Clever clogs

I was experimenting with ChatGPT, I asked it a question about the Old Testament book of Leviticus, because I am currently studying it. It generated this answer: 

The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament. It consists of laws and regulations related to worship, sacrifices, and ritual purity, as well as ethical and moral principles. Leviticus was likely compiled over several centuries and serves as a continuation of the story of the Israelites' liberation from slavery in Egypt as recorded in the Book of Exodus.

Leviticus is primarily concerned with the establishment of the priesthood and the proper way to conduct worship in the Tabernacle and later the Temple. The book describes the various types of offerings that were required for atonement of sins and for thanksgiving, as well as regulations for the consecration of priests and the observance of holy days.

The laws and regulations in Leviticus were intended to help the Israelites maintain their covenant with God and to distinguish themselves as a holy people. These laws were also meant to promote social justice and to ensure that the community lived in harmony with each other and with God.

Overall, Leviticus provides a detailed account of the religious and ethical practices of ancient Israel and provides important context for understanding the development of Jewish worship and tradition.

This new technology is showing early promise, but also potential risk factors. Sourabh Kulesh of the Times of India writes that Internet users must be aware that in the wrong hands, it can be used for phishing and creating malware. 

Students using it to submit plagiarised essays is also a potential problem. 

Caveat emptor. 

https://www.pcguide.com/apps/can-universities-detect-chat-gpt/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/why-chatgpt-can-be-dangerous-to-every-internet-user/articleshow/96393104.cms

Buffering, please wait

Acclaimed film director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Dunkirk) prefers to watch movies on Blu-Ray over online streaming platforms such as Netflix.

So do I. Blu Ray has better picture and audio quality than Netflix. Australia has second rate home broadband speeds. The difference is clearly noticeable.

https://www.choice.com.au/electronics-and-technology/internet/connecting-to-the-internet/articles/australia-internet-speed-trails-50th-globally-020617

http://www.techradar.com/news/christopher-nolan-chooses-blu-ray-over-netflix-for-his-movie-watching

One of life's little ironies

Naomi S. Baron has released the findings of a survey comparing use of e-reader devices to printed books. These findings corroborate with similar studies, which consistently show that readers of printed books have better concentration levels, and retain more of what they read than those using e-readers.

At work we have an iPad as a way of encouraging students to use our ebook platform, and I also recently bought one of my own. I went to town loading it up with some free and public domain ebooks, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.

I may or may not download some non fiction titles as well, because I prefer to read them more carefully. The irony comes from me using the internet to express the opinion that it's better to read in print than online. What do you prefer?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/12/the-case-against-kindle-why-reading-paper-books-is-better-for-your-mind-and-body/

Clever clogs

Ever wanted to know how adequate or otherwise your command of the English language is? Well, now you can, courtesy of the good people at testyourvocab.com, It's simply a matter of going through a list of words, and checking boxes besides all the words that you know the meaning of. Assuming that the test is accurate, you may either be pleasantly surprised or horrified. It tells me that I have 28,500 words in my vocabulary. If you take the test, report back and tell me how you went.

http://testyourvocab.com/?r=2429511

A generous data allowance

Dick York as Phil in Shy Guy (1947)

I was reading today about the work of Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, a massive digital preservation project that he financed himself. Amongst other things, he preserves earlier iterations of today's popular websites and other documents of historical value, such as old music, books, software, and video, including the classic 1947 social guidance film Shy Guy, starring actor Dick York. Dick York was later to find fame as the original Darren in Bewitched, but Shy Guy must surely represent the apex of his acting career.

In this schmaltzy slice of post-war Americana, York plays Phil, the teenage son of a single father who has moved to a new town. He spends a lot of time in his basement building radios and record players. Phil struggles to fit in at his new school until he finds a way to use his electronics prowess to help his classmates, and even manages to get a girl interested in him as well. Good on him.

Please explain

Lately, at least partially in reaction to my recent encounter with a Jehovah's Witness, I've been listening to a series of podcasts from the Institute of Biblical Defense on the deity of Jesus Christ. The Institute is an apologetics ministry based in Washington state in the United States. If you're a Christian who wants to learn more about the key doctrines of your faith, then these podcasts are a great resource. If you can get past the bad sound quality, you'll find some meaty teaching there.

The deity of Jesus Christ is one of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Believing that God became a man and lived among humanity, ultimately sacrificing his life to break the curse of sin, which made it possible for humanity to reconcile with God, is what makes a Christian a Christian. Without it, Christianity is useless and has nothing to offer anybody.

In theology, you cannot feasibly build a doctrine around a single verse of Scripture. Christ's death and resurrection is an essential part of how he proved that he was God, and there are numerous passages that provide satisfactory proof to the diligent reader that this actually happened, for example, John 20: 24-28.

