Steampunk Music Video

I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed this video, which tells a story involving funeral customs in a steampunk world.

Dancing Books

My Oscar Predictions

I told Eric before we started watching the Oscars that I predicted that The King's Speech would win everything in every category. Even the ones it hasn't been nominated in. That makes it nice and easy...

Update: Hrm, 17% isn't the best winning percentage. And to think I actually won the pool at an Oscar party once. *sigh*

A Sunday Review

There will be no sunday review next week as I'll be at Emerald City Comicon with Torvald and my evil twin.

I'd also like to point out this review of TODAY THE WORLD IS WATCHING YOU I did earlier in the week. The review copy was from NetGalley which provides pre-publication review copies to readers from various publishers, mostly via ebooks. This book was in PDF form, I've got two more from them that are on my Kindle.

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TV this week:

• Being Human: "Type 4" - A zombie joins the house despite a bad stink and obnoxious behavior, Nina and George have a little problem, and Mitchell gets a stalker. It's amazing how this show goes from incredibly funny to touching and emotional in moments. And this episode swings back and forth in an instant.
• Being Human: "The Pack" - While Annie and Mitch get to know each other, Nina and George seek out advice from MacNair. I like Nina more and more. And her willingness to let Thomas know that MacNair was lying to him just made it better. I'm disturbed by Mitch's continued inability to admit his recent crimes to his friends, as it's clear that's the key point in this entire series (season).
• Being Human: "The Longest Day" - Herrick returns and causes chaos. Not a lot of humor in this one, as Herrick is a nasty character in that nastiness grows around him. The dilemma that George goes through in this episode puts him right up against Mitch, and it worked well. Not much humor, no.


• Who Do You Think You Are?: "Rosie O'Donnell" - I agree with hubby-Eric after watching this: let's get more comedians on this show. Rosie also does some deep digging to hunt down some mysteries in her family's past. Her great-grandfather's first wife's story was stunning, as was the reaction of her cousins when she met them. The trip to Canada was neat enough, but then she headed to Ireland and found more mysteries. A good episode.

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Here are reviews of the DCBS comic books that I've gotten around to reading and reviewing, sorted by the original shipping date:

• December 15th
• Brightest Day #16 - I'm so far behind that I've seen spoilers for how this part of the storyline ends and I'm just starting to read it now. Still, pretty cool bits of Jackson and Aquaman's lives.
• Green Lantern #60 - Well, we know who's behind the stealing of the entities, now.
• Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #5 - I can't believe how little interest I have in how this storyline turns out.
• Green Lantern/Plastic Man - Cute little tale. Of course the aliens have to look like ducks if Plas is involved.
• Birds of Prey #7 - That was extremely unwise of the birds to take Dove to that place for her birthday. Just saying. Although I enjoyed Zinda's... remarks.
• DMZ #60 - And now we see how the war began. It's chilling, and yet not so impossible to believe anymore.
• Soldier Zero #3 - So, the first hybrid meets another one, and they fight. Yup. Not feeling the excitement yet.

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My library book this week was To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Awhile ago, hubby-Eric and I watched To Kill A Mockingbird and I enjoyed it quite a bit. But then I sort of halfway joined a book club, and was told this was the book they were reading. At that point I realized I'd never read it in school, so I'd better get cracking on it. The framing of the story is how Jem broke his arm, but of course the narrative takes a very roundabout way to get to that part of the tale. The narrator, Scout, is looking back on her childhood as an adult. She tries to tell the story as she saw it happen, but her outlook on events is definitely mature compared to Scout's naivity of the time. I found the picture this book painted of the town and its people to be surprising, different than I was expecting in many ways. They weren't as, excuse the expression, black and white as I had felt they would be. In the end, I'm very glad I read this, and pretty glad I've seen the movie as well. Let's see if I can read the next book the book club has assigned... David Copperfield.

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Agatha Christie this week was Endless Night from 1967. A young man tells how he acquired Gipsy's Acres and what it cost him. It would be really difficult to write much about this without giving something away. The book started slow, and was pretty slow all the way until the final part, then it disappointed me more than a little. It's not my favorite by any means at all, and in fact is fairly close to the bottom for me. I hope the next one is better.

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Fortean Times #268 (December 2010). I'm well behind on reviewing these, for once not because they are late but because I got a Kindle and stopped reading everything else for awhile (which is also why I'm behind on the comics). Let's see, this is a standard issue, lots of good stuff, wierd stuff, and some stuff that can gross you out. Some highlights: The Renfrew ghost video is so clearly a flare on the lens (it moves with the camera) that I can't believe even a ghost hunter would put it up as evidence (YouTube). The pictures of the giant tumor and kidney stone were enough to turn my stomach. The UFO files was good, and has been particularly good the last few months.

