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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Реактивный микрокиборг / Wingless Angel's LiveJournal:
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | |
| 11:54 am | This thursday and next thursday... Boss just asked whether I know about Megabus. Because, since my last DC trip was covered by a grant, the price of an Amtrak ticket was not an issue, but this time around, he's not putting out a hundred fifty dollars when he can get away with thirty bucks... (...that the savings is kind of meaningless compared to what five nights of hotel room and the conference registration itself run is another thing entirely.) |
| 8:41 am | Hello again, world! A month and a half after moving into the new place, I finally have Internet access on my desktop computer. Also, cable - so can actually start watching TV now! And a kitchen table (though I gave up assembling the chairs - it's not like I'll actually be *in* the apartment for the next three days). Now, all that's really left are rugs and the bed, and then, really, this place will be Done. ...*that* the cable guy showed up at 8:15, within the 8-to-11 timeslot, is amazing in of itself! |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | |
| 5:16 pm | Easy ways to be reminded you're ten years out of high school now: There is an obituary in the Times for someone born the same year as me. --- Honestly, it's a sign of...something...that the only reaction the announcement of the Twilight manga is getting from me is 'well, and this is supposed to be unexpected *how* exactly?' ...it doesn't help, either, that Otakon is in two days, and this may very well end up being the last Otakon I actually bother showing up at for the full three days, as opposed to just coming down on Saturday for a panel, dinner, and a party, and then heading back out Sunday morning, or hell, even on a late-night train... --- So, a couple of days ago, my DS (...my three-month-old DS, mind you!) just *stops working*: I have the new Advance Wars game, and whenever I try to actually open it, the system shuts down. I freak out (a little, not too much - I'd honestly be pissed more if my save got corrupted), and then, today decide to at least swing by the Nintendo Store to see if they can say anything useful. Well, on my way there, sitting on the D train, between West 4th and 34th, take the thing out again, and instead of trying to start the game, try to at least open the DS system menu. It again shuts down...except, once I turn it back on and try to open first that menu, and then the game again, everything is perfectly fine. ...OK, I guess no reason to go up to Rockefeller Center, just get off at 34th, and take the next train back down to the office... --- And again, just another day at a law library reference desk. Requests for: A section of the 1859 New York Code of Ordinances prohibiting any new cemeteries from being opened within the limits of the City and County of New York. A way to confirm that a guy who claims to have worked for the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation sometime in the 1980's actually did. ...and two Seton Hall Law Review articles to be sent out by e-mail - five minutes of work, hell, maybe two minutes of work, and a hundred and fifty dollars charged for two minutes of work. Hey, always a living... |
| Monday, July 13th, 2009 | |
| 8:21 pm | And again, doing my little part... So, all through last week, requests from the NYC Law Department for background information on the Foreign Missions Act of 1982. Not a complicated request by any means, but coming from them, not a common request. Well, hey, they tell us what they need, we go out and get it. Then, in today's paper, Blame Hillary! - and I'm almost certain this is *why* they are suddenly so interested in that act! (Incidentally, because this is what I do, yeah, so there's the NYP write-up, but I need to see the actual text of the State Department notice. Well, hey, not a law librarian for nothing! Department of State, Public Notice 6690, June 23, 2009) --- ...latest *other* kinda cool thing about being a law librarian is, well, all the promo crap I get, for books I will *never* buy or have any reason to buy - but at the same time, can't help but stop and think that it's simultaneously kind of cool and kind of sad/bizarre that books of the sort exist. ...books like: Serial Violence: Analysis of Modus Operandi and Signature Characteristics of Killers. And Pediatric Homicide: Medical Investigation. So, if you ever, uh, *need* a book on either of those topics, well, CRC Press is who you're gonna call... |
| Saturday, July 11th, 2009 | |
| 1:35 pm | I am too easily tempted... Overall, I'm honestly not sure which is worse for...well...mostly my wallet - though also my sanity - that there is a bodega down the block...or that the closest furniture store is basically around the corner. On the walk back home, now up a bottle of Baltika #4...a breakfast table, and a microwave cabinet. |
| Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | |
