Science Library Pad

End of Line

After ~22 years of public service, I have retired.

This work blog and my work Mastodon account will now go inactive.

Thanks for all the interesting discussions along the way.

While it's always awkward to thank one person without acknowledging the many others whose support I benefited from along the way, in the context of this blog I do want to extend particular gratitude to the late Maxine Clarke of Nature.  Based solely on my blog posts she invited me to contribute an online-only article for Nature, followed by print edition book reviews.  It was a transformative opportunity.

I imagine that is almost certainly the first time and quite probably the last time Nature contributions were solicited based on blog posts.

• Technical solutions: Evolving peer review for the internet in Nature online - doi:10.1038/nature04997 - June 21, 2006
• Book review of The Long Tail in Nature 442, 512-513 (3 August 2006) - doi:10.1038/442512a - also see additional information in my blog
• Book review of Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure and the Internet in Nature 451, 401 (24 January 2008) - doi:10.1038/451401a - also see additional information in my blog

finding France Culture radio audiobooks

These are abridged books, usually in five 30-minute episodes (2.5 hours).
For unabridged audiobooks, you may be able to get them on loan from your library, usually through the monopoly KKR OverDrive Libby app.

Finding French language audiobooks from France Culture is pretty easy since there is one main show,

Le Feuilleton

The Épisodes view lists the, well, episodes by air date.  Books are multi-part so you'll want to scroll down to part 1.

Although the Séries view may look useful, it isn't sorted by availability.  Unavailable books that are just listed for archival purposes are marked (in quite small letters) "Indisponible", but only when you click through to individual episodes.

Tintin!

Although part of the above show, France Culture has made a separate page collecting just the productions of Tintin books.

Les Aventures de Tintin

See also:
January 21, 2024  finding BBC Radio audiobooks

finding BBC Radio audiobooks

These are abridged books, usually in five 15-minute episodes (1.25 hours), although sometimes in ten parts.
For unabridged audiobooks, you may be able to get them on loan from your library, usually through the monopoly KKR OverDrive Libby app.

To find BBC Radio audiobooks that you can listen to outside the UK, go to

BBC - Programmes - Categories: Audiobooks - Available now

and then look for only the books that say "BBC Radio" after them.  Books that say "BBC Sounds" are not available outside the UK.

This doesn't cover all of the things you may consider to be audiobooks, as BBC categorizes many of them as "Drama".  The BBC website doesn't provide any way to filter out just drama based on books.  It also doesn't have any way to filter just drama presented on BBC Radio 4 Extra (which is mostly books).

Rather unexpectedly, BBC Radio 4 Extra has usefully collected many murder mysteries (a beloved comfort listen for the British) under "Whodunnits", possibly as a Christmas 2023 feature.

BBC Radio 4 Extra: Whodunnits

Even more unexpectedly, all episodes listed are still available, although they differ a bit in how they're grouped.  In any case see e.g.

• Miss Marple - They Do It With Mirrors, Episode 1 of 5 (2 days left to listen)
• Hercule Poirot - The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, in a single combined show (4 days left to listen)

Dramas are also not consistently named.  Sometimes it's by author.  Sometimes it's by author and book title.  Sometimes it's by character name.  e.g.

• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Dick Francis (author) - "Adaptations of the popular thrillers by the British steeplechase jockey turned crime writer."
• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Jack London - The Sea Wolf (author and title)
• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Miss Marple (character) - "June Whitfield stars as the iconic sleuth created by the queen of the whodunit, Agatha Christie."
• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Sherlock Holmes (character)

UPDATE 2024-01-21: The Book of the Week and Book at Bedtime pages are no longer being maintained.  So even though a book may be a "Book of the Week", it won't show up on the pages below.

• No longer maintained: Book of the Week – BBC Radio 4 – audiobooks, usually in 5 or 10 episodes
  • Note books are only available for a limited time; only books with a speaker icon are actually available online
• No longer maintained: Book at Bedtime – BBC Radio 4 – audiobooks, usually in 5 or 10 episodes

END UPDATE

Omnibus-eses

BBC Radio will -- sometimes -- publish an "omnibus" edition of a book, combining 5 days worth of episodes into a single continuous show.  Inexplicably, they almost never actually link the omnibus to the main page for the book.  The omnibus sometimes shows up on BBC Radio 4 Extra, and now these days sometimes shows up as e.g. "Episodes 1-5" on BBC Radio 4 itself.  There is no consistent pattern or linking.

UPDATE 2023-05-26: For a while BBC Radio 4 audiobooks weren't showing up on BBC Radio 4 Extra as combined omnibus episodes at the end of the week, but now it looks like that is happening again, although maybe mostly for older books being presented again.  END UPDATE

SIDEBAR: Don't use the very similar BBC Sounds - Category - Audiobooks page as it doesn't show which books are BBC Radio and which ones are BBC Sounds.  END SIDEBAR

See also:
January 21, 2024  finding France Culture radio audiobooks

Twitter deactivated

If you’re looking for my Twitter account @scilib you won’t find it, because it is deactivated and on its way to deletion.

You can find me on Mastodon, with the rather awkward syntax:

@[email protected]

Work blogs: Sean Boots

Since I rarely blog about work anymore, I thought I should highlight people who actually do.

Sean Boots continues to post thoughtful commentary on the challenges of the digital transition in government and on ways to improve how we work.

https://sboots.ca/

Meta: A rare post

Although I do work in the Canadian National Science Library again (the origin of Sci-ence Lib-rary = SciLib), I rarely have work-related blog posts anymore.

