Filed under: books · 5 Comments

the future of books belongs to popups! I just got 2 of them in the mail today and they are FUN.

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.

Filed under: books, crafty, popups · 0 Comments

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!

Filed under: books, charleyharper, illustration · 0 Comments

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.

Filed under: books, zeitoun · 0 Comments

Boing Boing has an excellent post on the Birth of the Illuminati, which traces the Illuminati conspiracy theory back to a book called Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, published in 1797.

Here is a scan of Proofs of a Conspiracy, scanned from the John Adams Library by the Internet Archive:

Filed under: archive, books, fnord · 0 Comments

The Literary Platform is a new blog “dedicated to showcasing projects experimenting with literature and technology.” Ever since I got an iPad I’ve been using it read webcomics that I used to read on my computer. Web comics are much more fun when lounging on the couch. I can’t wait for more interesting graphic novels to be available!

Filed under: books, ipad, literature · 0 Comments

I wanted to ping the “Amazon Product Advertising API” which now requires an HMAC signature, and the pyAWS library doesn’t sign requests and is no longer maintained. Here is some Python code to create a signed request:

# pyAWS no longer works with the AWS signed request requirement
# Sign an AWS REST request using the method described here
# http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/index.html?RequestAuthenticationArticle.html
#_______________________________________________________________________________
def getSignedUrl(accessKey, secretKey, params):
 
    #Step 0: add accessKey, Service, Timestamp, and Version to params
    params['AWSAccessKeyId'] = accessKey
    params['Service']        = 'AWSECommerceService'
 
    #Amazon adds hundredths of a second to the timestamp (always .000), so we do too.
    #(see http://associates-amazon.s3.amazonaws.com/signed-requests/helper/index.html)
    params['Timestamp']      = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.000Z", time.gmtime())
    params['Version']        = '2009-03-31'
 
    #Step 1a: sort params
    paramsList = params.items()
    paramsList.sort()
 
    #Step 1b-d: create canonicalizedQueryString
    # This code comes from http://blog.umlungu.co.uk/blog/2009/jul/12/pyaws-adding-request-authentication/
    # and the resulting discussion
    canonicalizedQueryString = '&'.join(['%s=%s' % (k,urllib.quote(str(v))) for (k,v) in paramsList if v])
 
    #Step 2: create string to sign
    host          = 'ecs.amazonaws.com'
    requestUri    = '/onca/xml'
    stringToSign  = 'GET\n'
    stringToSign += host +'\n'
    stringToSign += requestUri+'\n'
    stringToSign += canonicalizedQueryString.encode('utf-8')
 
    #Step 3: create HMAC
    digest = hmac.new(secretKey, stringToSign, hashlib.sha256).digest()
 
    #Step 4: base64 the hmac
    sig = base64.b64encode(digest)
 
    #Step 5: append signature to query
    url  = 'http://' + host + requestUri + '?'
    url += canonicalizedQueryString + "&Signature=" + urllib.quote(sig)
 
    return url

Filed under: amazon, api, archive, books, code code, python · 0 Comments

Filed under: books, How To Teach Physics To Your Dog, zara · 0 Comments

We’ve tried a bunch, but have yet to find one that is actually tasty.

Also, I started a new blog about the Archive.

Filed under: archive, books, ereaders, kindle, olpc, sony reader · 4 Comments

We’re on a roll scanning books, and are always running out of space for book scanners. I arrived at HQ today and found five book scanners that can been set up in the conference room over the weekend!

Filed under: archive, books, scribe · 0 Comments

My new favorite little book. It’s got all kinds of helpful funny things. One of the ideas is to map letters to numbers, then make up nonsense sentences to remember strings of numbers (combination lock?). Of course I used a unix command to come up with the most frequent initial letters in the english language. Then I massaged the results a little.

cut -c1 /usr/share/dict/words | tr "[:upper:]" "[:lower:]" | uniq -c | sort -nr

Here is the resulting map … let’s go memorize some long strings of numbers!!! oh wait … we have cell phones, nobody needs to remember anything any more :-)

0 s ero
1 u on
2 t wo
3 r ee
4 d oor
5 a live
6 m ix
7 h eaven
8 b ait
9 p ine

93 68 59 79 45 47
please remember milk, bread, and please help piggy drain all drinks hai!

