The word of the day: backup.

You can read it, I can read it, but usually the only way one learns is through experience. We lost all of Emma's .html this afternoon. (Those are the files that make her appear on our website and online catalog. They aren't part of her "brain.") So the fun began. I knew I had copies somewhere. On my laptop? No. On one of the big external drives at home? Nope. On, let's see, one of the six or seven flash drives wandering around the house? No, Un uh, nothing, not here, zip, zero, oh here they are! Lesson learned. (I really hate being organized.)

So long kittenhood...

We've been working on licensing Emma for the last few weeks. (I mean the parts of her code that I wrote, the parts that deal specifically with our library.) Not a lot of fun. To be honest, this was the first time I felt depressed or pessimistic about the whole project. Most librarians don't deal with this sort of thing; certainly not ex-brass players currently working as librarians. Anyway, we're done and she'll be licensed in a way that should be a "win-win" for everyone involved. This seems an appropriate place to mark the end of her "kittenhood." To celebrate, I'm going to get a good night's sleep.

Robot hummingbird passes flight tests - too cool!

My wife spotted this in the news, it's on both our Christmas lists.

"A prototype robot spy "ornithopter," the Nano-Hummingbird, has successfully completed flight trials in California. Developed by the company AeroVironment Inc., the miniature spybot looks like a hummingbird complete with flapping wings, and is only slightly larger and heavier than most hummingbirds, but smaller than the largest species."

Check out the video!