I will note that just one URL over I do still maintain a more technical blog, about using Apple devices, smart speakers, and how to get data from websites, along with other tech things.

https://scilib.typepad.com/techreviews/

It is a separate blog with a separate RSS feed and mailing list.

Problems with audiobook voice control interoperability on smart speakers

Telling your smart speaker to play one of your audiobooks seems like an obvious use case.

And indeed it is supported.  But with vendor-specific lockin only.  Each vendor will only let you voice control audiobooks from their own store.

I'd like to see the library tech community do an interoperability lab test for voice control of audiobooks on smart speakers.

Amazon smart speakers

The Amazon voice assistant Alexa can control audiobooks on Amazon smart speakers (e.g. Amazon Echo), but for Amazon Audible only (Amazon owns Audible).

See Audible (an Amazon Company) - Voice Commands for Listening on Alexa Devices.

Google smart speakers

Google's voice control is called Google Assistant, and it can control audiobooks on your Google smart speakers (e.g. Google Nest or Google Home), but for Google Play audiobooks only.

See e.g. Listen to audiobooks on your Google Nest speaker or display and Google Assistant Help - Listen to audiobooks.

Apple HomePod smart speakers

Information below for iOS 17 / iPadOS 17 / HomePod 17.

The situation with the Apple HomePod is even stranger, as it does not currently have any built-in Siri support for playing audiobooks from Apple Books.

It currently only supports voice control of Apple Music and Apple Podcasts.

Oddly, you can use Siri to CarPlay audiobooks in your car no problem though.  See Play audiobooks with CarPlay.

Sonos smart speakers

Sonos supports three voice assistants: Sonos Voice Control, Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.  This would seem like an awesome way to have multiple services available together, just distinguished by saying Hey Sonos, Hey Alexa, or Hey Google.  But that's not how it works, you have to pick one assistant and that's the only one that will be active (I can't see any technical reason why this should be the case, but it is).

However, on Sonos the voice assistants can't control audiobooks.  So you can connect your Sonos to your Amazon Audible account, but you can't use Amazon Alexa to control the audiobooks (again, there is no technical reason why this should be the case).

See How can I listen to Audible using the Sonos app?

Audible with Alexa integration is not currently compatible with Sonos devices.

Similarly, you can't use Google Assistant to control audiobooks on Sonos either.

A nonsensical mess

This is a nonsensical mess.  These services should all just interoperate.

Libby, Spotify and Audiobooks.com

There are other major sources of audiobooks, including OverDrive Libby used by most libraries, Spotify audiobooks, and Audiobooks.com (I think Audiobooks.com is owned by Storytel, it has had a chain of corporate owners).

SIDEBAR: If this looks like a diverse market, the underlying source for most audiobooks is Amazon Audible.  END SIDEBAR

As far as I can tell, there is no support for voice control of Libby or Spotify audioboks.

Audiobooks.com does have an Alexa skill with a long but reasonable command string e.g. "Alexa, ask Audiobooks dot com to play my book" but I assume this only works on Amazon smart speakers.

September 2023 - Apple HomePod 17 "Third-Party Music Services"

Apple has just, as in just this month in HomePod software version 17, released support for Siri integration with "third-party music services", by which it means anything other than Apple.  This is basically a standard way for Siri to start and control an AirPlay session from an iPhone or an iPad (I don't know if it would work from an Apple TV or a Mac).  It requires iOS 17 / iPadOS 17.  In essence Siri gains the capability to run what are currently manual steps of launching an app on a device, then selecting the content you want to play, and then selecting AirPlay to your HomePod.

Technical Details - SiriKit Media Intents

Apple puts the onus on the apps for "third-party services" such as Audible, Google Play, Libby, Spotify and Audiobooks.com to code support for Siri audiobook control.  This is done using Siri Media Intents.  I found it was clearly explained in the Apple WWDC2023 session Integrate your media app with HomePod (video).  There is specific support for podcasts and audiobooks.

This is actually a good standardized API to make a universal experience across different services.  One can hope that the other services will add this support. 

Technical Details - Personal Voice Recognition

Unfortunately, depending on AirPlaying from a device means that Apple has to be able to tell which device, and to know that you're authorized to play content from that device.  This means that you have to enable what Apple calls Personal Requests for HomePod, a service that requires Recognize My Voice to be enabled.

This means e.g. you won't be able to ask HomePod to play content for someone else, I don't think there is a concept of other authorized users.  If I understand how this works, if your grandfather wants to play audiobooks from his iPad, only he can request it from HomePod (which is also going to make setup and testing more challenging).

HomePod 17 - Whither Apple Books?

It seems like Siri should be able to play Apple Books directly on-device without the elaborate hoop-jumping of AirPlay to an iPhone or an iPad, but at a minimum one would expect Apple Books to be a demonstration of support for the SiriKit Media Intents needed to play audiobooks.  It's not clear if this is the case yet in iOS 17 / iPadOS 17, which is kind of puzzling.

---

Crossposted to my tech blog.

2023 G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué

G7 meeting in Japan.
G7 Science and Technology Ministers met in Sendai May 12-14, 2023.

