The Free Bin

In preparation for the Toledo Public Library's upcoming digital literacy workshops (made possible by the Public Library Association and AT&T), Cindy and Harrison share their personal stories of how they first encountered the digital world, way back in the 1900s! Along the way, they learn and forget how to write code, play online games while the kids sleep, imitate a dialup modem, share medium-hot takes about the role of cell phones, go to the wrong mall, and consume an inauspiciously-named juice drink!

In this episode:

"WarGames" dir. by John Badham

Harrison shares some notable works that entered the public domain on January 1, 2025. The art, literature, music, and films of the 1920s are now in the public domain Dancing skeletons, several famous novels, and a sleazy Mickey Mouse are now free to use and re-use!

In this episode:

"Ain't Misbehavin'" (Razaf, Waller, Brooks)

"Blackmail" directed by Alfred Hitchcock

"A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

"The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett

"A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf

"Singin' in the Rain" (Freed, Brown)

"The Skeleton Dance" directed by Ub Iwerks

"The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner

"Spite Marriage" directed by Buster Keaton

"Waiting For a Train" (Rodgers)

Background music for this episode:

"Shreveport Stomp" by Jelly Roll Morton (1924) (Gennett 5590)

Santa Claus himself stops by the library to share Francis Pharcellus Church's classic 1897 newspaper editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

In this episode:

The Public Domain Review's write-up of the editorial

"This article was originally published on The Public Domain Review https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/yes-virginia-there-is-a-santa-claus-1897/ under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/reusing-material/"

Richard Fetrow from the Seashore Literacy Ukulele Group (SLUGs) stops by to chat with Cindy and Harrison about the group's origins, activities, and community service efforts. The SLUGs will be performing at the Library December 21, 2024, at 1 p.m. to celebrate the holiday season!

Harrison reads the short, humorous poem "Pumpkin Pie" by Mary Mapes Dodge.

It's National Model Railroad Month again! Lisa Watson, Executive Director of the Yaquina Pacific Railroad Historical Society (YPRRHS), pulls into the station to teach Cindy and Harrison about the history of the model railroad hobby, and how it relates to the history of railroads in general. Cotton candy vanishes. An ancient temple wonder rotates. Napoleon III earns himself a "World's Greatest Dad" mug. A horse on a treadmill challenges "The Rocket" to a race, with predictable results. Lionel makes an unexpected sale.

The annual YPRRHS model Christmas show is happening December 21-22 from 10 am - 5 pm at the old Portland and Western depot building next to the Toledo post office.

Episode artwork:

Woodcut by E. Grangile from a photograph by Charles-Louis Michelez, Le Monde Illustré, 8 October 1859, depicting the model railroad built by Napoleon III for his 3-year-old son, Napoleon, Prince Imperial.

Get your 20-sided dice ready! Cindy and Harrison sit down with esteemed local Dungeon Master (DM) Thomas Rogers to discuss all things Dungeons & Dragons (DnD). Topics include gameplay basics, the role of narrative, Thomas's tools of the trade, unexpected celebrity players, and DnD's strange cultural moment as a target of the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s. Harrison can't find the on-ramp, Thomas rolls a 20, and Cindy nearly destroys a microphone with a fungus-laden cola.

Harrison shares a selection of titles for Veterans' Day.

In this episode:

"In the Company of Soldiers" by Rick Atkinson

"Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford

"No Easy Day" by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer

"Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body" by Lyle Jeremy Rubin

"We're Seabees, Not Regular Navy" by Paul Ferrell

"What It Is LikeTo Go To War" by Karl Marlantes

Harrison and Cindy chat with the Lincoln County Library District's hardworking cataloger/integrated library system (ILS) administrator, Christopher Davis, to learn about internet privacy and boldly imbibe a baffling beverage.

Below is Christopher's fantastic resource list, with his own annotations:

Background information:

• https://libguides.up.edu/dpc For those of you who like to research- many articles on how to keep your personal information private- thank you Univ. of Portland
• https://calyxinstitute.org/about Institute for educating the public on how to keep their personal information private
• https://securityinabox.org/en/ Treasure trove of tips and hacks for your devices to reduce 3rd party surveillance and hacking of your information
• https://ssd.eff.org/en/module-categories/tool-guides Tools and guides to reduce computer and internet risks
• https://www.igolder.com/pgp/ How to use GPG and PGP certificates to encrypt your email (very geeky)
• https://www.lifewire.com/google-privacy-policy-ai-training-data-7557365 "Your Private Data Is Going to Train Chatbots—Here's Why You Should Care"
• https://jcls.org/2021/10/20/password-managers/ (mildly-geeky) A blog I wrote regarding selecting and using password managers
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YubiKey (medium-geeky) Encyclopedia article on how great YubiKeys and FIDO authentication devices are at protecting your systems
• https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/08/24/podcast-369-passwords-are-dead-long-live-the-new-authentication-flows/ Convenient solution to those who don't want to use passwords- deep dive into passwordless authentication methods that some big tech companies have implemented
• https://youtu.be/7U-RbOKanYs?si=ejCiS9y7XgeTTOsG&t=684 I really don't like using scare tactics, but if you want to see just how fast someone 8 years ago could crack your current password, then this is a great video to watch. The link is to about half way through the 20-min video

Useful tools:

• Explain GDPR- the banner that displays at the bottom of the webpage notifying you that the website uses cookies, there is usually an, "Accept" button and sometimes there is a button adjacent to that one that is labeled, "Options," "Learn more," "Reasons," or with some other language indicating an alternative. so to reject the use of unnecessary cookies (illustration- https://i0.wp.com/www.cssscript.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Stylish-Multilingual-GDPR-Cookie-Consent-Popup.png?fit=1400%2C850&ssl=1)
• https://duckduckgo.com (also https://duck.com & https://ddg.gg) Google tracks you all around the internet; a great Google alternative is DuckDuckGo search engine
• https://www.ghostery.com/ Suite of internet tools designed to stop tracking and unwanted ads, notify you when a company you use has a security breach, and offers a privacy-themed newsletter
• https://proton.me Suite of privacy-by-design (PBD), end-to-end (e2e) encrypted email, calendaring, online storage of photos, documents, and files, file sharing, word processing, password manager, and crypto wallet
• https://standardnotes.com/ e2e encrypted online note-taking with iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux apps
• https://venice.ai Ask ANYTHING using PBD AI chatbots & image generators w/out the fear of anyone storing (or connecting to you) your questions & the AI's replies
• https://www.usbcondom.org/faq/ Nothing to do with sex, this is a novel idea to prevent someone from "juicejacking" or secretly downloading a malware to your device when you use that open USB device-charging port at the airport, library, or school
• https://murena.com (for the non-geeky) & https://e.foundation (for the uber-geeky) PBD alternative to Apple & Android phones that run software called /e/OS. Cloud-based back-end features and support which are similar to what Google products do for Android smartphones (free email, could storage, calendaring, contacts/address book, documents, photo storage, sharing, & more. (advanced users)
• https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64 Giving away or disposing of your old PC? Use ShredOS to SECURELY delete your personal files by blanking the whole drive by means of automatically writing random data to the hard drive or solid state drive several times.

Harrison joins Brittney and Joshua from Swords & Starships, the Coos Bay Public Library's excellent sci-fi and fantasy podcast (listen wherever you get your podcasts)! The intrepid trio discuss monster and paranormal romance literature in all its myriad manifestations.

Content warning for younger or sensitive listeners: This episode deals with human (and non-human) sexuality, so it gets a little spicy.

Additional music credits:

"Night Vigil" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Hillbilly Swing" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/