The cover article is about the connection between home renovations and hauntings, and was an ok overview. There didn't seem to be a lot new there for me. Another good long article is about the link between Christianity and Horror, and covers a lifelong horror fan who became a Christian and retained his love of horror. It was a different angle on the subject than I expected. Mischief Night is covered in a history article that I found extremely fascinating, as it is a tradition that doesn't really exist anywhere I've lived. And another article discusses a possible attempt to steal Barnum's body from his grave.

The reviews were excellent as usual, and for the first time I looked for Kindle editions of the books I thought I might be interested in if I could find them in that format. I was able to locate three of them to add to my Kindle Wishlist. The letters were the usual high quality, and "It Happened to Me" as freaky as I normally find it. The comic page was a new one for me, "The Cryptid Kid Investigates", and it wasn't bad. Overall, another good issue of the best magazine out there.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Overdrive, HarperCollins, and eBooks in Libraries

I've been following this story closely since it broke a couple of days ago, and it's just getting more and more heated in the library side of the internet. Check out this post and its comments for a lot of information about the subject.

The basic gist of the story is that HarperCollins wants library copies of ebooks to expire after 26 checkouts. Further, some unnamed publisher, possibly HarperCollins, wants libraries to turn over patron information to Overdrive so they can be certain that libraries are not lending ebooks to people who live out of the service area of the libraries.

The first is ridiculous, the second is unforgivable.

The response has been raging over the 'net in many forums and blogs, including the Amazon Kindle forum, Slashdot, Boing Boing, MetaFilter, and many other places.

Apparently, "Winged Pigs Are Bobsledding in Hell"

The Seattle Times supports legalizing marijuana, and has written several editorials on the subject over the last week. Headline from Slog.

Not a fan of drugs, myself, and I've never even smoked a cigarette or had a glass of any sort of alcohol, much less tried pot. But considering the insane cost of the war on drugs, the relatively harmless effects of marijuana compared to alcohol, and the possible revenue stream that would come from taxing the stuff, I'm not opposed to legalization. There are a dozen other reasons, too, including serious environmental issues. Legalization won't make me any more inclined to try it, and I doubt it'll make a huge overall difference in its use. And as long as the penalties for abuse are still high, I just don't see the downside.

What do you think?

Kindle and Calibre - DRM and Plugins

This is very much the elephant in the room of ebooks. I make no secret of the fact that I despise Digital Rights Management (DRM). It's an attempt to use technology to solve a social problem. As a result it is always quickly broken and instead of stopping the copyright infringers it makes it hard for honest people to use files they have already purchased. I've already posted about a situation where I attempted to remove DRM for someone, but failed and ended up pirating it (to my personal dismay). There has been at least one study that shows people will turn to piracy to get what they need out of ebooks that have DRM. The online comic XKCD has a persuasive argument why DRM makes criminals out of us all. So I'm not fond of DRM*.

In short, DRM only stops honest people from being able to use a file the way they expect to be able to. It does nothing at all to stop the "pirates". The people who want to make a file widely available will always be able to break the technology used to create DRM, and as a result the pirated copy of a book will always be more useful than the one laden with crippling DRM. As a publisher, you NEVER want a pirate to offer a better product than your own. That's stupidity in marketing.

As an aside, I have repeatedly argued for a different kind of DRM scheme that embeds a user's information in a file in multiple ways without restricting the file's use (watermarking). I have absolutely no issue with a file I download having information that will allow a company to see if I have put that file on a file-sharing site. I don't share my files anyway. Such a scheme would not cripple the file, meaning that normal non-techie people can use it fine. Yes, it's still technology and therefore people could still remove the ID from the file and pirate it, but it would be less likely to happen, in my opinion. People would rather be honest than dishonest.

Getting back to the discussion at hand, while some publishers offer DRM-free books (such as Baen Books), most cripple their books, making them impossible to read on multiple devices unless you register every device and download them specifically to those devices. For many bookstores, you can't register a competing device, so if you have a Sony and want to read a book you bought for Kindle on it, you're out of luck.

Let me state this right now: Calibre will NOT help you break DRM. Calibre is a management program, not a piracy program.