Official website is

https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/others/2023/g7_2023_en.html

You can also find copies of the documents from the Toronto G7 Research Group

http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/science/

2023 Communiqué and Annexes

G7 Science and Technology Ministers' Communique（PDF format：524KB）

Annex 1: G7 Open Science (OS) Working Group（PDF format：337KB）

Annex 2: G7 Security and Integrity of the Global Research Ecosystem (SIGRE) Working Group（PDF format：424KB）

Annex 3: G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative (FSOI) Working Group（PDF format：392KB）

Annex 4: The Group of Senior Officials on Research Infrastructures (GSO)（PDF format：477KB）

G7 BEST PRACTICES FOR SECURE & OPEN RESEARCH (May 2023)（PDF format：280KB）

Previously:
June 14, 2022  2022 G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué

Mastodon

Mastodon

[email protected]

Call for Proposals - Open Research Symposium: Building an open research community at McGill

As the title says.

Call for Proposals | Open Research Symposium: Building an open research community at McGill

Are you a McGill researcher, student, or staff member involved in a project to promote or incorporate open research practices? The Organizing Committee invites lightning talk proposals for the inaugural McGill Library open research symposium: The future is open: Building an open research community at McGill. Lightning talks consist of a 5-minute presentation highlighting open research, cutting-edge practice, or both. We are hoping to feature a range of presentations representing many disciplines.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, February 10, 2023, at midnight EST. To submit a proposal, [please contact Jessica Lange [email protected] with any questions].

The Symposium will take place

April 4, 2023, 1 to 4 PM
Eastern Rare Books and Special Collections, Colgate Room
4th floor, McLennan Library Building
3459 McTavish Street
Montreal

Digital Zoom in Camera app on Windows 10

You can zoom in and out (widen and narrow the field of view) in the Camera application for Windows 10 by holding down the CTRL key and rolling your mouse wheel up or down.  This is an undocumented feature.  This is a "sticky" setting; it will persist between Windows sessions, and will apply instantly to other applications using the camera such as MS Teams.

There are some applications that may reset it, for example you may find that running the (unfortunately-named) Zoom video conferencing application resets the digital zoom level.

In particular, any time you fully exit and relaunch Camera, it will reset the digital zoom level (this includes within the same Windows session).  That is, the setting is only sticky as long as you keep the Camera application closed once you've found the zoom level you like.

Microsoft says definitively that the Windows 10 application does not provide digital zoom:

In Windows 10 the Camera app doesn't include digital zoom

This is simply not true.

Similarly other support sites may refer to clicking on an icon in the Camera application in order to zoom in or out; this is also not true.

Others may suggest installing third-party applications or legacy Windows applications, which is usually not an option in a business setting where you don't have administrative control to install unauthorized applications.

MS Teams does offer access to camera settings including digital zoom, but that access is only available depending on the version of Teams, the version of your driver, and the brand and model of your camera.  In any case, the camera settings available in Teams are not sticky (it won't remember the settings), so you have to go back in to settings again in order to set the level you want, every time you start Windows and Teams.

The camera settings are not available during a video conference session; the devices menu is different depending whether you are in a video conference or not.

When not in a conference, select the three dots menu ⋯ at the very top right of the Teams window, in the menu bar next to your profile icon.  Select Settings, then in the popup window select Devices in the list on the left, then scroll down to Camera.  If camera settings control is available, there will be a clickable "Open camera settings" link.  As a reminder, these settings are not sticky; Teams will reset all the camera settings back to the defaults every time you open it and/or restart Windows.

Also, if you want to view the Camera adjustments live while using Teams, you'll have to start Teams first.  If you start the Camera application first, it will grab exclusive access to the image/video stream from your webcam.

Versions used:

• Windows 10 Enterprise 21H2
• Camera 2021.105.10.0
• MS Teams 1.5.00.33362 (64-bit)

For many video conferences you may want a tighter zoom in on your face rather than a wide view of your entire room background, so being able to set and keep a level of zoom using the Camera application first ensures that you have the right settings for Teams and other videoconference software.

Note for older versions of Camera

Older version of Camera (e.g. 2018.826.98.0) also have digital zoom, but you don't need to hold down the control key, just roll the middle mouse scroll wheel up and down.  You may experience unexpected behaviour, in particular, the Camera app may be able to set a much higher level of digital zoom than it actually displays.  That is, if you keep rolling the wheel for greater and greater zoom, the image on screen may stay the same, but when you switch to MS Teams you may find you are super zoomed in.  Just do a single step at a time (a single scroll wheel step) and then check in MS Teams if it is the level you want.

Older versions of Camera may also not be able to share the camera with Teams, so you will have to run Camera first, and then Teams, without being able to see live changes.

Crossposted from my tech blog.

ChatGPT natural language AI query and response

ChatGPT is an AI powered by a very deeply trained model.

https://chat.openai.com/

It is currently free for limited use, you have to sign up with a verified email and verified phone number.

The results people were posting online were so good I had to check it out myself and yes, it is very good in its areas of expertise (most notably, it doesn't know anything about events after 2021).

SIDEBAR: Since it's just text output, it is trivial to fake ChatGPT responses; you should ask the question directly to ChatGPT yourself if you want to be sure it is a real response.  END SIDEBAR

You get detailed natural language responses, it likes responding with lists or first-second-third-conclusion styles.

I expect it will rapidly get overloaded by demand.  In fact it was unavailable for a while during the writing of this blog post.

I was able to ask it to create plans, and about popular culture, and to ask it "Why is chatgpt disturbing to use?"

All responses were basically instantaneous except for the last one, where it thought for quite a while before producing a response.

NOTE that your questions and the responses don't appear to be saved, so you will need to copy/paste or screenshot them if you want to keep them (most modern operating systems will let you extract the text from a screenshot).

