Friday Fun: Mental Floss Quiz of the Week!

I really love this magazine, Mental Floss, that we get here are the library... in fact, it says right on it... "Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix!"

Actually, my director loves it too and so do some others around here so it is quite a trick to actually get your hands on it. I think if I ever have to I will end up subscribing to it...

Anyway, they also have a mailing list and they sent out this Quiz of the Week: Discontinued Ben & Jerry's Flavor or Band I Found on MySpace!?

It's pretty funny and I love the way they have the answers for you after you take it, complete with links to actual bands found on MySpace! ;-)

Enjoy!

I only got 5/10 though. My director got 8/10! WOW! How well can YOU do!?

Amy's 8 Things

(Hmmm I kinda like the sound of that)!

So I have been tagged here and on the PML blog - do I have to come up with 16 things or should I just refer you there!? ;-) EDIT: Okay I managed to come up with 8 more - if you're really bored or interested check them out! ;-)

Well, I'll do 8 here and then see what happens:

1. I like to keep my fingernails really short because I can't stand typing on the keyboard with long ones. I spend so much time typing that it really is an issue for me and I can now hardly stand for them to be much longer than the very end of the tips of my fingers. This is okay though because I also pretty much prefer them this way and like the way they look. I also like to paint them dark red.

2. When I was little we had a tire swing in the backyard, hanging from a very large, old tree. I used to play outside on that tire swing all by myself for hours! One thing I would do was to "broadcast" my own radio show while I swung around (weird).

3. I have worked in the following places: a 5 & 10 store; CVS; a Mail Boxes, Etc. (no, it wasn't a UPS Store back then); a Manhattan publishing company; the Clifton (NJ) Public Library; and now at the Paterson (NJ) Free Public Library. It NEVER occurred to me to become a librarian, not even once, for one second, even though I went there ALL THE TIME, until about the year 2001.

4. I used to have a really weird habit of washing my feet before I went to bed. I just hated the idea of putting dirty feet into my bed. I don't know why I used to do that, and I don't really know exactly when or why I stopped doing that.

5. I don't really like to cook. My husband doesn't really like this fact about me.

6. I have never, ever, ever smoked a cigarette. Not even one puff once to try it. Never.

7. The first car I ever owned, which I bought myself, was a used Nissan Sentra. Stick shift. I didn't know how to drive stick. I couldn't even drive the car home myself. While learning to drive it, I once drove it right through the garage door! The only person who finally succeeded in teaching me how to drive that thing was a friend of my mom's. She was also my brother's Pre-K teacher and also then became a librarian!

8. I used to be a soccer superstar!

And, I'm not tagging anyone else. I hope that won't bring me 8 million years of bad luck or something...!!??!?

8 Things Meme (Tyler)

I've been tagged for the 8 Things meme by my Teacozy "real life" buddy. The rules are as follows:

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. I've been working on a book for about 2 years now. Since I am anal retentive, the plotline is written out and yet I am only on the second chapter of the book.

2. I'm a guitarist who is unable to tune the note B. I have a gap in my hearing pattern that makes me tonedeaf to the frequency which is known as B, and the higher the frequency of B the worse my tuning ear gets.

3. I have a bad habit of leaving closet doors, silverware drawers and kitchen cabinet doors open. I claim it is to test whether we have ghostly spirits in the house (if the doors slam shut by themselves, that's a hint)... it's a total lie. I'm just lazy and forgetful. What's strange is that:

4. Oddly enough, I am fanatical about making sure the doors and windows are locked and closed when I go to bed.

5. I almost became a received a degree in Organismal Biology and Evolutionary Science. I decided to go with an Science and Education degree instead. If you ask me now, I wish I went with OB instead.

6. I still love going to zoos.

7. I have one major goal in life... I need to visit Australia at some point in this lifetime (see the connection in the last 3 things).

8. My dream job would be a golfer. I don't need fame and fortune, just enough to play golf and raise a family. There is not enough time in the day for me and golf.

The people I tag are, and I apologize if any have already done so:
Amy and Mary of Pimp My Library
Tracy
Crazy Roommate
Sara

And since the rest of my buddies have all already been tagged... I'll leave the list as is.

Friday Fun: Are you old?

The bloggers at Library Garden have a little listerv on the side that we use to stay in touch with each other, and this week we found ourselves questioning whether or not we're old. This was prompted by an experience Amy had at the reference desk, and I'll let her blog about that if she chooses.

I was reminded of an old SNL monologue by Billy Crystal where he recounts his young daughter saying to him, "Daddy, is it true that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" To which he replies in the voice of an old Jewish man, "Let me tell you about a little band known as... THE BEATLES."

In an effort to help Amy feel a bit younger, I posed these questions on the listserv and suggested that if she could answer 'no' to ten of them, she's decidely not old. At her suggestion, I'm sharing them here. Enjoy! And a most pleasant weekend to all!

