@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

JMarkOckerbloom

@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social

A Philadelphian with professional interests in libraries, technology, copyright, and culture, and nonprofessional interests that include singing, reading, hiking, biking. Also other personal interests that you might pick up from my posts over time.

He, him, his. Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Vote, help others vote, vote out vote suppressors.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jessamyn, to earthquake
@jessamyn@glammr.us avatar

Felt that NJ #earthquake up here in Vermont.

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/at00sbh3yv/executive

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@jessamyn So, Vermont got a big snowstorm, then an earthquake, and soon the sun will be blotted out? Quite the week for you all.

JMarkOckerbloom, to earthquake
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Felt a prolonged shaking in my house in Mt Airy, Philadelphia for at least half a minute. Probably nothing to to west coaster, but it was the most noticeable #earthquake I've ever experienced living on the east coast.

dangillmor, (edited ) to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Until the fediverse (Mastodon in particular) comes up with a workable "Share to Mastodon" (or the like) button like the ubiquitous Twitter, Facebook, etc. buttons, this place will be lacking a vital capability.

Update: The comments below indicate that there's a lot of progress in this area already.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor This just crossed my timeline just before I saw your post. Might fit the bill: https://werd.io/2024/share-openly

ntnsndr, to random
@ntnsndr@social.coop avatar

Out today! A long-coming research article with Cassandra Dana on sex and crypto-money.

"Perverse attraction: Idolatry, pornography, and the making of infrastructure," just out at Zygon https://www.zygonjournal.org/article/id/11013/

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@ntnsndr Glad to see (and also glad that the full run of Zygon back to 1966 is free to read online! I cataloged it a few weeks ago.)

PhilGastwirth, to random
@PhilGastwirth@worldkey.io avatar

Waking up to the news of this bridge collapse in Baltimore. So tragic. Maybe bridge columns should have huge metal beams in front of them like how stores have those poles in front to prevent cars going through the store.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@Neferure @skyfaller @vees @PhilGastwirth I don't know offhand what pier protections the Key Bridge had, if any, though most big river/bay bridges I've been able to look down from did have some sort of buffer around the piers. (You generally need one when building them, at the very least.) It's not clear if any I've seen would hold up to a direct hit from a big cargo ship, given their huge mass & momentum when moving. (They could protect against more glancing or incidental blows, though.)

platypus, to random
@platypus@glammr.us avatar

Dang IU and Ohio State getting better eclipse than Penn State UP.

(Penn State: Behrend IS getting it, so -- nicely done to them!)

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@platypus I'm contemplating heading for the zone of totality (having booked the day off), if the weather isn't rainy or overcast, since lots of people have said that experiencing a total eclipse is very different from a partial one, and there won't be another one in the US for another 20 years. Still figuring out exactly where to go, and how not to be completely traffic-addled in the process.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Harvard Law School announces a full release of its Caselaw Access project, providing free access to 360 years of US federal, territorial, & state case law, in human-readable and machine-processable form: https://case.law/ Here's a video they've recently released about it: https://vimeo.com/922493882

The old site mentions the "transition of Caselaw Access Project data to a static state" so I'm not sure if it'll add anything new past 2020. But perhaps others can continue forward if desired.

overholt, to random
@overholt@glammr.us avatar

Now that’s news you can use. https://uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com/2024/03/13/the-international-communication-association-and-the-history-of-communication-studies/

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@overholt Ironically it is, since it indirectly led me to find over a decade's worth of free online scans of the ICA's longest-running research journal, which I'll be listing next week. (Sadly, I haven't found full online issues of Systemsletter-- it'd be great to see the pictured article in full-- but I hope to reach out to my colleague in the libraries next week and see if there's any prospects for that.). Thanks!

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"In summary, the management of bilateral iatrogenic I'm very sorry, but I don't have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model." Radiology Case Reports, another Elsevier journal (open access, $550 article processing charge) publishes a paper with obvious signs of LLM text generation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1930043324001298

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Here's another suspicious-looking sentence opener, this one from the Elsevier journal International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation ($2770 open access publishing fee): "Certainly, here is the pseudo code for the specially designed spatial scene augmentation method..." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569843224000979

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"In relaunching Communications of the ACM as an open access publication, all legacy and future CACM articles will be freely available to and accessible by everyone on the CACM website and in the ACM Digital Library." https://www.acm.org/media-center/2024/march/cacm-relaunch Here's the full issue archive: https://dl.acm.org/loi/cacm

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Looks like a paper with telltale signs of LLM-generated text got past the editors of Elsevier's Surfaces and Interfaces: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468023024002402. (As of this writing, the first sentence of the main body starts "Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic:".)

I don't have the domain expertise to tell if the text of the paper is accurate, or if the cited references say what is claimed for them. (The first 10 refs, all citing other Elsevier pubs, do at least exist, per my check.)

everylibrary, to random
@everylibrary@mastodon.social avatar

Looking to follow along with Book Ban news?

https://books.feedspot.com/banned_book_blogs/?feedid=5718132

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@everylibrary Note that it looks like that list was auto-generated, and includes at least one pro-book-ban site.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Note that in the article in the LB, the book-banner that the sheriff goes into the library with considers the availability of a book by inter-library loan sufficient to involve law enforcement: "[Kids] can, at home, log online literally with three clicks and get any book from one of 28 libraries... They shuttle it... our tax dollars for this system didn’t buy that book, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s accessible... There’s no adult who is going, ’This isn’t suitable for you'."

miriamrobern, to FiberArts
@miriamrobern@dice.camp avatar

My friend found this and posted it elsesocial so I'm posting it here because it is glorious.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@miriamrobern You can find this one and a lot more like it in Alice Duer Miller's 1915 book Are Women People?, online at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11689/pg11689-images.html. She originally published many of them in the New York Tribune (though I don't know offhand if her "Why We Oppose Pockets for Women" had been published there first.)

