Our vocal hound has learned how to sing Roberta Flack’s “Where Is the Love?” when we ignore her

I wrote a small ode to what @humcommons represents, for the Humanities Commons blog on their fifth anniversary

What this article about TikTok makes clear is that we should talk less about the “magic of algorithms” and more about what can be derived, with relatively simple computational methods, from huge amounts of data.

Slowly dawning on us that we adopted a kangaroo instead of a dog, not sure how we missed that

Look at this turkey roasting

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 42: Not So NFT”—NFTs as a way to support—or undermine—art and culture; using maps and diagrams in old books to predict the future of the Mississippi River; human/AI collaboration to find unusual galaxies; more!

My theory of NFTs/DAOs/Web3: Because the tech is so aggressively decentralized and opposed to traditional forms of institutional, legal, and social trust, to succeed they need the cohesion of an imagined community, but these ties are weak absent a speculative financial mania. 2/2

I have a strong aversion to trendy manias, but have decided after much hesitancy to write something about NFTs in the context of cultural heritage institutions. For my own mental clarity, I tried to summarized my theory of NFTs/DAOs/Web3 in a tweet-length statement. ½

All of our homemade wines will be available as NFTs.

Very soon the 2021 harvest of Zinfandel and Chardonnay grapes from Sonoma and Washington arrives at our house for Year 2 of home winemaking. And we are adding Pinot Noir and Syrah grapes from Oregon to flex a bit, should be fun.

We are hiring an Accessibility and Online Learning Librarian @NortheasternLib, eligible for remote work because our library exists across space and time.

Delighted to be on the platform today for the Covid-delayed but extra joyous commencement ceremony for @Northeastern’s Class of 2020, with speaker @MingTsai

Just published: Schools and Screens: A Watchful History, by my colleague Victoria Cain. “Why screens in schools—from film screenings to instructional television to personal computers—did not bring about the educational revolution promised by reformers.”

Daylight Savings Time should end on December 31, and begin on January 1

Interesting study: “Print bestsellers are longer, syntactically more complex and varied, and seem to focus more on depiction. Beststreaming audiobooks, by contrast, are shorter, more straightforwardly written, and appear to highlight plot and dialogue.”

Nice try, green peppers

Sunrise this morning was 🔥

Good morning

Mind blown by SceneCity’s generative cities and architecture, produced on the fly to your specifications by software (via @arnicas’s newsletter)

Whenever I see a highly personal, curated collection of books being auctioned off, like Ricky Jay’s magic library, I wish someone would create a virtual, browsable version of the collection using scans from HathiTrust and other digital libraries.

it’s late, where have you been

New issue of my newsletter is out: “Humane Ingenuity 41: Zen and the Art of Winemaking” — The chemistry and alchemy of turning grapes into wine; plant humanities; sketches of a 3D printer by Leonardo da Vinci; language models and genres; and much more

On Yammer is a post called a yam?

Checking out the new Macs (25 years ago)

Good morning

Fall’s the best

Long day at work, dog missed me

We’re at the base of Heartbreak Hill as usual for the Boston Marathon. Wheelchair racers on the course first.

Covered the painful hilly part of the Boston Marathon route on my run this afternoon, and realized that this will be the only year when the marathon runners will be taunted by Halloween skeletons and grim reapers.

Sometimes I imagine the missing quotation marks of Sally Rooney’s novels having lonely on-again, off-again relationships with each other

Belle’s enjoying this gorgeous fall morning

I have been informed by my daughter that today is National Transfer Money to Your Daughter Day. Unfortunately for her, tomorrow is Return the Money to Your Parents Day.

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has digitized footage from 1933 of the last known Tasmanian tiger, just before they went extinct. Beautiful, sad.

Local mushroom showing off

I thought this rainbow at the Red Sox game was a sign we would beat the Yankees. I was wrong, but: nice rainbow.

