Interesting things

I've been having trouble keeping this blog updated over the school holidays, obviously. It's hard, because I don't really have anything library-related to write about. I haven't been learning anything, I've only been working in the cafe a lot. So I've decided that I'm going to try to update this blog every couple of weeks, with some links to things that I've been reading or listening to.

First up is The Untold Story of Silk Road, a two-part article written for Wired Magazine by Joshua Bearman. Silk Road was an online black market, where people could by drugs, or guns, or other illegal stuff. In class we covered the Dark Web a little bit, and the lecturer touched on Silk Road, but she strongly recommended that we never go on there. This article examines the creator of Silk Road, and how he was tracked down by the police. Part 1 is here, Part two here.

Serial podcast is back! I'm super excited about it; I loved season one, it was my gateway podcast that introduced me to how amazing they can be. Season two is focussing on Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier that walked away from his base in Afganistan and became a hostage of the Taliban for almost five years. After a case last season that no-one had heard of, it's interesting that they have chosen such a high-profile case for the second season. Serial can be found here.

Something that is more linked to library action is an article from American Libraries Magazine on Melvil Dewey, called 'Melvil Dewey, Compulsive Innovator'. It turns out that Dewey was a massive weirdo, obsessive about numbers and a bit gross towards women.

End of School

The semester is almost done, which is a great relief! I've finished my classes, and now have only assignments to do. One I handed in on Tuesday, and now there is just one left, due on Monday. All that's left for that one is a bit of editing. It's been a tough semester, a pretty boring one, so I'm glad to be nearly done!

I'm sick of talking about what I've been studying, so instead I'm going to talk about podcasts. I love podcasts! I listen to them quite a bit. It all started with Serial, which I think happened to a lot of people. From there, I found a whole lot of podcasts to subscribe to. I listen to a couple of history podcasts, Hardcore History and Emperors of Rome.  This American Life is also terrific. But I've chosen a couple of podcasts and episodes that have relevance to what I'm studying to highlight here.

Note to Self is a podcast about technology and "finding balance in the digital age." One episode that I found really interesting was on Turnitin, which is the software used to find plagiarism in student's work. They use it at RMIT, and it's pretty amazing technology. Here's the direct link to that episode: judging your originality in a cut and paste world

Another podcast that I listen to a lot is Radiolab. It's a show about science and technology, and sounds incredibly boring, but it isn't, it's really good. I picked one episode that has more relevance to digital stuff; called darkode, it's about hackers holding your computer for ransom and also about the website, part of the dark web, where hackers can share information and code.

Reply All is all about the internet, and has a funny segment called "yes yes no", where the hosts explain to the producer of the show what some meme or topical internet thing means. I've been finding that I understand a lot more of what they talk about now, which is kind of amazing.