| 12:20 pm | OK, seriously, where the hell did this week go! Seriously, a couple of hours into any given anime con or professional conference now, I feel like such a tool. For one very particular reason - the dumpy, totally unremarkable...and fairly huge...laptop that I lug around, and that I dropped seven hundred bucks on two years ago. The main reason for feeling like such a tool mostly has to do with every time I walk into a Best Buy, or Radio Shack, or, hell, even the local Target or something, and see all those netbooks the size of a paperback, and going for like three hundred. I mean, it's not like I *need* my laptop for anything other than checking e-mail, LJ, and my Russian military forums! (of course, here is when I also think about one of my own personal hang-ups - I have no problem spending twenty bucks a day twenty times, but think long and hard before dropping two hundred once. Which tends to make acquiring *anything* like, say, a new TV, more complicated than it ever needs to be...) --- There's really nothing I have to say about Michael Jackson, except, perhaps, the vague feeling of relief that they scheduled that whole thing this past Tuesday, as opposed, to, you know, when the 45 or so thousand otaku were all right there too. But there are obvious things to think about that are inspired by Michael Jackson... It's inevitable that in the next ten or fifteen or whatever years, there are going to be more things like this. Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Paul. And the obvious question is, will there be an outpouring of...something...for each of those, to put this and Princess Diana to shame, or are we just at the point of 'oh, another one? Bleh.' --- Even further ideas that went nowhere: A freebie, ad-supported newspaper with 'content' composed of reprinted blog posts. Well, hey, it was an idea...though I couldn't quite get the point of dropping cash on distributing copies of a notionally Chicago and SF-oriented paper on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway... --- Current favorite LIS/law librarianship phrase: "The universe of thinkable thoughts" |
| Monday, July 6th, 2009 | |
| 5:55 pm | Things to come home to ...an hour and a half after getting off the 11 p.m. LAX-JFK red-eye: "I am trying to do a little research on Indonesia tender offer rules. I found the attached rules, but I know some recent changes were proposed, but possibly not yet issued, and I cannot tell whether or not I am looking at the current rules (or just an old version floating around on the Internet)." The fun, it rarely stops... --- About twenty minutes after landing at LAX, I start remembering why if I can possibly help it, I'd rather *not* land at LAX... --- And then, on the way back - so, LA is yet another city to think that as soon as they offer *some* way for people to get to the airport from downtown without having to drive, people will immediately start using it in appreciable numbers. Well, I certainly won't say no to an airport shuttle that runs once every half an hour, and gets you from Union Station to LAX in twenty minutes, but sitting there on this bus that's running on top of a good few hundred thousand dollars in advertising and marketing...and gets like six passengers per ride, is ever so slightly surreal. Though, since we're now talking about things that are ever so slightly surreal: Tom Rob Smith (of Child 44, The Secret Speech - and honestly, at this point, I'm not even going to bother getting worked up about either the concept or the execution; really, simply ignoring their existence is so much easier) is now attached to the Warner Brothers live-action...uh...*thing*...set in the Robotech universe. Well, hey, he's gotta break into Hollywood *somehow*. Plus, no such thing as bad money. But still, going from neo-noir thrillers set in what the author thinks is the USSR in the 1950's to...a live-action adaptation of an '80's SF series cut-and-pasted together from one well-known anime and two thoroughly obscure ones...well, that's gonna make his Hollywood life fun while the fun lasts. |
| Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | |
| 1:00 pm | Everything is always surrounded by everything else. Always nice to see a con that is not an anime con get media coverage. "Furries. Making anime fans feel good about *not being furries*...for as long as there have been anime fans." --- Also hard to pass by: The Times does a tourist guide to the Hasidic part of Williamsburg. And actually acknowledges the fact that no matter how weird and fascinating the area might look, trying to do standard touristy things will just be *not cool.* |
| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 | |
