Interesting Ideas of the Day

This is truly a wonderful idea, and yet another reason to love Portland, Oregon:

Cool idea of the day. Laura Moulton
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz11546730's
pedal-powered Street Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz11546731 project in Portland, Ore., offers books to homeless people who don't qualify for
library cards. The Christian Science Monitor reported that twice a week,
Moulton can be seen "fiercely peddling her bike as she tows along a
wagon full of books. When she arrives at her destination, Ms. Moulton
parks, opens her wagon, and sets up for her four-hour shift."

"There is at least one guy waiting every Wednesday morning to greet me,
get his book, and head out," she said. "The power of the book offer[s] a
way to transport oneself out of a current reality.... Being able to give
them a card and tell them, 'I hope to see you again'--that's a powerful
thing because these are people who cannot get a library card [at the
local library] because they have no address."


I had no idea that these characters were based on real people:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/10-famous-fictional-characters-you-didnt-know-wer

And this is just plain cool, a Penguin made from an old manual typewriter:

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/09/typewriter-part-penguin.html

Science fiction children's books listed here that are a great way to get kids interested in space, the final frontier:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2011/aug/10/steve-cole-top-10-space

And finally, the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, voted on by fans (myself included) that contains too much Neil Stephenson, whose work is awful, in my opinion, and no works by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, whose Liaden Universe series deserves a place on the list way before Stephensons crap prose.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books?sc=fb&cc=fp