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Here is every conlang summarized by someone who is not that into conlangs

Esperanto: Designed by a Polish speaker who wants to speak Italian

Toki Pona: Designed by an English speaker who wants to speak Japanese

Loglan/Lobjan: Designed by (a science fiction author/a committee of USENET users) who want to speak the logical notation from Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica"

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@mcc Enjoyed this! And I'm curious to hear if you have a take on Volapük.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"It’s long been said that the first rule of Philly mayoral politics is: Don’t cross the labor unions. I think what we just learned is that the second rule is this: Don’t mess with the librarians." Parker administration partly walks back requirement that all Free Library public communication be approved by the Philadelphia mayor's office: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2024/02/07/philadelphia-libraries-mayor-cherelle-parker/ (Though the latest notice I've seen only exempts "regular, daily issues" from the requirement: https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1al3rkd/partial_walkback_of_communications_approval_by/ )

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Punxsutawney Phil may get the most publicity, but you can find prognosticating groundhogs all over North America (sensible, given that different locations have different seasonal weather). They're especially thick on the ground in the northeast US, as documented on this map: https://groundhog-day.com/map

The one closest to me is "Tinicum Tim", a puppet who gives his prediction at the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge. He does his thing the Saturday before #GroundhogDay, but I may try to catch him next year.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Had a good time last night listening to a stream of a recent WFMU radio show "guest-DJ'd" by Dr. Johnny Fever. It's edited from Howard Hesseman's DJ breaks from episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati, combined with complete songs that audiences briefly heard him introducing or closing out on the show. The 3-hour online program also features news reports from Les Nessman, as well as a few WKRP commercials. You can listen to it here: https://www.awphooey.com/wkrp

molly0xfff, to random
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

need to start keeping a list of all the times some big supposed display of bleeding edge technology turns out to just be A Guy

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@researchbuzz @molly0xfff When the spiritualist movement was at its height, it was not uncommon to see publications by mediums claiming to be channeling the spirit of a beloved late author or composer. The story of Jap Herron, a novel claimed to be by Mark Twain as channeled by mediums Emily Grant Hutchings and Lola Hayes, bears more than a little resemblance to the recent George Carlin case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap_Herron

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

In other award news, there's a big uproar over the 2023 #Hugos, awarded this year at the first Worldcon in China. It turns out a number of nominees were unexpectedly disqualified by this year's committee. (R. F. Kuang's Babel, which had won the Nebula and Locus Awards, was the most conspicuous in its absence from the final ballot, but there are others too). The committee has so far been silent on reasons for disqualification. Cora Buhlert has a roundup of reactions: https://corabuhlert.com/2024/01/21/the-2023-hugo-nomination-statistics-have-finally-been-release-and-we-have-questions/

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

They're talking about grade inflation at the Ivies again. And OK, fair. Everyone gets an A. But can we also talk about educator inflation? Educator inflation is a good thing! By educator inflation I mean: the typical educator at a top tier university today, is miles better at educating, than the typical educator at that same institution 50 years ago.

The field of education is not static. There are constant advances in how material is presented, and how students are supported.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@mekkaokereke They're often good, but one thing to keep in mind for most of the Ivies, as well as other major research universities, is that faculty incentives primarily favor research (publishing papers, getting grants, etc.), with teaching often a secondary consideration for tenure & promotion.

You still get some very good teachers, but it can be inconsistent. A lower-prestige college with classes mainly taught by permanent faculty primarily evaluated on teaching can have better teachers.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Some news for folks interested in in , and the :

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Gamer Hall of Famer Jennell Jaquays (whose work I first encountered in the Judges Guild Dark Tower D&D module and in the Donkey Kong video game port that launched ColecoVision) died recently. Metafilter has links to various memorial threads: https://www.metafilter.com/202105/Jennell-Jaquays-1956-2024 and Wikipedia has more on her life and work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennell_Jaquays

Any librarian with NACO access want to update her name authority record? (It doesn't necessarily need dates, but right now it only has her old pre-transition name.)

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

my thermonuclear take is that the issue here isn’t whether it matters that we call AI “AI”

but that Mastodon’s culture is poorly socialized and people here have a hard time doing constructive conversation

This is frequently lamented as “replyguyism,” but I think that’s imprecise. Something happened along the way to mislead people here that derailing the conversation makes friends

https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jan/7/call-it-ai/

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@siderea @glyph @irenes @danilo Maybe, but I think part of the problem is that hierarchy can be useful as a situational organizing principle (ie. a clear way to assign responsibility in a big undertaking at a given time), but it also can be toxic as a social status principle (ie. an assumption that some folks deserve to exercise power asymmetrically over others at all times). It's easy for folks following the first notion to slip into the second, and victims of the second to discount the first.

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