The Kat Cave

Stanza: a Revolution in Reading | Lexcycle

Turn your iPhone (or iPod Touch) into an on-the-go eBook reader!

Links to Project Gutenberg, which has 25,000 free ebooks.

Also has a desktop application for reading on your Mac, PC. Also works on Kindle.

Kinda…. exciting

So, I’ve been having more thoughts, in between feeding babies, playing with children, soothing Evan and Joe, and occasionally eating and sleeping.

I want to start a reading group. Each member will take a turn in selecting a book that we will all read and discuss - probably in an online forum….

Would anyone like to join? If so, let me know by email or in comments.

I’m free! My hand is out of the cast, I now have two functioning paws.

Alas, this means my brother’s stay here is likely to come to an end. And I must return to diaper duty. I’d love him to stay for Christmas, because I need the help, but he sees his Christmas as being spent with his partner in Mauritius. I don’t think I can compete. He’s kinda strolling around the place like a caged lion - he’s been here a long time, the longest he’s stayed in once place for some years.

And instead, I have my 86 year old Gramma, who we have to prise out of bars, where she’s often found to be dancing on tables, in an effort to attract a toy boy. Her definition of a toy boy happens to be anyone more than 5 years her junior. It’s scary. I think I’m going to be her if I make it to 86.

BABY UPDATE

Both babies are doing great - they had their 2 weeks check up today. My babies are 2 weeks old, and don’t seem to be scarred by Jamie mixing them up. They’re gaining weight and are already close to their birth weights. Both are eating like there’s no tomorrow, and tomorrow we’ll be trying tandem feeding. Anything just to get a little more sleeeeeep! They’re staying awake through feedings, and are more alert already.

I don’t like calling them “The Twins”. It feels uncomfortable. They are not identical, they’re just a little girl and a little boy that happen to have been born on the same day.

READING UPDATE

I’ve succumbed to the Twilight phenomena.

My 2000 copy of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, with introduction by Ann Charters, is BACK on my bookshelf.

Time for a re-read soon. Currently re-reading Huckleberry Finn.

My daughter and my son have had dinner, and clean diapers, and are swaddled tightly and sleeping side by side in their crib.

My room smells of newborn baby.

My copy of Americana has reappeared.

Perfection.

So, I’ve been having discussion with people about the name I’ve chosen for my unborn daughter, and how it’s a name from a poem. A poem that is symbolic of the struggle of French Canadians against Zee Dastardly Eeengleesh.

Now, there are millions of baby-naming websites.

There are lots of sites about the meanings of names.

There are lots of sites where you can search for books by author or title or ISBN or even publisher.

Why can’t you search for books by character? Or search for a name to see what books that name appears in?

So, why not build a Wiki where everyone can input character and book details, so people can search?

Because, frankly, the google search string - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-18%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=site%3Aamazon.com+++book+%22named+INSERT NAME HERE%22&btnG=Search does not trip of the tongue so easily.

….and 2 are missing.

1 copy, in English, of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road - Penguin

1 copy, in English, of Don DeLillo’s Americana - Picador

WHERE ARE THEY!

I’m in love. I’m in love with a cat. A CueCat, to be precise.

I’ve lost you already, I see that.

OK, let’s start from the beginning.

I’m having twins, I’ve had to move out of my office to make room for a nursery. To compensate for my pain and misery (of losing an office), RH bought me three large book cases. Granted, this isn’t going to even slightly cover my book case needs.

I have over 5,000 books. There may be more.

How do I know what I have? I just do.

But, to make things easier, I’ve just installed BookPedia, like iTunes, but for books. Simply add the ISBN in and away it goes to get the book information. I need to tweak a little more, to add in things like edition numbers, signed copies, first draft… but hey.

And the cool thing? With a Bar Code Scanner, I don’t even have to type.

They’re hideously expensive….

…so RH has found an old CueCat… These are consumer level bar code readers, once give away free with Wired Magazine. It was a way to connect users with advertising, more directly. You see an ad with a Cat Code, you scan it with the CueCat, and you get taken to a webpage for whatever you scanned. Technology no one wanted.

And so, millions of CueCats are now homeless. And then came the Mac Geeks, who figured you can actually use them for other things. Like scanning your book / CD / DVD / game barcodes, and building up your library database automatically. WOOHOO!

More on CueCat:

• http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000037.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

I like nothing better than to be organised.

I love bar code scanners. I think I was born to work in WalMart.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | The other man on the podium

Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave a gloved Black Power salute on the Olympic podium in October 1968. The third man on the podium was a white Australian. Articles like this remind me that there is hope for humanity, there is good out there.

(Via The BBC.)

When copy editors get bad…..