This morning, while browsing Amazon.com, I was annoyed (not for the first time) that Amazon didn’t have a link to add a book to your Shelfari.com shelf. Amazon has owned Shelfari.com for almost 3 years now, and every shelfari book page has links to but the book on Amazon.com, so this isn’t an unreasonable request.

My first thought was to search userscripts.org to see if there was already a script to do this and sure enough, there was. This is the way these things go. Luckily for me, it was broken and had been abandoned 4 years ago, so I got to do some coding!

If you don’t want to read all the blah-blah, you can get the script at userscripts.org or right here (direct install link).

Before I go any further, if you don’t know what greasemonkey is, crawl out from under that rock and scroll to the bottom of this page (and before you Chrome users start a Firefox flame-war, Chrome installs greasemonkey scripts natively!). And if you don’t know what Shelfari.com is, check out my short post about it.

The broken script, by “mathias”, puts the shelfari.com logo above the product image, and clicking on it links you to a shelfari search page for that book. I actually only had one small fix needed to make it work again. He was pulling the ISBN off the image url, which Amazon stopped doing a while ago. I updated it to use the ASIN embedded in every product page (as a hidden field).

After making the script work again, I noticed it was adding the link to every product detail page, whether it be a book, kindle, or cutlery set! That isn’t very useful within the scope of this script, so I added checks to make sure it only displayed the logo/link on book, ebook, and audiobook pages.

Clicking the Shelfari link will bring you to the book's shelfari.com page

This page comes up after clicking the link on amazon.com

Now, for those of you who don’t know what greasemonkey is you should definitely get familiar with it, as it is one of the coolest ways to customize websites to your liking. Greasemonkey scripts are small pieces of code that let you tweak websites exactly to your liking, sometimes adding tons of functionality. Its a Firefox add-on, and once installed you can install any greasemonkey script just by clicking on it, without reloading your browser. If you prefer Google’s Chrome browser, it installs greasemonkey scripts natively with no add-ons necessary!

I only did a small bit of work on this script, improving on another author’s work (as all good programmers should), but I think it’s immensely useful to shelfari users so I wanted to make it’s presence known. The next time some blog/article links you to an amazon page for a book and you want to add it to your “want to read” shelf, it’s only a click away!

There’s a good article at LibraryThing about ebooks, ownership rights, and priracy.  The article tries to cover a bit too much at once, but it did make me think about the effect of ebook piracy and how to combat it. While the author makes a good point with the figures from the music industry, you must keep in mind that music is very different from books in that whether you get music from a CD or digital, it is always consumed the same–listened to with headphones or speakers. Books on the other hand, until the last 20 or so years, were always read from paper. E-paper has reduced the differences between printed and electronic words, but reading, holding, and displaying paper books is still vastly different from doing so on an e-reader. I think these differences are important to increasing printed and electronic book sales.

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying, but I think one way to combat this downward spiral is to put much more emphasis on the value and worth that physical books have over ebooks. Sure one can build a digital library of thousands of books, and have them all accessible on one’s kindle, but where is thematerial beauty of that? The individuality of trade paperbacks and hardcovers? The beautiful rows of shelves lined with dusty tomes? That is what needs to be emphasized when battling ebook piracy.

The other aspect to battling piracy is to keep ebook prices low enough that someone who does prefer ebooks will buy rather than steal. This encourages would-be piraters to buy, and still makes money by encouraging ebook sales. Dropping the price also sends the message that ebooks have less value than their print counterparts, so ebooks are less likely to overtake printed books.

What is your take on all this? I’d love feedback!

I found Shelfari a little over two years ago. Back then it was in private beta I believe, and it had the usual kinks and errors to work out, but it was even then a well done and well integrated website. Its grown into a very beautiful site with a great community of friendly interesting readers with some really nice discussion groups.

A sampling from my shelf
I’ll leave the formal reviews to other sites, and suffice it to say that Shelfari has some really neat features like everyone having their own interactive bookshelf to display and personally track the books they own, have read, want to read, etc. When I first got on I entered in every book in my apartment, and although I am far from having every book I’ve ever read in there, I sure as heck have most of them. If you ever want to buy me a book but are unsure of whether I already own it, just check my shelf!

I was reading reviews of some Robert A. Heinlein novels, one of my all-time favorite authors, and I came across a really short, unintellectual, un-cited review of Stranger in a Strange Land that I should have ignored but made me fear others would take it seriously, so I decided to write my own. You can search for my review on the book’s page, but I figured it’d be a lot easier if I just reproduce it below. I certainly won’t be offended if you don’t read it, but if you’ve ever wondered about the book, you may find it useful (BTW: You’ll notice I referenced the passage I quoted in the Garfield Minus Garfield post, because it really is one of my favorites). I hope I did it justice and if you agree or disagree or if my memory just plain sucks, please do let me know in the comments or email (euicho at euicho dot com).

