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walt crawford

Mostly retired library person/researcher/writer/speaker. All original FF contributions CC0 (public domain).
walt crawford
Last night, watching Stargate: Atlantis, Season 3, "Irresistible," we commented that we knew the guy with the pheromones and had seen him before. Turned out to be Richard Kind. Linda was convinced he was the father in The Wonder Years, but we'd also seen him in something more recent...
Checked this morning: Richard Kind's big series was Spin City (which we watched). So then checked Wonder Years. That was Dan Lauria and...well, the two do look a *little* like one another. Cosmic import: None. - walt crawford
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Never watched Spin City, but have very fond memories of Mad About You. - John Dupuis
walt crawford
So, to finish this spurt of FF posting (about time, given 29 days left): I avoid memes like crazy, but sure, #askmeanything. I might even answer.
When you were in high school, what did you think you'd do with your life? - Rochelle *boom* Hartman
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John: Damned if I know. Things that interest me. Feeling I can make a difference. Not really wanting to turn into a slug (not that my wife would allow that! if I give up on C&I, OA, etc., I'll become active in the local Friends of the Library). - walt crawford
walt crawford
Wednesdaze: Today's hike rerouted because we got RAIN! (Not enough to do much good, but enough to muddy the trails at original site.) But the Windows updates my wife got yesterday weren't there yet, the perfect time to let them install. Got back from the hike, still not there, went to lunch, got back: There--16, one of them ginormous...
...then another 11. Decided to install Turbotax...and with all the downloads needed to fix Intuit's "oops, we really can't take Schedule C away, can we?" that took a long while. So: plans to get something done between 1 and 5ish--well, it's 3:20, and I've more or less given up. Maybe check another 50-60 OA journals for 2014 article counts (part of my 28-week blogging project). - walt crawford
And, of course, get myself in trouble on Web4Lib with The Great and Powerful Beall, as if my LTR issue this summer won't get me in trouble with him anyway... - walt crawford
AND: Wednesdaze just keeps getting better. Brain too fried to do much but check journals; queued up 10 BioMedCentral journals to check (VERY easy to get annual article counts, and I'm trying to whittle away at the 1,702 med. journals over the next 15-16 weeks). And...BMC is in maintenance mode. Come back later. Boo. Too late to watch an old movie before dinner. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Legit but perhaps ignorant question: My understanding is that the kinds of non-removable rechargeable batteries used in e-devices are good for 200-400 recharge cycles (and our Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is starting to have shorter recharge cycles). If that's still true...
...then, given that the Apple Watch (18 hours on a charge) effectively needs to be recharged every single day, does that mean that $349 to $17,000 (plus the mandatory iPhone 5 or above) is for about a year's use? What am I missing? - walt crawford
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Maybe I just got bad advice elsewhere. Anyway, thanks for the pointer. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Unimportant fallout, I guess: For the next couple of years, I'd bet, I'll be opening a tagged set of Diigo items and run into one that just won't be there--a Friendfeed thread I'd wanted to consider in doing an article. Which reminds me: Maybe I should write an appreciation of sorts, at least as part of a C&I piece...
LSW and FF have been central in recent years to my keeping on keeping on with "this stuff." The honest feedback, the informal and seemingly-safe environment, the fact that almost nobody treated me like a tired old hack: Dunno where I'm going to find that. Maybe in one of the new/old LSW havens. - walt crawford
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OK, assuming I get back to "normal" in a few days: how about a partly-crowdsourced FF/LSW essay? Send me (waltcrawford at gmail dot com) your thoughts on FF and/or LSW, or blog about it and send me a link, or add your comment to this thread. I'll probably start working on this around 3/17. (If you're wondering about "normal," it has to do with losing my wedding ring.) - walt crawford
walt crawford
First topical post in The Open Access Landscape blog series: http://walt.lishost.org/2015...
walt crawford
Idle musing on reading today's AL Direct (sponsored content): somehow, in 2015, using "the small screen" for TV shows seems...quaint? I guess a typical TV is physically smaller than a typical movie-theater screen, although in terms of angle of vision many of today's TVs may be pretty comparable.
walt crawford
The Open Access Landscape: 1. Background - http://walt.lishost.org/2015...
