Gavin St. Ours

These leaves on the sidewalk were beautiful, and I think it makes a great autumn wallpaper for your phone or tablet of choice. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

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It rained this morning. I made a short video about it.

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• My version of NASA’s astronaut recruitment video
• Terry Pratchett talks about his new novel
• John Hodgman’s “That is All” book trailer

Update: My video was mentioned on BoingBoing!

Yesterday, NASA announced that people can apply online to be an astronaut. It’s a dream that many of us have had since childhood, and if you have the right skills and education under your belt, you could be on your way to joining the astronaut corps with a few clicks. NASA released a video to promote it.

It’s not the worst video in the world, and I’m sure someone worked hard on it, but it’s missing something. It feels more like a PowerPoint presentation than call to the best and brightest of our nation to take their place alongside the greatest explorers of our era.

So I thought I’d take a crack at it. I used archival video and added audio from a few of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s recent speeches.

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Yesterday, Amazon announced the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, a collection of a little over 5,000 books available to Amazon Prime members who own Kindle devices. (The service is not available through the Kindle app.)

Customers can borrow one book per month and can keep that book for as long as they want, presumably as long as they are Prime members. It is unclear whether or not users can keep multiple titles on their Kindles.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, writes, “No other e-reader or ebook store offers such a service.” It’s true, Apple’s iBooks app and Barnes & Noble’s Nook platform lag behind Amazon, and it will be interesting to see what they do to stay competitive.

There doesn’t appear to be a way to browse the Lending Library from the web, which is frustrating, so I powered up my Kindle and took it for a spin.

The first thing I had to do was find the Lending Library. It wasn’t as intuitive as I had hoped. From my home screen, I entered the Kindle store.

Everything in the store looked the same as it always had, and I didn’t see an obvious link to the Lending Library. I began to worry that I needed a firmware update, or that my Kindle Keyboard (as it is now called) didn’t support the Lending Library.

But after clicking around, I found it by selecting “See all…” under “Browse”.

That pulled up a menu with books, newspapers, magazines, Audible audiobooks, Kindle Singles, blogs, and the brand-new Kinde Owners’ Lending Library.

I was in business! As of last night, the Lending Library had 5,159 titles in it, and the Hunger Games trilogy was on fire.

I navigated to Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, a book that’s been on my “to-read” list for years. Below the “Buy” button was a new “Borrow for Free” option, with a reminder that it is for “Prime members only”. Well, aren’t we fancy?

A click later, the book was on my Kindle, along with a friendly thank-you message.

The message read:

Gavin,

Thank you for borrowing this title. We are sending your item and it will automatically appear in your Home screen when the download is complete.

And there it was, the full book, chapter marks and everything. I’m not sure if the Kindle saves notes and bookmarks the same way it does for purchased books, but I plan to experiment with it.

Make sure you choose wisely! There is a one-book limit per month, and once you’ve hit that, the “Borrow for Free” option is grayed out. It is unclear whether I can borrow another book at the first of next month, or if it’s a rolling 30-day window.

It’s a nice perk for Prime subscribers, and it raises some interesting questions from a writing and self-publishing standpoint. I clicked over to the Kindle Direct Publishing website, but there is no mention of the Lending Library, and there doesn’t appear to be a way for self-published authors to opt in.

Right now, it seems that Amazon is curating the Lending Library, but I hope that changes. This new feature could open a lot of doors for indie writers.

So that’s my first look at Amazon’s Kinde Owners’ Lending Library! Do you have Kindle? Have you borrowed anything? What do you think of this new perk for Prime members?

Update: I accidentally removed Water for Elephants from my device and am unable to re-borrow it. So, after you’ve chosen your book, hang on to it for dear life, or else you’ll have to wait until next month to borrow it again.

Update 2: I was wrong. Borrowed books are available for download from the “View Archived Items” section. It appears that, once you’ve borrowed a book, it’s tied to your account like a purchased book, presumably for as long as you have a Prime subscription.

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I always love hearing authors talk about writing. In this video, Terry Pratchett talks about his latest book, the “science fiction ghetto” phenomenon, and how unsettling it can feel to make a living doing something you love.

(Via BoingBoing.)