This library ladder is so sinuously elegant

Absolutely gorgeous book of handmade paper

Like you, I’ve listened to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” a thousand times and find it a delirious joy on each play, but I still heard for the first time so many bits of musical genius in this breakdown of the song by @kirkhamilton on @strongsongs

Whatever you do, do not challenge my sister’s dog to a staring contest

And lo it was in the year of our lord 2021 that one could finally swipe right to delete and left to archive in Apple Mail

I loved celebrating Eleanor Lurensky’s 95th birthday with her recently, and we are naming a nice reading space in our library after her (@Northeastern grad, 1947). She mentioned her RV travels, so I’m delighted to see her piece about this in the Wash Post.

A new season of my Humane Ingenuity newsletter begins with a deconstruction of the act of seeing, and the effort to find a more colorful world. Also, a data visualization of…metal band logos.

Cap and gown (and mask) are on for convocation @Northeastern — let’s do this

Curbside Boston is on brand this morning

Belle was wondering if it was too late to participate in #InternationalDogDay

At work we have a cabinet for ideas

Henri n’était pas mal à Boston

After a summer hiatus, the third season of my Humane Ingenuity newsletter begins soon. If you’re curious about technology that helps rather than hurts human understanding, and human understanding that helps us create better technology, subscribe now.

I’m redesigning my website, and out of the thousands of WordPress themes, I just realized I picked the same one that @ayjay uses. Paging Carl Jung

We just toured 8 colleges in 12 days, and I can report that the state of higher ed is hot, and humid, and dehydrated

~ Ennio Morricone spaghetti western music ~

S/M/L

Insomnia has many causes, but I did not realize that “art in the woods” is one of them

Nice spot to write

There should be a power ballad about finding a great bookstore in a small town.

You look nice today, Lye Brook Falls, Vermont

This is what happens when your dog has five very long legs

This is my annual social media post kindly asking for recommendations of totally fun books, where “totally fun” == a work of any genre, that, while it may have deeper layers of meaning, does not require me, the reader, to attend to those layers, should I choose not to, thank you

“All Hyped Up for HyperCard: Further Adventures with an Apple Legacy Format,” by Jacob Kowall and Hilary Szu Yin Shiue, fellows at the Library of Congress, looking at the history and preservation of the HyperCard file format. I mouseDoubleClick-ed on this.

Instead of using Spotify for music recommendations, try Afrika Bambaataa’s annotated vinyl collection, now held by the Cornell University Library. Just choose any track he starred on the jackets of his 1,400 albums — I guarantee it’s a total banger.

An update on the octogenarian inventor I wrote about in my newsletter a while back: There is now a work permit on his door noting that he will be fireproofing the ceiling of his lab. 👍

Hey all: We are excited to be adding a half-dozen awesome new people to our fine library over the next few months, beginning with this new position, a health sciences librarian. Join us!

You look nice today, White Mountains

Winemaking update: We bottled our first vintage of red wine! We’ve learned a lot over the last year, and I give the experience five stars (plus the wine tastes great). Now we’re looking forward to getting 2021 grapes this fall!

A very rare edition of Shakespeare (thx @JeffreyShoulson)

Old maps digitally transformed into 360° virtual panoramas, like this c. 1902 circular bird’s-eye map of Mt. Washington made into a VR view from the summit

Just got tickets for the real summer blockbuster, James Turrell: Into the Light at Mass MoCA. Can’t wait.

“Flip It Open,” new model for opening access to books from Cambridge: 1) initial retail period, w/ hardcover/ebooks priced normally; 2) once the press makes £8000…3) open ebook and new paperback w/ a shout-out page to those who bought the book in phase #1

Even without the mythology, I think we can agree that the achilles is a very poorly designed body part

Belle’s look is how we all feel about the heat

Apple Notes should reinvigorate the web by making it easy to publish notes to a personal website.

“The Ebook Turns 50” — Project Gutenberg was founded fifty years ago, and until 2009 it remained the largest distributor of ebooks. (I think you can figure out the largest distributor of ebooks since then.)

