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Category: General (Page 30 of 135)

ibiblio is an official Tier 1 mirror for the Fedora project

Fedora Project leads have announced the availability of fedora-archives at ibiblio.org, a new Tier 1 mirror of the Fedora Project’s Linux distribution. The new mirror is accessible to official Fedora mirrors who are connected to the high-speed National Lambda Rail and Internet2/Abilene networks, and is the project’s first step towards a new mirroring hierarchy.

Matt Domsch of the Fedora Project sends ibiblio his thanks for the mirroring, while ibiblio sends its thanks to the Fedora Project for the donation of hardware support which made possible both the fedora-archives mirror and a greatly expanded Linux distribution archive on distro.ibiblio.org.

Shocking news: Another Newspaper Vanishes!

As Phil Meyer has predicted, things aren’t getting any prettier out there. Even our national standards are not immune to the changing news market.

Whether by Aliens, Zombie Elvii or by that worse of all evils Declining Readership there seems to be no doubt that the Weekly World News, “The World’s Only Reliable Newspaper,” is shutting down.

I will continue to cherish my September 25, 2001 edition which heads “Bill Catches Hillary With Space Alien!” “Exposed: Romantic Nights in NY Love Nest!” (More Photos inside!).

Read more here! And HERE!

Localisms

Last night, at the People’s Channel celebration which included other localistic groups like the Chapel Hill Preservation Society, Community Gardens, a chocolateer named Matthew, and a bunch of others including some local candidates for office and Ruby of OrangePolitics (which is definitely local).

Then later at a local party in Carrboro celebrating summer and sending off the Red Clay Ramblers to NYC, Seattle and beyond for the new production of “Lonestar Love” aka “Merry Wives of Winsor, Texas.” Party host and Bardolph player, Chris Frank was sorry to hear that his character would end up hung in Henry V, but glad to learn that that play has little to do with the Falstaff play except for the characters. Randy Quaid who will play Falstaff will be glad that he’s not in Henry V either as a bad end meets Falstaff there as well.

Gutenberg and ibiblio recognized by US State Dept

USINFO Logo

Project Gutenberg Digital Library Seeks To Spur Literacy


Library hopes to offer 1 million electronic books in 100 languages

By Jeffrey Thomas
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington – Thirty-six years ago, a student at the University of Illinois keyed the U.S. Declaration of Independence into a mainframe computer and offered it to others on the network that would become the Internet. Six users downloaded the file, inaugurating what its founder, Michael Hart, decided to call Project Gutenberg in honor of Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th-century German printer who started the movable type printing press revolution.

Using free computer time at his university, Hart keyed in the first 100 books himself and since has devoted his life to the project. Today, he often is described as someone who was a visionary ahead of his time; he has described himself as an “incurable romantic,” a “natural-born workaholic and idealist.” Hart grasped from the outset that his idea for a digital library could change the world, spurring literacy. Project Gutenberg became the first information provider on the Internet and is the oldest digital library with the largest single collection of free electronic books, or e-books.

Project Gutenberg gives away 3 million e-books a week from just one single site, www.ibiblio.org at the University of North Carolina, according to Hart. Most are books whose copyrights have expired in the United States, but there are also audio books, recorded music, sheet music, moving pictures and still pictures. The original video clip of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, just four hours before American astronaut Neil A. Armstrong became the first person to step on the moon, is part of the collection, for example.

[more]

Giant Duck and Dook

Two slightly different post in one.

Mark alerts us to Loire Esturary 2007 from the Wooster Collective‘s Florentijn Hofman. It’s a giant (26 x 20 x 32 meters) rubber duckie floated on the Loire! The artist says:

A yellow spot on the horizon slowly approaches the coast. People have gathered and watch in amazement as a giant yellow Rubber Duck approaches. The spectators are greeted by the duck, which slowly nods its head. The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relief mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!

Has anyone heard of Duke’s network problems that were supposedly created by iPhones happening anywhere other than Duke? Err I thought not. Sounds like the iPhone was scapegoated for local network problems at Duke.

Citizen Journalism notes from all over

Knight Citizen News Network posts the Principles of Citizen Journalism which continue to be very useful.

Dan Gillmor posts a ten point Citizen Media: Progress Report (It was his keynote recently in Korea.

Jeff Howe tries to evaluate Assignment Zero – Wired + NewAssignment’s effort at crowdsourcing.

Ed Cone is less sure of Assignment Zero’s success.

Jay Rosen, of NewAssignment, responds indirectly with an interview of James Surowiecki author of Wisdom of Crowds at PressThink.

Sunday Links

Zombies rejected by Mebane

The town leaders of Mebane, NC are up in arms over a request by film maker Phoenix Mangus to block off the main street for a 300 zombie shoot.

Phoenix Mangus, a Mebane resident and low-budget film maker, asked the city to let him close West Clay Street from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. the night of Aug. 18 and the morning of Aug. 19. He wants to shoot a massive zombie attack for his horror/comedy movie.

The working title of that movie was “The Redneck Zombies of Mebane,” but he has since changed it.

In the script, Mangus told the Times-News, contaminated dip tobacco turns users into flesh-eating zombies who attack a small town. A diverse cast of zombie killers, including a waitress and a pig farmer, do battle with them.

Quite a discussion following the news posting above.

Director Mangus gives us a taste of his taste here at Metacafe in British Accent (shot at a fine West Clay Street business) and on his MySpace pages.

Stir up over Blue Ridge

My most recent post to Geek Dad became a small dispute over what exactly are the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I content with support from Grandfather and the state of North Carolina that Grandfather is the highest point in the Blue Ridge. One reader was sure he had me. What about Mount Mitchell? What about Clingman’s Dome?

Well, I say: Mitchell is tallest of the three, but it’s in the small but tall Black Mountains. And Clingman’s Dome is on the NC-TN line fully in the Great Smoky Mountains. Seems simple to me.

But there’s more!

Hipper Librarians

Hipper than what you ask.

In the upcoming Fashion and Style section, the NYTimes introduces us to a “Hipper Crowd of Shushers.” Most of the librarians interviewed are in New York which ups the hipness right from the start — in the eyes of a NYTimes writer at least. And really is ordering “girlie” drinks of various colored fruit *really* hip?

But fear not, although I don’t see any UNC grads in the article, I do see some nice quotes from the extremely hip Jessamyn West whose Librarian.net has been hosted on ibiblio for some time now. As you might expect Jessamyn has good things to say.

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