i202 Fall 2009 School of Information, UC Berkeley

Thanks to thatwhichmatter, I came across the term "hapax legomenon". (In a quick search, I found that this is also the name of a character in the MMORPG City of Heroes.)

Last month, news (http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/19/pif.flu/) broke that pigs in Minnesota had tested positive for H1N1 (aka "Swine Flu").  The story mentions what has been reported numerous times before: H1N1 is not foodborne.  Two days later, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) turned to Congress for financial support.  The NPPC (http://www.nppc.org) reports that the U.S.

My second favorite linguistic eponym (the first would be the McGurk effect) has popped up in a number of domains other than natural language, like city infrastructure and physiological metabolism: http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/math-and-the-city/

 Here's an interesting article in the New York Times about a situation being debated in the British Supreme Court right now. There are public religious schools in England that are allowed to admit students based on their religion but not on their race or ethnicity.

This is in no way an attempt at online participation...
I tried to send out an email last week, but for one reason or another they didn't distribute.  Here's the email:

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To the ischool ... just wanted to let you all know that we have had a great big baby boy!

Henri Daniel Louis Hull (pictures below)
November 2, 2009 4:37am
He weighed in at an obnoxiously healthy 10lb. 6oz. (yes, really) and measured 22in. in length.

Thanks all for the kind notes!

See you next week.

Jackson

Are people who live in a country without permission actually people? This question, and a host of other headscratchers, are being raised by a house bill sponsored by David Vitter, R-La., and Bob Bennett, R-Utah that proposes amending 2010 census to include immigration status. This can have a big impact on population-dependent congressional apportionment, especially in immigrant-heavy states like California and Flordia.

I was reading this article in The New Yorker about a book called "Eating animals" today and something came to my mind. Somehow categories define how we feel. I like eating "pork", but maybe I wouldn't like to eat "pig". We also do not want to have "cow sausages", let's better call them "beef sausages". Why don't we eat "dog" or "cat"? Well... because they are pets, aren't they?

Can't believe I didn't know about this site before: http://metavid.org/wiki/

It allows you to search video of members' speeches before Congress with some interesting features. In addition to searching by keyword (I think through transcripts, which are provided by Congress), date, speaker, category (setting off 202 alarms), bill name/number, there are also some featured semantic queries.

And now, a word about DEVONthink. They describe it as a "smart information assistant", although you could think of it as a sort of MyResearchBits.

Here's another attempt at attempt at a MyLifeBits project. He only does it for a week, but he includes his daily conversations as well. He doesn't seem to offer many new insights into the issues surrounding capturing every possible ounce of digital data.

Amused by our classic armchair authority:
------------------------------Quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't – till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."

The University of South Carolina's library is launching a "year-long series of events honoring the card catalog, its use in the transformation of knowledge, and the people who created and used it". Events include:

• a catalog card boat race
• a catalog card design contest

Perhaps the coolest bit is the widget celebrating different cards:

On Tuesday, San Francisco voters approved Proposition C, which repeals 2004's Proposition H, a measure that banned the city from selling the naming rights to Candlestick Park. Prop H made it so that Candlestick would stay Candlestick—no 3Com, Monster, etc. But Prop C undoes that. It's interesting that the city's attitude changed so drastically in 5 years. Why are San Franciscans willing to give up a name now that they fought for five years ago? The recession?

This might be the cutest 202 news story I've seen yet: A writer got a bunch of 5- to 7-year-olds together and asked them what they call their Lego pieces. From the story:

As if organising information wasn't enough, we will now need to organise all the applications that deal with information!?! hah!

The article talks about how "Apple is outpacing competitors in the mobile apps arms race: There are roughly 10,000 applications available for Android-powered smartphones and around 300 for the Palm Pre." And yeah, there are over 100,000 apps available at the App Store !