τεχνοσοφια

I’ve posted a couple new tools during the past couple days. One is an update of Devon Smith’s LinkPURL extension for Firefox 2.0.

The other is an ultra-lightweight Wordpress plugin that embeds a linkpurl link tag for auto-discovery (so bookmarking agents can detect and grab the persistent URL rather than the impersistent URL up in the addressbar).

Based on a discussion in #code4lib earlier today, I realize that there are a lot of important questions, not to mention serious doubts, about persistent identifiers. I flip-flop on their utility myself, so I found the discussion very useful. (Thanks, edsu!) Maybe I’ll write a post or two about persistent identifiers to flesh my thoughts out.

I had to create some Trac reports a while back, and figured I would share them with the world wide (time)waste.

The first selects all completed milestones:

SELECT name,
    date(completed, 'unixepoch') as Completed,
    date(due, 'unixepoch') as Due,
    description
FROM milestone
WHERE completed > 1
ORDER BY completed DESC

And the second lists all of your closed tickets:

SELECT p.value AS __color__,
    (CASE status
        WHEN 'closed' THEN 'color: #777; background: #ddd; border-color: #ccc;'
        ELSE
            (CASE owner WHEN '$USER' THEN 'font-weight: bold' END)
    END) AS __style__,
    id AS ticket, summary, component, version, milestone,
    t.type AS type, severity, priority, time AS created,
    changetime AS _changetime, description AS _description,
    reporter AS _reporter
FROM ticket t, enum p
WHERE status IN ('closed') AND p.name = t.priority AND p.type = 'priority' AND owner = '$USER'
ORDER BY (status = 'assigned') DESC, p.value, milestone, severity, time

They were pretty easy to whip up based on the other reports, but I figured I might save someone else a few minutes by sharing. For all that I’ve plagiarized borrowed from the web, it’s time to pay that karma down a bit.

New year, new theme. Technosophia is now comin’ atcha in day-glo green.

Drop me a comment if you notice any problems.

The “five things” virus has been going around a bunch during the past month or two.  While I wasn’t specifically tagged by anyone, I’m foisting my own five things upon the biblioblogosphere (and, oh, how I loathe that word).  I’m not a terribly interesting person, so it was a struggle to come up with five things.  I tend not to share much personal information here, but I’d like to break that habit for now, since this approach is at loggerheads with my relatively open-bookish nature.  Disclaimers aside, voici!

1. After finishing up my bachelor’s degree, and feeling oh-so-special for being a Henry Rutgers Scholar and a fairly successful slacker student, I moved to rural Oregon and spent the next nine months living in a barn.  (I’d realized that a degree in linguistics and philosophy was less than marketable.)  It marked the first time I lived beyond the boundaries of New Brunswick, NJ, and sparked my love affair with the Pacific Northwest.  After living in “the barn,” which towards the end of my stay became infested with some very nasty insects — more details for those who inquire within — I moved back to New Brunswick for seven years, and then wound up heading back to Seattle for a year.  And now I’m back east, yet again, living in Bucks Cty., PA.
2. I was diagnosed with anterior hypopituitarism as a child, which incidentally is the same condition Gary Coleman has.  Yes, Gary “whaddyoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” Coleman.  I was fortunate to have a very good pediatrician who surmised very early on that my short stature might be due to such a condition, and I started taking growth hormone (and various other hormones) around 1st grade.  While I’m still a bit on the short side, I would never have grown an inch above four feet tall had I not been treated.  Treatment involves a daily injection of growth hormone, which I still take as an adult.  The doctors aren’t sure why I have this condition, but my father’s best guess is that it’s due to Agent Orange poisoning — he served two tours as an infantryman and helicopter gunner in Vietnam.
3. I am somewhat at risk for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, having been treated for a few years with growth hormone that was harvested from cadaver brains, rather than synthesized which it has been since 1985 or so.  So far, only folks who were treated before 1978 have come down with CJD, but it can take upwards of 35 years before symptoms develop.  Or so says the Department of HHS report.  I’m probably safe, but it’s something my wife and I will have to keep an eye on for a while yet.
4. I met my wife on Hot or Not.  (I’m pretty sure I was the “Not.”)  I paid $6 to be able to e-mail her, and it was the best $6 I ever spent.
5. I used to be a LARPer.  If you’re curious – and who wouldn’t be? – my characters were a barbarian fighter, a highlander ranger, an elven wizard, and an ascetic monk.  Yes, I have the costumes to prove it.  No, I won’t show you pictures.  (Unless you piss me off.)

Aren’t you glad you read along?

I just noticed Ed Summers posted a link to DemoCampDC1, a local BarCamp being organized in the Washington D.C. area, “to build an active community for people in the DC area to show up and informally share geeky stuff.” I’ve heard of these BarCamps before, but I never really took the time to look into it. Incidentally, I’ve been looking for good models for hosting and organizing such a group for a while now, inspired by the work Brian Hancock has done over the years with the Technology Awareness Group (TAG). The way the D.C. group is going about it looks like a promising one: start out building a community with very informal meetings outside of work hours, to test the waters, so to speak, and build a rapport with interested parties. And if there’s sufficient interest, hold a full BarCamp event (perhaps a one-day hands-on symposium / workshop).

I like this model quite a bit, and I’d be interested in trying to get something similar started up in New Jersey. We have tons of talented library geeks in our many academic, public, and special libraries, not to mention general geeks whose interests and skill sets intersect with ours.

Why BarCamp? Don’t we have enough meetings and symposiums? Sure, we’re all spread thin. Our niche would be to bring together the TAG-style dog & pony shows with code sprints and other collaborative development a la the Access Hackfest. We’re looking for a group that will be innovative, collegial, social, practical, and - not to be corny, but - fun-loving.

Here’s what I envision:

• A number of very informal get-togethers spread throughout the state in order to foster inclusivity, with a “point person” in each area to report back about the level of interest
• Rotating event venues, possibly one per “point person” above who would ideally receive institutional support in one form or another
• Partnerships with other in-state groups to take advantage of cross-pollination without crossing purposes, such as TAG, NJLA’s IT section, NJ-ASIS&T, and some student groups from Rutgers SCILS

Any of you New Jerseyans interested? Think it’s a waste of time? Drop a comment or trackback here, or send me e-mail. I’m very interested in your feedback.