However, Calibre is an open source program that allows plugins, and there have been multiple plugins created for Calibre that will remove almost any type of DRM from any file you import into Calibre. I want to stress: this is not legal everywhere, and any justification you make for it is an excuse. If you decide to hunt down anti-DRM plugins for Calibre, do so fully aware that what you are doing is probably illegal and possibly immoral as well. You may disagree with me, but I won't lie to myself. What I did to help Tim and Jane was wrong, even if it was moral in some sense. And if I were to, say, remove all DRM from every book I purchase it would also be technically illegal, even though I do NOT share my book files.

If you really want to be a bad consumer and strip DRM from your ebooks you will have to use an internet search to find the files you need, because I cannot and will not link to them or host them here. First, Amazon has an understandable desire to sue people who help others to break DRM. Second, DRM tech is constantly advancing as the DRM peddlers continue their futile attempts to stay ahead of the techies who enjoy removing stupid things like DRM. So a link to a DRM removal tool would soon become obsolete anyway.

Side Thought: DRM peddlers are like drug dealers. "Sure, c'mon, we can get rid of your nasty hallucipirates, just give us a lot of money and we'll give you our latest and greatest." And the DRM might work for a bit, but they will soon have to return for another hit.

If you are determined to strip DRM from your Kindle ebooks, here's some hints. First, you may want to install Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac. And you might want to download any ebooks you want to strip of DRM to those programs. When you do an internet search, you maybe should look up something about Calibre, plugins and DRM. You should not have to sign up for any forum or pay any money for the plugins. I can't tell you what exact searches will work, or if you'll be able to find what you are looking for. But hey, if you are determined, good luck.

One last note: If I learn that you've used this information to pirate ebooks and share them with everybody, I'll consider you lower than pond scum and scorn you for the rest of your life. If you want to remove DRM, remove it for private use, not copyright infringement.

Let's move on to a less dangerous subject. How about, oh, Calibre plugins!

Adding a plugin to Calibre is very easy. First, you find the plugin you want to add. There's a good list of plugins here, and they include some really neat stuff. For Kindle 3 users, check out the collections management plugin.

Each plugin comes in the form of a zip file (don't extract it, it needs to stay a zip file). Simply download it to your computer somewhere you can find it again.

Next, you need to tell Calibre to load up the plugin.

• Click on the Preferences button.
• Then, down in the lower left should be a "Plugins" button. Click that.
• At the bottom of the window that opens is an "Add a new plugin" button. Click it, and you'll get a search window.
• Find your downloaded zip file, click "Open", and let it install. You might get a warning about the danger of a plugin. As long as you downloaded the plugin from a trusted source, you should be ok and can click through.
• Now your plugin will show up in the list of plugins. At this point, if it needs to be customized, you can select the plugin and click the "Customize plugin" button. What you get will depend on what features the plugin has, if any. Many plugins don't require any customization.
• Once you'll installed and customized, if needed, then you need to restart Calibre. You can do that quickly by typing Ctrl+R.
• It is safe to delete the original zip file you downloaded once the plugin has been installed.
• If the plugin needs to have a menu item or toolbar button added, go to Preferences and then "Customize the Toolbar". Use the dropdown to find what menu or toolbar it needs to be added to, then find the action in the "Available actions" box, select it, and add it to the other box. Use the arrows to move it to where you want it to show up.

Once you've installed a plugin and restarted Calibre, the plugin should be working immediately. A handful of plugins, like the collections one, require a couple more steps to make them work best. Read the instructions that come with the plugin to make sure. Quite a few plugins don't require any effort on your part at all, they just work.

If you are a developer yourself and familiar with Python, there is good information about how to create a Calibre plugin in the Calibre User Manual.

That it for these topics. If I ever get a Kindle 3, maybe I'll write up how to actually use the collections plugin to your best advantage. But my poor little K1 doesn't have collections on it, so I'm clueless about it at the moment.

* There is one single exception to my distaste of DRM, and that's library books. I may go into detail later, as I intend to discuss library books and the Kindle, but at the moment it's enough to say that I don't mind DRM on library books.

Review - Today The World Is Watching You

Today The World Is Watching You by Kekla Magoon (2011)

If you want to know about a subject, without analysis or too much detail to absorb quickly, the best place to go might be a textbook aimed at a young audience. I certainly found this book to be an incredibly comprehensible, if not completely comprehensive, overview of the events surrounding the integration of the high schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The focus of this book is the Little Rock Nine, the nine brave students who fought through the challenge of integration against people who were violently opposed to it, just to go to school. The book starts with a quick overview, starting as the students attempted to enter the school on September 4th 1957, and ends with some questions for the book to answer. Its inability to quite answer the first question isn't a flaw in the book, because it would be very hard to look into the hearts of teenagers from over 50 years ago to see where they found their courage. But the book successfully answers the second question, regarding the experiences of the students and the meaning of the actions in the future.