Stranger in a Strange Land, A Review

Thomas S.E. Gagnon

Stranger in a Strange Land is a story I hold quite fond in my heart. This novel taught me a lot about life and human nature. Some say it was Robert Heinlein’s way of coming to terms with what Hubbard was doing at the time, while others think it’s just a dated and closed minded book. I find it to be an insightful comment on being human and dealing with all that entails, as well as challenging our own set ways of thought. I am by no means a subscriber to the philosophy of “free love” that finds its way into this novel, but I still absolutely loved this book.

If you’re not sure what this story is about, the short, short synopsis is that it’s about a human male, raised as a martian, coming to earth and learning how to be human, and about human beliefs vs. the martian ones he grew up with. However that description is unjustly simplified–it is really so much more than that. Stranger in a Strange Land challenges common views on organized religion, sexuality, and family structure. Although written by a SF grandmaster, and dealing with an “alien”, the story is set on Earth and deals strongly with character development versus cheap techno-thrills, so if you’re not really into SF this book should still strongly appeal to you.

Now, as I’ve read some of the other reviews on here, I feel a need to defend this novel against attacks. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, including those who hated this novel, and what follows is my own.

Some people have claimed Stranger is a racist and/or misogynistic work. I just didn’t see either of those. I think of myself as very supportive of equality of men and women of all races, and even philogyny to some extent, for all that woman do for us, and I felt this book exalted women. Recall how smart and dynamic Jubal’s assistants were, for example. They all had a firecracker-quick wit and never buckled under pressure. They did whatever their desire was and only obeyed their boss Jubal, because they where his employees, and they cared for him as a father figure. I found no objectification or sexism.

I agree that there is an overabundance of sex in this novel. But I am quite aware of the double standard in society where promiscuous men are applauded while women are called “slutty”. In Stranger in a Strange Land, some of the women are quite promiscuous, and yet are never judged, but seen as loving, and never forced by the men in the novel to do so. As I said, I don’t feel women should be treated as objects by any means, but this book shows a woman can have sex with whoever she pleases and it is nobody’s right to judge. I cannot find the misogyny in that. Heinlein wrote several novels that portray how strong and equal to if not better than men, that women are. See Friday for one example.

As for the terrible comment Jill makes about rape in one passage, I think that shows how wrong Jill’s way of thinking was at the time, and is not to be taken as Heinlein’s belief. If an author writes about how a Nazi character thinks “Jews are evil”, that does NOT mean the author believes this. He is simply exposing the character’s own terribly wrong ideology. Whether these are the author’s views, speaking through his/her characters, or not, cannot be judged by reading their work of fiction. This is likewise with Jill’s comments about gay men, whom she calls “poor in-betweeners”.

As for racism in this novel, all I can say is that I cannot find any! Some of Heinlein’s novels do sadly have racist elements, like The Day After Tomorrow (which reflects the common thinking at the time I’m afraid), but Stranger in a Strange Land is not one of them! See Ender’s Game if you want a REAL racist pile of… ugh, let’s not get me started on that.

One Caveat: If you are a Christian, you may find this book blasphemous or at the least quite critical of Christianity toward the last half of the story, but even many Christian friends say they really enjoyed it by treating it as just a story and its not an attack on their own beliefs. That said, if you do not take kindly to criticism of your belief system, you may want to avoid this one.

The characters in Stranger in a Strange Land are both well developed and intriguing, and you don’t have to subscribe to any of the ideals outlined in this book in order to benefit from the sparking off of a good deal of deep thought and introspection. I recommend this book to any adult that wishes to broaden their exposure to philosophical ideas or just read a great book.

I’d like to, quit typically, end this review with a quote from the book–One that makes me tear up every time I read it:

I’ve found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much… because it’s the only thing that’ll make it stop hurting. -Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land-

Today we lost the last of the great 3 masters of science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke passed away at 1:30am local time in Sri Lanka, where he’d lived for over 50 years, of breathing complications. He was 90 years old.

Pay your respects to this science fiction (and science fact) legend by re-reading your favorite novel of his. If you’ve never read him, do yourself a favor and try any of his extensive bibliography.

There is a good semi-obit at BBC News, and you can learn more about this amazing man at his wikipedia article.

With the loss of the great Gary Gygax just two short weeks ago, this is truly a sad month for us geeks.

