Tom Roper's Weblog

Dating in RSS feeds

Why oh why do people put incorrect dates on their posts? When I read posts in reverse-chronological order in NetNewsWire, I expect to see the most recent posts at the top. But unscrupulous bloggers post-date give their entries, to force them to the top of the list. This is very similar to the practice of certain print publications, who, in the case of a monthly, will put on sale in mid-April an issue labelled Jun.

So in NetNewsWire today, the top entries are:

Homeless man in court over CBD fire The Sydney Morning Herald News Headlines 08 April 2009: this is a clear mis-keying of the date after one too many tubes of Toohey's, though I can see nine other examples of posts with 2009 dates from the same journal's feeds.

Thu August 14th '08 : FREQUENZY FESTIVAL, SALZBURG The Indelicates Live Feed 14 August 2008. This, and two other examples from the excellent Indelicates, whose first album, American Demo, is in the post to me at this very moment, is understandable, though not correct, for they have chose to use the gig date as the posting date.

The Rescue of John Steinbeck The New York Review of Books 17 April 2008. Here is a fine example of a print publishers' post-dating practice polluting their feed, though one would have hoped that the NYRB knew better. 17 April is the cover date; but it is not the date the item was posted.

The wonderful world of RFID

Looking for RFID suppliers to ask to come and weave their magic for me, I e-mailed one, SB Electronic Systems, using the list for CILIP's 2007 RFID in Libraries conference.

But the link given there took me to http://www.sbelectronics.com/ who politely pointed 0ut that they have been making capacitors since the  war, but have never made, nor do they intend to make, RFID equipment. The link should be to http://www.telepen-barcode.co.uk/, who use the brand name SB Electronic Systems. I have pointed this out to CILIP, who say they will amend the page.

The stability of conference archives

I had an email the other day asking my permission for a presentation I gave at a conference in 2000 to be archived in an institutional repository at Washington State University; my small contribution was a paen to Vetgate, the animal health gateway built by the OMNI/BIOME project, and still going strong under Intute. WSU Libraries are developing a community for the Proceedings of the International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (ICAHIS) in the WSU Research Exchange, their institutional repository, to preserve these proceedings publicly and so that each paper will have a durable link for citing.

This is an excellent development. The Third ICAHIS took place in London in 2000, as a stream within the eight International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML). I\d previously attended the 2nd ICAHIS in Copenhagen. Since then they've held conferences in Budapest and Pretoria.

In 2000, one of the reasons for ICAHIS being a stream within with ICML was that ICML would archive the proceedings, but the archives haven't been available for several years now. Perhaps institutional repositories offer a more secure and durable way of preserving such records.

animal health, ICAHIS, institutional repositories

Aintree: Grand National Day

With some snobbery, regular followers of the turf see today much as alcoholics view the Christmas and New Year party season, as a time when their everyday activity is taken over by amateur idiots. To maximise their profits, the bookies employ staff to explain to the once-a-year punters how to fill in the slip, and how to stake an each-way bet.

Famille Roper is not immune. In this afternoon's big race, the Burra Mem takes Maison du Berlais, while the two heirs to my title and estates have gone for Comply or Die and Black Apalachi. I take Bewley's Berry. The full list:

1.45: Oh Crick
215: Tidal Bay
250: Al Eile
325: Mendo
415: Bewley's Berry
500: Theatre Diva
535: Have You Seen Me

grandnational

One swallow...

From the excellent and addictive Sussex Ornithological Society blog:

Birding between Eastbourne and Seaford today. Highlights were: at least 1 Firecrest at Horseshoe Plantation. Three Swallows in off the sea at Crowlink,... [From Migrants]

Aintree Grand National meeting: day two

2.35: The Tother One
3.10: Tamarinbleu
3.45: Natal
4.20: Greenbridge
4.55: Alderson
5.30: Ravello Bay

Aintree Grand National Meeting: first day

Posting after the event, but my selections were:
2.00: Blazing Bailey
2.35: Kauto Star
3.10: First Buddy
3.45: Sonevafushi
4.20: Lennon
4.55: Franchoek
5.30: Peacock

April Fools

There's much on Google's batch of April Fools: see a nearly complete list at Google Blogoscoped, though they forgot one I found, Google's new blogging platform, Google Weblogs: 'Unsure of what to post about? Just click “I’m Feeling Lucky” and we’ll “take care” of the rest!'

My favourite, however, was the announcement at Archaeoastronomy that a team of Danish alphabetologists, led by Professor Olaf Proil, have discovered the missing 27th letter of the English alphabet