The first chapter covers the history of African Americans in the United States, touching on many major moments and emphasizing the unfairness and sheer wrongness of the treatment of an entire group of people throughout time. Chapter two is about Brown v. Board of Education from 1954, and the situation it set up.

In Chapter three, the book focuses on Little Rock and begins to really get interesting. The next few chapters take us through the events of that year, and do so in a compelling way. I found myself reading intently and learning facts I did not know. Sure, I'm an adult and I knew all about segregation, but there were details I'd never learned or I didn't remember about this part of the story in particular. The text is illustrated with ample photographs and sidebars that detail further information about the events. One sidebar explains the source of the book's title, taken from an article in the Central High School newspaper.

This book is aimed at children or young adults, but it's definitely worth reading for anyone. It covers a part of our history that is well-known, but does so in a sympathetic and interesting way. The information is well presented and laid out, and the book includes a timeline, who's who, glossary, bibliography, and index. In short, a great introduction to the topic for anyone.

Kindle and Calibre - User Manual

The Calibre User Manual is available as an ePub download. Once you've downloaded, you can convert it to mobi format and upload it to your Kindle to read at your leisure.

Nick Courtney, Rest in Peace

Today has not been a good day for my creative heroes. Nick Courtney has passed away at the age of 81.

Dwayne McDuffie, Rest in Peace

I still don't want to believe that he died, but the news has been confirmed by many sources.

Kindle and Calibre - Free Books

Everyone likes a freebie, and with the Kindle I can actually read freebies without eyestrain. And so I'm going to list a few of my sources of free ebooks, so you have an idea of where to go to get free books if you want to join in. The Calibre side of this is pretty simple, actually. Any ebook that isn't in Kindle format and doesn't have DRM (Digital Rights Management) on it can be converted to Kindle format with Calibre. I've actually learned how to create and edit ePub files myself, then convert them to mobi format to upload to the Kindle. But more on that later.

Amazon.com itself has a bunch of free books, they can be found here. They have two distinct collections of free books. First is the classics, which are in the public domain and always available, and the other is a collection of limited time offers. The limited time offers change on a nearly daily basis, and some of them are only available for a few hours, so it's best to snag those the instant you see them.

If you don't have a Kindle, there are a number of different Kindle applications that will allow you to read Kindle books on your favorite device. Before I got a Kindle, I used Kindle for PC to download a handful of free books, but I couldn't read them very well because of the eyestrain problem. When I registered my Kindle the first time, those books were automatically uploaded to my Kindle, giving me a nice starting place to read.

Of course, Amazon is hardly the only source of free e-books online. The biggest and bestest would be Gutenberg, a repository for out-of-copyright works saved in digital formats that are easy to work with. A lot of those books already have Kindle editions ready, and they can be downloaded and added to Calibre with ease. Best of all, no DRM so you don't have to worry about whether or not the book will open on any new device you get.

One of my favorite sites to get free e-books is MobileRead.com. The care that has gone into making these out-of-copyright books into nicely formatted reads often shows quite plainly. I love getting huge omnibus editions of a writer's works, for instance this Oz Omnibus. I've found that the best way to get the most from MobileRead is to look for the HTML link over on the upper right, where it says "Full List", and open that file in a browser window. Then I can find neat stuff by scanning down the list.

I would be amiss if I didn't mention the Baen Free Library. This was started many years ago by Jim Baen (bless and rest his soul) who believed that most people would rather be honest than dishonest, but DRM was so restrictive that people would be driven to pirated material in disgust if they couldn't get what they wanted from an official source. And he strove to make sure that every e-book he published was exactly what a customer would want. Then he went a step further and started to give away ebooks, usually the first book or two of an ongoing series. That was the Free Library, and it's continued ever since. And if that weren't enough, then Baen started giving out CDs with hardcover books, CDs that readers were encouraged to share that often included pretty much an entire series of books. Yes, it's legal. Yes, Baen knows about it. The books are provided in a variety of formats, making it easy to read them on just about any device you can imagine.

Frankly, between just those sites there's enough material to keep me reading for many more months, but there are a handful of other sites that are useful as well. ManyBooks has a few nice free books, although a lot of its archive is from Gutenberg originally. Smashwords has a lot of original books for free. The site is a publishing platform for independent publishers and authors, so you may find all kinds of interesting stuff there.

If you want a one-stop sort of site, Inkmesh might be your place to go. The site is an ebook search engine, and includes easy links for a number of free ebook sites.