This puppy in a backpack is currently touring our campus with prospective students, 14/10 would write letter of recommendation

Today’s hike

Bottled our second batch of Chardonnay made from Washington grapes. Got all fancy with this one, using yeast from Côtes du Rhône and forgoing fining to see what it will taste like au naturale.

Belle meeting my sister’s dogs for the first time, after a very long pandemic wait

Not sure I’ve ever been this soaking wet, but the @USWNT game against Mexico has been great fun so far even with the heavy rain, 2-0 USA at the half

New from @DPLA/LYRASIS: “The Palace Project is a new library-centered platform for digital content and services that will allow libraries to purchase, organize, and deliver ebooks and other digital content to their patrons while protecting patron privacy.”

Looks like I’ve hiked right into an old Star Trek episode

Very strong 1983 vibes here

Well done, sunset

How do you add umami to PowerPoint

Just had my last Covid test on campus. I think it’s my 67th test, thankfully all negative. Big kudos to the @Northeastern testing center team and the many students who helped make it run so smoothly.

The names of the judges at the Westminster Dog Show are just so good—they surpass what any novelist could dream up: The Honorable James G. Phinizy, Ms. Bonnie P. Threlfall, Mr. Harold “Red” Tatro, III

Feeling very judged by the dog for watching the French Open

% ./library-robot –engage-summer-mode –balloons=YES

One of the great spots in Boston in the summer

Great post by @TenuredRadical about doing historical research in a digital age, and how it has turned every historian into an amateur archivist, trying to bring order to the giant mass of digitized documents they collect and scan/photograph themselves.

Cute way to bring to an end the pandemic-era At Home section of the New York Times

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 39: A Circle of Keytars” — Combining video explanations with maps in the style of Minority Report; the urgency of preserving digital news; the best song at Eurovision was the most humane and the most ingenious

Either there’s a shark in our house or Belle got into my sock drawer

Big ebook news, and way to go @DPLA! “DPLA signs agreement with Amazon Publishing to make their ebooks available to U.S. libraries”

Podcasts about the history of pop songs are a fascinating example of how new genres emerge that fit a new medium perfectly. So many good ones: Song Exploder, Hit Parade, Inside The Hits, Inside The Groove, 1980, My 90s Playlist, Wind of Change, etc.

Finally warm enough to sit on the porch, but someone is rudely occupying all of the seating

Incredible weekend at the @Northeastern commencement ceremonies at Fenway Park. At our final event this afternoon, the deans did a Bollywood line dance led by @rechambadi, and then awarded ourselves a post-graduate degree in TikTok #NU2021

Bright sunshine for the second day of @Northeastern commencement ceremonies at Fenway Park #NU2021

About to begin the first of our commencement ceremonies @Northeastern in Fenway Park. My lucky view from the podium #NU2021

Y’all do realize that you can subscribe to most newsletters in a feed reader, thus turning them into blogs?

The string octet in front of my library played “Thank U, Next” when the graduating seniors marched by today 😎

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 38: The Vigoda Verification”—Science fiction as cognitive behavioral therapy; identifying Abe Vigoda in a large collection of images (and what it tells us about AI); a fascinating story about hip hop in India

Honored to be reading the names of graduating students today @Northeastern as they walk across the stage, please enjoy my puffy hat/mask ensemble

Our library robot is also excited about graduation week @Northeastern

It’s the start of graduation week @Northeastern and we’ve got our celebratory banner up on the library

The London Library has published for the first time a list of the books that Charles Darwin borrowed between July 1843 and July 1845, when he was developing his theory of evolution, and the variety is wonderful, far beyond nature and science.

Between his first vaccine dose and his second, @glass has been experimenting with doubled images, and they are rather beautiful

“Over the past year, academic libraries helped lead their institutions into the socially distant era—in part because libraries had spent decades figuring out how to offer online services and get information to people who rarely came into the building.”

At our all-staff meeting today, everyone shared their most embarrassing Zoom experience from the last year, and it was extremely cathartic

If a single gray pixel NFT sold for over a million dollars, can you imagine how much the entire @daringfireball site is worth?