The section of the gospel of John tells us of how Thomas, one of the disciples, responded when the other disciples came to him with the news that Jesus was alive. Thomas was a broken man. He had spent three years of his life following Jesus, and it had cost him everything. He mourned deeply over the loss of his friend, and wanted to be alone. The other disciples came to him saying, "We have seen the Lord."

Thomas replied, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were, and put my hands into his side, I will not believe it."

Imagine his astonishment when Jesus came to Thomas and invited him to touch his wounds. He suddenly realized that it was true. Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he said he would. Overcome with emotion at this awesome miracle, he cried out to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" You can find similar confessions elsewhere in John's gospel in John 1:34, 1:49, 4:42, 9:33, 35-38, 11:27, and 16:30.

What does Thomas's confession mean? My friends in the Watchtower Society try to explain this away as Thomas expressing astonishment, but this is not consistent with the text, and it is unlikely that as a devout Jew, Thomas would speak like that, taking God's name in vain. Clearly he is making a statement of faith in Jesus as his Lord and God; one of the most powerful affirmations that an apostle made of Jesus as God. Since this gospel was originally written in Greek, John uses the titles Kurios and Theos. These are equivalent to the Hebrew names Yahweh and Elohim, which in the Jewish mindset are understood to be names and titles of God.

>As John explains a few verses later (20:30), he wants all of his readers to confess Jesus as their Lord and God in the same way that Jesus did. As John makes clear in the prologue of his gospel (1:1, 14, 18), his purpose in writing was to show that Jesus is Messiah and God. If you want to deny these facts, you have the formidable task of explaining away reams of Bible passages, and beliefs that Christians have held since the beginnings of the church in the first century AD.

In my day, Sonny Jim, books were made of paper

Brewster Kahle, the pioneer whose work with the Internet Archive has helped preserve such valuable cultural artifacts as the classic American social education films as Shy Guy (1947) and Beginning to Date (1953), is now involved in a ambitious project to create an archive of every book ever published. It's a great idea. As a bibliophile I heartily agree that the printed word needs to be preserved for future generations.

Biting the hand that feeds you

With some degree of exaggeration, it seems that Google is fast becoming the Tiddalik the frog of the internet world, consuming all before it. Is this a good thing? This report highlights claims of a decline in the quality of Google's search results. As an information professional working in the education sector, I observe the information seeking behaviours of many of my patrons. It concerns me that some of them seem to rely too heavily on Google when doing research. They seem unaware that its search results are not ranked on relevance or quality, but on popularity.

On another level, as the first sentence in this post indirectly implies, I'm also concerned about Google's predominance in the search engine and web services market. In the old media age, some commentators opposed the concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few powerful individuals. They said that it would stifle diversity and reduce freedom of expression. The internet and digital media has changed the media landscape. Nobody has absolute control over it, and freedom of expression has flourished. Even so, I think that corporations like Google have too much control over it, and wish that people would take the time to have a look at other search engines out there. They might be pleasantly surprised at what they find.

The assignment vending machine

This is what's happening to my peers in state schools. From what I've seen, similar information seeking behaviour is starting to become evident in the tertiary education sector, which is a bit of a concern. I'm no Luddite; I'm all for implementing new technology, but reading and research skills are vital parts of literacy.

Look away

As someone whose professional life is increasingly being impacted by the Internet, I've followed the debate about mandatory internet filtering with great interest. Today Jeff Bleich, the American ambassador to Australia, weighed into the debate, saying that it's unnecessary. I agree. I'm against internet filtering because it has no place in a democratic society. The existing regime of content regulation, whereby concerned users can report offensive content to the Australian Communications Authority, is more than adequate. It's not the government's place to regulate the Internet. It's up to parents to monitor their childrens' online activity, or to individual Internet users to take responsibility for what they access.

Treasure hunting without magic peepstones

The National Library of Australia recently launched Trove. Trove combines all of the National Library's online discovery services into one search tool. Once testing is completed, with bugs ironed out, additional features added, and improvements made, Trove will replace all of these services to become a national information portal, harvesting content from such a variety of sources, including library, archive and museum collections, university repositories, digitised newspapers, web archives and online biographical databases. A sample search dug up a range of great documents about Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, Robert Menzies. The NLA are to be commended for showing how libraries are still relevant in the Internet age by creating value added web services. Let's see Google try to top that.

Food for thought

If Facebook died - Eureka Street

Shared via AddThis

Zeroes and ones

After a long gestation, in partnership with the United States Library of Congress, UNESCO recently launched the World Digital Library. Its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the web, provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences, and to build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and among countries. It aims to expand non-English and non-Western content on the web, and contribute to scholarly research.

The library intends to make available on the web, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. At launch, the library held 1,170 items, and the interface is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

That all sounds worthwhile, doesn't it? One of the good things about this site is that the available documents are accompanied by descriptions that place them in their historical and cultural context. I also like the user friendly interface.