A couple of sites that will help you monitor free books are Daily Cheap Reads and eReaderIQ.

And that's just the ones I can think of right now. Many authors provide either free books or samples on their personal websites. Amazon.com also offers samples of almost all Kindle books, usually the first 10% of the book.

Update: A new site called Open Books offers a few books that are free, but more importantly, all the books linked from the site are free from DRM, so they can be read on any reader.

Update: NetGalley offers books for free, but there are a few caveats. The first is that these are review copies, not always fully edited. The next is that the publisher really wants you to write a review and post it somewhere. The last is that there is no guarantee that the publisher will choose to give you a review copy. I've gotten a couple of books through them so far, and both have been excellent in their own ways.

So, that's my free ebook sites. Do you know of any other sites that offer free ebooks on a regular basis that you might want to add to my list?

As this is an archive for my own use as much as my readers, here's a list of links to the sites I find useful that I might update if anyone adds any more useful sites in the comments.

• Kindle Free Books Collections
• Gutenberg
• MobileRead.com
• Baen Free Library
• Baen CDs at the Fifth Imperium
• Smashwords
• ManyBooks
• Inkmesh: ebook search engine
• Daily Cheap Reads - ebook tracker
• eReaderIQ - ebook tracker
• Open Books - not all free, but all free of DRM
• NetGalley - Review copies for reviewers

A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 7" - And that's it for this round, as some plot points are tied up and Connor makes a decision. I was left wanting more. I just love this show, and I want a lot more of it. Hope the next series will be out soon and be as good.


• Young Justice: "Schooled" - Superboy feels the absence of Superman's mentoring. Another good story in the development of Superboy. He gets to figure out that invulnerability and anger aren't a substitute for proper fighting skills. Nicely presented.
• Young Justice: "Infiltrator" - Speedy goes off on his own as Red Arrow, and Arrowette joins the team. I like Aqualad's continued leadership in this one. He manages to pull the team together during a difficult mission, even though, in the end, the team actually doesn't completely succeed.
• Young Justice: "Denial" - The team is assigned to find out if Dr Fate's mystical equipment is safe. This is a Wally focused story, as he'd the one who doesn't believe in magic. I found it amusing enough, though Wally himself is pretty annoying in this version. Seeing what happens to him... heh. No one could be more deserving.


• Who Do You Think You Are?: "Vanessa Williams" - Some serious history in her family. I liked the pictures they were able to find of ancestors, particularly ones that were so rare and no one expected to find. The history of legislators in her family was also fascinating, and heart-breaking as well.
• Who Do You Think You Are?: "Tim McGraw" - Very much a story of American history, as this episode focused on an early ancestor who came into the nation as an indentured servant and became a prosperous landowner. The story of Tim's childhood also made for an interesting and painful tale.


• Being Human: "Adam's Family" - A young vampire relies on his non-vampiric parents for blood. I love George's reactions to everything that happens in this one. I am loving Nina even more. Mitchell's situation is getting more and more serious, but at least he's fully aware that he deserves punishment. I wasn't sure about the ending, but Eric tells me there's a spin-off web show, so I may need to go hunt that down.


• Being Human (US): "Wouldn't It Be Nice (If We Were Human)" - Josh wakes up from his werewolf transformation to find a man watching him, who claims to also be a werewolf. Meanwhile Sally learns that her ex-fiance is now dating her former best friend. I think I recognize all the plot threads in this one from the original show, but this show often pulls out onto a tangent, so I'm not sure how the threads will end.


• Supernanny: "Merrill Family" - I haven't been reviewing these lately, because I've said nearly everything I felt I've need to say about the show. But this episode was special to me. The family was a military family living at Camp Pendleton. The father has been deployed to Afghanistan while the mother is left with four adopted children from Guatemala and Ghana. They had some special circumstances, including two children who were afraid of the dark for extremely logical reasons, language frustrations, and some culture differences. Some of the usual techniques had to be slightly adapted for the children's needs, but the mother is clearly both determined and a quick learner, and I loved seeing her grow and go from a good mom to a great mom while we watched. It was an episode with particular resonance for me, and I enjoyed it a lot.

