Electric Dirt Farmer » Shoebox of Mystery

Evergreen-ILS Research: fixed field abbreviations

the proprietor — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:53:58 +0000

The Evergreen MARC editor uses abbreviations in the interface for fixed data. I was having a hard time figuring out what the abbreviations meant and page at OCLC appears to have most if not all of those abbreviations.

Evergreen-ILS Research: SIP2 media types

the proprietor — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:41:43 +0000

I’m working on a migration to the Evergreen ILS and encountered a sip2_media_type field in the config.circ_modifier table. It’s a text field but the example data in the schema file has numeric codes like ‘001’.

There didn’t seem to be any reference to what the valid values might be for this field, or what the codes indicated. I’m pretty sure this field is used for interfacing with self-check machines which is a function that won’t be used with the catalogue I’m working on. However, I figured it might be useful to know in any case so I went looking for a reference.

I was able to find a list of the 3M media types on this PDF document at the Library and Archives Canada website.

Valid values from the 3M Media Type scheme

000 Other
001 Book
002 Magazine
003 Bound journal
004 Audiotape
005 Videotape
006 CD/cdrom
007 DISKETTE
008 Book with Diskette
009 Book with CD
010 Book with audiotape

Quote from The Rise and Decline of the State

the proprietor — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:40:00 +0000

I’ve started reading Martin van Creveld’s The Rise and Decline of the State. I haven’t made it too far in yet and I’m still reading through the section on pre-state political communities. Today, I came across a particularly fascinating fact about confidence in “public” treasuries.

Simply put, the confidence in the government’s ability and willingness to honor its obligations was non-existent; it is not for nothing that, in Hebrew, “sending one’s money down the drain” is derived from a term whose original meaning was “public treasury” (Greek timaion).

(The quote is from page 55 of the paperback edition, ISBN 978-0-521-65629-0.)

Small Farms

the proprietor — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 19:29:00 +0000

This Small Farms business plan contest is interesting. (That website is a bit opaque; make sure to click through some of the image links for more info.) Living in an agriculture centred community as I do makes the ups and downs of the ag industry a part of my life even though I’m not a farmer (despite the blog title). I will be very interested to see what kinds of plans come out of this competition. I remain unconvinced that a lot of small farms can be really viable: the structure of the industry is not really friendly to small start-ups like you see in software and related tech fields.

New Trigonometry?

the proprietor — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 03:12:00 +0000

The term new trigonometry is not something I ever expected to see. Maybe I’m simply out of my knowledge league, but the idea particularly odd and a bit wacky. Of course, it would be fantastically cool if it works as advertised. I may just have to read the book.

Link via tech.memeorandum.

Steve Jobs at Stanford

the proprietor — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 02:50:00 +0000

I just finished listening to the address by Steve Jobs at Stanford University’s commencement ceremony on June 12, 2005. (I downloaded the wiredatom recording of the speech as broadcast via Stanford’s live stream.)

As I would expect from a person with Steve Jobs’ talent and experience at centre stage, the address was impeccably well delivered and inspirational. It was a bit odd for a commencement given that he extolled the virtues of dropping out and not following a mandatory program of courses. But, then again, it’s unlikely that many people will drop out merely because it worked out really well for Steve Jobs. As he himself pointed out, you can only connect the dots looking back.

It’s worth listening to if you’ve got some time to spare.

Nagasaki After the Bomb

the proprietor — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:05:00 +0000

Today in my aggregator, I found a link from David S. Isenberg to this series about the bombing of Nagasaki. It was written by American reporter George Weller, but suppressed by the occupation authorities. I have not read the whole series yet, but I’m finding it to be a vivid, informative, and thought provoking read.

Make Is Open For Business

the proprietor — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 17:10:00 +0000

This is cool. I’m happy to see that Make is now available. I will have to see if I can find it on a newstand and give it a tryout.

Nice Article on Nuclear Power

the proprietor — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 02:20:00 +0000

Wired Magazine has a nice article on nuclear energy in the latest issue (13.02: the Firefox issue). It’s mostly about the US industry: why it stalled, ideas for kick starting it, and potential problems with doing just that. It’s a good article; I learned a few things I didn’t know before. In particular, I didn’t know the USA Government actually collects a tax from nuclear power producers for the purpose of waste disposal.

South Asian Tsunami Aid

the proprietor — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 21:35:00 +0000

Of course, nearly everyone is talking about the Christmas/Boxing Day Tsunami in South Asia. I really wanted to make a donation, but I couldn’t find anywhere I could do that online without a credit card. Then I saw that PayPal had a link for donating to UNICEF. I’m still going to try making a donation the old fashioned way because I only have a little bit of money in my PayPal account. (I have to transfer money to PayPal before sending it, and that takes a long time.)

Anyway, thanks PayPal.