Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:10 PM

Okay, a new acronym for this journal: IASAG, which stands for "I am Such a geek!"

Because, well, I am.

Today, Ian and I went to the Boston Athenaeum for their regular orientation tour. Although we had been to the library before, we had some trouble figuring out where everything was, so the orientation tour sounded like a good idea. And it was. The geeky thing was, though, that the whole time I was in the library, I felt like I had the goofiest grin on my face. First of all, the library itself is beautiful, architecturally. [They offer guided tours if you're curious.] But more than that, every time I looked at a bookshelf, I found something else that I wanted to read... or at least, flip through. I saw the inventory of Mary, Queen of Scots, calendars of patent rolls, year-by-year histories of Scotland in the 1550s (oh, if only Ian had access to this when he ran our game...)

If I do decide to write the book of Goodfellow for next year's NaNoWriMo, I will certainly be spending a lot of time in the stacks here. [Even if I don't decide to write such a book, I'd still like to spend a lot of time at the Athenaeum. I suppose that makes a lousy campaign slogan - send me to Beacon Hill so I can read at the library next door. Then again, finding out that the Library of Congress really is the library of Congress and elected officials have borrowing privileges has made that office more appealing, too... I'll continue with the political stuff going on in the comments to yesterday's message in a later post.]

We didn't get to browse for too long before we had to leave -- we only had one hour parking at the meter and we overstayed that (though fortunately didn't get a ticket). But I did check out my first book from their collections: The secret correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil with James VI. king of Scotland. Not only didn't the book have a barcode yet, but the signature card inside was pristine. I may be the first person to have checked out that particular title. And I'm reminded of a quote from Nicholas Basbanes about his experience at the Athenaeum:

[Mr. Feeney was the man who gave us the tour and checked out my book as well.]

Later in the evening, I went to Cambridge Public Library, where I returned several books and checked out a large mass of SF, and to the Melrose Public Library, where an ILL book I had requested had just come in (Ganymede in the Renaissance: homosexuality in art and society) Should be a fun weekend for reading. As I said at the beginning: IASAG.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:15 PM

It's been a rather dismal day, both weatherwise and electorally. I'm glad that Massachusetts had record voter turnout, but I don't particularly like the results, locally or nationally. I have a feeling we're in for a bad two years as full Republican control of the federal government will enable Bush to push through his agenda largely unimpeded. On the positive, if heads roll among the Democratic finger pointers, in two years time they might be looking for new fresh blood candidates, which could be an opportunity for me to finally get into politics... But right now, the weather (gray and dreary) seems to suit my mood, and I don't feel terribly motivated to do much about it right now.

On a positive note, this morning I finished and turned in my second paper for Computers in Society. The Digital divide has been posted on my Writing page for all and sundry who wish to read it. As usual, I uncovered a lot of fascinating information, which I'm glad to share. Enjoy!

Meanwhile, I discoverd some interesting tidbits about my website in the last several days. If you search Google on Clinton impeachment charges, I'm the second hit! Right after a BBC News story and above CNN. Such power... I just hope that the quality of my solo analysis measures up to the legal reporters whose company I'm now keeping. Especially since that page is suddenly getting a load of hits (which is how I noticed the referring search keywords).

My website is also the second hit if you search Google on blue hair photos, which is cool but in a different way.

I thought that high ranking in Google results came from other sites linking to those pages. But if I search for web pages that link to either of these, I get no results. I can find other pages linking to my USA PATRIOT Act paper, and that comes out much lower in search results on relevant terms.

Curious...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 AM

Vote today!

If you live in the United States, please take the five minutes or so and stop by your polling place and vote. Turnout is expected to be low today and many races are nail-bitingly close, so every vote will count. What's more, control of the Senate is at stake. The Presidency and House are in Republican hands. Whether you want Bush's policies to pass more quickly by giving Republicans control over the Senate or whether you want to ensure some checks and balances by keeping the Senate under Democratic control... Even the pundits are all over the map on this election. It's up to you. So, vote!

PS: If you've got factual questions about voting, such as where your polling place is or where to get more information on your candidates or ballot questions... post 'em to my comments section, and I'll try to answer them. Today only, offer is good anywhere in the United States. [I'll come up with some similar deal for foreign readers at another time.] I want you to vote, so you've got a partially trained almost-librarian on call to help.

Added 8:25 AM:

Ooh! I just realized that today is also Guy Fawkes Day! How interesting that it coincides with the American election day. I suppose I should write something pithy about how we in America should be glad we have the vote and should exercise that privilege, so we don't have to resort to violence to make ourselves heard by our government. Alternatively, I could write something funny about the temptation to blow certain government officials sky-high, but that would probably be in bad taste. So, just get out and vote, okay?

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:45 PM

I never found the time this election season to write up my opinions about the questions on this year's Massachusetts ballot. I actually did some close reading of the initiative texts, and they're quite interesting in a dogmatic sense. [Take a look at Question 1 when you get to the voting booth; I mean, all their "given" "facts" underlying the proposal are the most opinionated and easily-disputable nonsense you can imagine.]

Although I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to write about the ballot questions, I'm really pleased that Ian has written about Question 2. While his reasons aren't exactly mine, I thought that others might appreciate reading what he has to say, which also demonstrates one of the reasons why I love him so much.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:30 PM

Another fortune cookie fortune:

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

I guess that means I'll be losing out on sleep to ensure accuracy in my paper... :}