Russell to meet all these people). Russell's relationship with Wittgenstein is explored in particular detail. Russell also deals quite a bit with the relationship between logic an madness both in his own family and in logicians in general.

But that's just the surface story.

Interestingly, Logicomix the story is structured like an onion, with different and distinct layers. Russell's personal and professional biography is the innermost layer, the core, but there are also two outer layers that add a real depth and resonance to the story. The layers interweave the history and philosphy of mathematics and logic, the rise of Nazism, Greek tragedy and the relationship between obsessive logic and insanity.

Next out from the centre is the internal framing story -- Russell giving a speech to a group of pacifists just as World War II is getting started. It is as part of this speech that he recounts his life story, the innermost layer. The point he is trying to make with his life story as it relate to pacifism is all about the relationship between rationality and irrationality, the core of the scientific world view and the place of logic in human affairs.

The next layer out from the core is the story of the authors and artists creating the comic. Yes, the comic is also about it's own creation, with the authors and artists as characters talking about what they hope to accomplish in telling Russell's story, ingeniously contrasting his search for truth and logic with one of the comic's creator's participation in staging a Greek tragedy.

The writing itself is crisp and assured. Each of the layers uses a different tone and voice, one that is suitable for the story it is telling. For example the outer layer, the story of the comics creation, uses a light-hearted, colloquial tone. The pacing is tight; there's no wasted words, no padding or flab for a fairly long book.

The art is perfect -- clear and clean yet very expressive. Light when needed, dark and moody when that is needed as well. There are several gorgeous set pieces sprinkled throughout, especially the scenes where the authors are strolling around Athens, talking about their project. The WWI scenes starting on page 245 are brutally dark and effective. My advanced reading copy only has 12 coloured pages so I can only comment on the colouring in a limited way but what I've seen is very good. On the other hand, reading the rest in black and white I didn't feel the least bit deprived. Even in b&w, it's gorgeous.

Buy this book. Buy one for yourself, buy one for your library. The holidays are coming, so buy a bunch of copies for all your comics-loving family & friends as well as all your science-loving family & friends. Most of all, if there's a precocious kid out there that just might be enthralled and inspired by Bertrand Russell's story, well, this book is perfect. Let's just say that my own reading of the book was delayed a bit when I told my older son about it -- he quickly kidnapped it and read it twice before I got my hands back on it.

I recommend this book without hesitation for academic libraries that collect biographies in science or philosophy; this would be a great first graphic novel for your history and philosophy of science collection. High school and middle school libraries are also a perfect and natural fit, as is pretty well any public library.

Doxiadis, Apostolos; Christos H. Papadimitriou; Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009. 347pp. ISBN-13: 978-0747597209

(Advanced reading copy provided by publisher.)

Science

• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
  
• Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species by Sean B. Carroll
  
• Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell
  
• Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions by Susan R. Barry
  
• The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Graham Farmelo
  
• Every Patient Tells a Story by Lisa Sanders
  
• The Mathematical Mechanic: Using Physical Reasoning to Solve Problems by Mark Levi
  
• Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster by Allan J McDonald
  
• Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880-1930 by John Harley Warner
  
• The Monty Hall Problem: The Remarkable Story of Math's Most Contentious Brain Teaser by Jason Rosenhouse

Outdoors & Nature

• The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley
  
• Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen
  
• Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places by Bill Streever
  
• Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager by Langdon Cook
  
• Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand

Business & Investing

• Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan
  
• SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
  
• Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod

Since writing SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS, I've gotten a ton of feedback about how nice it is that I've made Jane Austen appealing to certain readers -- meaning readers who previously suffered a persistent allergy to The Classics. I am complimented for taking the prim and decorous Jane Austen and making her a) really violent, and b) really funny.

The first compliment I will gladly accept. Over the decades since SENSE AND SENSIBILITY first appeared, it has been noted by scholars and casual readers alike that the book is sorely lacking in shipwrecks, shark attacks and vividly described decapitations. I believe it was the poet and critic Thomas Chatterton who admired the novel's careful plotting and social critique, but lamented the total absence of vengeful ghost pirates.