It’s been so long since my kids went to school that they drove themselves this morning

Today we bottled the white and rosé wines we made during Covid, and soon we will bottle the red that’s been aging. And then, when we’re all vaccinated, we’re going to pop some corks and you’re all invited.

A moo wave classic

Winemaking update: We seem to have successfully clarified our Chardonnay and rosé using bentonite clay, which means we can bottle them this weekend. The rosé, made from Syrah grapes from Oregon, is a particularly nice color after three months of aging.

This post by @amandafrench and @nickicamberg about the volunteer network of @COVID19Tracking is amazing: full of great details about setting up a volunteer system, developing a good culture, staying sane. It’s a like a mini organizational management class.

If you really think about it, dogs greet other dogs using the same process as dial-up modems

Our new library robot is more Star Trek than Black Mirror

I like the new graphics we have up in our library showing visualizations of how our lives have changed over the last year. (These are by @Northeastern students studying data viz.)

In case you’re wondering what the gestation period is for a laptop, mine has a baby bump after 12 months of Zoom.

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 37: Data and the Humanities” — Thinking about @COVID19Tracking as a humanities, rather than data, project; humane artwork created by software; the origins and use of a post office dataset; a cat notation system

Library Redensification Plan is my indie rock band name

Good morning

Every year, Passover offers an eternal lesson: Never eat matzo over your keyboard

Great: The Louvre collections are now online! Also great: all metadata/descriptions are (effectively) CC-BY. A little less great: re-use is limited to medium-format photos for private or educational purposes, and (of course) to artists whose IP has expired

Well this is great news: @ukglo is returning to revitalize the Flickr Commons, which she created and launched in 2008, and which has shared millions of photographs from libraries, archives, and museums.

We may have taken the “next big thing looks like a toy” shtick a bit too far

Winemaking update: We are only a month away from our first bottling, and in preparation we got this gorgeous Italian tappatrice a colonna (standing corker).

Vertical browser tabs, where have you been all my life

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 36: 15% Faster” — “Singin’ in the Rain” as you’ve never seen it before (by @jmittell); the computational analysis of K-pop dance moves; a platform for the scanning of archives; the pandemic year in review.

The LFT, or Library Fungible Token (pronounced “Lifty”), is an object, like a book, that through the immutable laws of physics can only be possessed by one person at a time.

On the latest What’s New podcast, I talk to @JimMc_Grath, one of the curators of A Journal of the Plague Year, which has been collecting thousands of stories and digital artifacts over the past 12 mos. What has been, and should be, saved from the pandemic.

In addition to being showered with awards, I hope that the work of @COVID19Tracking is archived well, including the behind-the-scenes staff communications, documents, and tech. As a historian of science, it’s clear to me that the project will be (and should be) studied in depth.

We are down to just two: the stove and the microwave.

How many clocks or devices that display the time do you have left that need to be manually changed for daylight savings?

I’m on the quad…or am I?

I feel seen

Really nice springtime vibe on campus today @Northeastern

Perfect together: @dpla + @wikimedia: “In our first year, [DPLA] uploaded over 1.25 million media files to Wikimedia Commons, making it the single largest bulk upload to Wikimedia Commons ever.” Great flow from libraries/archives/museums->widespread use.

Today’s hike

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 35: Bounded and Boundless” — A collection of unusual books; NFTs and the long (and fruitless) quest for uniqueness; more on data sonification; the Women Writers Project; the history of podcasts from 1893-1911

Incredible update to Zotero (beta): fantastic built-in PDF reader with many annotation features; better notes; a new tabbed interface so you can have multiple items open at the same time; full support for embedded images. Team @Zotero killing it, as usual.

Find polar bears in remote camera feeds from Hudson Bay, and then decide where they rank in the “Polar Bear Fatness Index,” this is for science

We rarely speak w/ people beyond our social circles, but doing so can bridge divides through shared life experiences. On the latest @podcastwhatsnew from @NortheasternLib, my guest is @csmallstory of @everyday_boston, which facilitates those conversations.