Author Steven Saunders has an eccentric little consulting company but I found this paper ABOUT EMERGENCE an interesting Sunday read.

Filed under: all talk, books, inspiration, lifehacking · 1 Comment

Caraka Samhita, originally uploaded by tiki.robot.

look what finally arrived!! -shag

Filed under: books · 1 Comment

Stopped in at Eastwind Books at Columbus & Stockton in SF the other day, and discovered to my delight an unannounced 30% off sale on all books in the store.  Normally a random bookstore sale would not be blog-worthy, but Eastwind is not merely a random bookstore.  They are like the Kinokuniya of Chinese bookstores, and have one of the best selections of Traditional Chinese Medicine texts of any retail bookstore in the U.S, along with a selection of Chinese philosophy, literature, and language texts.

Some gems that were still on the shelves as I was leaving were Bensky’s Formulas and Strategies, Chen’s Chinese Medical Herbology & Pharmacology, and the English version of the Commission E Monographs.  With the sale taken into account, all three were priced significantly below BookFinder prices…

Filed under: books, medicine, san francisco · 0 Comments

Filed under: birds, books, prelinger · 0 Comments

Suppose you could design your own moleskine-esque notebook, where every page and the cover is fully customizable. What kind of pages and images would you include? Please leave your ideas in the comments!

Filed under: books, diy notebook · 11 Comments

Dr. Alexander Shulin’s first laboratory notebook has been scanned and put online.

If you want higher resolution images, check out the JPEG 2000 files here.

Filed under: 2CB, archive, books, MDMA, pharmacology, shulgin · 0 Comments

May, Jess, and I went to hear Alice Waters speak at Red Hill Books. It was packed! Here is the view from the very back:

Here is a strange thing with feathers, in a window display next door to Red Hill:

It was cold night! Even Zara needed a scarf!

Filed under: AliceWaters, bernal, books, RedHillBooks, san francisco, zara · 0 Comments

For the Open Content Alliance meeting two weeks ago, the conference room at the Internet Archive HQ was transformed into a prototype library that will soon be open to the public. Here are some pictures of what Brewster calls the Open Library.

When you enter, you are greeted with a sign that explains the library:

This is a prototype library of the future that has access to millions of books, videos, and audio items from thousands of libraries worldwide. This library fits into a small room but still can house music, videos, one of a kind or popular books, and a librarian. It has download capabilities for patrons with music players, e-books, audio books and storage devices, and a Print on Demand machine that can print and bind a book in ten minutes.

The purpose of the open library is to provide universal access to all published knowledge. By using digitizing equipment, computer storange, and the Internet, we can realize the dream of the Library of Alexandria.

When you walk in, the first thing that grabs your attention is the Espresso Book Machine, which can print a book and bind a book in about ten minutes.

The EBM completely changes the physical structure of the library. Using the public access terminal in the library or your own laptop, you can order one of the 200,000+ books from the Internet Archive book collection. It takes about five minutes of preparation and another five minutes of printing, and then a perfect-bound book shoots out of the machine. Here is some video of the EBM in action.

Even though this prototype library is pysically quite small, it has a collection larger than 80% of the libraries in the US. The Internet Archive book collection is growing at a rapid pace (15,000 books a month and rising). Soon, this might be the largest library in the world, and you will be able to put one in every town!