I do have a copy kicking around the house of the previous one of these Austen reworkings, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's pretty amusing, but not exactly the kind of thing where you actually need to read the whole book. I expect the Sea Monster one is similar. And if you head to the Amazon page, you'll note that these reworkings of public domain texts are rising from the dead faster than, well, zombies. War of the Worlds, Wizard of Oz and Huckleberry Finn seem to be just the tip of the iceberg. The P&P&Z people seem to have created a monster.

I did a quick list in my post the other day, but I revisited the attendee list after it closed and noticed a couple of people that weren't in the first list.

As I said in the earlier post, there's been a good tradition of librarians and library people attending Science Online and this year looks to be no exception. So, here's the updated list. Of course, it's only the people whose names I recognize or who I was able to figure out had a library connection so I may be missing a couple. If I've missed you, let me know and I'll add you.

• Stephanie Willen Brown
  
• John Dupuis
  
• Garrett Eastman
  
• Michael Habib
  
• Sarah Jeong
  
• Molly Keener
  
• Hope Leman
  
• Gary Pattillo
  
• Christina Pikas
  
• Dorothea Salo
  
• Bonnie Swoger
  
• KT Vaughn
  
• Josh Wilson

There are also a few library-themed sessions at the conference:

Repositories for Fun and Profit - Dorothea Salo (Friday workshop)

Description: Why are my librarians bothering me with all this repository nonsense? What's a repository, and how is it different from a website? What can a repository do for me? Why should I bother with them? Does anybody use them? What's all this about metadata, anyway? Find out from a real live repository librarian!

Online Reference Managers - John Dupuis and Christina Pikas moderating, with Kevin Emamy, Jason Hoyt, Trevor Owens and Michael Habib (Scopus) in the 'hot seats'.

Description: Reference managers, sometimes called citation managers or bibliography managers, help you keep, organize, and re-use citation information. A few years ago, the options were limited to expensive proprietary desktop clients or BibTeX for people writing in LaTeX. Now we've got lots of choices, many that are online, support collaboration and information sharing, and that work with the authoring tools you use to write papers. In this session we'll hear from representatives of some of these tools and we'll talk about the features that make them useful. Together we'll discuss some tips and tricks and maybe even best practices.

Scientists! What can your librarian do for you? - Stephanie Willen Brown and Dorothea Salo

Description: Find free, scholarly, science stuff on the Internet, via your public or state library, or on the "free Web." Learn tips & tricks for getting full-text science research at all levels, through resources like DOAJ and NC Live (for those with a North Carolina library card; other states often offer free resources to library card holders). Find out about some options for storing science material at your academic institution's Institutional Repository. We will also talk about the broader access to material stored in institutional repositories and elsewhere on the Web.

For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation.

This year, the first list is from Publisher's Weekly, which even has three sciencey books in their top 10 for the year!

• A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan
  
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
  
• Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
  
• Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou with art by Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna
  
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
  
• Green Metropolis by David Owen

Unfortunately, my work computer just died and I can't seem to access my email, even via the web interface.

Hopefully, all will return to normal soon.

Anyways, The 10 Biggest Misconceptions We Learn In School is from Manolith, a site I've never heard of before. It's rude and crude and definitely not for the faint of heart. Some of the points hit their mark and some miss pretty badly. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Nevertheless, some of them are also pretty amusing:

1. Einstein got bad grades in school

Um... have you heard about this guy Einstein? Famous physicist? Relativity and all that? A genius, even? I'm pretty sure little Albert could handle his business in 4th grade arithmetic. Yes, contrary to popular belief, Einstein was a top student in elementary school, getting mostly "4″s (on the German grading scale of 1-4), which idiot Americans later assumed, backwardly, were "D"s. The idea stuck because everybody loves the idea that their poor student can go on to great things. Sorry, parents, Einstein was teaching himself calculus at age 12...