| 10:28 am | Three or so hours to Cincinnati... Dorky as it is, there are things about the library I work for that actually make me really *like* working there. Typical case: patron calls asking for a treatise-length discussion of building condemnation in New York State. Five minutes of looking around, and turns out, we have the volume of Warren's Weed NY Real Property that covers the topic, plus a 1969 book on 'Condemnation in the U.S.A.', and on top of those, the 1937 'Condemnation in New York.' Score! --- Clearly, the number one problem with now living two blocks and five minutes walking from a GameStop - also, actually now owning a DS - is having to start paying attention to what is coming out for that system. I guess helps, too, that it's now reached that kind of critical mass where for every ten entirely predictable casual games (obvious example, Imagine Babyz, or, for that matter, Pass Your Driving Theory Test), something else comes along that's *absolutely* out there. Probably the best example being Flower, Sun, and Rain - which also has easily the single best title of any video/computer game since 'A mind forever voyaging.' Though the one thing that jumps out at me right as I walk into the GameStop is the realization that 'oh, well hot damn, I guess ...and the follow-up thought that along these lines: When KH first came out, the idea really was something like 'let's take 40% Square, 40% Disney, attract both audiences, and I guess, hey, because we need to keep this going *somehow*, 10% of original content/storyline/characters will be more than enough.' Except, then, through KH2 and COM, those 10% evolved and expanded and grew more and more elaborate, and now, we're pretty much at the point where once whatever new KH game does come out, the nods to Disney and Square will basically just be window dressing and cliches, the same way as FF reuses monster and summon names, and the actual real substance will be in the whole - now kind of ridiculously elaborate - back story, what with Heartless and Nobodies and Orgy XIII. ...and the most amazing thing is, the fans seem to really have bought into it, and care far more about the back story than about Goofy and Donald and King Mickey and whatever... --- The Times is also, fairly frequently, a gift that does not stop giving - or at least a gift that is consistently good for an easy way to kill twenty minutes. Four separate views - including one by Steven J. Trachtenberg, the president of GW when I was there - on how frequently pointless, meaningless, and unreasonably pricy a pure academic MA (as opposed to either an ostensibly professional master's - such as, say, an MLS - or an MA as an inherent componenent of a PhD) is nowadays... --- And because, apparently, 'Library 2.0' as a cute buzzword has basically outlived its usefulness, but come on, what *is* a profession or field without a buzzword, the latest one that's starting to get pushed to the front it 'embedded librarian.' If you want to throw out your initial impression of what the term means/should mean, *totally* go for it! |
| Monday, June 29th, 2009 | |
| 4:15 pm | I'm NOT crazy! "Spelling 'judgment' 'judgement' is not an error; 'judgment' is more common in America and 'judgement' in England, but both are well attested in both places." - Eugene Volokh, Correcting Students’ Usage Errors Without Making Errors of Our Own (Journal of Legal Education, 58:5) --- Flying both into *and* out of LAX is actually going to be kind of a novelty. Then again, so will not having to trudge either all the way out to Anaheim or down to Long Beach. (Incidentally, given that I have like *the* last seat on both the NYC-Cincinnati leg of the flight, and the LA segment, I am *totally* hoping one or both of them get overbooked, and I can score a free ticket out of the trip!) --- Because it's that time - NYT writes up New York apartment rental scams. One of which - the 'What we request of you is to look for someone of yours that is close to you that you can also trust, and send the 2 months and security deposit to him or her through Money Gram.. .(ONCE WE ARE ABLE TO CONFIRM THE PAYMENT with your phone number FROM OUR END(since we can confirm if money was sent with the phone number you used when filling the money gram form),I WILL THEN FLY DOWN TO THE US. WITH THE KEYS AND RENTAL DOCUMENTATION TO CLOSE THE DEAL' kind - I actually came across myself (an ad for an $800/month, possibly furnished Windsor Terrace 1BR that just so happened to use the exact photos as one of the actual legit real estate broker websites). --- And because it's *always* that time, self-promotion, part today. I *really* need to get a new/better/more formal picture, though... |
| Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | |
| 8:17 pm | One thing ends, others begin Games like TWEWY - or, hell, thinking way back, Vagrant Story - I don't think I'll *ever* be really good at. Mainly because, in the end of things, picking attack options and items and spells from a pre-set list, I'm all for...having to remember that while the main character on the bottom screen can move and avoid attacks, the top screen has a block command is something else entirely! ...then again, hey, as of a couple of hours ago, beat the game anyways. Which of course raises the obvious question of 'which game that is most likely a ported SNES RPG will I play next!' The obvious question gains particular relevance given that, two days out, *finally* booked this year's LA run - Wednesday afternoon to Sunday night, coming back on the 11 p.m. redeye. And for once, flying both into and out of LAX, though on the coming in, via Cincinnati. And yeah, so Miyazaki will be making an actual *public*/convention appearance at SDCC. And you know, I don't