Thursday, October 27, 2005

In which the Meridian directs your attention to a couple of new, cool geegaws and stuff

I am home and rather ill today with some sort of respiratory thing that, it seems, my colleagues and students all think they can't bear to be without, either. It's the iPod of respiratory ailments. So, I've been fiddling with good old Blog Meridian this morning, and I've added some things some of you might find interesting.



First of all, two things I learned about via Crooked Timber. The first is this new GuestMap powered by GoogleMaps and set up by Frappr. I've posted a link to it immediately below the Moon Phase gif; if you're a regular reader and not ashamed to have it known, or even if you're not, I hope you'll leave yourself pinned and wriggling on the map.

The second is perhaps even cooler. LibraryThing allows you to have an online listing of the books you own (200 titles for free, unlimited titles for $10/year or $25/life), lets you post images of current books or randomly-selected titles on your blog, and even compares your collection with those of other LibraryThing-ers and lets you know with whose collection you have the most commonly-held titles. So if your collection is, say, American literature-oriented and single and looking . . .

Anyway. I have only a few titles listed so far, so frequent readers will keep seeing the same titles popping up on my blog. But I will be adding more soon.

Finally: this idea comes from the excellent blog Watermark. As a public service to the blogosphere, Watermark provides a direct link to the "Insignificant Microbes" list of blogs (blogs to which no one yet links) that appear on The Truth Laid Bear Blogosphere Ecosystem along with the exhortation "Help them evolve." I've done the same; those interested will find the link just above my Directories list. To be sure, the ecosystem would be better off without some of what you'll find; but it's because of said list that I recently found a very well-written and entertaining law blog/personal blog, Sauce Box, one which, to my mind, richly deserves to evolve still further, beyond its current Lowly Insect status. Go visit and get all Darwinian on someone.

Technorati tags:
, , , , , , , ,

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Nice geegaw, that!

Unfortunately the map refuses to display my true location, so let it be known that I don't actually live on the banks of the Thames in the shadow of Blackfriars bridge. My true location shall ever remain a mystery. Oh, alright then: it's Barnet.

fearful, is where you live considered the Upper West Side, or Harlem? In other words, should I be impressed or not?

Anonymous said...

I think technically I'm still a couple of blocks south of Harlem, but that's basically where I am, yes.

AJ said...

Oh no, you've just given me an excuse to stay online for another couple hours, digging the new geegaws. The cool thing about Library Thing, in which it excels All Consuming, seems to be that the images head to Amazon via one's AA links? Am I correct?

John B. said...

Ariel,
I agree with you that Library Thing is better than All Consuming, which I used to have. I'd always forget to update my AC stuff, making me look like a very slow reader.
To answer your question: When you set up your Library Thing account and it asks you if and how you want Library Thing to display your collection on your blog, it will give you a prompt to set up things so as to forward referrals to your AA account, if you have one. Otherwise, referrals will be credited to the AA of Library Thing's webmaster.

Have fun.