Kopi Luwak Coffee

I am a self proclaimed food and wine snob....however, I draw the line below. Have you heard of this?

Kopi_Luwak

s

an observation today

Okay,

So while at the conference today. I heard a handful of people say under their breath. -- "But how will this help me do my job, what is the point of this?" Maybe they don't understand the idea behind what the conference is about. If we could predict the future and what we as librarians needed to do to respond to it, we'd already be doing it. I hope that this conference inspires me to explore how we can respond to what might happen...

off my soapbox....

s

Ray Kurzweil -- need I say more?

If you aren't familiar with Mr. Kurzweil look him up at www.kurzweilai.net.

I heard him speak a few months ago on NPR, I have since nagged my husband with what he spoke about. Mr. Kurzweil has a proven track record at predicting the future. Most of his predictions are based on the fact that technology doubles ever year. And while technology is doubling every year...the price points on that same technology are cut in half ever year. For example if you buy a computer today, it will be half the cost for one the same size/speed in a year.

He feels that global warming will cease to be an issue as the technology will allow us to make viable solar panels to run everything.

He showcased his hand held reading machine for the blind. It basically takes a picture of anything with text and on the fly presents it through speach.

He stated that technology is now more quickly adopted. For example it took the telephone 50 years to be widely adopted, the cell phone 7 years, and newer technologies are being adopted almost instantly.

Mr. Kurzweil feels computer will disappear by 2010. He feels they will be replaced with images written directly to our retinals.
We will constantly be conected to the internet.
Technology will be embeded in our environment (clothing, eye glasses, etc)


I could write all night about his speech as is is truly wonderful...All the slides from today are on the following site.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/pps/palinet/

s

Salvador Avila -- Clark County Las Vegas

Okay -- A nice gentleman from Darrell's old stoping grounds. Salvador gave a great presentation entitled "You are becoming me and I am becoming you! -- Setting record straight on Latinos being the majority population in the US."

While he gave tons of ways we should be reaching out to this community, I must say some were new to me. :) He pointed out the key differences between "Immigrant's" and Second generation Latinos. He states that we should assume that 2nd generation spanish speakers will want and need to be treated like everyone else. Immigrants he feels need to be treated differently based on their culture that they brought with them.

Avila feels that we should take on more of a social service type roles to cater to these populations. Examples of which are becoming a referal service...and moreover taking the time to talk to people about what is going on in their life.

Avila pointed that 2nd generation Latinos are becoming involved in things whites are becoming less interested in such as
Nascar
redeo
super bowl
libraries :)

We may want to market to these interests.


Most immigrants don't use Spanish. We should be alligned with the culture, but not change our ways to fit their culture, they are trying to assimilate.


I have lots of examples of things he said..... email me

S

Futures Conference

Okay, I must admit I'm a bit of a library conference junkie. However, this is the best one I've ever been to. Maybe it is because It is a topic I am very interested in, or more likely it is that most of the presenters work outside the library world. I hope to do short blog enteries on each of the speakers. If you want to talk to me more in dept about any of them, please feel free to contact me.

S

A new MacBook!

Corey bought me a new computer today... Yeah!

I'm in Atlantic City to attend the Palinet Library futures conference I'm so excited! Raymond Kurzweil is the keynote speaker.

http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html. I hope to blog about the conference!

off to bed!
Sydney

Darfur...simply educate yourself

If you don't know about what is going on in Darfur...please educate yourself. I continue to be amazed at how little the world is doing to help.

Visit www.savedarfur.org

Goodnight....

Sydney

I've entered a new day...

This will be my thrid attempt at keeping a blog. I always have good intentions. Even before having a child my time management skills were non-exsistant now I just roll with it. I feel I need to keep some track of what is going on in my life. Even if others are not entertained, I find my life and the people in it crazy entertaining. :) I feel almost every day I have a little jewel of a story to share, and my husband gets quite sick of listing to them. :)

I just returned from the Maryland Library association conference. And while they really are the nicest group of people to ever assemble, their fashion attempts are well... scary to say the least. I swear that if there is a cat print , librarians will find it and sew it into an article of clothing, or better yet a canvas bag. :) I swear sensable footwear does not have to be horribly ugly...does it?


With that, I"m off to bed.....

S