Science has a long-standing tradition of grouping fields into three categories: the physical, life, and social sciences. The physical sciences focus on physical phenomena, especially materials, energy, electromagnetism, gravity, motion, and quantum effects. The life sciences focus on living things, especially species, metabolism, reproduction, and evolution. The social sciences focus on human behavior, mind, economic, and social interactions. We use the term "great domains of science" for these categories.

*snip*

The core phenomena of the computing sciences domain--computation, communication, coordination, recollection, automation, evaluation, and design--apply universally, whether in the artificial information processes generated by computers or in the natural information processes found in the other domains. Thus, information processes in quantum physics, materials science, chemistry, biology, genetics, business, organizations, economics, psychology, and mind are all subject to the same space and time limitations predicted by universal Turing machines. That fact underpins many of the interactions between computing and the other fields and underlies the recent claim that computing is a science of both the natural and the artificial.

*snip*

Computing is pervasive because it is a fundamental way of approaching the world that helps understand its own crucial questions while also assisting other domains advance their understandings of the world. Understanding computing as a great domain of science will help to achieve better explanations of computing, increase the attraction of the field to newcomers, and demonstrate parity with other fields of science.

To say that computing is a domain of science does not conflict with computing's status as a field of engineering or even mathematics. Computing has large slices that qualify as science, engineering, and mathematics. No one of those slices tells the whole story of the field.

The exercise of examining computing as a domain of science reveals that the extent of computing's reach and influence cannot be seen without a map that explicitly displays the modes of implementation and interaction. It also reveals that we need to revisit deep questions in computing because our standard answers, developed for computer scientists, do not apply to other fields of science. Finally, it confirms that computing principles are distinct from the principles of the other domains.

So, what do you think? Is computing the fourth great domain of science?

Time is running out. There are currently about 175 registered and the organizers are going to cap it at 250.

I've attended the conference for the past two years and it's a blast. I really enjoyed the sessions as well as the informal times between sessions, at the meals and in the bar.

I've registered already, as has my son, Sam, who's in grade 11. He attended last year and also had a great time. Bora even interviewed him!

There's been a good tradition of librarians attending the conference and this year looks to be no exception. Here's a list of the librarianish people who've registered. Of course, it's only the people whose names I recognize so I may be missing a couple. If I've missed you, let me know and I'll add you.

• Stephanie Willen Brown
  
• Michael Habib
  
• Sarah Jeong
  
• Molly Keener
  
• Christina Pikas
  
• Dorothea Salo
  
• Bonnie Swoger
  
• KT Vaughn
  
• Josh Wilson

Two York profs are interviewed in the documentary, Asia Ivic Weiss and Walter Whiteley.

I reviewed Roberts' book a few years ago, here, where you can read about my own minor role in the Coxeter story.

Check this out from Sci Fi Wire: 14 great Cthulhu toys that make devouring souls fun!

H.P. Lovecraft's elder god Cthulhu is supposed to be terrifying, hideous and awe-inspiring--but whoever knew he could be this darn cute? Check out 14 toys that take a slimy monster and turn it cuddly.

It's sick, twisted fun. My favourite is the Cthulhu Santa, but the wall trophy, suction cup, plush slippers and "My Little Pony Cthulhu" are all great too.

Basically, his idea was to start a scholarly publishing revolution from the inside:

Keep in mind: I am NOT talking to the NSF or to Journal publishes or to Conference organizers. I am NOT going to say what any of these people should do. I am talking to US, the authors of papers. If WE all follow this manifesto then the problems of high priced journals and limited access may partially go away on their own. To be briefer: To the extend that WE are the problem, WE can be the solution.

However, it's a little long and perhaps a bit convoluted. It also talks about things that are a bit peripheral to scholarly discourse in the sciences, such as book publishing. It also encourages people to post online copies of articles that they don't hold copyright to.

But still, an amazing start -- a bunch of words to kick off the revolution.

Fellow Canuck Daniel Lemire went one further. He basically took Gasarch's manifesto and pared it down to the bare essentials.

This is the version I'll quote here and completely and totally endorse:

1. Whenever you publish a paper in a conference or journal, post it on your website or on some appropriate archive (such as arXiv). In particular, as soon as you submit the final version to a conference it should go on online.
   