care. I did San Diego twice, and I'm really thinking that the next/third time I do it, I want to actually try being at a convention as just an attendee, with no obligations or requirements other than those I pick for myself. --- So, Transformers 2 comes out, gets entirely predictable reviews, and makes about as many million as expected. And really, is it really too much to ask for to see major media writeups of obviously fan-baiting movies like this one that actually *get* why and how they're fanbaiting, and review them from the point of view of the fan. Well, that, and is it really too much to ask for a major media write-up that actually acknowledges/accepts how many people there are who *do* actually know a fairly good amount about Transformers, or GI Joe, or whatever character the next Marvel movie will revolve around, and that trotting out the thirty-year-old stock phrase about basement-dwelling whatevers now simply indicates that you the writer have managed to keep your eyes closed for the last twenty-five. --- Gah. At least five discrete things I need to/can write...mostly means that the next couple of weeks are *so* going to be a daily battle against the lure of procrastination! |
| Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | |
| 11:43 pm | Law librarianship and its consequences. At least not its discontents. Things go the way they do: one day at the office is crazy, a new call every fifteen minutes, but every single one is pretty basic, and so, do-able in like a half-hour...and then today, maybe all of three requests...and all three pretty much impossible. Example (paraphrased): Can you help us find a good treatise discussion of the Dongan Patent of 1686. (...our initial thought: Uh...let's have fun/what *is* the Dongan Patent of 1686?) my own realization, a few minutes later - I'm willing to bet, dollars to donuts, that the request was either inspired/prompted by - or actually specifically has to do with - the case mentioned in this 2006 NYT article. And hey, for all that was worth, maybe asking for a treatise discussion is asking a bit too much, but the client now has a good, citable law review article that addresses the Dongan Patent in some detail to use...well, for whatever purpose they need it... --- And also, because I am still - and forever will be - fascinated by obvious things - another day, another English-language word I come across that I have never seen before. Today's word being 'riparian'. (...incidentally, I care absolutely nothing for spelling bees, but think that if they wanted to make the whole affair truly hardcore - and actually indicative of something - to win, you would not only have to spell that final word, but also know what it actually means or how it can be used.) |
| 10:10 pm | Obviously still a work in progress, but.. Hey, less than a month in - my new apartment's main living space: - Looking from the entrance area - Reverse angle |
| 7:37 pm | The fascinating results of good money being thrown at a particular question "This paper outlines the historical development of the US manga (Japanese comics) industry from the 1980s through the present in order to address the question why foreign cultural products become popular in offshore markets in spite of cultural difference. This paper focuses on local publishers as “gatekeepers” in the introduction of foreign culture. Using complete data on manga titles published in the US market from 1980 to 2006 (n=1,058), this paper shows what kinds of manga have been translated, published, and distributed for over twenty years and how the competition between the two market leaders, Viz and Tokyopop, created the rapid market growth. This case analysis finds two main reasons for the growth of the manga market in the US. First is the path dependency of market growth: without Viz’s pioneering effort in the localization of manga in the 1980s, Tokyopop’s standardization in the 2000s would not have boosted the market expansion, and vice versa. The second is stigma management by publishers. By selecting proper titles, censoring them, and establishing age rating systems, publishers sought to avoid the stigma attached to American mainstream comics and establish the legitimacy of manga as acceptable entertainment." - Matsui, T. (2009). The diffusion of foreign cultural products: The case analysis of Japanese comics (manga) market in the U.S. (Working Paper #37). Princeton, NJ: Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. |
| Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 | |
| 10:40 am | To live and drink in South Brooklyn I think it tells you about everything you ever need to know about my neighborhood - or anyways, the part of Brooklyn I live in - that there is a place on Coney Island Avenue called Vodka Gallery. Because I guess every now and then, there comes a day that calls - no, demands - half a bottle of Moldavian vodka and a plate of schmaltzed radishes. ...between that, the four lounges in a row, all trying very hard to pretend to be in West Hollywood, the huge kosher supermarket, and the apartment building with a full-out koi pond in front of the main entrance, I am *totally* taking a few hours later this week or over the weekend or something to just walk around and take pictures! |