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Here are reviews of the DCBS comic books that I've gotten around to reading and reviewing, sorted by the original shipping date:

• December 1st
• Brightest Day #15 - J'onn lives an alternate reality. Hey, an "Elseworld" Aquaman, I guess I can stand the lack of continuing the main Aquaman storyline.
• JSA All Stars #13 - I like Maxine, but twelve of her are eleven and a half too many. This book is still disjointed and confusing, but when the main storyline focuses on a single character it isn't too bad.
• Action Comics Annual #13 - Young Lex Luthor and Darkseid. Really, is there anything more that ought to be said? Oh, and Ra's Al Ghul, too. Just for kicks. A fun issue.
• Ozma of Oz #2 - Dorothy meets Tik-Tok. I love this version of Billina, and Tik-Tok isn't bad either. I love how he deals with the Wheelers (always have). The cover is suitably terrifying, making the ending even better. Go get this book.
• December 8th
• DCU Holiday Special 2010 - This is the usual mixed bag of an anthology, a little weaker than most in my opinion. Not bad, but definitely not the greatest.
• Knight & Squire #3 - This is.... hilarious. I'm not sure how else to describe it. Returning Richard III to life? Romance for the heroes? Wow.
• Tiny Titans/Little Archie #3 - Yay Aqualad! Yay Aquaman action figure! Yay Aqua-Ohs! Yay magic!
• Northlanders #35 - An intriguing mystery started up, as a private man living in his own desolate valley finds a girl frozen in the ice. Really curious to see the rest of this.
• Torchwood #5 - One complete story, one conclusion, and one start. Nothing bad, but this suffers from the same problem this book has had from the beginning of disjointedness.
• Doorways #2 - And through the doorway they go. Lots of action, not enough explanation, but still manages to be pretty good. Looking forward to the next issue.

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My Kindle book this week was The Takers (Oz Chronicles, Book 1) by R.W. Ridley. If you think about them, they can find you. A boy wakes up after a bout of mono to find his dog starving, his parents missing, and the world completely changed. I got this book for the Kindle after Eric mentioned that it was on his "Oz books" list, but he didn't know if it was actually about Oz. Because it had a Kindle edition, I ordered the sample, which is usually about 10% of the book. It was good enough I went ahead and ordered the whole book, because priced at $1, it was enough of a bargain to jump on. And I enjoyed it. It has absolutely nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz (and so has vanished from hubby-Eric's page), but it's a fun "quest" tale about a boy who wakes up in a deserted world and has to piece together what's happened, then fix the world with a little help from other survivors he finds along the way. This is the first book in a series, but it ends on a satisfactory note that's also something of a cliffhanger. A pretty good book, written for pre-teens, but fun for ages on up.

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Agatha Christie this week was Third Girl from 1966. Poirot is intrigued by a girl who believes she may have committed murder, but thinks he's too old to help. Mrs Oliver, Agatha Christie's Mary Sue character, appears in this one. This is a slightly convoluted one with a slightly unconvincing ending. Not a disappointment, as it's quite the ride, as usual, but it's a story where you look at the ending and kind of say to yourself "that couldn't have happened in real life". Amusing, particularly the views on the fashions of the day, but not her best.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Haiti

I believe I've mentioned that my cousin adopted a child from Haiti, right after the earthquake. She'd been trying to adopt for quite some time, and the earthquake managed to speed up the process immensely due to the humanitarian reasons. Well, my cousin is not a person to forget those who helped her, and she's part of a non-profit that's been working hard to help the remaining children in the orphanage. They try to supply clean water and rent money, and they've been helping to build a new, safe building in a better area.

Anyway, they've had a situation with the rent money there, and I want people to know about it. If you can, please spread the word. Harry needs to pay the rent on the orphanage. And even though my cousin has her child safely out of there, many other children remain and are depending on Harry and my cousin for help.

Thanks.

I For One...

Another Edit to Huckleberry Finn

Yet another person wants to make edits to Huckleberry Finn, only this one I almost approve of. I think Mark Twain himself might have been amused by this change... but only a little.