2. Post improvements and revisions to your work. Should you spot a mistake in one of your older research paper, revise it and post the result online!
   
3. If you give a talk, then post the slides online.
   
4. Make it easy for other researchers to get automatic updates when you post new content. (If you use arXiv, it comes for free if you claim an arXiv user ID.)

I prefer Lemire's simplified version for a couple of reasons:

It seems less intrusive and less prescriptive and more in line with the main goals of OA, to get scholar's research production out in the open.

It also removes the point about books. In my opinion, in the scientific fields it's much more important to focus on the scholarly rather than on professional contributions. And since science mostly does not use monographs for original scholarship, it perhaps distracts from the main goal to include books.

In these areas, books are mostly professional contributions. In the humanities, for example, books are more likely to be scholarly contributions, so focusing on OA for monographs in those fields will be more important. Of course, there are a lot of very good reasons to make books open access (it even increases sales), but that's a secondary concern and a different discussion.

Lemire's manifesto also removes Gasarch's point about creating "portal" sites for particular fields and posting other people's papers to that site. The violation of copyright here makes me a little squeamish. Just because most publishers don't strictly enforce their agreements doesn't mean that we can or should just blatantly ignore those agreements. Also, I do definitely believe that authors should respect the agreements they sign. We expect publishers to respect their part of our agreements, so we should respect ours.

The key, as the manifesto states, is to get permission to post the material when we are negotiating our agreements or to chose to publish in Gold OA journal or in those that allow Green OA archiving.

A couple of relevant tools for those tasks are the SHERPA/RoMEO database of publisher copyright and self-archiving policies and the SPARC Author Rights Addendum.

Most of all, I'd like to give a huge thanks to both Bill and Daniel on their excellent contributions to the conversation about the present and future of scholarly communications.

Q1. What's the effect on jobs at CISTI from this move?

As you may know, NRC-CISTI is transforming itself to be well positioned to serve the needs of Canadian knowledge workers now and in the future. This transformation is a major undertaking for the organization and will require a significant transition for NRC-CISTI's workforce.

NRC is working to mitigate the effect on employees by seeking to place as many of the affected employees as possible within the new NRC-CISTI or elsewhere within the NRC or the federal government. The NRC is working closely with its bargaining agents throughout the process of transformation to ensure that employees are supported to the fullest extent possible.

Q2. What will happen with CISTI's physical collections? Are they staying in Canada?

The holdings of the NRC-CISTI will remain the property of the National Research Council. NRC-CISTI is home to the National Science Library Collection, with more than 50,000 serial titles, 800,000 books and conference proceedings and over 2 million technical reports and indexed journals.

Q3. What's the focus for CISTI in the future? Data curation, research support? Does CISTI have library & institutional partners for these activities?

This transformation will focus NRC-CISTI's activities on high-value information and services that advance research and innovation in the areas of science, technology and health. This will include new models for delivering services which may include partners for these activities, but the overall transformation will take time to implement and it is still too soon to speculate about future partners.

Q4. Where do you see CISTI in 5-10 years?

NRC-CISTI will continue to be Canada's national science library. Our mission continues to be to contribute to an innovative, knowledge-based economy by providing high-value information and services in STM. And, our core value of delivering quality STM information services remains unchanged.

As Canada's national science library, CISTI will continue to provide information discovery and access services to Canadians and researchers from around the world. And as the NRC library, will continue to offer licensed access to information content and in-depth information services to the NRC.

We will also be continuing with our national strategic initiatives, which are a part of our national science library, including building access vehicles to showcase Canada's scientific output, for example:

• NPArC - also known as the NRC publications archive
  CISTI has built a searchable web-based gateway to NRC-authored publications that will increase access to NRC's research output, and serve as a valuable resource for NRC researchers, collaborators and the public.

  NRC researchers author about 3,700 peer-reviewed publications each year (articles, proceedings, books, book chapters) as well as technical reports. NRC has mandated that these NRC-authored publications be deposited on NPArC. NPArC is increasing the visibility and impact of NRC research and helping researchers collaborate and innovate. NPArC uses the CISTI digital repository as its technology platform. Publications are ingested, stored, indexed, preserved and made accessible from this platform.