In the two pictures above, you can see the ingredients of the Library of the Future:

• Librarian’s Desk
• Ten Minute Press
• A public internet terminal, for ordering books form other libraries, printing books out, and filling up your iPod/ebook reader.
• One-of-a-Kind Books, including:
  
  • Ancient Books, part of a History of the Written Word exhibit.
  • Book Arts, including:
    
    • Cake Books, by Jodi Alexander
    • Hong Kong Tales, by Anna Wolf
    • Winter Orchard, by Carl Dern
    • Domestic Science, by Nance O’Banion
      
• E-Book Readers, in this case, the OLPC
• Banned Books
• Foreign-language books
• Local-interest and technology books
• 78 rpm records, and other non-book material
• A comfy chair
  

Filed under: archive, books, EBM, library, OpenLibrary, PrintOnDemand · 4 Comments

We went to the Illuminated Corridor event, Prelinger on Prelinger, at the Prelinger Library last night. Lots of video art! Some pics:

linky to pics on flickr

Filed under: archive, books, library, photos, prelinger, videoart · 0 Comments

This is the first time I got the Espresso Book Machine to print and bind a book without human intervention! I happend to capture a video of Flatland being printed. Very cool!

(click play to start) (link to other sizes)

Filed under: archive, books, EBM, library, PrintOnDemand, video · 0 Comments

Here is a short video of a test run of the Open Content Alliance’s Espresso Book Machine, an automatic print-on-demand robot that makes perfect-bound paperback books. The Espresso Book Machine was created by On Demand Books.

This video was shot during configuration of the machine, so you can see the printing/binding process, but the book gets stuck and comes out mangled.. I’ll upload another video after the machine is set up..

(press play to start video) (link to other sizes)

Filed under: archive, books, EBM, library, PrintOnDemand, tronix, video · 0 Comments

Today I was thinking about Fray, the old-school story-telling website from back in the day. Unfortunately, they went on hiatus a couple days ago, and and have definitely been missed. It’s odd that the same day that I decided to check up on Fray is the same day that they announce the return of Fray, as a printed quarterly publication! Submissions are being accepted until October 1, so get busy!

I hope they resurrect the Fray Day events as well. We went to Fray Day 7 in SF and got to hear Armistead Maupin read and Noe Venable sing. It was magic.

Update: OK, it’s not odd that Fray picked today to relaunch; today is their 11th anniversary. But it is weird that I picked today to randomly start think about Fray.. hmm…

Filed under: all talk, books, fray, inspiration, recommended, san francisco · 0 Comments

You know how they have Camel Bookmobiles in Kenya? Well, in Venezuela they have Mule Bookmobiles! Bibilomu-u-u-u-las!!!

via BB.

Filed under: bobslobster, books, library · 0 Comments

I think definitely wins the award for Funniest Thug Parody of the Week.

Read A Book

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Link to Read a Book on MySpaceTV

Filed under: beats, books, video · 1 Comment

Announcing The Open Library!

What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book—our planet’s cultural legacy.

First, the library must be on the Internet. No physical space could be as big or as universally accessible as a public web site. The site would be like Wikipedia—a public resource that anyone in any country could access and that others could rework into different formats.

Second, it must be grandly comprehensive. It would take catalog entries from every library and publisher and random Internet user who is willing to donate them. It would link to places where each book could be bought, borrowed, or downloaded. It would collect reviews and references and discussions and every other piece of data about the book it could get its hands on.

But most importantly, such a library must be fully open. Not simply “free to the people,” as the grand banner across the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh proclaims, but a product of the people: letting them create and curate its catalog, contribute to its content, participate in its governance, and have full, free access to its data. In an era where library data and Internet databases are being run by money-seeking companies behind closed doors, it’s more important than ever to be open.

So let us do just that: let us build the Open Library.

From Aaron Swartz’s blog:

I thought of the smartest programmers and designers I knew and gave them a ring, sat down for coffee with them, threatened to fly out to their homes and knock on their doors. In the end, we got together an amazing group of people — all sworn to secrecy of course — and in the past few months we’ve put together what’s probably the biggest project I ever worked on.

So today I’m extraordinarily proud to announce the Open Library project. Our goal is to build the world’s greatest library, then put it up on the Internet free for all to use and edit. Books are the place you go when you have something you want to share with the world — our planet’s cultural legacy. And never has there been a bigger attempt to bring them all together.

Congrats Aaron and team!

Filed under: archive, books, library · 0 Comments