Godspeed you, Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

EW.com by way of HPANA.com

Jo Rowling set out a sumptuous seven-course meal, carefully prepared, beautifully cooked, and lovingly served out. The kids and adults who fell in love with the series (I among them) savored every mouthful, from the appetizer (Sorcerer’s Stone) to the dessert (the gorgeous epilogue of Deathly Hallows). Most reviewers, on the other hand, bolted everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book pages of their respective newspapers.

And because of that, very few mainstream writers, from Salon to The New York Times, have really stopped to consider what Ms. Rowling has wrought, where it came from, or what it may mean for the future. The blogs, by and large, haven’t been much better. They seem to care about who lives, who dies, and who’s tattling. Beyond that, it’s all pretty much duh.

Time to listen to the audiobook!

I’m actually comparing Jim Dale vs. Stephen Fry on this by listening to the first chapter of both versions.
I prefer the UK version of the books because they have the UK phrases/words that are dumbed down for the US releases, so I tend to listen to the Stephen Fry (UK) version. Jo also says her children like Stephen Fry’s version.

However, I have listened to a couple of the books in Jim Dale versions, and they are also very well done; He’s actually won awards for them. The only issue besides it being the US text is that some say Dale over-acts the characters, taking out some room for imagination, and getting a little hokey. So, if you’re trying to decide which version to listen to, it comes down which of the following are more important:

1. Do you prefer the UK (Fry), or US (Dale) version of the text?
2. Do you want the whole book acted out in a grandiose way (Dale), or would you rather the book read to you with a more mature yet equally dynamically ranged tone (Fry)? [Keep in mind they both use unique voices for each character so that shouldn't affect your decision.]

They both have their merits, and I’ll admit I’ve listened to PS and CoS in both Fry and Dale versions, and as I said, both were very good, but I have grown acustomed to Stephen Fry’s style and as such prefer to listen to the UK audiobook.

Going Out on a Limb

I’ve decided that before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out and my pre-order copy arrives (2 days, 12 hrs and counting!), I should go on the record about a couple of theories I have. A lot has been hashed out on the hp-lexicon.org and various other forums and sites, so I’ll just state a couple of things that havn’t been beaten to death (besides the whole Snape good/evil debate).

The Theories

1. R.A.B. is more important than most everyone thinks.
2. Petunia knows much more than she lets on, and is more than just an oppressive, mean muggle.
3. The prophecy talks about 3 people.

The Reasoning

PRE-book-7 Spoilers follow!!!

#1: I am fairly sure that the ‘R.A.B.’ that took the horcrux Harry and Dumbledore were trying to obtain (on the night Dumbledore died) was Regulus Black, Sirius’ brother. This isn’t a big leap, but I feel it will somehow play an important role in Deathly Hallows. Perhaps his taking the horcrux was merely a last minute act of goodness before Voldemort killed him for betrayal, but I think there is more to it than that. Either way, Jo is (or was in 2005) quite excited abou the roll R.A.B. plays in the last book.

#2: My point about Petunia is based mostly on certain reactions (things that she says/does) she has throughout the books and the fact that Jo has outright Petunia knows more than she lets on.

#3: The final point is subtle but I feel will be extremely important in the final novel. Most people believe the prophecy given by Sibyll Trelawney means Harry must kill Voldemort, or Voldemort must kill Harry, but I believe there is much more to it. Here is the full prophecy:

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…

Now I’m sure your thinking “Tom, this clearly references only two people, The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, and the Dark Lord himself.” However, after reading this over and over, as Jo has stated that she worded the prophecy very specifically, I realized that if we make “the other” a person, ie: The Other, then we have:

And either must die at the hand of The Other for neither can live while The Other survives.

This gives the prophecy a whole new piece of information. It now seems to say there is a third person who will be pivotal in the Harry-Voldemort destiny. This may still be Neville, or Snape, or RVB (who may or may not be Regulus), or this may be total codswallop formed from an over-active imagination! Whatever the actual truth, we will know in just a couple of days, and I humbly submit my theories to you on the very very slim chance that they are correct or at the least entertaining.

Snape theories

Update:
You know what? I have no idea whether or not Snape is evil. I think Dumbledore was very very intelligent, but he also let his emotions lead him, so I’m totally on the fence on this one. We’ll see…

Other points of interest in Deathly Hallows

• We will likely find out (in a round-about way) what Dumbledore’s ultimate desire and fear were, and also a LOT more about Dumbledore in general, as Jo could not tell us in this interview. His family is also of importance
• We’ve not seen the last of Dolores Umbridge as per the same interview.
• There is some important fact about Grindelwald that Jo can’t discuss.
• The fact that Voldemort used Harry’s blood to regain his human form will end up costing him dearly in the end
• It is likely that someone else was present in Godric’s Hollow on the night Harry’s Parents died.
• And lastly, You’ll probably never forgive yourself if you skip to the end of the book before reading it all the way through. so DON’T DO IT!

