Here’s the awesome quadcopter video of the event

I noticed it hovering in the air that day and wondered what it was doing there. When I’m at a race, all I see is dust, dirt and gravel, so it’s pretty neat to see what it all looks like from above.

Sometimes, for fun, I like to browse the illustration archives at the Library of Congress, which is a veritable treasure trove. I found the lovely one above while poking through the Tissandier Collection which contains images documenting “the early history of aeronautics with an emphasis on balloon flight.” There’s no information on the artist though which is unfortunate, but apparently he or she thought we’d get to the moon by bike! (which I kind of like :)

Kidoodle Apps presents: Pirate Scribblebeard’s Treasure! from Kidoodle Apps on Vimeo.

My super talented friends Michaelangelo and Karen (and their equally talented son Oscar) just made a really fun drawing app for kids! I don’t have any kids…but I sometimes behave like one, and I have to say that my inner 6 yr old approves! I am going to give it my nephews since my brother’s iPad is, for the most part, a very expensive (but compact) kid’s toy (that is all they ever use it for). I especially like the “email” feature that makes it easy for kids to send their drawings to their parents (except I am going to set up the app so my nephew’s drawings come to me :).

You can find out more about the app over here and you can get it at the iTunes store over here!

The one below is called One Red Dot, by David Carter. It’s one of a series of books for kids featuring his fanciful paper sculptures, but I think adults will like it too. In spite of the fact that I love my iPad and do most of my recreational reading on it now, there’s something magical about opening a book and having a 3 dimensional creature or landscape pop up.

He also wrote another great book I got a while ago called The Elements of Popup which shows you how various popup mechanisms work. It’s awesome. You can even download the popup patterns from his website.

The other book that came in the mail is Trail by David Pelham which is lovely and delicate…but not really for kids.

The all white landscapes in this one remind me of an inspiring video I recently saw called The Ice Book – a miniature theatre performance projected behind a pop-up-book stage set.

Lastly, did you know that most popup books are still assembled by hand? (usually in China) It’s true…they are labor intensive and apparently too intricate for machines to deal with.

I recently picked up this book at Green Apple earlier this week and it’s so beautiful I can’t stop looking at it! Some of you may have grown up seeing his illustrations in books like the The Golden Book of Biology. This compilation was assembled by Todd Oldham and is the most comprehensive book on Charley Harper right now. It’s GIGANTIC. You will not be able to fit it in your backpack or on your lap. Green Apple has one more boxed copy left for $49. This is an amazing deal given that this version of the book is $200 elsewhere and $125 on Amazon (hooray for Green Apple!) GO GET IT!! (If you don’t I will… although, if it happens to be gone, you can still get a smaller more manageable version of the book for a more manageable price).

Also, I haven’t really looked at this yet but apparently there is an iPad / iPhone game for kids based on illustrations by Charley Harper called Peekaboo Forest!

I just finished reading Zeitoun, an account of Hurricane Katrina and the disastrous events experienced by Zeitoun, a Syrian immigrant living in New Orleans and his American born wife Kathy.

The story is told from Zeitoun’s and Kathy’s perspective but written by Dave Eggers. When I first started the book, I have to admit I was a little skeptical because it’s written like a novel but is supposed to be a non-fiction account of this family’s experience. A part of me is always a little skeptical when I read anything that’s ghost-written or told through someone else, so I found myself questioning the dialog, the level of introspection, the details that seemed beyond the scope of memory. How could Eggers have known the exact words that were said on any particular day? The exact details of what something looked like? But accuracy to the letter isn’t the point of the book and once I accepted that and Eggers’ style of telling the story, I allowed myself to suspend disbelief and was drawn in.

The story that unfolds is gripping…and will make you very very angry…and depressed about our government. I won’t go into details about what happened – I didn’t know where the story would lead and I think that’s what made it so horrifying. At the same time it was heartwarming and inspiring to read about the family. I definitely recommend it.

woohoo it’s now possible to do this! I just discovered Bluefire Reader over the weekend and am happy to report that it works beautifully. The app lets you read ePub and PDF documents (including DRM ebooks available from most public libraries) on your iPad and iPhone. The UI is simple and easy to use. All I had to do was download the free app to my iPad, login to my SF public library account from Safari, and then download a book directly to my device. Their website says you need to download books to your computer first before transferring them to your iPad but I didn’t have any problems downloading directly to the iPad – no need for syncing and after 3 weeks, borrowed books are automatically returned (no more late fees!) It’s awesome!

We now have kittens on turtles

and puppies on turtles. (poor turtles!)

(taken by Michael Prados)