November 2014

Some of the biggest names in American agriculture, ranging from farmers’ organizations to private companies like Monsanto and DuPont, have agreed on principles governing the use of data collected from farms.

That data increasingly drives farm operations. Tractors and combines carry sensors that record — and upload to the data “cloud” — what happens on each spot of a farmer’s field, from how much fertilizer and seed it received to how much grain it produced to what type of soil is found there. That data, once analyzed, guides decisions about what seeds a farmer will plant.

Top agribusiness companies, including Monsanto, DuPont, John Deere and Dow, have moved into the information business, offering to help farmers collect that data and analyze it — for a price.

But some farmers are starting to worry about how that data will be used; whether, for instance, details of their operations will be open for all to see. Others wonder how the data companies will exploit their new-found ability to monitor what’s happening on vast tracts of farmland.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/11/16/364115200/big-data-companies-agree-farmers-should-own-their-information

Part 1 of 4 – Common Core Reading: ‘The New Colossus’
Part 2 of 4 – Common Core Reading: The High Achievers
Part 3 of 4 – Common Core Reading: The Struggle Over Struggle
Part 4 of 4 – Common Core Reading: Difficult, Dahl, Repeat

A short story by John Steinbeck that had never been published before was recently discovered by Andrew Gulli, editor of The Strand magazine. NPR’s Arun Rath talked with Gulli about the find.

The lost work was found in a library.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/16/364545326/a-lost-steinbeck-story-resurfaces-40-years-after-authors-death

As the new director at the Sitka AK library, Robb Farmer has lots of new ideas.

KCAW reports:

Farmer spent the last nine years at the Faulkner University Law Library in Alabama. He’s a lawyer himself, but says he enjoyed legal research more than the actual practice of law, and he found a way to stay in the library full-time.

But he was looking at the American Library Association job listings recently, and saw an unusual submission. Allowed only five keywords to help guide applicants, someone had posted…

“Best, Library, Director, Job, Ever”

Farmer had never seen or heard of Sitka. He checked out the listing. Of course, Sitka is spectacular. Those keywords, though, spoke volumes.

“It showed they had a sense of humor. When working in law schools and academia, sometimes they appreciate a sense of humor, but sometimes they don’t.”

Soon after turning out the latest James Bond novel, British author William Boyd agreed to write another thriller based on a world famous brand.

The Land Rover.

Boyd’s nearly 17,000-word story, “The Vanishing Game,” coming out Wednesday as a free download through Amazon.com, Apple and www.thevanishinggame.com , tells of a 35-year-old British actor named Alec Dunbar and the troubles he encounters when a pretty young woman convinces him to deliver a flask filled with clear liquid from London to Scotland. His transport is a certain four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Boyd, paid in the low six figures for the project, said he signed on because Land Rover made so few requests.

“They said they wanted an adventure and they said, ‘Somewhere in this adventure it would be good if a Land Rover appeared.’ But it was left entirely to me the extent I concentrated on that or made it fleeing and passing,” the 62-year-old Britain-based author said during a recent telephone interview.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/william-boyd-writes-land-rover-sponsored-book-26853245

Amazon And Hachette Reach A Deal On E-Book Pricing
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/13/363794096/amazon-and-hachette-reach-a-deal-on-e-book-pricing

Linnea Wolters was prepared to hate the Common Core State Standards.

She taught fifth grade at a low-income school in Reno, Nev., where, she says, there was always some new plan to improve things. And none of it added up to good education. But, after leading her class through a Core-aligned lesson — a close reading of Emma Lazarus’ sonnet “The New Colossus” — she was intrigued, especially by the way different students reacted to the process.

Part 2 in a four-part series on reading in the Common Core era.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/13/356358135/common-core-reading-the-high-achievers

Cites & Insights 14:11 (December 2014) available
http://www.lisnews.org/cites_insights_1411_december_2014_available

I remember a song lyric from the early 70s for which the opening line was: “we don’t need more sailors, we need a captain”. (I can’t find the reference in LyricFind and I don’t remember the name of the band.) That song could be about the new publishing that is arising from the phenomenon of “atomization”, books that could come from just about anybody anywhere (that’s the “we”). They are supported by “unbundling”, the availability of just about every service required (those are the “sailors”) in the complex task of publishing books.

Full post:

A designer who has dyslexia has created a font to help dyslexic readers navigate text designing letters in a way that avoids confusion and add clarity. Two English researchers are making a dictionary that favors meaning over the alphabet.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/11/363293514/for-dyslexics-a-font-and-a-dictionary-that-are-meant-to-help