The length of our dog’s legs singlehandedly destroys the theory of intelligent design

A question to ponder: Is cultural output better if it is paid for by direct subscriptions to individual creators, or by cross-subsidies that support those creators within larger structures, such as institutions?

The latest NASA videos have a nice Space: 1999 vibe

Digital art sold as “authentic” using a blockchain/NFT is the latest version of a concept successfully pioneered by Sol LeWitt, William Gibson, and…the Wu-Tang Clan

Don DeLillo’s White Noise reads very differently after the experience of the last year.

You look nice today, New Hampshire

On the What’s New podcast from @NortheasternLib, I talk with @julia_flanders and Sarah Connell about a decades-long effort to make overlooked early modern women writers not only more visible, but available for everyone to study and appreciate in new ways.

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 34: Making Data Physical” — Representing data in the real world to make it more visceral and comprehensible; the galaxy of books and their connections, visualized; write an obit for your dead device + more

I believe we’ve reached Peak Winter

This good piece by @austinkleon, “Blogging as a Forgiving Medium,” is just as much about forgiving audiences.

Winemaking update: After our apparent success pressing the Zinfandel grapes we got from California, we are now trying to make a rosé from Syrah grapes from Oregon, and a batch of Chardonnay from Washington. Getting better at the chemistry.

The year is 2057. In Super Bowl LXXXIV, Tom Brady throws a touchdown pass to Gronkbot 3000, winning the first championship for Blockchain City.

Snow Belle

Is a sentiment that is autocompleted still a sentiment?

Larry’s interviews with Prince, one right after Prince brought down the house in 1981 with a mind-blowing guitar solo at a small Boston club, are each unexpected in their own way. (We are in the process of digitizing Larry’s interview tapes.) Tune in!

This week on the What’s New podcast from the Northeastern University Library, I spoke with Larry Katz, who was a music reporter for the Boston Herald for decades, about his encounters with Prince, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, David Bowie, and many others.

1 year ago @Northeastern launched its Covid-19 task force, making us one of “The Colleges That Took the Pandemic Seriously.” It gave us the longest possible runway to reopen w/ frequent testing, and time to completely redesign the library and its services.

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 33: Bring Back the Color” — Why the objects around us used to be more colorful; how we can bring more unique experiences back to the internet, and why we need them; text for some art; Zoom over 300 baud + more

For our next What’s New podcast, I interviewed a music critic who interviewed Prince, Bob Marley, Barry White, and Aretha Franklin in the early 80s, and as you’ll hear I spent a lot of the show saying “wow!” and “really?”

Barry White on the backlash against disco music and discos in 1979: “People put titles on everything. Before those places were called discos, they were just clubs. After disco they became clubs again. Most people don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Shalanda Baker, Prof. of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs @Northeastern, has joined President Biden’s administration as Deputy Director for Energy Justice. We were fortunate to have Baker on @podcastwhatsnew to talk about what energy justice means.

To start 2021 with some fresh ideas and discoveries, I spoke with three award-winning graduate students about their research on a common protein involved with cancer, the geometry of oyster reefs, and making biofuel from canola. Tune in @podcastwhatsnew!

Great idea: The Science Museum (UK) used its digitized collection, API, and log of web pages with zero views to create “Never Been Seen”—a site that makes you the very first person to see an object. Nice model for serendipity. (via @sebchan’s newsletter)

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 32: Faint and Loud Signals”—Relax in a virtual forest; AI selects appropriate photos for famous poems; the preservation and loss of media from the recent past. Featuring work by @melissaterras @metasemantic

Morning

Quincy Jones predicts the future of music and technology in 1984 (quoted in @matoswk75’s very good Can’t Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop’s Blockbuster Year; I needed some escapist reading this weekend)

This weekend’s reading, via @audreywatters/@hackeducation, was @bjfr’s Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education, which I highly recommend. Many helpful points about ed tech, situated in a useful/longer history + the social/professional/political context.