My lovely wonderful PT Cruiser is now over 5 years old and has experienced over 60,000 miles of travel with no big problems. But just before it’s 60K mile redo — the night before in fact — it stalled out at every stop light and took what seemed like forever to restart (grind grind grind grind).
I took it in the next morning for the 60K and told the mechanic about the sudden onset of the stallouts. He nodded and said that it had been a hot evening and that some gunk in the throttle housing must have gotten more liquid and then stopped up some of the throttle intake. He added that to the list.
For a few days the car and I were fine. Then last Tuesday evening, after very good and very normal performance, the car stalled at a light again and took almost 5 minutes to restart.
On the way home, it stalled regularly at stops.
I got back on the fix it list.
The car worked fine.
Today I took the car in and in a few minutes it was back out. What happened? The mechanic said that there was a tech bulletin that described a similar problem. The fix was to download some new firmware into the onboard computer. So far so good.
Archive for June, 2006
Jun
30
2006
Lyceum in Reference Services ReviewPosted by Paul in Alumni and other friends, General, Information Commons, Virtual CommunitiesFred and Jeff, Stutzman and Pomerantz, have a new article “Collaborative reference work in the blogosphere.” Reference Services Review 34, No. 2 (2006): 200-212. Abstract: Purpose This paper explores the use of blogs as a platform forproviding reference service, and discusses Lyceum, an open source software project from ibiblio.org, for this purpose. Design/methodology/approach The following topics are explored: the evolution of libraries’ uses of blogs, the advantages of conducting the reference transaction as a collaborative effort, and the use of blogs as an environment that fosters collaboration. The argument is made that blogs may be used to good effect in reference services Findings It is argued that blogs may be used to good effect in reference services. Lyceum, an open source blogosphere application, is discussed as an environment for blog-based reference service.
Jun
30
2006
Alan Garr and New Hill Echoes at BynumPosted by Paul in Alumni and other friends, Amusements, GeneralTonight, Alan Garr and the New Hill Echoes will be playing at the Bynum General Store at 7 or 7:30 depending on which info you go by. The band includes Sylvia who occassionally comments here.
Jun
29
2006
New Books on My ShelfPosted by Paul in Amusements, General, Information Commons, literatureI’ve been reading good literary novels up til lately. Now I’ve picked up the first two “Read Or Die” manga and Vernor Vinge’s new “Rainbows End.” Any manga that has as its hero, a librarian with special powers over paper is fine by me. And Vinge’s new book, dedicated to Wikipedia, Google and eBay is described, in part, this way on the flap:
Jun
29
2006
Digital Curation Grant for SILS, ibiblio, UNC LibrariesPosted by Paul in General, Information Commons, Virtual CommunitiesThe Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the recipients of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grants. A UNC team that includes ibiblio.org will receive over $500k in support of our project, Preserving Access to Our Digital Future: Building an International Digital Curation Curriculum and the Carolina Digital Curation Fellowship Program. Members in the project include: Helen Tibbo, Principle Investigator (PI) (for School of Information and Library Science)
Jun
29
2006
Tie vote scuttles Net Neutrality (for now)Posted by Paul in Alumni and other friends, General, Information Commons, Virtual CommunitiesThe Senate Telecommunications Committee voted 11 – 11 not to include the Net Neutrality provisions recommended by Senators Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan. There will be more action on the full Senate voting and much lobbying upcoming. Washington Post reports here. And a good brief summary in USA Today. UPDATE: Senator Wyden puts hold on Telecom Bill Without Net Neutrality.
Now AP (via NYTimes) tells us that DaimlerChrysler is bringing the SmartCar to the USA. Let’s see 60K miles and 5 years on my PT. Hmmmm.
