Just a reminder, you’ve still got a few hours to post your photos for the Harry Potter book pile contest…
The submissions so far (plus some more listed in the comments of this blog post).
Archive for July, 2007
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
LibraryThing pizza bash Saturday in Cambridge
So, it looks like Saturday is going to involve lightning, so the barbeque has morphed into a pizza party.
But we’re not getting just ordinary pizza! We’ll be ordering from Emma’s Pizza in Cambridge, MA, which is some seriously gourmet stuff (menu).* And we’ll have plenty of chips and hummus too.**
Everyone is invited. Bring a friend. If you can RSVP, great. If not, that’s fine. We’re probably going to need to order the pizza beforehand. We’re going to double the RSVP list. If you like, you can bring something .
When: Saturday, July 28th, 4pm to whenever.
Where: 15 Gurney Street, Cambridge MA (Google map). It’s about 15 minutes walking from the Square. You can also take the 72 (Huron) bus, and ask for the Fayerweather stop.
Parking: The City of Cambridge has declared Saturday LibraryThing day***. You can park anywhere on Gurney Street and between Gurney and Huron on Fayerweather.
Can’t wait to see everyone!
*When Emma’s was at the foot of Gurney Street, when I was young, it was decidedly less upscale. There were no tables—just a counter nobody used—and the ambiance was comprised of Emma berating her meek husband Greg in angry, staccato Armenian all day long. When the current owners bought it they moved it to Kendall Square, avoided marital conflict, added tables and the goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts today’s Cambridge requires. Somehow they managed to preserve what was good about it. It’s an amazing pizza.
**Alas, Tim’s trademark sigara börek will not fit with the rest of the meal.
***Untrue.
Labels: 1
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
Internet Archive wants book-loving systems engineer
In the spirit of fraternal concern, I post that the Internet Archive is looking for a systems engineer with PHP experience for their book-scanning project. (Also they promised to send us their discards. We need one too.)
The help-wanted has some excellent provisions:
- Love and respect for books; pride and care in your work
- Not afraid of terabytes
If I had the skills, I’d be tempted to take it. The Internet Archive is a great institution. The people are great, and they have the best office space ever. LibraryThing’s second-story apartment steps from the Portland waterside pales in comparison. They have this adorable jewel-box in San Francisco’s Presidio, with the Golden Gate Bridge right outside the window.
Labels: internet archive, jobs
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
ReadItSwapIt becomes 10th swap site
A tenth book-swapping site has chosen to integrate with LibraryThing, ReadItSwapIt.
ReadItSwapIt is a UK site, and boasts some 125,000 titles available right now. Here’s the page on LibraryThing showing copies of a book on ReadItSwapIt. They’ve got a bang-up buzz page. It’s a credit-free system. This is a bold move, but not unattractive. As they explain it:
“Swapping on ReadItSwapIt is like swapping with friends. If you like each other’s books, you swap. If you don’t, either of you can reject the swap.
Many swap sites operate a credit system. That means, instead of swapping books, these sites allow you to swap credits. Any time anyone wants a book of yours, they give you a credit and you post the book out to them. You can then use this credit later to get a book sent to you by someone else.
This sounds great on the surface. But in practice, the problem with this system is that whenever anyone requests any of the books you have registered, you have to post out that book immediately. It doesn’t matter how inconvenient it might be for you to get to the post office that week. And what if you go on holiday? You have to let the site know. You have no control over the amount of swaps you make. You could end up acquiring loads of credits but not be able to find any books you like on the site. So you’re left with a load of worthless credits, no books and a big postage bill.”
That rings true to my experience. I posted a book to a swap site, and then dithered when I got the email. My wife decided she wanted to read it too. I ended up buying the book on Amazon and having it expressed to the swap person, just to save face. People like me need a more forgiving system.
I’m also impressed by their commitment to accessibility It’s way more than LibraryThing does.
Labels: swap
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
Is LibraryThing making you fat?
New England Journal of Medicine article–with fancy animation–explains how social networks cluster… by weight. (Hat tip: David Weinberger)
Labels: Uncategorized