It's rare that something from technology surprises me, but this surprises me.  I didn't think we were anywhere clear to this level of natural language response.

Two months ago there was a discussion in the SciFoo mailing list about students using AI to write their school papers and I was incredibly sceptical, but I can see that ChatGPT (and the underlying technology, which is available through APIs) could quite easily write papers on common topics.

It can also write computer code, or help you debug your code.

Q: write a short blog post about the capabilities of chatgpt

ChatGPT Answer:

ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) model developed by OpenAI. It is capable of generating human-like text based on a given prompt, making it a powerful tool for tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and conversation modeling.

One of the unique features of ChatGPT is its ability to incorporate context from previous interactions into its responses, allowing it to maintain coherence and consistency in longer conversations. This makes it especially useful for applications such as chatbots and virtual assistants, where maintaining a natural and fluid conversation is key.

In addition to its conversational capabilities, ChatGPT is also able to generate text in a variety of styles and tones, making it versatile and adaptable to a wide range of applications. It can produce formal, professional language for business documents, or more casual and informal language for social media posts and chat conversations.

Overall, ChatGPT is a powerful and highly capable NLP model that has many potential applications in the fields of language processing and artificial intelligence. Its ability to generate human-like text and maintain context in conversations make it a valuable tool for developers and researchers working on the cutting edge of NLP technology.

==

Q: summarize key challenges for open science in canada

ChatGPT Answer:

One of the key challenges facing open science in Canada is the lack of consistent policies and frameworks across different research institutions and funding bodies. This can make it difficult for researchers to know what is expected of them in terms of sharing their data and research outputs, and can hinder the dissemination and uptake of open science practices.

Another challenge is the lack of infrastructure and support for open science. Many researchers may not have access to the necessary tools and resources to enable them to effectively share and collaborate on their work, which can limit the uptake of open science practices.

Furthermore, there may be cultural barriers to the adoption of open science, such as a lack of awareness of the benefits of open science or a lack of incentives for researchers to engage in open science activities.

Overall, addressing these challenges will require a concerted effort from research institutions, funding bodies, and policymakers to develop and implement consistent policies and provide the necessary infrastructure and support to enable the adoption of open science practices in Canada.

==

Q: write code for plotting sin(x) in python

ChatGPT Answer:

To plot the function sin(x) in Python, you can use the matplotlib library. Here is an example of how to do it:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

# Create an array of x values from 0 to 4π
x = np.linspace(0, 4*np.pi, 100)

# Compute the y values for sin(x)
y = np.sin(x)

# Plot the function
plt.plot(x, y)

# Add labels and title
plt.xlabel('x')
plt.ylabel('sin(x)')
plt.title('Plot of sin(x)')

# Show the plot
plt.show()

This code will create a plot of the sin(x) function from 0 to 4π. You can adjust the range of x values and the number of points in the plot by modifying the values passed to the np.linspace and plt.plot functions. You can also customize the appearance of the plot by using various options in the matplotlib library.

==

Q: Why is chatgpt disturbing to use?

ChatGPT Answer:

There are a few reasons why someone might find chatgpt (or any large language model)
disturbing to use.

First, chatqpt is a machine learning model that has been trained on a vast amount of
human-generated text, so it is able to generate responses that are often indistinguishable
from those of a human. This can make it difficult for users to know whether they are
interacting with a machine or a human, which can be unsettling for some people.

Second, chatgpt is designed to generate responses based on the input it receives, so it can
sometimes produce responses that are unexpected or inappropriate. This can be
disorienting for users and can make them feel like they are losing control of the
conversation.

Third, chatgpt is a large language model, which means it has been trained to generate
responses that are coherent, fluent, and relevant to the input it receives. This can make it
difficult for users to tell whether they are interacting with a machine that is following pre-
programmed rules, or a human who is thinking and speaking spontaneously.

Overall, chatgpt and other large language models can be disturbing to use because they
blur the line between human and machine, can produce unexpected or inappropriate
responses, and can make it difficult for users to know whether they are interacting with a
machine or a human.

4th Annual Neuro Open Science in Action Symposium 2022

The 4th Annual Neuro Open Science in Action Symposium 2022 will be held on November 30.

It will be a hybrid event organized by the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI) at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute).

This year’s symposium will focus on how academic institutions can pave the way for the future of open research.

Three virtual panel discussions will focus on inter-institutional coalitions, institute-wide efforts to promote Open Science, as well as initiatives and projects within Canadian institutions enabling researchers to learn about and practice Open Science. Expert panelists will showcase new ways of recognizing and enabling open research, the efforts of forward thinking institutions to promote Open Science through education and support, and how collective action is enabling a more open future.

The symposium will close with the presentation of the Neuro - Irv and Helga Cooper Foundation Open Science Prizes to the awardees, followed by an Open Science Networking event and Reception.

You can register through EventBrite.

Canada's 2022-2024 National Action Plan on Open Government

Canada's 2022-2024 National Action Plan on Open Government is available, the main landing page is

https://open.canada.ca/en/content/national-action-plan-open-government

and the plan itself is available as a PDF.

Open Science is in commitment 1.3.2:

1.3.2 Yearly reports on progress against existing metrics that measure how science-based departments and agencies implement open science, with a focus on open access metrics and diverse types of open access, to be released in the open

Government of Canada science departments have posted the Departmental Open Science Plans that will be the basis of the yearly reporting.