What do you all have for theories?

Review by: Thomas Gagnon

I’ve been out of my comfort zone before, but I’ve never been wrenched from my comfort zone at 3am with a bag over my head, and tossed into a blender with scraps of a story whizzing before my eyes, catching glimpses as I fight to get my footing, yet loving every second of it. This is the work of Chuck Palahniuk. This is what it feels like to read Invisible Monsters.

This novel is all about ego, and the self-absorbed lifestyle of the California bombshell. A world where love pretends to come in a thousand different forms, but never delivers. Our narrator through this crazy world is Daisy St. Patience, the enterprising young model and embodiment of beauty.

Daisy appears to have the perfect life, until everything seems to disappear in a muzzle-flash, when somebody sees fit to shoot her in the face as she drives down the Freeway. Now she’s a disfigured horror show that nobody can understand, or even wants to acknowledge.

Enter stage right: Daisy’s savior and idol Miss Brandy Alexander, queen supreme. As Daisy puts it, “Just by herself, Brandy Alexander is such a shift in the beauty standard that no one thing stands out. Not even you.” Brandy appears to be the perfect woman, so much so that she seems almost a caricature of a person. This holds for nearly every character in the novel. Each beautiful on the outside, yet rife with psychoses and self-doubt on the inside.

The setting is a mix of estrogen-fueled crime, anger, and obsession. Its part crack-house romance and part lavish Broadway show. Be forewarned though, as this novel is not for the faint of heart. Invisible Monsers was supposed to be Palahniuk’s first published novel, but it was rejected by his publisher for being too disturbing, only given a second chance after the success of Fight Club.

You don’t fully learn who Daisy is, until you’ve read every page of Invisible Monsters. Her narrative jumps around through time in disarray, leaving you questioning what you thought you had figured out. The plot of this novel is so engrossing, and at times horrifying, you’ll find yourself grudgingly putting it down to get on with seemingly irrelevant tasks like eating and sleeping.

Palahniuk’s prose is lovingly crafted and masterfully delivered. You immediately feel plunged into his world, in all its always ironic, shocking, and often hysterical mayhem. The tone is colloquial and perfectly set. You may find your internal voice speaking in that valley-girl accent without even meaning to. There’s no sense of artificiality, indeed you’d swear Palahniuk was a Janice Dickinson channeling fashionista in a former life by the imagery he seems to define the whole world with.

To top the whole masterpiece off, Chuck bestows upon his characters a philosophically deep and disturbing insight into the world we live in. An insight so lucid, it will stop you mid sentence, bringing you to question your own deeply-held ideals. Daisy, with her new perspective on life, offers up particularly bitter bits of wisdom: “All god does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever get boring.”

As I said, this novel is not a casual Sunday afternoon read. It’s a keyhole into the ugly interior of world so beautiful on its exterior. That said, it’s a real treat to read, and it’s sure to reside in your memory for a long, long time.

Call me whatever you want to, but I love the Harry Potter series, and I want this iPod!

Mind you I don’t want the extra $249.00 of Complete Harry Potter Series audio that acompanies it, I already have all the audiobooks, and have no need for $249 of duplicate audio. I do, however, want that laser-etched hogwarts crest. Sure, sure I could get 2 lines of 27-letters each laser engraved text for free, but getting anything written on it would be nowhere near as cool as the crest on this baby. Not to say I’d turn down a new iPod, as mine doesn’t hold all of my music, and has some interesting quirks now and again like always playing the 2nd song in the list of whatever i click on to play, but if it could be bought without the audio books, I’d get this one.

via CNN.com

On the eve of Iraq’s historic election, President Bush took responsibility Wednesday for “wrong” intelligence that led to the war, but he said removing Saddam Hussein was still necessary.

He still states that he was justified and it was the right thing to do, which is bull, but I can’t exactly expect miracles here. The article goes on to state that his aproval rating is at 42%, up 4% from November, which I don’t understand, but I also don’t understand how ID has gotten as far as it has, so logic doesn’t exactly enter into it.

On a side note, I got so furious while reading Atlas Shrugged last night (I’m at the part where Ellis Wyatt, Hammond, and the like are starting to disapear) that I was just fuming at the flood of ignorance and self-serving hypocracy. I though I was going to punch something. It’s amazing what an affect a novel can have on a person. The way people like Hank Rearden’s “wet nurse” pervert the English language into a babbling, meaningless bastardization makes me sick.

