From the Technology and Bibliography department, via Slashdot: Remote-Controlled Robot Could Browse the Stacks.

From the Academic Blogger Attempts to Demonstrate He’s Still Hip department: Cat Power is on tour in December. Well, Chan Marshall solo, anyway. Pitchforkmedia writes it up. Hilarity ensues.

From same department as above: Frank Black and the Catholics make four songs available exclusively on iTunes. However, no one will confirm if a Pixies’ reunion is in the works for next summer.

From the Academics Who Like to Read Things that Upset Them department: Michael BÈrubÈ writes about “Standards of Reason in the Classroom” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Erin O’Connor, and others, take issue with what they see as his profiling of conservative students as mentally handicapped. Now, new life has been breathed into BÈrubÈ’s website, which is starting suspiciously to look like a blog, though he continues to claim it’s not.