Previously:
January 10, 2019  Open Science in Canada's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan

Check your sources - The Battle of the Fly

Summary

A Wikipedia statement about the zipper versus the button fly has turned into a story repeated by authoritative sources that in the pivotal year of 1937 Esquire magazine had a "Battle of the Fly" contest where the zipper won, with the memorable statement that a button fly had the "possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray".  The Wikipedia statement has no supporting reference, and in fact this entire scenario is unsupported by available online evidence, turning out to probably be a conflation of a (possibly apocryphal) 1937 event or fashion trend in France with advertisements in Esquire in the early 1930s.

SIDEBAR: My analysis depends on an assumption that Esquire's online archive search delivers complete results.  The site does say "Every Article.  Every Page.  Every issue of Esquire ever published.  1933 to today."  END SIDEBAR

UPDATE 2022-09-18: It looks like the source for the phrase "Battle of the Fly" is the book Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty by Robert Friedel (1994).  END UPDATE (see next update)

UPDATE 2023-06-09: It seems highly likely that the "Battle of the Fly" story is a mythologized reuse of the phrase from Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (1994) by Robert Friedel.  In the book the phrase is used in passing to refer to a marketing effort by Talon, it is definitely not about any sort of actual event where the zipper was compared with other fasteners.  END UPDATE

Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty

The Independent reviewed Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty under the remarkably awkward headline "Hookless hookers: the battle of the fly".  This review was the only definitive source I could find specifically stating that this term is used in the book:

But he notices also, as he narrates what became known as "the battle of the fly" ... - The Independent, "Hookless hookers: the battle of the fly", book review by Robert Winder, 21 April 1995

It seems likely this book is the source but the information has gotten jumbled along the way.  END UPDATE

An Uncited Assertion

If you try to find out why jeans mostly have zippers rather than button fly, googling brings up endless variations of this Wikipedia paragraph:

The zipper beat the button in 1937 in the "Battle of the Fly", after French fashion designers raved over zippers in men's trousers. Esquire declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and among the zippered fly's many virtues was that it would exclude "The Possibility of Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray."^{[citation needed]} - Wikipedia: Zipper - History section

There are quite a few assertions sitting behind that "[citation needed]".

This raises the question of whether anyone actually checked that Esquire made that statement, and whether the statement was made in 1937 (as could be implied by the paragraph). The answer appears to be no.

Endless Variations

It's hard to know how much of the scrambled way this info has propagated is due to past Wikipedia edits and how much is due to current mis-reading of the Wikipedia entry, but this paragraph shows up in variations in lots of authoritative sources including the Smithsonian:

The upswing for the zipper came in 1937 when the zipper beat the button in the 1937 "Battle of the Fly" and french fashion designers began to rave over the zipper. Esquire magazine declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and of zipper's many virtues it would exclude the "possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." - Smithsonian blog "Unbound", The Up and Down History of the Zipper, May 3, 2010

There is an interesting sequence issue, as this Smithsonian article predates the Wikipedia entry.  Is this the origin of the Battle of the Fly?  The Smithsonian cites two books:

UPDATE 2022-09-18:

1. Talon, inc. : a romance of achievement / / an abridgement of the original manuscript by James Gray to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the company ; [edited by Stanley H. Brown]. Chicago : Rand McNally, c1963.
2. Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty by Robert Friedel (1994, reprinted in 1996)

As a niche corporate history, the Talon book is basically unavailable to me, but I have ordered the Zipper book (it is not available in electronic form).  I could also try contacting the author but if he's around he may not be all that keen revisiting a book he wrote over 28 years ago.

I speculated whether Talon's corporate hagiography is the origin of the story, but it seems clear now it is the Zipper book.  You'll find out more about the Talon company below.

END UPDATE

There were also various 100th anniversary quick takes in 2013, from e.g. the CBC:

Esquire magazine raved in 1937 that the zipper would help men avoid "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." - CBC News - Science - Apr 29, 2013 - Zipper anniversary: 10 bits of trivia to impress the pants off you

Notice how it's now Esquire magazine in 1937, the date having apparently drifted due to a misreading of the Wikipedia paragraph.

Here's the Chicago Tribune:

It is said that Esquire magazine put the zipper in every other intimate place. In 1937, the magazine hosted a "Battle of the Fly" contest pitting the zipper against the button fly, according to the Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions. Game, set, match, Sundback's secure zipper. It helped avoid "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray," the magazine concluded. - Chicago Tribune - Oct 16, 2013 - The Zipper (1893)

So now, wait, Esquire hosted a "Battle of the Fly" contest in 1937, according to the Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions (circa 2003), and Esquire concluded that contest with the memorable "unintentional and embarrassing disarray" phrase. But that's just not true.  That's not even what the Encyclopedia says, at least in the 2003 version available to search online.  The Encyclopedia says

In 1937, men's clothing designers began to experiment with zippers in trousers.  The zipper fly was praised by Esquire magazine as helping prevent "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing display". - Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions, Fasteners section, page 121 "The Zipper", from Google Books, search inside this book

The Wikipedia entry was only created on August 22, 2003 (without this information).  Either Wikipedia ends up getting this story from the Encyclopedia or elsewhere, or I'm looking at a post-2003 revised version of the Encyclopedia text in Google Books.

Incidentally zippers in trousers are actually from 1933 or earlier.