Also, I was wondering when this would happen. I don’t know whether I should be terrified or thrilled. The novel has a lot of internal emotional dialog, like 2001: A Space Odessy, which, while written at the same time as the movie was being written, doesn’t make any sense in movie form. Will the Atlas Shrugged movie be the same, turning into a bastardization of its novel form? We all know that a movie has NEVER been made that lived up to the book it was based on. I personally think that certain distinguished litterary figures or professors should have input into the creation of such a monumental film as this one. If only Ayn could have written the screenplay herself, as she did with The Fountainhead.

What may be even more stunning (at least it was to me) is the news that Apple has been building an x86 version of OS X with each PPC release they’ve done!

via Arstechnica:

Speaking to developers, Jobs said that every build of OS X has also been built on the Intel platform. Jobs said that Apple had dedicated teams for a “just in case scenario,” and that the company had decided a long time ago to make sure that the OS was platform independent. This “secret double life,” as Jobs referred to it, means that a transition can be done smoothly over the next few years, and Jobs seemed to exude some confidence, showing Tiger running on an Intel demo box.

The justifications for this move include the lackluster performance of the PowerPC 970 (IBM’s inability to break 3.0GHz), and heat/power issues that have prevented the creation of a G5 PowerBook.

Oh god oh god oh god, despite whatever Apple may attempt, I pray my rig will be running OS X in a year. Of course, it goes without saying (though I’ll still say it) that this is a major development, and be sure I’ll stay up to date with news as it comes to my attention.

thanks Webfroot for the rundown! Go there now, or go to Arstechnica’s article.

UPDATE:

Apple’s Decision to Use Intel Processors Is Nothing Less Than an Attempt to Dethrone Microsoft. Really.

WWDC: What developers are saying

Thats right, V for Vendetta is being made into a movie! I’ll read any graphic novel handed to me if Alan Moore had a hand in writing it, seeing as he’s written nearly every one of my favorites: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, Watchmen (my all-time favorite), and of course, V for Vendetta. So naturally I was floored when I heard this. Moore and David Lloyd did an amazing job with this one, and it has the potential to be a great movie, so I hope I’m not let down (LXG was sooo disappointing!)

The Wachowski Brothers and Joel Silver are heading up the film, with Natalie Portman playing Evey (she’s perfect for it), and James Purefoy as V. Filming is underway on location in Berlin and London.

I’m also dying to see the Firefly movie Serenity, and H2G2

For more about the V for Vendetta graphic novel, see here.

PS: My auto-close comments plugin closed this post, but yes, I *did* read Watchmen at Baba’s in Virginia. It believe it was the first (non comic-book sized) graphic novel I ever read.

For years now the women’s movement has turned into a pissing contest with men. Even songs like “Anything you can do, I can do better” with a male female duet leads us to think that women and men are potentially equal. I’ve been questioning this lately, due to a recent run in with a “feminist.” I was slightly distraut to find out that she didn’t like men at all, not
even if they were, like me, wonderful individuals with open minds. No, no, in fact I was even worse because I obviously wanted sex. This is where I got confused. If I wanted to have sex with a Women dressed like a man,wouldn’t I just have sex with myself? See there is a difference in men and women.
If there wasn’t, sexual orientation, dating, and lots of psychology books wouldn’t exist. If men and women were the same we’d be able to make our own babies, thus doing away with all the ritualistic crap we do to find a mate to get us “there.” So, “what,” you ask, “are the differences between men and women?” Well aside from the physical differences, women pay much more attention to detail, they are more nurturing due to hormones and brain development, they are sensitive to feelings and ideas. Men on the other hand see a finish line, and can get there. We do something because there’s an outcome. Women like the journey. To the pressing point: Why do women act like men to further their gender? Well it’s all quite simple. Do you remember in High School when that one kid changed how he looked all the time to look like a cooler kid. The cooler kid did nothing
but laugh at the dweeb, why? because the cool kid knew imitation is the best form of flattery.
See women are intimidated by men, because they know that we are AWESOME! I mean seriously
without men there would be no Rocky movies, or kick ass guns. I’m all about women being individuals and successful etc, but I also think it’s time for women to stop trying to be men and to
embrace their own roles. All of the copycatting from women to men, is really flattering, but at the same time, I’d much rather sleep with a hotty totty with a naughty body than myself. So Feminists out there, thank you, really, thank you, for letting us know how Kick Ass men really are, but put on a pretty dress now and then.