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See, this is why we have the Internet. This video for John Hodgman’s new book, That is All, was directed by Tom Scharpling, features music by They Might Be Giants, and has more amazing and wonderful things packed into five minutes than I have seen in a long time. You must watch this.

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‘Tis the season for Christmas creep.

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• A Christmas tree made out of books

Somehow, between school, work, and going out of town for a day for the NASA tweetup at Wallop’s Island, I managed to mostly unpack my things in the new apartment. Though my old place may have had slightly more square footage, it was cramped-feeling and had a unusable kitchen. (I’ve seen bigger kitchens on small boats.) Yesterday, I cooked breakfast for myself for the first time in the new place and it felt like working within a luxurious gourmet setup. I can watch the sunset over the city, and the people who manage the building are friendly, professional, and always willing to answer my questions. I am not used to that, and I feel like I’m basking in luxury.

And the new place is so quiet! Before, I felt like I could always hear my neighbors breathing. Now, I can settle in with a notebook or in front of my computer and write without any external interruption. It’s only been a week, but I’ve felt so much more productive.

I can’t thank Josh, Jes, and Victoria enough for helping me move in last week. You are the best, especially Josh, who helped me load up the U-Haul and navigate it through the Baltimore streets.

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This morning, my copy of BusyCal quit at startup and wouldn’t allow me to access any of my calendars. I was in the process of switching my personal calendars from Google to iCloud, so truthfully, I probably screwed something up. BusyCal offered to generate an email with the log file and send it to BusyMac. I shrugged and told it to go ahead. I figured they’d use the data when building a future version or something. I opened up iCal and went about my day.

Less than an hour later, I received this email:

Hi Gavin,

It looks like your Sync Services database is corrupted. You should reset your sync history, as follows:

Launch BusyCal while holding down the option key to display the Startup Options dialog. Select Reset Sync History and click Continue. Then wait several minutes for BusyCal, Sync Services and iCal to get in sync.

Regards,

-Kirk

Kirk’s instructions solved my problem, and I’m back up and running with BusyCal. Best of all, I barely had to do anything. BusyCal is smart enough to ask to shoot an email home with a problem, and in mere minutes, a solution was delivered to me by an actual human being. Now that’s preemptive. Kudos to you, BusyMac. You’ve got a happy customer over here.

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• No related posts. (Yet.)

A few weeks ago, I learned about Lost Crates. (I can’t remember who pointed it out to me. Probably Sophia.) The idea is simple: you complete a “personality quiz” online, fill out your info, and for $38 each month, they hand-pick an assortment of notebooks, pens, and stationary custom-tailored to your tastes. Let’s face it, I was going to spend $38 on notebooks for school anyway, so why not introduce some fun into the process?

Today, my first crate was delivered. Behold: unboxing photos!

Look at that super-cool “Air Mail” stamp. I don’t care that it was actually shipped via UPS ground. That just looks cool.

I imagine that Jack from Lost Crates is a lot like Jack from Lost, running around the beach with tattoos that are never explained, assembling a team and searching for stationary supplies in the jungle.

Anyway, my crate contained:

• Ecosystem notebook
• Behance notebooks
• Joshua Davis pen
• Emil Kozak hold-all
• State fair Field Notes (Maryland represent!)

Jack signed it, “We hope you love your crate!” Oh, I do, Jack.

I looked at it for a few moments to prolong the anticipation because I am a huge nerd.

There’s the loot!

This Joshua Davis pen writes like it’s made out of magic. I am going to be very protective of it.

They thoughtfully included my state’s “County Fair” edition Field Notes squared notebook! I’ve wanted one of these for a long time. Wi-five, guys!

Two Behance notebooks! These always intrigued me, and I look forward to playing around with the Action Method. Maybe now I’ll be even more productive!

This Ecosystem ruled journal is gorgeous. It’s deep orange and just begging to hold all of my notes for the rest of the semester. I have a feeling I’ll carry this around with me a lot in the coming months.

I didn’t realize I needed a hold-all until I got this. My pens’ and pencils’ reign of lawlessness within my bag comes to an end! It features art by Emil Kozak and is just awesome.

There’s the whole gang! I’m so glad I signed up for Lost Crates. They picked exactly the right stuff, and it absolutely made my day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play with my new stuff.

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