The changing roles of libraries

A few days ago I was reading an article in the Salt Lake Tribune about how Davis county is planning on renovating and expanding their government center, including a new library building.  It got me to thinking about libraries and how we use them.  In recent years with the mortgage market crash recession and reduced tax revenues many municipalities have found themselves having to find ways to trim their budgets.  For many, their sights fell upon... The Library.

I am so happy to hear that, even though my local government (Davis County, Utah) often found itself having to face budget shortfalls and find ways to reduce their budget, they still decided to take advantage of the reduced costs of construction during the recession to build several new public buildings, including a new large library to be the new headquarters for the county library system.

My Favorites

The other day I was at a friends house and away from my computer and wanted to get online to check something... but wait!  Where are my favorites?  How am I suppose to find that website without my favorites.

So here you are: some of my favorite websites.  What are your favorite websites?  Feel free to browse and comment.

Damn Interesting - A collection of really Damn Interesting articles about a variety of weird things

Entreating Mind - When Damn Interesting stopped updating several of its fans started a new domain to continue the tradition

Discover Blogs -  Discover Magazine hosts a set of blogs about science, technology and the future.

Mental Floss - Where knowledge junkies get their fix

Book recommendation: Armor by John Steakley

John Steakley is probably most famous for his later work Vampire$ which was made into a movie by master of horror John Carpenter.  But I also loved his earlier work Armor

Initially the book resembles Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, but without the politics, with infantry troops wearing high-tech atomic powered battle armor and fighting bugs.  But the book moves into a psychological exploration into what can happen when a man reaches his limits in experiencing horror and then has to go back for more again and again.  And Steakley is much better than Heinlein at writing action scenes.

Babies come from vending machines

Calvin and Hobbes has long been one of my all time favorite cartoons.  I think in large part it is because I see a lot of myself in the characters; and not just in Calvin with his vivid imagination and roguish nature, but in the other characters as well, like Calvin’s dad.  One of my favorite themes in the series is Calvin’s dad bestowing pearls of wisdom to his son, pearls that are completely bogus, and intentionally so.

 image copyrighted by Bill Watterson

Am I creepy?

I think I'm a nice guy... unfortunately I don't really like crowds so I'm usually off by myself doing my own thing, peacefully minding my own business.  But unfortunately this type of behavior can come off as really creepy.

For example:

I my sister teaches swimming lessons.  One afternoon I went down to the pool where she was teaching to take her to lunch but I got there to early.  I found a space off alone on the bleachers overlooking the pool to watch while she finished up her last couple of lessons.

After a few minutes I realized that several people were kind of covertly watching me.  I didn't know any of them.  To my knowledge I don't closely resemble any celebrities.  Oh No!  Is my fly wide open?   Nope, zipped up fine.  Did I dress funny ... nope.  Why are do people keep looking at me like that?

Gradually I begin to realize on me that there is one reason the parent of a kid running around in a swimming suit might be casting nervous covert glances at a single 30ish guy sitting alone at a public pool and apparently watching their child.

Oh my lord, they think I'm some kind of pervert.  They think I'm sitting here watching their kid.  Oh no!  I just checked my fly!  The all probably think I was groping myself.

I really wanted to stand up and loudly announce that "No, I am not a pervert here to molest your child."  Fortunately my brain immediately and with extreme prejudice throttled that idea before I could act on it, realizing that more than anything else I could do, standing up and announcing loudly that "No, I am not a pervert here to molest your child" would be about the most counterproductive move I could make to  allaying such suspicions.

My sister shortly finished and I was able to leave.  Perhaps seeing me leave with their child's teacher made some of them realize that I'm not a child molester but I think there are probably a few that didn't make that connection.

Book Recommendation: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny’s last novel, A Night in the Lonesome October is completely different than anything he had written before (his most noted work was the Amber series).

This novel is a droll, light hearted and funny mash of Victorian style meets gothic horror in a supernatural fantasy about the ongoing struggle between the champions of chaos who are attempting to allow the elder gods (think Lovecraftian Cthulhu) entrance to the world and those attempting to keep the gateways closed.

Zelazny borrows characters from the works of such notables as Stoker, Shelly and Lovecraft and places them together in a comedy.

The champions of order and chaos are well known personas: Jack the Ripper, Dracula, the werewolf, witches and druids, Dr. Frankenstein, and others.  Animal familiars accompany each champion and the story is told from the familiar’s perspective (the book is narrated by Jack the Ripper’s pet dog Snuff.)

The nature of taxes

It is sometimes jokingly said that there are only two absolute certainties in life… death and taxes.

Throughout history, every organized society has or had some form of government. The roll of government varies some depending on the nature of the society but, at lease in our own free society, it is to protect individual freedoms and promote the well being of the citizens as a whole.

The main reason for taxes is to generate revenue for the government so they can provide services to the citizens that the citizens would not effectively be able to provide for themselves. Former Justice Oliver Wendell Homes said “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.”