Jun
27
2006
Raleigh Chronicle on Apple Store OpeningPosted by Paul in Amusements, General, Virtual Communities
Jun
27
2006
BarCampRDU chickletPosted by Paul in FOO Camp, General, Information Commons, Virtual CommunitiesKurt Schlatzer of 6th Sense Analytics has whipped up this very cool
Jun
27
2006
WRAL’s TechTalk on BarCampRDUPosted by Paul in FOO Camp, General, Information Commons, News of News, Virtual CommunitiesFred alerts us to Tara’s TechTalk piece on the WRAL blogs explaining BarCampRDU. It’s a very clear and concise piece that gets the BarCamp facts right and lets you know a little about the what, who, where and why of BarCampRDU. I was there at Crabtree on Saturday along with about 400 others at the moment of opening. I filed my story with the Raleigh Chronicle on Saturday afternoon. The Chronicle is a Tuesday – Friday paper so’s it won’t be out until tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some of the pictures that I took before and during the opening.
Jun
26
2006
Isolation update in Washington PostPosted by Paul in General, Information Commons, News of News, Virtual CommunitiesWe were alerted by Barry Wellman that Sebastian Mallaby would be publishing an Opinion section of the Washington Post on the Social Isolation story. It’s up now (and likely in print too), but Barry and I are both disappointed. Mallaby misses the findings of Barry’s research even though he mentions them. Twenty minutes on the phone with Barry, the top guy on friendship networks living, and Mallaby can’t tell that 15 is greater than 2 or 3 without changing what that means. No, no! We are not lonely and we do have broader social networks than ever before according to Wellman. But that doesn’t satisfy Mallaby; once he’s told that we actually have more extensive networks, he switches his stance to tell us that having a more extensive network means that we don’t have connections that are as deep as in the networks-formerly-known-as-lonely-but-now-known-as-deep. Mallaby’s suggestion form carpools is clever but only slightly extends your social network, only slightly deepens a couple of relationships. Here’s a more clever suggestion: People should join bike-to-work groups. People who experience more physical exercise and who experience that exercise together are more social and more physicially healthy too. And they use no gas at all! Or to borrow from a scandalous talk by James Watson, people are happier when they are overweight and well tanned. We all need to get to the beach and participate in that most isolationist of pleasurable activities — reading an engrossing book!
Jun
25
2006
Isolation? What Isolation?Posted by Paul in Amusements, General, News of News, Virtual CommunitiesBarry Wellman gives the inside story on the study that has been widely misquoted in the press about social isolation including this one in the Washington Post “Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says The Number of People Who Say They Have No One to Confide In Has Risen“ by Shankar Vedantam published on Friday, June 23, 2006. Wellman writes to the Association of Internet Researchers (quoted in full with permission):
Should be Sebastian Mallaby who writes on Mondays. So keep an eye open for that. pj The wonderful Kathy Sierra of “Creating Passionate Users” points us to Slow Leadership’s fine article and graphic on “How to Kill Creativity.” Read and heed.
Jun
24
2006
Phil Dick Android Still MissingPosted by Paul in Alumni and other friends, Amusements, GeneralThe NY Times covers the case of the missing Phillip K Dick Android head (again). Sally and I were amazed by the PKDA at NextFest in Chicago last summer. Now I feel like I’m reading about the wandering mystery of an old friend. Why has the store opening been delayed for 6 months? What are they doing to prepare for flooding? Is it true that Apple tries to keep their openings secret until the last minute to generate interest via viral publicity? Was at the Crabtree Valley Mall Apple Store opening this morning. I was there for Randall Gregg’s Raleigh Chronicle trying to commit journalism of a sort. Randall gets first crack at the pictures and the writing, but I’ll link to whatever he uses and then to the pictures that he doesn’t use later. There as a big crowd of what I would guess was between 300 and 400 people in line by the time the store opened. All enthusiastic and less white male than one might assume. More once Randall has his picks.
Jun
23
2006
Lyceum Logo and New ReleasePosted by Paul in Alumni and other friends, General, Information Commons, Virtual CommunitiesJOMC’s Laura Ruel reports that the Nielsen Norman Group reports: “Task-oriented users really don’t pay attention to images on Web pages.” Laura goes on to report that:
David Menconi covers the cover on the NandO Music blog. It would be funnier if the next elections weren’t so serious — even for the do-nothing job of Governor of Texas. Still I find the Kinkster very funny, very talented and very crazy in the best ways. NOTE: the Kinky official site tells us that on June 21 Kinky was officially placed on the official ballot having gotten the most officially valid signature of any independent candidate. |















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