Back to the Academy

So, I have returned to school in hopes of securing a subject master's degree in Computer Science along with a graduate certificate in Applied GIS. Ideally I would like to also take classes in education and business as well, currently both time and money are limited, so we'll see. By the way the poverty of posts here should be taken as an indication that I am (a) busy with school work, (b) working on something so engaging and interesting I have temporarily forgotten I have a blog, or (c) I had to help a friend save the world from certain doom. I also have the problem of not wanting to post incomplete ideas/data.

Ciao.

Maps in Film: Lost Girl

A while back, I was watching the Canadian TV series Lost Girl [imdb]. In the episode ten ("The Mourning After") the location of a precious object is thaumaturgically ascertained, or more accurately, discovered via map dowsing.


Of course, map dowsing requires a map and when I see a map in film,  I always wonder whether it is a real or fictional map of a real or fictional place. Well, in this case it is a real map of the Niagara Gorge. The map is a 1912 topographic map produced cooperatively between the Geological Survey of Canada and the United States Geological Survey (close-up below).


A copy of the map resides in the University of Toronto's Map Library [link] and has been enabled for digital access [link]. It seems reasonable to suggest that the map seen on screen is a copy of UT's, especially considering that the show is filmed in Toronto.

Searching WorldCat.org

Okay so you've found a reference to a book, author, musical performer, subject, etc. somewhere on the internet. You wonder whether a library near you has a copy, what materials on the subject exist, or what else this author, musician, etc has created. You could search participating libraries at worldcat.org as a part of the sleuthing process by using OCLC/WorldCat's search add-on for your web browser. Oh, wait that only works in Firefox....

For those of you who don't want to make your Firefox search add-on list any longer, or don't even use Firefox, you can drag this link to your bookmarks toolbar, select some text on a web site, click the bookmark and be taken in a new window/tab to WorldCat results. It is a hack, but can be easily refined in a number of ways, if one wished. It works for me the way it is, with one little problem: selected text in a form field (and probably within flash content) can't be used as fodder for the search.

Here is the code:

javascript:(
function%20getSelText(){
var%20txt='';
if(window.getSelection){
txt=window.getSelection();
}
else%20if(document.selection){
txt=document.selection.createRange().text;
}
else{
return;
}
newSearch=window.open(%22http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=%22+txt);
}
)();

Abuhachi torazu ｢虻蜂取らず」

Abuhachi torazu ｢虻蜂取らず」 is an idiom found at the beginning of Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms, it means literally to catch neither the horsefly nor the bee; in other words try to do two things at once and fail at both. Deconstructing it we have: Abu 「虻」'horsefly' + hachi 「蜂」'bee' and a form of toru「取る」'take in the hand; acquire'. This is to say I feel I have too many different interesting scholarly projects going and I'm feel as though I am failing at them all.