Now that we all have some time to catch our breaths

after finishing (almost) all of our term work, take a look at Doris Lessing's acceptance speech,
for the Nobel Prize for literature. I feel like anything I said about it would be rather feeble in comparison to her words themselves, but I'll just say that I thought it brought together a lot of the things we've been discussing all term many of our classes. And forgive me for saying this on a blog devoted to an information technology course, but it underlined for me that the BOOK is still the most useful, portable, accessible way to convey information, especially in areas without electricity. Perhaps instead of one laptop per child, we might want to start with one book per child?

By the way, I actually stumbled on this speech while searching for information about Nicholas Carr's assertion that a second-life avatar consumes as much electricity as the average Brazilian, when you take into account the electricity needed by second-life user PCs, second life servers, and the air conditioners in second-life data centres. Of course, this calculation does not even include the energy needed to manufacture PCs and servers themselves! While energy is required to manufacture and transport books, build libraries, heat and cool them, etc., I think it's worth considering whether more intensive computer use by libraries choosing the "Library 2.0" route is ecologically sustainable.

Two interesting things to think about - the hunger for books and energy-sucking second-life avatars. But now I'm off to bake cookies, and knit myself a new winter hat (better enjoy these cold winters while we have them, after all!).