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walt crawford
Ya' gotta love a Web Test that claims to guess your level of education based on 20 questions...almost all of which would be easy on Are You Smarter Than A Third-Grader, much less PhD level. http://www.playbuzz.com/korypea...
Yeah, that was stupid. - bentley
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Aw, thanks Walt :-) - Starmama
walt crawford
I like this: new pilot fund for OA APCs: Must be in DOAJ, no hybrid journals allowed, $2K cap. Sounds about right: https://twitter.com/OSUVall...
walt crawford
A surprise discovery yesterday, rereading my old (OLD) Pogo books, the last one: "Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us," paperback, 1972. Note that date. Page 37, where a pig is complaining about others tossing crap into the swamp:
"...An' these ol' razzle bags an' frimmy frams an' google lobs all belong..." - walt crawford
Brin and Page: both born 1973. Bedtime reading? Pure coincidence? (Or is this something others have noticed and I didn't pay attention to?) Yes, it's spelled "GOOGLE" on the page--as is typical, Walt (Crawford) Kelly uses all caps when he's not using special typefaces. - walt crawford
Here's "google" vs "googol" in the Ngram Viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams... - Stephen Francoeur
Ah, of course: Barney Google alone would account for loads of pre-1972 mentions. With those goo-goo-googley eyes. (Yes, that was even before my time.) - walt crawford
walt crawford
In case it didn't already crosspost: Cites & Insights 15:4 (April 2015) is now available, consisting of a multipart essay (citations and commentary) on the economics of open access journals. More info here: http://walt.lishost.org/2015...
Apparently the blog posts (Walt at Random and a Blogger blog) do reach people, even on a Sunday night: there were 110 downloads (64 two-column, 46 one-column) as of 5 a.m. this morning, before I did any social network announcements. - walt crawford
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You're welcome! - John Dupuis
walt crawford
Learned yesterday that I'm really, truly not Tuned In To The Internetz--only heard about llamas & dresses hours later, and still didn't care. Hope to retain that ignorance of What's Really Important.
@astrokatie wins the internet: https://twitter.com/AstroKa... - John Dupuis
the tweet was fine, but good Gaia, the string of responses... - walt crawford
walt crawford
Lot going on. 1. So a big publisher is making it clear that its role is to profit from the relics of a fading model by adopting that as its name (albeit badly shortened to RELX)? Good: honesty never hurts.
2. The Beallster's making it clearer that his primary focus is anti-OA/pro-subscription, by posting about a legit OA journal fading away, which of course subscription journals NEVER do... again, honesty never hurts. - walt crawford
3. KA's leaving Skitch, with a grand final post that includes so many half-truths and simplifications about OA and business models that, tempted as I am to comment there, it would take more time to prepare than I'm ready to spend. - walt crawford
4. Time to put the computer to sleep and continue my daily tribute to the host of Cosmos, as I'm degrassing our front lawn. See y'all in an hour or so. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Strange local politics: A special state Senate election ('cuz the incumbent won some other office). Four candidates (all Democrats). About a third of the mailed flyers are *against* two women who are both former state Assemblyfolk. Why against? Because both of them took per diem when they were in the assembly.
Apparently that's offensive to some "Bipartisan Committee of Companies" or some BS group like that. "How DARE you take the money you're guaranteed when you win an election!" (There's also a fifth candidate on the ballot, a Republican who's already withdrawn, but too late.) - walt crawford
For that matter, a man running for the seat made his name by attacking public unions, so he's one of your really core Democrats... - walt crawford
As far as gender's concerned: the withdrawing Republican is also a woman, and the fourth Dem has "Terry" as a first name, and I know nothing about him or her, including gender. The mystery candidate: Not one mailer or other bit of info. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Probably useless "small business" idea I had when looking at so many OA journal sites: Offer an English-to-English editing service, not for articles but for journal websites. Say $50 for a quick evaluation--which would include the apparent ethics of the site--and estimate, probably $100-$200 to clean up a typical site.
Problems: 1. No way to reach the journals that need it (mostly but not all non-U.S.). 2. No way to convince them their sites aren't already in good English. 3. The American-vs.-British issue (that one's minor). So I don't plan to actually pursue this, although there are certainly hundreds of non-apparently-sketchy gold OA journal sites that could use it. - walt crawford
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You're not the only one. - walt crawford
walt crawford
"One of the world's ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders, [Person X] is an esteemed author who has dedicated his life to educating others about organizational knowledge, leadership, innovation, and radical management." Sorry I'll miss that; I'd especially like to know who crowns the ten MAKLs. Or, for that matter, what the hell a Knowlege Leader is..