A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Primeval: "Series 4 Episode 6" - Wow. Jenny returns and there are a few really cute puppy-things. This episode was LOADED with stuff. I loved Connor's slip up with the wedding location. And Abby's reaction to it. I was particularly interested in Matt's part of the story, and how Emily refuses to just sit around. A great episode.
• Young Justice: "Drop-Zone" - And the team picks a leader. And we all knew who it was going to be, but I was not prepared for his speech that he was just taking the leadership role until Robin was ready for it. I kind of wished he'd have wiped the smirk off of Robin's face. Anyway, he turned out to be a pretty good leader, and I liked their reaction to Batman's critique of their mission at the end.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" - The word "odd" doesn't even begin to describe this one. Not even close. But then, what do you expect from Bat-Mite? Favorite bit? Probably the shark tank PSA.
• Being Human (US): "Some Thing to Watch Over Me" - Aidan and Josh set up the Neighborhood Watch, and Sally meets another ghost who can teach her. The US version of this show continues to diverge from the UK version, while still going through some of the older plots. I'm enjoying most of the characters. Sally isn't nearly as interesting as Annie, but she has her moments. And, frankly, Aidan just annoys me.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: "Mystery Solvers Club State Finals" - Scooby teams with Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Funky Phantom, and Speed Buggy to find their human sidekicks. This was ... a trip. A terrifying trip into the past of Saturday morning cartoons. And it was disturbing on so many levels, I don't think I'll get over it any time soon.
• Being Human: "Lia" - As Mitchell tries to find Annie, George is arrested on his transformation night, and another werewolf is forced into a cage match. George's butt! Wahoo! Ahem. Mitchell takes a step I really didn't expect him to take, but I knew he was doing it as soon as he and Nina started discussing the dying man. Overall, a very interesting episode with the introduction of some interesting new characters.

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My Kindle book this week was Down in the Bottomlands by Harry Turtledove and L. Sprague de Camp. This is a collection of three stories, two by Turtledove. In "Down in the Bottomlands" a murder mystery must be solved in a world in which the Mediterranean Sea never filled with water. In "The Wheels of If" by L. Sprague de Camp, a man is moved through realities into a world that could have been. Harry Turtledove revisits the man from the previous story in "The Pugnacious Peacemaker". Three strong stories in a good anthology. Each one is an alternate history, and each one does a fantastic job with world-building within the changes realities. I loved the key moments in each of the Turtledove stories where everything came together. A pretty good collection of tales if you love alternate history.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist -- My Kindle Wishlist

Kindle and Calibre

I installed Calibre back when it was recommended by Wil Wheaton on his blog, and I found I didn't use it at all. The file structure was strange, and I only had a few ebooks to put into it. I didn't realize it had a viewer, and in short the usefulness of it seemed extremely limited.

But now I have a Kindle, and I suddenly understand why Calibre is so well-loved by the literati of the ebook crowd. Yes, the file structure is odd, but that's because the program is looking at the files as books, not as files. And it can be hard to get it to work if you aren't technically competent, as the manual isn't written for the average user. That's due to it being written by a computer engineer for computer techies. But more people are going to be using it in the future, so I thought I'd start to work on writing up some of the tricks of using Calibre so I can remember what I did, and other people might be able to benefit from my experiences as well.

Today's first trick: downloading and installing Calibre.

Ok, not much of a trick. If you've done any installation at all, you know already what to do. The Calibre downloads are available for lots of different operating systems, and I've installed it on both Windows XP and Ubuntu myself. At the moment, I'm mostly using my Windows install, so my tricks will be written with that in mind.

Now, when you install it, Calibre will create a library, and THAT is a very key point. I have several libraries for my books. I have a main library that is actually located in my Dropbox and holds only the stuff I'm currently working with. On my external drive I've put several libraries that have my archives, my backups, and some other stuff. I'll get into those more in the future. But the location of the library is important, if only because later in my tricks I'm planning on explaining how I made a bunch of different libraries and why.

In any case, once you've installed Calibre, you'll want to know what to do with it. Well, the best thing is to watch the video tutorials, as those will give you a good start on figuring out the program, and introduce you to Kovid, who is the guy who built this fantastic system and is giving it away for free (though donations are accepted). The tutorials use an older version of Calibre, but still manage to give a good idea of how it works.

I'm tempted to leave it at that, because if you watch the tutorials you will probably be able to figure out the rest without difficulty, but I know that most people won't bother with the tutorials. So here's some of the basics: Use the "Add books" button to add books to Calibre. It copies the books from whatever location you get them from into it's own file structure. The original is left alone. Once in Calibre, you can edit just about everything that has to do with the file by clicking the "Edit metadata" button, or right-clicking on a book title and selecting "Edit metadata".

The metadata is actually where the magic of Calibre sorting comes in, as you can sort on just about every field in the metadata, and you can add your own custom fields and sort on those as well. For instance, I like knowing where I got an ebook from, so I added a field called "Source" in which I put where I bought it, or if I got it from Gutenberg or another free site. Adding a custom field is simple, you go to "Preferences", then "Add your own columns". The lookup name must be one word and lowercase, otherwise you can play with the settings and come up with what you want. Other fields I added include a boolean (yes/no) column for whether or not I've read the book, whether or not I've reviewed it, and in my Dropbox library I have a column to indicate if I've backed it up to my external drive.

