fiona was here
wishing she had a clever tagline

The lead engineer for the Mozilla Firefox project is now employed by Google. But he's still working on Firefox. It sounds as though they are paying him to continue doing what he's already doing. Which is, let's face it, suspicious. Unless they're going to come play BrowserWar with Microsoft.

technorati tags: google, wishes, firefox, browsers

Metafilter has finally implemented tagging (although the tags on that page don't work very well: go here for links that actually work or, for random, delicious-type fun, add a tag word to http://www.metafilter.com/tags/ ), something I'm surprised they didn't do sooner. (I still fail to understand why they don't have categories for posts but whatever, I'll take my metadata however I can get it.) But like any other means of finding relevant information on the internet, it's only of any use when you're doing it right. And so many of these tags are completely and totally worthless that it's like having all the french non-fiction shelved at 448: it lures you into a false sense of organization.

technorati tags: tagging, folksonomy

I've been getting a ridiculous number of hits from people seaching for videos of the tsunami on Yahoo! and MSN Search. I'm showing up as number two on both. Which strikes me as ridiculous. There's no way I'm that important. And then I realised I'd mis-spelled tsunami, as had all these lovely people using Yahoo and MSN, as "tsumani". If they'd used Google, like good boys and girls, thier spelling error would have been pointed out to them oh-so-politely: did you mean tsunami video?

The fact that so many people showed up here looking for something makes me want to be useful to them and provide them with the content they desire because the librarian in me feels like that would be a nice way to contribute to the universe. So these are the best links from the above Google search:

Asian Tsunami video footage from the web (Scroll down to see listing of videos)

Full Tsunami Video Footage, Pictures, Clips And TV News Stories (Annotated bibliography of internet sites)

On a not terribly related note: I want an internal cross refrencing system for my blog; something that lets me put "See" and "See also" notes at the end of an entry.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that LibraryElf's list of libraries included the Ottawa Public Library and I could, therefore, create an RSS feed for my library books. Will this mean my books will start being returned on time? I bet it will. Well, it might. It's a mondo-clever way to use RSS though.

CNN fired Tucker Carlson. Good riddance sweetie. Why don't you take up interpretive dance and stop with the whole "journalist" thing, already?

Also, I think Bill Gates may have called me a communist. Not that I mind, since I don't particularly value the man's opinion on anything, but it never fails to amuse me how someone can take belief in a theoretical system of economic governance based on the notion that everybody should help each other and share what they have into a slur. I think I'd rather be a communist than a man whose company was sued repeatedly all over the world because they were being underhanded assholes. But hey, who am I to judge?

Since the New York Times has freely maligned IE, I would have thought that Microsoft, being the big stanky bullies that they are, would fight back in some way; break a few metaphorical kneecaps, if you will. But no, they're sitting staunchly still, refusing to release a new version until the next Windows release in ought-six. Slackers.

And I'm pleased to say, current sources seem to indicate a most exciting shift towards Mozilla, namely Firefox, a trend reflected in my own site stats. So PFFFTTT! on you Microsoft and I hope you trip and fall over something.

Video from tourists in Sri Lanka who weren't real concerned at first.

Edited to cross reference myself: http://fionica.twoday.net/20050103/

A recent article in Library Journal discusses librarians' relationship with search engines, namely Google. I hadn't realised there were any real, live information professionals out there who still believed that there was any question as to whether students should be taught how to use Google. What the hell else are you going to do? Let them continue to flounder with their ill-crafted queries? Get off your asses and teach them the fucking Joy of Boolean already! Or even just some basic math, I'm not fussy.

I've always wondered how, with all the books in the world, there are enough ISBNs to go around. There aren't, it would seem, hence the plan to implement a new 13-digit ISBN to replace the old 10-digit system. I'm confused that I hadn't heard any precursive rumblings though.

I ran across this map which illustrates so clearly how values in a geographic area tend to perpetuate themselves. But i'm not actually commenting on the election and will continue to not do so.

I keep wanting to post something about the U.S. election results and how terrified I am that this is all going to end so very, very badly for so many, many people who will try very hard to get out of the way and will fail miserably. But everything I say just sounds unspeakably hateful in a very unoriginal sort of way. So instead I'm propagating this which was lifted from riverbend's blog and is replicated here to remind us that anything can be funny if you find the right way to look at it:
I'm thinking of offering up the idea of "Election Condolences" to Hallmark or Yahoo Greetings. The cards can have those silly little poems inside of them, like:

Condolences and heartfelt tears-
You get Bush for four more years!

or

Sympathies in advance
For when they reinstate the draft!
We hope (insert_name_here) stays as safe as he/she can
And writes frequently while in Iran!

or

Bush and Cheney- what a pair!
Who said life isn't fair?
While Iraq gets tanks and occupation-
You have idiots to run your nation!

or

Cheer up...
Your son was too young for Afghanistan.
And it's still a bit early for Iran-
But there's plenty of time for Syria...
And he'll definitely serve in North Korea!