I'm sick, so have some youtube.

Courtesy of Mr. Kozman.

If you were on the fence before...

I still have goosebumps

Lolgasm

Just to be clear, these things piss me off 9 times out of 10, but leave it to the Iron Sideshow folks to dig up/create ones that were actually amusing.

Anonymous makes me giggle

I love it when something described as an "internet hate machine" decides to put their masses to good use. The "greater internet fuckwad theory" shows that adding anonymity to everyday opinions provides an output that would make any English teacher cry. But what happens when the anonymity transfers itself into meatspace? Well, the goons managed to put some money where their mouths were and make a nice contribution to Heifer International, and now results are rolling in from Anonymous' new target.


Back when I was in middle school I put some of my angst to use reading up on Scientology and, par for my age, getting pissed about it. I remember a conversation with a friend's father, a good friend in his own right, where I bemoaned the fact that people weren't as upset about this shit as I thought they should be. He mentioned that yes, there's a problem with it, as there are many problems in the world, the trick is picking what to fight, and that this wasn't his. I realized that for all my teenage frustration, it probably wasn't mine either. He used to think that I was born in the wrong time. A couple years after this conversation I mentioned offhand to him that I wasn't born late, my time was just in the making. I'm pleased to see that others picked up the fight and ran with it, I suppose this is how vindication feels.

From one of the Australia rallies, generally regarded as an epic win.


And here's a quick shot of the folks that braved the -10 wind chill to protest in Parma. Those seven people stuck around in the bitter cold for 3 hours to get the word out. The wind took some of their signs, Scientologists took others. A little before 2 p.m. a middle-aged man drove up and gave out sandwiches, without even knowing what the protest was about. This shit made my day.

Anonymous has numbers
Anonymous has heart
Anonymous has one more person in their posse.

For Aisha...

This link goes out to my partly Welsh goddess of knitting, and perhaps the only regular reader of this thing.

Shameless plug

One of the lovelier bits of my CV is some volunteer work that I did at the local library while I was in college. I think of it as one of the lovelier bits, of course, because while it was volunteer work, it was going to community service. Take this as a note, if you're under-age, drinking a glass of wine with dinner at a state park can get you in trouble, but ultimately seems to help in the long run. All that being said, some folks that I met while working at that library have gone on to bigger and better things.
The company is called LibLime, they do open-source library software that, from everything I've seen, kicks ass. But please, as somebody who went to school for PR, don't trust me on that. You'd be much better off trusting the Geauga County Public Library system, or, if more convincing is needed, the Guggenheim.
I work in a public library that uses Sirsi-Dynix, which is, when compared to the leading competitor in the area, Triple-I, wonderfully dynamic. Thing is, I still have issues getting the information that I need into the system, and unfortunately, when it goes down, you'd better be able to figure out a way to get it back up yourself, because they might not be around to help. My library is switching to Triple-I in the future, mostly because of reliable support.
Koha, being open source, is inherently dynamic. The work that I'm spending weeks fighting against our software to let me accomplish can, and likely has, already been made into an option on it by myself or a colleague anywhere from Ohio to New Zealand that is looking for the same solution. As far as support service goes, think about it, the underlying software is free, support service is what you're paying for, they'll make good on it.

And really now, being able to renew your books on AIM, that's just cool.