October 25, 2013
It's been kind of a crazy week for me, so I haven't really had much of a chance to contribute to or even read a lot of the Open Access Week calls to arms out there right now.
So I thought I would kind of commandeer my Friday Fun silly lists habit and redirect that energy to open access.
So here it…
October 22, 2013
Sarah Boon (Twitter, blog) has organized a series of posts on science policy in Canada over the next month or so to be published in the iPolitics online magazine. The first four are out with another eight (two approximately every Monday) between now and November 18th. Which is just in time for the…
October 17, 2013
Chris Turner's The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper's Canada (website) is a book that absolutely must be read by every Canadian interested in the future of science and science policy in the country.
And the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative…
October 16, 2013
With Open Access Week next week, there could be no greater open access-related news here in Canada than that the three granting councils are coming together to draft a common Open Access Policy.
Of those agencies (Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, Natural Sciences & Engineering…
October 8, 2013
Yes, another science blogging community among the many and yet another where an established print magazine enhances its online presence with a blogging network. And a bit more shuffling of the chairs on the deck as people with established blogs switch places or even some people start up whole new…
October 6, 2013
How bad is it? Even the New York Times has noticed what is going on with Canadian science, comparing the situation here unfavourably with the situation in the US under George W. Bush.
It began badly enough in 2008 when scientists working for Environment Canada, the federal agency, were told to…
October 4, 2013
Nikola Tesla is a science rockstar. How can you tell? Like any great rockstar, he's dead. And he has a rock band named after him. He's wild and colourful. He epitomizes the mad scientist. He was flamboyant and yet strangely ascetic, he was fond of spectacle and showmanship yet also a bit of a…
October 2, 2013
I have a son who's starting his second year as a physics undergrad. As you can imagine, I occasionally pass along a link or two to him pointing to stuff on the web I think he might find particularly interesting or useful. Thinking on that fact, I surmised that perhaps other science students might…
September 27, 2013
Last night I attended the Lane Anderson Award dinner where this year's winners were announced. A huge congratulations to all the winners and nominees and sincere thanks to the organizers for inviting me to such a wonderful event.
Here is the press release from last night:
$10,000 Lane Anderson…
September 18, 2013
It took me a long time to get through The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out, something like eighteen months to finally wade through it. And it's not that it was even that bad. It a lot of ways, it was better than I expected. Part of it is the fact that…
September 13, 2013
Yes, it's Ig Nobel award time.
For those that haven't discovered them yet, the Ig Nobel's are:
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in…
September 13, 2013
Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson's book The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future is pretty obviously not a science book. Rather, it's a book about Canadian politics. But of course here in Canada these days, it's hard to talk…
August 31, 2013
Choosing Real-World Impact Over Impact Factor
Practicing Freedom in the Digital Library
Dandelions, Prestige, and the Measure of Scholars
Programmers insist: “Everybody” does not need to learn to code
Digital Decay by Bruce Sterling
New York Public Library Rethinks Design
CIOs Wear Second Hat (ie…
August 29, 2013
One of the highlights of the year for me is the Lane Anderson Award shortlist announcement.
From their website:
The Lane Anderson Award honours the very best science writing in Canada today, both in the adult and young-reader categories. Each award will be determined on the relevance of its content…
August 28, 2013
I have a son who's starting his second year as a physics undergrad. As you can imagine, I occasionally pass along a link or two to him pointing to stuff on the web I think he might find particularly interesting or useful. Thinking on that fact, I surmised that perhaps other science students might…
August 27, 2013
Darryl Cunningham's How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial is a bit different from most of the graphic novels I've reviewed in this space. Most of the earlier books I've reviewed have been biographical or historical in nature with the more expository ones at least having…
August 24, 2013
I'm Not Your Sweetheart (& interesting counterpoint)
Library and Repository Communities Join Together to Identify New Competencies for Academic Librarians
How to Scuttle a Scholarly Communication Initiative
Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?
Anonymous asked: Have you personally…
August 23, 2013
Newsbiscuit is my favourite humour site and has been for a while. The dry British humour combined with OTT story ideas is irresistible.
And speaking of irresistible, I just love this one:
Disappointment for scientists as new super-computer fails to go mad
Scientists at Mal-Tech University,…
August 19, 2013
I've been mostly on vacation for the last little while so I've fallen a bit behind on writing the book reviews I feature here on the blog fairly regularly. In fact, there might even be a few books that, ahem, have been sitting around read and unreviewed for perhaps even longer than the last month…
August 17, 2013
Wanted: Nonlibrarian Librarians
Image, Public Perception, and Lego Librarians
I'm Not Your Sweetheart
Why your librarian is a superhero
Are the Boomers Ruining Libraries?
Hurtling Towards Relevance
The Long Suffering Librarian
Self-Censorship in Libraryland
How to Answer “So You Need a Degree to…
August 16, 2013
Sometimes The Onion just nails it. I don't have to say how funny/happy/sad/conflicted/overjoyed/suicidal/smug/ your average librarian is going to find this one.
Print Dead At 1,803
Reaction to print’s tragic demise was overwhelming, with countless individuals within the publishing sector left…
August 9, 2013
Albert's Ideas helped build spaceships and satellites that travel to the moon and beyond. His thinking helped us understand our universe as no one ever had before.
But still, Albert left us many big questions. Questions that scientists are working on today.
Questions that someday you may answer...…
August 5, 2013
It's been a while since I posted one of these lists, that's for sure. A couple of weeks ago someone on Twitter posted a link to the Tool version of led Zeppelin's No Quarter. "No that's cool!" I thought to myself. Wouldn't it be fun to add that to a bunch of other great cover versions and do a…
July 27, 2013
Change Rhetoric: Good and Bad
Three challenges: Engaging, rightscaling and innovating
Time for a little dissent
To Be Or Not To Be A Library Director
How to Answer “So You Need a Degree to Do That?”
Putting Things in Perspective
Here’s how Amazon self-destructs
Amazon vs. your public library
Small…
July 26, 2013
A fun little apocalyptic post from everybody's favourite humour site, Cracked. Skynet, anyone?
5 Machines That Are Already Learning Humanity's Weaknesses
5. Slot Machines
Slot machines are a diagnostic of everything we still need to fix in the human brain. It's normal to throw a couple of…
July 25, 2013
How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
The Fall of the American Worker
The Internet’s destroying work — and turning the old middle-class into the new proletariat
Giving Away Our Lunch
Reminders about the Economics of Becoming an Academic
Econ 101 is killing America: Forget the dumbed-down garbage most…
July 18, 2013
Silencing, librarianship, and gender: a preface
Silencing, librarianship, and gender: what is silencing?
Gender and Digital Identity
Does the library world squash public dissent?
Library Schism: How Do Librarians Define Their Profession?
The Librarian Shortage Myth & Blaming Library School…
July 17, 2013
I have a son who's just finished his first year as a physics undergrad. As you can imagine, I occasionally pass along a link or two to him pointing to stuff on the web I think he might find particularly interesting or useful. Thinking on that fact, I surmised that perhaps other science students…
July 10, 2013
On May 20th, 2013 I published my most popular post ever. It was The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment. In it, I chronicled at some considerable length the various anti-science measures by the current Canadian Conservative government. The…
July 8, 2013
There are two kinds of children's books: those that are aimed primarily at the kids themselves and those that are aimed at the adults that actually shell out the cash to pay for the books. There's certainly a lot of overlap -- books that kids love but that also catch the eyes, hearts & minds…
