What happens when a mom "just couldn’t deal with a computer’s scroll bars, control keys, mouse, and other “cryptic” hardware," and her kid is technically inclined?The kid makes a "typewriter that sends email. It is a regular portable typewriter, which has concealed electronics that automatically sends the typed letter as an email...when the letter is finished and pulled out of the machine's carriage"The project is called 22 Pop (after the Olivetti typewriter, Letterea 22 and a reference to internet protocol terminology) and not only does it help his mom but it expands the boundaries of the e-mail universe. "The project...
For Your Halloween Bookshelf
"Antique looking books seem perfectly harmless until someone walks by, then the middle book slides out toward the victim as if it will fall from the shelf. Books also emit spooky sounds for a totally haunted effect."They are calling them Possessed Books and they sell for $25.There is also a little video clip of them in action at the above link.For an added fee they should let you pick the titles for the spine labels.Any ideas?via Boing Boing
The Library Sale as a Contact Sport
The public library sale, especially in major cities, has always been a competitive event. They are important inventory streams for most used booksellers who have an open book shop and for most book scouts. They get there early and when the doors open they turn off all appearances of civility and enter accumulation mode.Now these sales are also the feeding grounds for the new breed of booksellers who sell primarily online and deal almost exclusively in books with ISBN numbers, that is books printed after 1966 or in many cases after 1974 when it became the worldwide standard.Most of the...
Egypt is Losing Readers
EPA Library Openings Hit Another Political Snag
I am beginning to get the feeling that the EPA Libraries fiasco, like so many other vital services and issues that are in dire straights in our country, will not be resolved until the the cancerous Bush administration is removed or leaves office.From a July 17th Press Release by the ever so important Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) :"Even as Congress moves to reverse EPA’s library closures, the agency is now racing to cement new procedures restricting the ability of the public to locate or read technical documents in the agency’s possession. A new proposed policy circulated internally for...