  CISTI will also continue to partner with other organizations to fulfill its core role as part of Canada's national innovation infrastructure:
  

• Research Data Canada

  This is a national initiative addressing issues surrounding the access and preservation of data arising from Canadian research and NRC-CISTI is playing a coordination role and has launched a gateway web site that provides access to Canadian scientific data sets and other important data repositories to support this initiative
  

• PubMed Central Canada or PMC Canada

  A national digital repository of peer-reviewed health science research that will provide free and open access to CIHR-funded research. CIHR has passed an Open Access mandate requiring scientists to make research funded by CIHR freely available.

  NRC-CISTI, CIHR and the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) have completed the first step in the creation of PMC Canada - a three-way agreement to partner on creating the e-repository. CIHR is funding and CISTI is providing the technology platform and tools.

The basic message is that the document delivery service has been outsourced to a US company:

NRC-CISTI, Canada's national science library is changing and we are energized by the possibilities as we move forward in the transformation process announced in February 2009.

Today, we are pleased to announce that Infotrieve, Inc., a leader in information center technology development and document delivery for more than 20 years, will be collaborating with NRC-CISTI on providing document delivery services for our clients and business partners. Infotrieve will be acting on NRC-CISTI's behalf within Canada and will be providing exclusive services to our US and International clients. The transition will begin immediately and the process will be completed by March 31, 2010.

Over the next three to four months NRC-CISTI and Infotrieve will work closely together to transition all clients, starting with US clients, to Infotrieve's world-class document delivery services using award winning technology for sourcing and delivering document orders. You will be able to recognize these orders by the accompanying coversheet or e-mail, which will reference Infotrieve. It is important to note that during this transition you should continue to use the same ordering methods you have been using to find and order documents, and you will be billed for services according to the identical price list currently used by NRC-CISTI. There will not be any changes to your current workflow for finding, ordering, or receiving document. NRC-CISTI will also continue to offer licensed access to information content and information services to the National Research Council. More details on what to expect can be found in the NRC-CISTI and Infotrieve Collaboration Question & Answer Guide.

Infotrieve has the fastest document delivery turnaround time in the industry which is achieved by leveraging over 40 million citations available within their own database and Infotrieve's STM Library™ of managed print collections. Add to that the world renowned NRC-CISTI Canadian national science library collection with more than 50,000 serial titles, 800,000 books, conference proceedings, plus 2 million technical reports, and indexed journals in many languages and you've got an enormous collection of scientific, technical and medical (STM) content literally at your fingertips. This combination of content, expertise and technology will enable us to provide NRC-CISTI clients with improved services including faster turnaround times and higher document quality.

We will be providing you with regular updates as we progress through this transition. You can also consult our website or contact us at 613-998-8544 or 1-800-668-1222 (toll-free) or info.cisti@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.

It seems that the University of Florida has actually added zombie invasions to their campus emergency plans.

You should watch, for example, for "increasing numbers of gruesome unexplained deaths and disappearances, especially at night" and listen for "lots of strange moaning." The guide includes an "Infected Co-Worker Dispatch Form" for Florida employees to let superiors know when a colleague exhibits signs of zombie behavior, with a checklist of such behaviors, including "references to wanting to eat brains," "recently dead but moving again," "lack of rational thought (this can cause problems confusing zombies with managers)" and "killed and ate another employee." A footnote in the plan suggests the importance of maintaining sensitivity in a time of zombie attack: "While many people refer to 'undead,' practitioners in the field of Zombie Studies and zombie advocates such as PETZ: People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies, and supporters of Florida Zombie Preserve, Inc. insist that the term 'undead' clearly connotes deficiency; specifically the absence of both life and death. Hence, we suggest here the term 'life impaired' to recognize the difficulties imposed on a former person by zombie behavior spectrum disorder (ZBSD) but without suggesting the former person is somehow 'deficient' as a result of the infection."