So the Chicago Tribune, an authority, is citing an Encyclopedia as an authority and a magazine as an authority, but the Encyclopedia text isn't true.  (It's not clear what the source of the Encyclopedia's statements might have been.) Basically the Tribune managed to invent an entire Esquire event based on misread sources that are in turn based on an unsupported Wikipedia source. The ultimate is when in 2014 Esquire online repeats this story about itself, creating an apparently authoritative citation to a statement it never actually made.

fashionistos and functionalists alike saw the auto-clasp's allure and initiated the Battle of the Fly… which was swiftly and definitively won by the zipper in the 1930s. Even this illustrious publication in 1937 declared (and still does declare) it the superior idea in men's fashion, both for style and for its potential to avoid, "the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." - Esquire, The Battle of the Button Fly, June 9, 2014

A Very Different Story Pre-Wikipedia

In Esquire's defense, they do have a good article about the zipper from 1989, with rather surprising references to Brave New World, and less surprising ones to the royals as trendsetters

Men didn’t have zippered trousers when the book was written. They had buttons. Zippers were still a novelty in 1932, and in Huxley’s view they were symbolic of the mechanical and dehumanized future that lay in store for all of us. ... Custom tailors disdained zippered flies as vulgar, and mass manufacturers claimed they were too expensive—a zipper added a dollar to the cost of a pair of trousers; buttons cost only two cents. That’s where matters stood until 1934, when the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and their second cousin “Dickie” Mountbatten suddenly started wearing zippered flies. - Esquire, The Zipper, by John Berendt, May 1, 1989

It's interesting how in 1989, pre-google and pre-Wikipedia, this entire "Battle of the Fly" narrative doesn't exist.

Getting to the Truth - Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray

Actually searching the Esquire archive for the phrase "unintentional and embarrassing disarray" returns zero articles, but two advertisements from the Talon Hookless Fastener Company, from September 1933 and February 1934.  If I change to search just "embarrassing disarray" I get a total of twelve Talon ads running to November 1936.

The September 1933 advertisement extols the virtues of Talon's "slide fastener" (they couldn't say zipper, because it's actually ZIPPER® trademark B.F. Goodrich, and Goodrich was assertive in defending its trademark at the time).

Here's just the first two of the ten-point list in the Talon ad.

Why TALON means new distinction in trousers

1. Talon eliminates ugliness of the button fly.  Side wrinkles, gaps between buttons, and bulkiness are gone.
2. Talon excludes the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray.

This text displayed beside a man wearing flat-fronted trousers that would be ridiculously high-waisted today.

Getting to the Truth - The Newest Tailoring Idea for Men

The BBC News says:

Esquire magazine hailed the zipper's use on trousers in the late 1930s and declared it the “Newest Tailoring Idea for Men”. - BBC News, The ingenious invention to better the button, 23rd March 2017

A link, an actual link to a source.  Except the source is wrong.  The source is the rather imposingly-titled The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, Volume 3 (circa 2010) and on page 922 it says:

In 1937 a French fashion magazine declared that there were more trousers being made with zippers on their flies than buttons, and Esquire magazine in the United States proclaimed the zipper as the "newest tailoring idea for men," ... - The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, Volume 3 - Google Books, search inside this book

But this is just the same rabbit hole all over again. In any case, it demonstrates again a second phrase attributed to Esquire is that the zipper is "the newest tailoring idea for men", but searching the Esquire archive reveals the sole mention of this phrase is in the self-same Talon advertisement from September 1933.  In starting its list of benefits, it has a header reading:

TALON
Slide Fastener for Trousers
Newest Tailoring Idea for Men

So both phrases that are attributed to an Esquire article are actually a few lines in a September 1933 advertisement, a segment which surely must be fair use for me to reproduce.

And here, for possibly the first time on the Internet, is the actual primary source link:

Esquire magazine, "Hookless Fastener Company" (Talon advertisement), September 1, 1933.

It is kind of ridiculous than an endlessly-recirculated set of phrases trace down to a single advertisement.

Getting to the Truth - The Battle of the Fly

NOTE: The investigation below was before I had strong signals indicating that the Zipper book is the source for this phrase.  It's still a useful investigation.

One data point is there are zero search results in the Esquire archive for "battle of the fly".  It seems unlikely the magazine has any association with this phrase, let alone hosting some kind of contest in 1937. Googling has the problem that all the results are just rephrases of the Wikipedia paragraph with no primary sources.  Even when the sources seem primary they're not. Basically all I have to go on is something in France in 1937 "Battle of the Fly".

If this was a thing in France, I would hope it would show up in the French Wikipedia article Fermeture éclair, but it doesn't. Setting aside Google translate's fanciful notion that "pants fly" translates as "pantalon voler" (which means literally pants flying in the air) the actual translation of trouser fly is "la braguette".  So if this "Battle of the Fly" is a real thing, it should be something like "Bataille de la braguette".

This being France, one hit is on the history of seins nus, which asserts in passing that there has never been a battle of the fly, although they mean this more in the sense of a battle to have men expose below the waist in the same way that women expose above the waist.

Cette mode scandaleuse d'une virilité exhibée dans des étuis rigides inspire aussi les sarcasmes d'Etienne Pasquier, la braguette " représentant par l'extérieur chose grosse et grande, combien que le plus de temps, il n'y ait rien ou bien peu dedans ". Mais, malgré les railleries, il n'y a point eu dans l'Histoire de " bataille de la braguette " comme il y eut une " bataille des seins nus "... - Le blog de Philippe Poisson (not safe for work), Gabrielle d'Estrées lance la mode des seins nus, 30 Août 2009 (not safe for work)

Searching Google France in French this is the one and only result. If I broaden my search, using "braguette" I unsurprisingly mostly get histories of the pants fly, with assertions that in France at least, it's the 1960s that mark the transition to the zipper, not 1937.