Casting nets

ALIA announces the release of the latest Internet access in public libraries survey 2008 which demonstrates the vital role of Australian public libraries in addressing the need for equitable community access to online information and services: http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/internet.access/

The survey, the fourth conducted by the Association since 2002, shows that since 2005 there has been a 41% increase in the number of public access internet terminals in public libraries. The increase since 2005 in the number of users each week is 91% – that means that an estimated 147,000 users access the internet via their local public library each week.

Here are a few other statistics from the survey:

· Complaints about internet content within public libraries are extremely rare representing 0.2% of users; 99.8% of internet use is complaint free

· Public libraries filter not only illegal and offensive material but also social networking sites, games and very large files

· The trend is towards an increase in the use of filtering software in public libraries: 36% of respondents in 2008 compared with 30% in 2005

· Using internet filtering does not stop complaints

· One third of responding libraries provide separate terminals for access by children

ALIA has also issued a media release about the survey: ‘Public libraries provide vital infrastructure for Australia’s digital future’ http://www.alia.org.au/media.room/2009.02.27.html

Here is an excerpt from the media release:

"Access to the internet is an extremely important enabler for the delivery of better health, education, information and community services, particularly as many government services are increasing online service delivery to clients," said Derek Whitehead, President of the Association. "Australia's long-term economic development is closely connected to the ability of all of us to participate in the digital economy and use information in our daily lives."

ALIA has a long-standing and active interest in the public debate on the regulation of internet content in Australia. The Association has a particular interest in policy and legislative issues relating to the provision of public access internet services in public libraries. ALIA is committed to promoting the free flow of information and ideas in the interest of all Australians and a thriving culture, economy and democracy. ALIA supports the development of an information infrastructure with libraries as the conduit for a sustainable knowledge economy.

This survey is a follow-up to surveys conducted in 2002, 2005 and 2007, and the online content and regulation issue is an important part of ALIA’s national advocacy program. Visit the ALIA website for more information about this issue: http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/internet.access/

The searchers

At the recent ALIA unconference, which was held at Thomastown Library, I learnt about the new search engine Searchme. Unlike other search engines, which display search results textually, Searchme lets you see what you're searching for. When you enter a search term, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you'll see snapshots of web pages that relate to your search. You can preview the content of these pages before you click through to them. This is similar to the preview pane in Apple's iTunes. Based on a search I did for pages about our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, it seems to work quite well. You also have the option to search for web, video, and images, and also create a stack, which is a personal folder of pages of interest.

What a web we weave

Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the uber-boffin responsible for creating the World Wide Web, has created an archive of what was the world's first website, put online in August 1991. This was a watershed moment in the development of the Internet, which began life in the defence and academic communities. From these humble beginnings, little did he know that from this point on up to the present day, his invention would eventually pervade almost every aspect of our lives, changing the way we work, communicate with one another, travel, learn, do business, socialise, express opinions, waste time, and pollute our minds with various forms of unsavoury content. PS: I'll also give bragging rights to anyone who can identify the computer in this picture.

Index fingers

Some of my peers in ANZTLA have been busy beavering away on the new web-enabled version of the Australasian Religious Index (ARI). From 1989 until the present, it was published in hard copy, but is now available as an online resource. The database is an author and subject index covering over eighty religious and theological serials published in Australia or New Zealand and representing all religious traditions. Related areas of study such as history and sociology are also covered. ARI indexes articles, notes and book reviews in religious studies, theology and related fields in the humanities and social sciences. If you're so inclined, you will find this database to be a valuable research tool.

Aiming high

We at Tabor Victoria's Leo Harris Resource Centre have recently upgraded to the latest version of Concord's AIMS library management system. From any browser, anywhere, students and staff can undertake federated searches of the catalogue simultaneously finding non-digital and digital resources using a variety of search options.

They can search by title, author, subject, series, or other parameters, or perform advanced searches with Boolean operators using search methods that parallel the way internet search engines operate. If you're a information searching novice, and are unsure how to phrase search terms, you can enter part of a word or phrase, and a suggested search term will appear on the screen. Clicking on this with your mouse will give you more precise search results.

The above screenshot was created using ScreenGrab, a recently released plugin for Mozilla's Firefox browser, which I avidly use in the interests of supporting open source alternatives to commercially available software. As a librarian, I'm supposed to be committed to promoting the free flow of information and ideas through open access to recorded knowledge, information, and creative works, so this is one way of supporting this goal.

Bonzer web apps

Whilst in no way a substitute for human interaction, online chat applications can be very useful. What if your operating system or browser doesn't support a certain chat program? Why not try Meebo? Meebo is a cross platform web-based instant messaging program that supports Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, and ICQ, amongst others. Meebo also supports video conferencing, voice chat, and file transfers. Users can also use a widget to embed the application into their personal website and host their own chat rooms. Now to come up with a productive, serious use for all these nifty features.

Pretentious windbag

If this is to be believed, this is the reading level required to understand my blog. What a surprise. As for its accuracy, I'll leave that for others to decide.