• Did you ever have a black and white TV? One with knobs (no buttons, no remote)
• Did you ever NOT have a microwave oven?
• Did you ever have a car with a "choke"?
• When you were growing up were you limited to 12 channels?
• Do you remember when people used to smoke on planes?
• - And in stores?
• - And at work?
• - And in bed?
• Do remember when the FDA tried to ban saccharine?
• Do you remember when laetrile was going to cure cancer?
• Have you ever known a world without:
• - velcro?
• - computers?
• - digital cameras?
• - compact discs?
• Do you remember when polaroid was state of the art?
• Do you remember when tape recorder meant reel-to-reel?
• Did you ever take a tube out of your tv and bring it down to the local hardware store to test it on a big machine to see if it needed replacing?
• Did a teacher ever make you run things off on a mimeograph?
• Do you even know what a mimeograph is?
• Did you ever wear parachute pants?
• Do you remember when PONG was the most cutting edge video game and you thought your head would explode from the joy of playing it?
• Did you ever have a commodore vic 20? (and thought your head would explode, etc...)
• Do you remember when we didn't own our own phones; we rented them from Bell Atlantic?
• Do remember when the flip phone first came out and you thought your head would explode from the joy of flipping it open?
• Do you remember stores giving away green stamps?
• Do you remember shopping at Two Guys? at Korvettes?
• Do you remember when Exxon was Esso?
• Do you remember when gas was .55 cents/gallon and people were freaked out about how expensive it was getting?
• Do you remember waiting on long lines to gas, and you had to go on an "odd" day or an "even" day.
• Do you remember when Iran and Iraq were our friends?
• Do you remember listening to Bobby Sherman on 8-track?
• Do you remember twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonions- onasesameseedbun (and can you sing it?)
• Do you remember when the coffee stirrers at McDonalds had little spoons on the end?
• Do you remember when McDonalds discontinued them?
• Do you remember WHY McDonalds discontinued them? (snort, snort)
• Do you remember Hamilton Jordan at studio 54 (see a theme here?)
• Do you remember ABSCAM?
• Do you remember ME shirts (talking about McDonalds)?
• Do you remember when Pet Rocks were the rage?
• Do you remember Squirmels?
• Do you remember When Evel Knievel jumped the Snake River Canyon? (well, he tried anyway)
• Do you remember that George Hamilton movie where he played Evel Kneivel??
• Do you remember Beer commercials with the "ya doesn't have to call me johnson" guy?
• Do you remember Aste Spumante commercials?

Tags: trivia, libraries

NYT online hotlilnks---WTF??

Lately I have been noticing that the NYT online edition makes some very, um, interesting choices when deciding which words in an article need to be hyperlinked to additional information. I guess my question to whatever unpaid intern they've assigned to the job is: "What are you smoking, and haven't you read the latest research on what that does to you???"

When used sparingly and caringly, hyperlinks, the modern day equivalent of what my pappy called "footnotes", can be our friends. (for more information on footnotes, see footnotes)

Take for instance today's Science Times article, A Giant Takes on Physics Biggest Questions. My first thought was, "Oh boy, an article about giants! I KNEW they really existed, I just KNEW IT!!"

Guess what? The article's not even about giants (I know, I was pissed too. I bet the same stupid intern who does the linking also writes the misleading headlines.)

OK, after I get over my disappointment that the article is actually about a bunch of fizzisists 300 feet below the ground trying to re-create the beginning of the universe by smashing tiny little particles into each other, I sit back and say, "hey, cool, I've been meaning to brush up on my particle physics. But I'm a little rusty on some of the basic concepts and lingo of advanced theoretical phenomenology. It sure would be helpful if the NYT would footnote -- oops, I mean hyperlink -- some of the hardcore scientific stuff to definitions, background information, biography, or further material that might enhance my ability to understand any of this."

The NYT chose to go another route.

In their six page article on theoretical particle physics, this is what they thought was really important to hyperlink:

Page 1: On a page containing such terms as "European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN)", "Large Hadron Collider", "electron volts of energy", "dark matter" and "dimensions of spacetime", the only word they thought was important to hyperlink out to more information was...wait for it... Earth. Earth? EARTH???? I guess they chose to hyperlink it for those few souls who read the New York Times online that don't know that Earth, " is the third planet from the Sun and the only one in the solar system known to harbor life."

Page 2: Unlinked go search terms as, "trillion-electron volt Tevatron", "antimatter opposites", "antiprotons", "Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory". And the hotlink goes to... Nobel Prize. And not even to a definition of Nobel Prize, just a link to random articles in the New York Times that mention "Nobel Prize." Super! (a good a time as any to note that ALL hyperlinks, save perhaps paid ads, on the New York Times website only link back to---you got it--- the New York Times website. Super!)

Page 3: Unlinked terms: "Cocktail party physics" (I'm guessing, not so much with the fun), "God particle", "Higgs Boson", electroweak force", "Planck energy". And the hotlink goes to... Nada. No hotlinks. Skippy the unpaid intern must have been checking his MySpace page for messages.

Page 4: Unlinked terms: "Quantum weirdness", "supersymmetry", "photons", "glunino". And the hotlink goes to... I guess Skippy's busy twittering.

Page 5: Unlinked: "primordial fluid", "quark-gluon plasma", "Compact Muon Solenoid". And the link goes to, "radiation." Which I could actually let slide if it didn't lead back to a bunch of random NYT articles, mostly about cancer, that mention the word radiation somewhere.

Page 6: Unlinked: "Fermilab Tevatron", "CDF", "UA1 and UA2", "LHCb". And the link goes to... Uh, nothing.

But wait! I now notice at the bottom of every page a little link that says, "Sphere: Related Blogs & Articles". Yes! I knew the New York Times was just screwing with me! Now I'm going to click on "Sphere"* and get all sorts of related theoretical particle physics goodness. Here I go... I'm gonna do it... < CLICK! >

The good news: Sphere actually links to material outside of the NYT universe. The bad news: This is what it links to:

• Cheerleading Gains Popularity Worldwide! (I should assume that credit largely goes to the great work of underground swiss physicists?)
  
• Soccer starts tomorrow (you've got to click on this to believe that the NYT is linking to this kind of stuff.)
• Are we scrubs? (A guy writing about his softball team. Maybe they had some success colliding softballs at high speed?)
• Canada pleasantly surprised by World Gold

I'm speechless. I am without speech.


*Sphere: "Connecting Blogs and News"

Technarooti Tags: New York Times, NYT, Hyperlinking, LibraryGarden, Libraries