Muddiest Point from 12/06/10

I'm not really sure about the section with Checksum and Hash Codes.  I understand that, per my notes, a Hash Code is "a unique code based on content of material and is generated based on some mathematical formula."  I guess I just need a little more explanation on these two, since I'm looking over my notes from class and I'm stumped as to how to explain these two concepts to people.

Comments on others' blogs 12/1/2010

http://lostscribe459.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-13-reading-notes.html?showComment=1291257222800#c5703442175021003209

and


http://christyfic.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-week-13-dec-6-2010.html?showComment=1291257704885#c8167869926632286763

Readings for 12/06

Well, the YouTube video was unavailable.  The message I received when I tried to view it:

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc..

The No Place to Hide website was...scary.  I mean, I know that personal information is always being monitored.  But wow..."When you go to work, stop at the store, fly in a plane, or surf the web, you are being watched. They know where you live, the value of your home, the names of your friends and family, in some cases even what you read. Where the data revolution meets the needs of national security, there is no place to hide."  (from the website).  Sobering, truly sobering.  I guess I live in a state of semi-plausible denial about privacy violations and I hate it when I'm forced back into reality.


The section on the "Total 'Terrorism' Information Awareness (TIA)" was also disturbing.  I'd heard of data mining, but I prefer to pretend that it doesn't exist and that our government plays no part in it.  

Muddiest Point from 11/29

I have no muddiest point from this week.

My Website

Here is the URL for my website:


http://www.pitt.edu/~thg9/

Comments on others' blogs

http://maj66.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-12-readings.html?showComment=1290870580581#c1471750521571797185

and

http://barbcmblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-12-reading-notes.html?showComment=1290870838123#c8643404966697184115

Readings for 11/29

LOVED the clip about Wikipedia.  I use Wikipedia pretty frequently and found the video to be really interesting and I think the Wikibooks project sounds great.  The number of volunteers working on this is staggering.  Logically, it doesn't seem like any of this should work as well as it does.  I enjoyed hearing about the quality control measures in place.  I always kind of wondered exactly how that worked.

The article about librarians making their own wikis was also pretty cool.  I'd never thought about the possibilities for librarians before.  I'm sure I'll be making use of these in my career.

The social tagging article was also really interesting.  I think that would be a great innovation for libraries.  After all, we want people to be able to find information.  What better way than to have patrons come up with the tags that make the most sense to them?

The article about blogging was also helpful.  I think the idea of using blogs for collaboration is a cool one.  It does sound like it would be a lot easier to use for that than the seemingly endless stream of back-and-forth e-mails.