THE WORLD'S - Meg VMeg
There's only one person in google's first 20-30 results for the phrase "One of the world's ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders"... I guess points to him for branding. - Andrew C (see frenf.it)
The real lesson from this guy is that you have to repeat your damn catchphrases All. The. Time. - Andrew C (see frenf.it)
Isn't that how you write Highly Important Business Books? (And why they're so insanely easy to summarize into 17-page summaries, which could themselves probably be summarized into, oh, a paragraph or two...) Well, repeated catchphrases and, crucially, cherry-picked case studies presented as The Truth. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Walking the talk: Last week, some time after I posted the anonymized OA-journal-analysis spreadsheets on figshare (CC-BY automatically), somebody built a little page that lets you see graphs of journal starting dates by subject, source, other limits.
After a five-second "Gee, that should be my site" reaction I had the appropriate reaction: "I would never have done that. Isn't it great that somebody else used my data to provide new information." I'm old, but I can learn, eventually. (Sigh: And now I can't locate the app.) - walt crawford
Here's the app. No opinions as to quality, etc., since I didn't build it: https://davesgonechina.shinyapps.io/OAJourn... - walt crawford
[OK, I *do* have an opinion about calling software "apps" when it's not for tablets/smartphones, but I don't think my opinion is meaningful. I wrote programs back in the day, not apps. Waves cane, chases kids offa the lawn. Which I'm removing, square foot by square foot: true story.] - walt crawford
walt crawford
The good news: I'm 90% (I think) done with a piece on the economics of open access that will be the April 2015 Cites & Insights, and--although it's scattered all over the place (it's a roundup, but with a lot more of my own comments than I originally expected)--I think it's pretty good.
The bad news: with another seven articles to go, I'm already at 29,000 words, which would make this essay run to 38 or 40 pages or more. Not sure I want that big an issue; I've been aiming for 24- to 28-page issues this year. Oh well, maybe I can edit the s**t out of it. - walt crawford
(The worse news: I had to include at least one piece by Joseph Esposito--of three I'd tagged--and am realizing just how...well, I find the word "snotty" applies--his writing actually is. Much more so than Kent Anderson, for example.) - walt crawford
That is a good word. For me, he comes across as a know-it-all. - Back to just Joe
You mean he doesn't know it all? You'd never guess. I started out with "condescending," but the ledes in two posts pushed me over the line. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Just read a Media Life headline "Here are the shows rich people like"--and find its definition of "rich people" (later "wealthy") fascinating, esp. living in the Bay Area: $100,000 *household* income. http://www.medialifemagazine.com/here-ar...
"Above average" or "reasonably affluent," maybe--but "rich" or "wealthy"? - walt crawford
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Different people have different definitions, and I think "wealthy" is trickier than "rich." - walt crawford
walt crawford
Neat Sunday. Livermore Heritage Guild had a "love Livermore" (or something) event, centered at what used to be Livermore's Carnegie Library (built 1911, the library until 1966) and is now the Heritage Guild and Art Guild. Included 90 minute walking tours of historic downtown buildings--done by a retired teacher who (a) really knew her stuff...
(b) had a Teacher's Voice, so the dozen of us on the tour had no problems hearing/understanding, (c) had a beautifully organized set of oversized picture blowups to provide historic views. Learned more than I would have expected. (Livermore's *first* public library dates to 1901, apparently one of the, if not the, oldest in California.) - walt crawford
I probably wouldn't have paid attention to this except that my wife, the actual librarian, has been cataloging the Heritage Guild's collection and is now printing out and applying call numbers... - walt crawford
A correction on Livermore's first public library: The library actually began in 1879--which for California, is pretty damn old--but wasn't fully tax supported until 1902, when legislative changes made that feasible. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Just got email, *not* caught by Google spam filter, congratulating me for all my awesome articles and sure that I'd want to write about some charger-cable-related kickstarter thing that still has a couple of weeks to run. Because I publish so many articles each week related to things that require charging. Or not.
walt crawford
As a man, I sometimes have trouble understanding "mansplaining." Working on a C&I essay on OA/journal economics, on the "transparency" segment, got to Jenica Roger's 11/2013 SAGE post and to T Scott's comments. And I'm beginning to understand the term better, I think.