Well, I'm going to write more on this topic, but at the moment I think that's enough to get someone started on the program. If you have any favorite Calibre tricks you'd like to share with me, feel free to post about them in the comments. I'll be covering Calibre news and blog recipes, how to get a series title to show up as part of the title when you upload to Kindle, and using multiple libraries while still having a nightly news download in future installments.

Mubarak Resigns

Mubarak resigns as leader of Egypt, now it appears the military will take control. Is this success or a subtle failure?

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo said the announcement caught everyone by surprise: all over the city, drivers honked their horns and people fired guns into the air.

But the army takeover looks very much like a military coup, our correspondent adds.

The constitution has been breached, he says, because officially it should be the speaker of parliament who takes over, not the army leadership.

We can only hope this turns out for the best, and wish the people of Egypt good luck and strength. I don't believe this is even close to being over yet.

A Good Reason To Check Your Prescriptions

Pregnant Woman Gets Cancer Drug Instead of Antibiotic. Unfortunately, the drug was methotrexate, which stops cell division and has been used as an abortion drug (although it apparently causes more birth defects than abortions).

I go to Safeway for my prescriptions, and even with my slightly unusual name they have never once failed to ask for my birthdate, which is apparently one of the mistakes of this woman's pharmacy. And they ALWAYS confirm my prescription by the drug's name with me. Heck, the pharmacists and assistants at my local Safeway pharmacy know my medications by heart (probably due to the unusual name). Even so, I always check the label carefully to make sure that they've got the medicine and dosage right. Not because I've ever had a mess up, but because I know that pharmacists are human and therefore mess ups are inevitable. And also because I really prefer to know what I'm putting in my own body.

So in my view, while the Safeway pharmacist certainly bears the bulk of the blame, the woman who blindly took medicine without even checking the label first is definitely got some of that icky blame on herself, and her "Sorry's not going to cut it" response to Safeway's apology strikes me as more than a little hypocritical. She should be sure to look in a mirror and say that as well.

And for anyone out there who casually pops pills from their pharmacy without checking that the label and dosage are correct, let this be the wake-up call. Yeah, the consequences are unlikely to be quite as horrible as in this case, but do you want nasty drug consequences at all?

Best Correction Ever

Correction
THERE was an error printed in a story titled "Pigs float down the Dawson" on Page 11 of yesterday's Bully.
The story, by reporter Daniel Burdon, said "more than 30,000 pigs were floating down the Dawson River".
What Baralaba piggery owner Sid Everingham actually said was "30 sows and pigs", not "30,000 pigs".
The Morning Bulletin would like to apologise for this error, which was also reprinted in today's Rural Weekly CQ before the mistake was known.

Doctor Who Infographic

Everything you might want to know about Doctor Who in one big infographic.

I'm All Keyed Up

NY Locksmith decorates building with keys. Go check out the pictures.

Yankovic on Super Bowl Singing

BTW, Christina Aguilera, nice job at the Super Bowl, but changing the words to songs is MY gig.

Where There is Smoke...

...there isn't always fire. No, the Space Needle wasn't on fire.

I Just Want To Thank...

...anyone who uses my link to Amazon.com on this page or the links in any of my reviews to buy stuff. I don't get much money, but since I got the Kindle from Eric's Grandmother, I've been able to buy a few inexpensive but awesome books thanks to the tiny trickle of money I get from the links (I average less than $2.50 a month in earnings).

Comics at Amazon.com --- My Kindle Wishlist
In any case, I want to thank anyone who has ever purchased through my links. You're keeping me Kindled at the moment. And that's a good thing.

Disney Animator Makes Animated Storyboards for Wicked

So, hubby-Eric was squeelighted to see this awesome sequence of storyboards for the "Defying Gravity" song in Wicked. I certainly can see why. Sadly, the video is not embeddable, because it was removed from YouTube due to copyright claims by NBC Universal... but you can see the video at the website of the Disney animator, Heidi Jo. Go check it out.

Bill Nye on Science Education

Bill Nye talks about the state of Science Eduction in this country.

Science education: We should support it. Especially elementary school science. Nearly every rocket scientist got interested in it before they were 10. Everybody who's a physician, who makes vaccines, who wants to find the cure for cancer. Everybody who wants to do any medical good for humankind got the passion for that before he or she was 10. So we want to excite a new generation of kids—every generation—about the passion, beauty and joy—the PB&J—of science.

Things to do with a lamppost

Author Neil Gaiman has two dogs and lives out in the Minnesota countryside. So of course, he has a lamppost. Then the neighbors and their photographer friend had a bright idea... Go take a look at the results.

Hey...

...remember when I used to update my blog daily?