Dans les années 1960, lorsque les boutons cédèrent leur place à la fermeture éclair puisque ces derniers se décousaient régulièrement. | "In the 1960s, when the buttons gave way to the zipper" - On sait pourquoi la braguette est inversée sur les jeans et des hommes et des femmes, 11 juillet 2021

Let's try the history of the zipper, fermeture éclair histoire.

• franceinfo - 22/04/2017 - La fermeture à glissière a 100 ans
• Europe 1 - Historiquement vôtre - Les origines - 31/08/2020 - Aux origines de la fermeture éclair par David Castello-Lopes

The two French sources above cite the use of the zipper by American army in their boots in the first world war.  They also enjoy mentions of the zipper as scandalising puritan sensibilities.  But there is no mention of the 1937 Battle of the Fly.

At this point I think the 1937 Battle of the Fly may be an invention out of whole cloth.

I checked every table of contents for Esquire in 1937.  "And Fly with Safety" in June 1937 looked promising but it turned out to be about seaplanes.  There are lots of Talon ads, including prominently placed e.g. a full page ad on the left page next to the table of contents on the right page in the July 1937 issue.  "Knights in Armor" was a last hope in the December 1937 episode, but it is about actual suits of armor.

So on a scan, there is zero mention of zippers or this probably-imaginary "Battle of the Fly" in any 1937 Esquire. I would be happy to be corrected.

The most likely scenario now seems to be that pro-zipper, anti-buttonfly Talon's corporate hagiography book conjures up some "Battle of the Fly" that they won, and that's what is cited by the Smithsonian, and then in turn that's what got picked up in Wikipedia.

UPDATE 2022-09-18: The most likely scenario is that the term is in the Zipper book but may not have been widely used, and certainly wasn't used in Esquire.  END UPDATE

To wrap up, let's get the sequencing of changes from the Wikipedia entry history.

Getting to the Truth - Wikipedia History

The Wikipedia Zipper article was created on August 22, 2003, without the Battle of the Fly story. For almost seven years, the relevant paragraph was an almost unaltered and (as far as I know) historically accurate set of statements, here's the last example from 03:49, August 10, 2010:

The zipper slowly became popular for children's clothing and men's trousers in the 1920s and 1930s. In the early 1930s the haute couture designer Elsa Schiaparelli featured zippers in her avant-garde gowns, helping it to become acceptable in women's clothing. In 1934, Tadao Yoshida founded a company called San-S Shokai in downtown Tokyo. Later, this company would change its name to YKK and become the world's largest manufacturer of zippers and fastening products. By World War II, the zipper had become widely used in Europe and North America, and after the war quickly spread through the rest of the world. - Wikipedia - Zipper (03:49, August 10, 2010)

Then all of a sudden on August 17, 2010 the Battle of the Fly appears out of nowhere, courtesy of "Gagakong":

In the 1930's, a sales campaign began for children's clothing featuring zippers. The campaign praised zippers for promoting self-reliance in young children by making it possible for them to dress in self-help clothing. The zipper beat the button in the 1937 in the "Battle of the Fly," when French fashion designers raved over zippers in men's trousers. Esquire magazine declared the zipper the "Newest Tailoring Idea for Men" and among the zippered fly's many virtues was that it would exclude "The Possibility of Unintentional and Embarrassing Disarray." - Wikipedia - Zipper (22:06, August 17, 2010)

This unreferenced paragraph is never corrected for the next 12 years, other than getting a [citation needed] tag.

Gagakong made seven edits to Wikipedia (including two to Zipper) from August 1, 2010 to August 18, 2010 and then according to their contributions log https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Gagakong has never made an edit since.

Given the sequencing of events, it looks like Gagakong may have taken the "Battle of the Fly" in good faith from the Smithsonian source.  Otherwise, they may have just made it up, and if they remember this moment's editing at all, are delighted that it has survived and propagated to authoritative sources.

NOTE: The above reposted from my personal blog, with minor modifications.

Open Data Exchange 2013 - Twitter list

NOTE: This 2013 draft blog post is being published in 2022; it may be incomplete and the information is certainly out of date.

Open Data Exchange 2013 was a one-day conference in Montreal organised by Sauvé Scholar Naomi Kincler and developer Ted Strauss.

Twitter

• Michael Lenczner @mlenc - CEO, Ajah
• James McKinney @mckinneyjames -  Technical Lead, Open North@opennorth
• Michael Roberts @michaeloroberts - Acclar@acclar & IATI
• Pete Forde (session moderator) @peteforde - Hacker Tourist
• Sébastien Pierre - fondateur, FFunction@ffunction & Montréal Ouvert
• Guillaume Ducharme @GuillaumeAQESSS - gestionnaire dans le réseau de la santé et membre du collectif Démocratie Ouverte
• Josée Plamondon @joplam - co-conceptrice, ContratsNet@ContratsNet
• Jean-Noé Landry (l’animateur de discussion) - fondateur, Montréal Ouvert et Québec Ouvert @qcouvert
• Corey Chivers @CjBayesian - PhD candidate, Biology, McGill & Montreal R User Group
• Tracey Lauriault @TraceyLauriault - Open Data advocate & Postdoctoral Fellow, Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University
• Petko Valtchev - Professor, Computer Science, UQAM
• Ted Strauss (moderator) @trudatted - Co-founder, Trudat
• Diane Mercier @carnetsDM - chargée de projet principale en données ouvertes@MTL_DO , Ville de Montréal
• Trina Chiasson @trinachi - InfoActive
• Christian Gendreau @christgendreau - Canadensys@Canadensys
• Trevor Bekolay @TrevorBekolay - Waterloo University
• Steve Reitano @Beautifuldata - Open Data Survey
• Anton Dubrau @ant6n - cat-bus.com
• Heri Rakotomalala @heri - MTL NewTech
• Julia Evans @b0rk - MTL all-girl hack night
• Roberto Rocha @robroc - Montreal Gazette
• Edward Ocampo-Gooding @edwardog - Open Data Ottawa

• Sauvé Scholars @SauveScholars

engineered serendipity - does your space enable casual collisions?