| Sunday, June 21st, 2009 | |
| 12:23 pm | Days when I miss grad school "Miyazaki’s sophisticated art lies not in creating marketable child-friendly animation, but in presenting social criticism through child characters in his animated films. On this point, Miyazaki shares something with a cultural critic of a previous generation, Walter Benjamin. Both Benjamin and Miyazaki have faith in two things, storytelling and children." - Suzuki, A. (2009). A nightmare of capitalist Japan: Spirited Away. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 51. |
| 10:39 am | Society and technology - cross-influences? Being in the audience for Iran 2009 really does make me wonder how different Moscow 1991 - or Moscow 1993 - would have turned out had the same level of technology and technology-dependent social networking been around twenty years ago... |
| Friday, June 19th, 2009 | |
| 11:39 pm | An MLS and a Colt .45 - one backing up the other Things learned today (even if via a Fox News item, and I'm not bored enough yet to look into this further), but in any case, up until earlier this year, at least some employees/agents of the Library of Congress Office of the Inspector General apparently were armed. --- (Actually, looks like, much more detail on this is available in the latest Library of Congress OIG Semiannual Report to Congress, at p. 27) "Weapons are needed for agents’ personal safety, as they cannot go into a dangerous environment for interviews, surveillance, or to serve warrants unarmed." And this is how the Library Task Force got its start... --- Not related to anything whatsoever, but it is kind of cool that in a way, I am a grand total of two degrees of separation from Guillermo Del Toro. ...who still looks like the vaguely creepy - but really, mostly just sad - guy that nobody wants to sit next to on the F train... |
| 2:10 pm | For that day when LJ loses whatever appeal it has/had? Didn't think I would ever get to that point - but I'm now *totally* on the market/looking around for one of those desktop business card scanner things. And to think, when I was leaving USIC, I *totally* could have grabbed the one I bought for the trade show we put together, and no-one would have noticed or cared! But now, given that I came back from the DC run with like a hundred cards - and a dozen or so that are actually directly relevant to what I do at work - just dumping them in a binder would be pretty much counter-productive. --- Because this is what *I* do when I'm bored - currently, up to five articles I'm writing for various journals/magazines. Two are in the 'revise before final acceptance' stage, the other three have just titles and topics. Well, and deadlines - the latest addition to the list being 'Beyond digital repositories: The (sometimes) wild world of open online access to primary and secondary legal materials', now tentatively accepted for publication in the December 2009 issue of the magazine AALL Spectrum. Well, hey, now that I really have neither the time nor, frankly, the interest to write for ANN as much as I did these last two years, hey, gotta find *something* to amuse myself with! --- So, one thing about DC that I've always gotten a kick out of was how that town also has its hyper-specialized newspapers, basically covering the actual daily process of politics, the thoroughly unsexy but utterly crucial stuff that goes on at the 'senior assistant to a two-term Congressman from a rectangular-shaped state' and 'director, federal government affairs, American Diabetes Association' level. And really, in those papers, the job ads are totally the best part. Because, come on, where else *would* you find one that actually *is* for a blogger/online presence manager! The actual ad being: "ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR – Western Democratic Senator seeks Online Communications Coordinator to develop and maintain Senator’s web-based initiatives. Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to, design and maintenance of website, constituency list building, blog posting and outreach, email newsletters and implementation of new media technology. Previous tech/online outreach and web development is preferred. To apply, send cover letter and resume, including all relevant program and application skills, to WesternDemCommTeam@gmail.com." So, hey, if you ever wanted to get paid to blog *and* contribute to the wonderful game of national politics, here's your chance! |
| Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | |
| 6:24 pm | Fun with public employees' job titles Douglas Ritter, Senior Water Master, Montana Water Court. (Colorado also has a Water Court system, and uses the titles 'water judge' and 'water referee.' Whether they also have fire, earth and wind judges is another question entirely...) --- Highlight of the conference, part two: chatting up/establishing a potential business relationship with one of the guys (...actually, *exactly* the person I should be talking to) from the British Library. ...highlight of the conference, part three: ending up in an actual room party. |
