Art

Roomba News

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A couple links for my girlfriend, who has one of these clever little vacuums.
New Roomba Scheduler lets you upgrade your current Roomba! The iRobot Scheduler is a complete scheduling system that can be used with any of our current Roomba productsProgram the days and times and Roomba will clean when you’re not at home, at night, once a week or anytime you want.
Roomba Hacking: Ever wish you could dispatch a robot to grab you a beer? That day might soon be here, thanks to an as-yet-unannounced decision by iRobot. In early July the company will post instructions for controlling its Roomba vacuum cleaner via the built-in serial port, so programmers can modify it however they want – from equipping it with a camera to, yes, adding an arm and training it to retrieve brewskis. iRobot hopes the move will foster the development of Roomba accessories – like the ecosystem of add-ons that has sprung up around the iPod – thus driving sales.

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Stranger Things Happen

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I’ve had the Kelly Link short story collection “Stranger Things Happen” on my to-buy list for quite some time, and for one reason or another have never gotten around to purchasing it. Now she’s written another short story collection (Magic for Beginners), and to help promote it, has made the previous book available for free download under the Creative Commons license. Extremely cool.

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A-List?

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A site called “blogebrity” (I won’t even start bitching about that weird mash-up name) is ranking Blogs by category: A-List, B-List, and C-List. I don’t make the list anywhere (Of course. Like I would). But what’s weird is that 98% of the people on the A-List I’ve never even heard of. And I’ve been reading blogs and blogging since before there was blogger software.
Now some of the people on the B-List and C-List are people I’ve heard of, but not too many of those, either. Who the heck are these dorks putting the list together?

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Operation Clambake: The Inner Secrets of Scientology

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What a fun site documenting the nuttiness of Scientology. Run, Katie, run!!!
Favorite quote:

But respecting and tolerating the opinions of others does not mean one either has to agree or suppress one’s disagreement. The freedom to stand up and express critical opinions and views is what makes human thought evolve and is the core of what I consider my moral and ethical guidelines: The Human Rights as defined by UN.

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Tagged: About books

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Scott tagged me with this book meme that’s going around, and now I have to tag others.

1. Estimate the total number of books you’ve owned in your life.
I *think* I have about 3,000 books in my current library. Probably double that for what I’ve owned over my lifetime. I took a picture of my wall-to-wall bookcase in my living room so you could see my current library.

My Library

2. What’s the last book you bought?

Most of my recent acquisitions have been for the two book clubs I’m in or for work-related stuff. I haven’t bought many books solely for myself because I’m trying to read through what I have on my shelf first.

3. What’s the last book you read?

I’ve been keeping track of everything I read since 1997, so if you want the complete list, go here.

5. List 5 books that mean a lot to you.

This is incredibly hard; I love so many books It’s hard to choose.

  • Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould
    When I was in high school, I was a librarian’s assistant in the Noblesville Public Library, and I checked this book out so many times that when I graduated and went to college, they remaindered the book and gave it to me. It’s now out of copyright, so I’m slowly scanning the book into electronic format.
  • The Complete William Shakespeare
    I know that sounds pretentious; sorry. But I love the comedies and the sonnets, which I’ve read all of, and I enjoy on a different level the tragedies. I think the histories are dead boring, though. Maybe I need to see them performed and I’d feel differently.
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen
    A book everyone should be required to read, just because it explodes myths about our US history and society, and gives us an eye-opening view of who Americans really are — something that can only make us better as people and as a nation. I also loved Loewen’s Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. What’s really cool: in searching for this on Amazon, I discovered he’s got a new book coming out.
  • Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner
    “A young girl, Sophie, becomes embroiled in a discussion of philosophy with a faceless correspondent. At the same time, she must unravel a mystery involving another young girl, Hilde, by using everything she’s learning. The truth is far more complicated than she could ever have imagined.”
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
    I LOVED this series as a kid and had a whole set of fantasies about going to Narnia myself.

5. Tag 5 people!
Jen, Mike, Brent and Jim from IndyScribe, Rachel, and MJ. I’d tag more, but I don’t want to use them all up before these guys can tag someone.

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