Libraries that use self-checkout stations will be forced to give patrons an extra book.

🏳️‍🌈🚲Cole🚄🚟@coleurbanist.bsky.social · 5d ago

This is not “dems deliver” this is a stupid policy idea that either effectively bans self checkout (bad) or raises grocery prices (worse)

Hard truth: Crappy AI-written books wouldn't be getting book deals if people had taste to begin with.

People are getting their brains cooked by AI—dividing into idiotic AI boosters and Salem-Witchcraft-trial AI haters—because social media cooked their brains first.

It's important to oppose conspiracy thinking wherever it is. Vaccines aren't a conspiracy. Trump lost in 2020. And while it's understandable to oppose AI and AI book scanning, the AI companies aren't destructively scanning books as part of a master plan to destroy all the world's physical books.

The past is a foreign country www.librarything.com/work/709369/...

It's happening! Bookish people, swing by @librarything.com this Friday 12-2pm Eastern. It'll feel like 1997 all over again.

I finally read it, and now I realize almost all the criticisms were by people who clearly hadn't read it. Which… yeah. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

The End of Reading Is Here

Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.

theatlantic.com

Visited the intersection in Biddeford where Joan Sebastian Guerrero was shot by ICE yesterday. There was a continual stream of Mainers bringing votives candle and flowers. The asphalt where his body lay, bleeding out, was still distinctly red.

Typeface Monday: What do you think of Palatino?

To keep the same basic healthcare plan, @librarything.com needs to spend 21% more next year. We’re 10 people and health insurance is 2-4 employee we aren’t hiring. Yeah, gas is bad, but this stuff is absolutely crushing for a small business.

An LC librarian I met at ALA had business cards printed on the back side of actual, discarded catalog cards. Where can I get a gross of them myself, so I can slavishly imitate him?

The answer is clear: Gambling Books, a new line of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, but instead of making decisions about what page to go to, you roll dice to find out. The "Lottery" book would have a lot of "You have lost." pages.

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 4w ago

Gambling has become a more common leisure activity than reading a book: Last year, 57 percent of Americans placed a bet.

Democrats will lose the Senate because the left caught Trumpism—he "wasn't perfect" but he was “our champion” who “fights"! Competence and character were boring and ignored. Every scandal made him stronger. "The media" was out to get him! You got your man—and now he’s going to lose it all.

Today is the 150th anniversary of Portland, Maine's Great Fire of 1866—lit by a firecracker, the biggest US city fire before Chicago! portlandfiretours.com/2025/02/16/t...

Pointless, but pretty.

My new Maine dating website: PlentyofLobsters 🦞

There's a real need for new library tech. One might even say there's a vacuum.

LibraryThingTim@librarythingtim.bsky.social · last mo.

The most interesting tech I saw at ALA Chicago was an industrial-strength Roomba-like vacuum robot. I could totally see them running around libraries every night. That a vacuum was the most interesting technology, however, tells you something about the stagnation of library technology.

The most interesting tech I saw at ALA Chicago was an industrial-strength Roomba-like vacuum robot. I could totally see them running around libraries every night. That a vacuum was the most interesting technology, however, tells you something about the stagnation of library technology.

Proposal for a Fiction Decimal System—"DDC for fiction," "BISAC as a shelf order." Genres make people mad, so let the 10-minute hate begin! www.librarything.com/topic/385147

To save space, monthly LibraryThing work-popularity numbers were stored by "LibraryThing month," with month 0 being the month we started—one byte. LibraryThing has now hit the 256-month problem—we need two bytes!

Like many sites, LibraryThing has a pronoun field for members. I do not respect these pronouns: Cryptocurrency App Development Company Buy Guest Posts include article, SEO, Digital PR, Link Building Hyderabad Escort Model freecashappmoneynoverification

I recently finished Isaacson's "Steve Jobs." One peculiarity: There's endless stories of jobs obsessing over the aesthetics of objects—cases, bevels, finishes, etc. There's even the sad story of a half-conscious Jobs ripping off his oxygen mask and demanding to be shown five more masks,

LibraryThing interviewed the owner, Stacy, for our State of the Thing newsletter, for whom magazines are "tangible, intentional, and full of possibility. You choose them; they don’t choose you. That creates a different kind of relationship than what we experience on our phones."

LibraryThing@librarything.com · 3mo ago

LibraryThing sat down this month for a special interview with Stacy Mitchell, founder and proprietor of Bold Magazine Shop in LibraryThing's very own Portland, Maine! #interview #magazines #BoldMagazineShop

It's 4:14 in the morning and in the last 14 minutes since the start of the hour, 14 LibaryThing members have made THIRTEEN PAGES of "helper" edits to works, authors, etc. All day long people are making the site better. It's inspiring, gorgeous. It makes me get up in the morning.

Everyone write stories about nice AI. Skynet nukes a killer asteroid! HAL draws up a warm bath!

Martin Paul Eve@eve.gd · 3mo ago

Original post: x.com/AnthropicAI/...

I'm packing for a trip to Ireland, and of course that means bringing a little library. Fortunately, many are mass-market paperbacks—small, light and not skimping on pages. The whole format is now being phased out. What a pity that will be!

These Strange New Minds by @summerfieldlab.bsky.social is the LLM book I've been waiting for, and I can't believe I missed it. It's a little dated now (first released summer 2024), but still excellent. Basically, it's a wide-ranging, curious book about LLMs,

LibraryThing@librarything.com · 3mo ago

This week, LibraryThing staff are reading: Tim: These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means by Christopher Summerfield Abby: To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage Kate: Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley

Here's a crappy AI animation of a cat walking and then going to sleep. Where would I go if I wanted a similar—but better—NON-AI animation of the same? (And how much do such things cost?)

They say the best way learn a language is from a girlfriend or boyfriend. I've never had that—I mostly studied dead languages! I just got an ad for an app that seems to be trying to meld "AI girlfriend" and "language learning." What a profoundly weird world we live in.

Birthplaces of authors on LibraryThing, linear and log. A remarkable graph. You'd expect authors to move to New York, the center of publishing, but it turns out just being born there is a huge help.