Tony Judt, RIP

I remember reading a news article about Tony Judt last year after he gave a 2 hour lecture at NYU, as it was striking that someone w/ALS could still do that. He died last Friday. Here is his incredibly moving essay entitled "Night", about living w/this disease, written in Jan. 2010.   Tim Rutten of the LA Times wrote an "Appreciation" of Tony Judt, and I share the end of that article, where Rutten describes that final public lecture Judt gave as ...

... a historian's moral testament and an argument for the rediscovery of the social democratic values that he believed kept the peace in the postwar West.

"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today," Judt said. "For 30 years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest.... The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears 'natural' today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation, the cult of privatization and the private sector, the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all, the rhetoric which accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets, disdain for the public sector, the delusion of endless growth."

As Judt subsequently told an interviewer for the London Review of Books, "I think what we need is a return to a belief not in liberty, because that is easily converted into something else ... but in equality. Equality, which is not the same as sameness. Equality of access to information, equality of access to knowledge, equality of access to education, equality of access to power and to politics. ... It is another way of talking about injustice. We need to rediscover a language of dissent."

That was a tongue Tony Judt spoke with utter fluency — to his great credit and the good of many.

Tab Candy (this post is for Ginny)

This link introduces a new "build" of the Firefox browser with something they're calling "Tab Candy" enabled.  Tab Candy is a new way to organize one's browsing and see all of one's tabs all at once-- in fact, it is an elegant way to organize those tabs exactly the way you want them!  Here is a video that explains it quite well.  You can download Tab Candy Alpha if you want to play around with it in its earliest stages.  Do watch the video; towards the end they explain what new developments they are planning in future releases.  For those of us who are already lovers of Tabs, Tab Candy is an exciting step forward!

Sharing More Sites

I follow (via RSS feeds -- fyi I use Bloglines as my feed reader) 25-35 blogs on a regular (i.e. daily) basis.  I end up reading even more blogposts than that, however, because a couple of them are essentially news or blogpost aggregators.  One great blog on which I've found many interesting Web 2.0 software suggestions is Free Technology for Teachers (we're all teachers here in one way or another, right?).  Here are two recent finds:

Check out drop.io, a free file-sharing service.

Drop.io is an easy to use, online collaboration and file sharing service that provides users with a simple, real time and private way to chat and share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content through unique, user-created and controlled sharing points called 'drops.' ... Once you have the hang of the basics, check out what it means to do it all in realtime for seamless collaboration.

In just two clicks, users are able to seamlessly create personal sharing points, upload content via web, e-mail, MMS, Facebook, Firefox extension, phone and fax inputs and share it on-the-fly through drop.io's various outputs like web, e-mail, MMS, Twitter, iTunes, fax and more.  

Another intriguing site to explore is Screenjelly, a free web-based tool that allows anyone to quickly create a screencast video. To use it all you need to do is go to Screenjelly.com and click the big red "record" button. Once clicked Screenjelly will begin recording your screen and your voice (if you choose) for up to three minutes. When you're done recording press "stop" and you can then share your video via email or Twitter and other social networks. You can also embed your Screenjelly recording into your blog or website.  Use it to quickly share cool apps or software tips, report a bug, or just show stuff you like.  No need to install or download anything!

Flash Mobs + Libraries = Two Thumbs ^UP^!

Nothing I love more for bringing out a smile and good mood than a Flash Mob video (only thing better would be to see one in person, of course!).  Check this one out:

[This flash mob took place at Seattle Public Library on July 1st.  75 teens from STG's DANCE This program danced it out to Whitney Houston around 1:30 pm on an otherwise normal Thursday afternoon...]

Video via the Internet = Thumbs ^UP^

I took a look at TED Talks, which I have loved for several years.  The things one can learn in these 20-minute videos range from awe-inspiring to innovative to just plain cool (& sometimes all three at once!).  I also looked at Math-a-Tube, to see what sorts of things were included on the site.  As in any aggregating site, this one had a wide range of embedded videos -- some looked more useful than others.  I think teachers would need to assess the quality of the content video by video; the most useful aggregate sites are the ones in which the "quality control" selection process has already taken place.  Still, it is great to find video sites that gather and sort a large number of possibilities on a subject/topic, all in one place.

I also love YouTube.  I have watched countless videos; I have shared many, sometimes via email, now more often on my Facebook page.  I often watch the YouTube videos my FB friends have posted on their profiles.  I own an iTouch/iPod, and one of the pre-loaded apps is "YouTube"; I have actually taken the time to search and save to that app YouTube videos that I wanted in my iTouch "video library" (mostly Beatles' performances and clips from "Pride & Prejudice").  I keep intending to do more with YouTube, like exploring Channels... but there are so many other distractions :-)

Here at the Newton Free Library, we could have our own YouTube channel.  We could post videos of Druker programs (author visits, lectures, concerts, etc.), librarian booktalks, and screencasts of how to use databases.  We could also have a widget on our website that would link to our YouTube channel (similar to the Flickr link that we already have).

Two Sites to Explore

Came across a Twitter meme under the hashtag #inatweet, which was suggested by a librarian (instead of the usual #FollowFriday) to "learn abt & share techs w/ our colleagues".  The idea is to tweet (w/a short link if possible) some site you really like, especially one which may not be so well known.  I looked at two that were new to me:
1) Playlist.com  - a free site on which you search for songs and compose your own playlist.  The beauty of this is that you can log-in on any computer and have a playlist of your personal favorites (unlike iTunes, which lives on your home computer or iPod).  I couldn't find everything I wanted (no James Taylor or Beatles, e.g.), but I came up with 100 or so songs I like... not bad!  You can share your playlist, which I did on my Facebook page.  It is also here: http://www.playlist.com/playlist/20270129163 .
2) Compfight - http://www.compfight.com/, which a photo sharing search engine.  It is not affiliated w/ Flickr, but it makes good use of it.  What I really liked is that right up at the top near the Search box, there is a little drop-down menu for Creative Commons.  If you set it to "only", then you won't get any "commercial" results for your keywords.  This is so much easier than doing a similar search in Flickr itself, in my opinion.  You still have to attribute, of course, but you're not searching all over the Flickr page to see if it is free or not.

Social Networking

Because I readily involve myself with many sorts of social networks, I do not think I have any great insights at this point.  I have already drunk the Kool-Aid!  I've joined so many networks, I have free accounts I cannot even remember setting up.  Just ask Susan C.; during Wiki week I discovered a PB wiki I had set up-- and forgotten about-- in 2007!  Picture Susan's surprise when she tried to use the same URL to set up her wiki and discovered it had already been taken! 

I am very much involved in Facebook, and have a manageable number of "friends", so that my News feed is not overrun with new updates.  I am less enamored with the idea of interacting with strangers on open social networks; I just don't seem to want more than a passing level of interaction unless I feel personally connected with other people in the network.  For example, I will comment on blogposts written by people I know, or with whom I have a professional relationship (not necessarily a face-to-face professional relationship).  I will occasionally comment on blogposts written by strangers IF I feel strongly about the topic being discussed.  For example, I have left comments on Boston Globe articles (usually sports-related).  I also leave comments on blogposts if doing so will enter me into a contest being run by that blogger for some prize I'd like to win :-) .  Generally, I engage in social networking most often for leisure/fun reasons, though I am certainly comfortable with the idea/practice of using it for professional purposes as well.