This 2012 draft post was in line with thinking at the time. Now that I'm finally posting it in 2022 when we have remote work, it's not clear how much of this physical proximity theory actually was true, and how much was justification for particular office designs and management preferences.

Mr. Kelly was convinced that physical proximity was everything; phone calls alone wouldn’t do. Quite intentionally, Bell Labs housed thinkers and doers under one roof. Purposefully mixed together on the transistor project were physicists, metallurgists and electrical engineers; side by side were specialists in theory, experimentation and manufacturing. Like an able concert hall conductor, he sought a harmony, and sometimes a tension, between scientific disciplines; between researchers and developers; and between soloists and groups.

ONE element of his approach was architectural. He personally helped design a building in Murray Hill, N.J., opened in 1941, where everyone would interact with one another. Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible. A physicist on his way to lunch in the cafeteria was like a magnet rolling past iron filings.

New York Times Sunday Review - True Innovation - February 25, 2012

Do any other organisations engineer serendipity in this way?  Google does

The person responsible for all the wonky integration started the New York office with 17 people.  She says she's incorporated the influx of new staffers with an eye towards what she calls casual collision, where Google staffers bump into people they don't normally work with.

Wall Street Journal - Tech: Andy Jordan (video) - quote from 3:37 to 3:51

via NYC Digital which also links to the WSJ article: Google Web Grows in City (Feb 29, 2012).

This kind of thinking applies to both offline and online spaces.

 

The Law of Infinite Perfect Copies

NOTE: This 2007 draft blog post is being published in 2022; it may be incomplete.

The Law of Infinite Perfect Copies

In the digital environment, an unlimited number of content duplicates can be made, with no degradation in quality.

The Law of Motivated Networks

A motivated network can always defeat a hierarchical bureaucracy.

review - Out of the Box web services

NOTE: This 2007 draft blog post is being published in 2022; it may be incomplete and the information is certainly out of date.

Out of the Box by John Hagel III

# Hardcover: 240 pages
# Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (October 28, 2002)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1578516803
# ISBN-13: 978-1578516803

The full title is Out of the Box: Strategies for Achieving Profits Today & Growth Tomorrow Through Web Services

The bottom line is that managers needs to develop more flexibility and collaboration capability to deliver continuing rounds of operating cost and asset savings as well as accelerated growth.  They need to escape from the high cost and inflexible infrastructures that make both cost reduction and growth such daunting challenges.

This book discusses how a new generation of IT and related architectures--known generally as Web services technology and distributed services architectures--will provide a significant catalyst in helping management break out of the boxes that confine it today.

The book is mainly targetted at managers, and talks mostly about business transformation challenges.  I liked the emphasis on bringing more flexibility to all aspects of business.  It doesn't talk about Service-Oriented Architecture directly at all, although it does talk sometimes about "Web service architectures".

If you're a manager and looking for ideas about how to transform your business, taking advantage of new technology and new IT processes, this would be a good book to read.

my review of The World is Flat

NOTE: This 2006 draft blog post is being published in 2022; it may be incomplete and the information is certainly out of date.

Despite having a huge stack of books to read, I found myself on vacation without anything to read, so I ended up getting The World is Flat (Updated Edition) mostly by accident.

I had rushed into the mall to get the Globe, which no one was selling, so on a quick scan of the bookstore, I thought, hmm, if I'm going to sling around the term I should probably actually read the book.

At 566 pages, it's no light read, but Thomas Friedman presents a comprehensive framework for understanding the impact of technology on our societies.

I had assumed the book was mostly about outsourcing, but it actually covers a wide range of current developments in work and technology.  Friedman describes our society as experiencing "Globalization 3.0".

I was once again surprised, particularly given that he was even using "3.0" terminology, that there was no mention of Toffler's The Third Wave but other than that, the book is very strong.

It covers technology change with explanations that are both clear and comprehensive.  The last thing I would have expected in a book about globalization would be to get a good discussion of underlying technology change, but lo and behold, I read

"But then," added Microsoft's Mundie, "we said to ourselves, 'Geez, if we really want to automate everything, then we need to make it much easier not just for people to talk to people, but for machines to talk to machines -- for machines to interact with other machines about any subject without any humans involved at all or any a priori relationship between the different companies whose machines are communicating."  This was the next work flow breakthrough.

Technically, what made it possible was the development of a new data description language, called XML (extensible markup language) and its related transport protocol called SOAP (simple object access protocol).  Together, they allow any two computer programs to exchange formatted data or documents that contain any form of information.

(from "The Ten Forces that Flattened the World - #3 - Work Flow Software" - page 82)

Issues

"globalization" is missing from the index.

There is no comprehensive reference list or bibliography.  While he does a great job of citing things within the text, it would be nice to have them all gathered together at the end as well.