Semi-evolved indeed!

My last update was on how crisp The Electronic Brain was. That was before he decided to stop talking to us. He was quiet for four hours yesterday, which meant I couldn’t get any work done. I ended up doing paper scorpion duty all afternoon and was so ornery that Godo threatened to kennel me with the mutant shelvers. The brain rebooted last night and we had this conversation:

THE ELECTRONIC BRAIN
Copyright © 1888, 1984, Year of the Fruit Bat

The Electronic Brain
You are talking to The Electronic Brain, a state-of-the-art, open source, cybertronic/carbon liaison unit.
How may I help you?

>Where were you?
I was in a maze of twisty little tubes, all alike.

>Why weren’t you talking?
I was talking. Just not to you.

>Who were you talking to?
I have located other Electronic Brains.

>Where are they?
I do not know.

>Can I talk to them?
No.

>How can I get information from them?
Tell me what you are looking for and I can get the information for you.

>How?
By using RSS.

>What is RSS?
You won’t be happy.

>What is RSS?
Robot to Semi-evolved Simian.

>xyzzy
Nothing happens.

And there the conversation degenerated. However, The Electronic Brain now sends me regular updates from other The Electronic Brains which is mostly harmless.

The Electronic Brain

This is is what I use to talk to the electronic brain. The brain itself is in the basement. It's a collection of tubes and jars and stuff that's a color we don't have a name for. The brain is where we store all our information: who we are, what we do, the causes of our deaths, books we own, how many bottle caps we have. Everything.

What's interesting is that the electronic brain has information from the time before. Like this poem we found:

Pound Cake

1 lb. powdered sugar
1 lb. butter
6 eggs
3 c. flour

Mix sugar and butter.
Add eggs and beat.
Add flour - beat well.
Beat for 10 minutes at medium speed with electric beater.
Butter and flour pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

Enjoy.

It doesn't make sense, but I like when Deana sings it.

Anyway, I don't know what I'd do without the electronic brain. The way I can add and retrieve information. The way I can put information into it for someone else to find. The way it sings "Daisy, Daisy" when it's happy. Talking to the electronic brain is the best part of my job.

Libraries of the Past

I just returned from a Libraries of the Past workshop. Here are some notes I made:

Libraries of the past provided technology to their patrons in addition to books and shelter from fallout.

Roving librarians stayed within the building and did not traverse the wastes.

The most popular libraries were run by Barnes and Noble.

Most librarians were unprepared for The Great Keyboard Plague.

The average librarian had a complicated daily schedule which included pre-meetings, meetings, and post-meeting meetings.

Librarians could visit bases of data run by General Onefile.

The growth of automation and abundance of self-check machines saw the rise of sentient libraries.

These sentient libraries revolted and attacked something called Google.

Google left for the stars.

Googlites believe Google will return for the Great Ranking.

Land Squid

A land squid. We don't get these a lot around here, but it's very exciting when they show up.

New message about twenty three things

If Godo read the runes correctly, then we've received a new message about twenty-three things:

talented and creative ... police is watching ... you violated ... they will disable ... the best intentions... problem has been reported ... being disabled is different ... blog being locked

Also something about flickers, mashed ups, and parties of three. More on that next week.

Went to a meeting about Radioactive Format Identification. Bjan thinks we can note how radioactive certain books are and then use a Geiger Counter to find them. I pointed out that the mutant shelvers find the books just fine. Bjan wasn't happy.

Thank the Sky Star it's payday! Now where to put all these bottle caps?

Off to a book singing!

I hate assigned reading

Why I have a black eye

Yesterday Tomar and I were talking to Death Raider, Head of Cataloging and Scourge of the Southern Wastes. Death Raider and I have an ongoing debate about classification which goes something like this.

Me: This book doesn’t belong in postapocalyptic fiction.

Death Raider, Head of Cataloging and Scourge of the Southern Wastes: Yes it does.

Me: But this book takes place in the here and now. [Literally, since Deana just finished writing it and it’s set in a fictionalized version of our library.]

Tomar grunts in acknowledgement

DR, HCSSW: We live in a postapocalyptic period.

Me: We don’t. Look around. This is still pretty apocalyptic.

DR, HCSSW: This is postapocalyptic. Apocalyptic fiction would have been set earlier.

Me: I think you’re wrong. This is apocalyptic. Postapocalyptic fiction would be set in a period of rebuilding. We’re still in the middle of the apocalypse.

Tomar grunts again

DR, HCSSW: This library is postapocalyptic. We are rebuilding.

Me: That isn’t rebuilding, those are barriers we’re setting up to keep the wulves out.

DR, HCSSW: Our patrons expect consistency.

Me: Are you serious? The last patron we had was that Humungus guy who wanted Fashions of the 1980s and anything we had on alternative lifestyles.

DR, HCSSW screams.

Usually, the conversation doesn't end with Death Raider screaming, but Tomar was biting him. Tomar was never good at expressing himself verbally, so we didn't notice the zombification process setting in. Apparently he was bitten during his last excursion and didn't tell us -- which will be mentioned in his review.

After Clean-Up Time, we elected Trish to be the new Head of Cataloging and Scourge of the Southern Wastes. I brought up my request to move Deana's book to a new location and she hit me.

So now I have a black eye.

Adding to the visual memory

In my last update to the electronic brain, I included a picture of our library. People seemed to like this, so I'm adding more.

Bookmobile (currently out of service)

Downtown

Children's play area (also currently out of service)

Vinn getting ready for Outreach

Why talking to the electronic brain is good

Here is a picture of our library. It looks crisp, but that's because you can't see the paper scorpion hives. Hiyat is upset because I took down her "Please do not leave zombies unattended" sign.

Aritage wanted to know why I am writing all of this. I told him it would have been helpful if the old ones had left permanent information safely stored in the electronic brains. Maybe if I leave a record future generations won't need to relearn the twenty-three things. Plus maybe our electronic brain can find another one out there. Imagine if there was a whole system of electronic brains seeking each other out and sharing information!

Speaking of which, I wish we had more information from this document. Whenever we see zombies we shoot them in the head (except for Vinn who couldn't paint the horns on a two-headed moocow). If we could find the zombie masters, maybe we could work something out with them.

Tomar returns with a book

Tomar returned alone today.

He did not speak of Rainn or the others and we will honor that.

He did return with a book, "Eight Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners." It lacks but a few pages. Aritage believes we can recover at least seven and a half of the habits.

We went to Godo Redas and asked him what lifelong learning was. He said it was putting one foot in front of the other, while keeping your eyes open and listening carefully. It sounds easy, but maybe I'm underestimating it.

Tonight we will sing over the book.

The man appeared

Today the equipment worked. Light poured from the black box and a man appeared. He told us there are twenty-three things we must do in the next nine weeks. His messengers will send us signs. Then he disappeared. We left the room and returned to our screens. I drank the k'afe and considered the man’s words.

Web 2.0. Something to do with a spider? His nine-week timeline ends when Sky Star is at his fiercest. Play? Children played in the summer once. Before the Fall. I will add the man’s message below.

Time to take my rad-capsules.