*smiles* ayup. - Jenica
I mean, I always knew it was something that happened, but a couple of sites seem to regard *any* male comment as mansplaining, and I knew that was wrong. T Scott, though: boy, the term just sprang right into my mind. Even with his lengthy "apology." - walt crawford
walt crawford
Y'all must have heard about that crazy hippie Marin mother with her measles parties, with Salon frothing at the mouth about the sheer idiocy? Except that nobody actually checked with her: it's all bullshit. Somebody offered the idea, she turned it down immediately, there have not been any known "measles parties."
Here's the SFGate link (although I'll admit the whole thing's still a little fishy--either the KQED reporter left out a key fact or the woman's dissembling. Still: no actual measles parties). http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea... - walt crawford
walt crawford
Cute if unsurprising: the premium outlet mall Livermore worked hard to make possible (the largest outlet mall in the Bay Area) is being renamed the San Francisco Outlet Mall, in a nice "F*You" to local efforts. Well, hell, SF's only 40 miles away... (Yeah, I know, "San Francisco" 49ers also. But at least they *were* in SF.)
I suspect most Livermorons (or Livermorians for those who drive sanely) sincerely hope the city will find a way to undo any tax breaks or other special deals the outlet folks got. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Briefly stepping outside my comfort zone: I wonder whether those who objected to "hate crimes" penalties--on the basis that all violent person-against-person crimes are hate crimes--were right? Yes, the tag is useful to enhance penalties for "minor" personal attacks (because the U.S. just doesn't have enough people in prison for extended periods)..
...but it strikes me that arguing over whether multiple first-degree murders are or are not hate crimes is odd. They're *always* hate crimes, even if they don't involve religious/ethnic/gender/etc. categories. - walt crawford
walt crawford
Before I go into editing mode (the text for the LTR; I've already made changes in many of the tables and figures), I really should credit the three folks who reviewed the draft and provided ****VERY***** helpful comments and suggestions, resulting in (I'd guess) larger changes to the ms. than they might have expected.
Just as examples: grade "B" because of $1,000+ APCs is now grade "A$" (I've been public about that one); four APC levels for a summary table are now based on actual quartiles of APC-carrying DOAJ journals; I'll find a way to avoid four bullet points beginning with spelled-out numbers...and more, both layout-related and content-related. - walt crawford
I believe it will be a significantly stronger/better publication as a result of their help. Thanks, Stephanie, John and Cameron. (Oh, and Cameron, sorry, but you won't get histograms, for a couple of reasons, one of them being lack of color printing. You will get an asterisk and footnote for each 2014 half-year article count column.) - walt crawford
walt crawford
I know: I need to start blogging again. But, as others would say about Twitter or FB, friendfeed is just so *easy*...
walt crawford
Time warp 2: A new book that apparently assumes print is dead (not even will be at some unknown future point), asserts that (all?) libraries should stop buying print altogether--now--and is published by Elsevier. If "libraries" includes public libraries, a suitable subtitle might be "A guide to institutional suicide."
walt crawford
Time warp 1 (indications that I've somehow fallen into 2010 or maybe 2005): "Are Wikis the Wave of the Future?" http://associationsnow.com/2015...
wait, what? - ellbeecee
Except, they're talking about the American Concrete Pavement Association. And wikis may very well be new to them, even if they're not for us. - ellbeecee
walt crawford
Reminded why we watch almost no current sitcoms last night: In a promo for two different shows, the "laughter" throughout was so incredibly similar that I'd swear it was coming from the same machine in all cases.
walt crawford
I'm beginning to get a sense of how much effort it's worth spending to spell arΧiv that way rather than just arXiv, and "nobody notices or gives a damn about the difference" starts to look like a winner.
Ha! - Meg VMeg
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I wonder whether there are other Unicode typefaces with larger differences; as far as I can tell, the only difference in Palatino is a slight difference of thickness in one of the two diagonal strokes. And it's slight: at 12pt. or less, it's pretty nearly invisible. - walt crawford
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