emudir

Cory Doctorow is a sci-fi author and commentator, who is usually to be found in his capacity as co-editor at boingboing. His most recent essay collection, Context covers a diverse set of topics, trying to reconcile the “freemium” nature of the Internet (something we’re strongly in favour of here at emudir) and the need for creators to benefit from their hard work (we all have to eat, right?) What’s more, it is itself a “freemium” product, being a Context, is a Creative Commons licensed free download, as well as purchasable as a physical book.

This give-away model has also inspired Jan Rubak to do a similarly CC licensed audiobook reading of the book, just as he did with Doctorow’s previous book, Content. With not only the author’s permission, but also his thanks. Which is nice.

If you enjoy the book, you can either buy it directly, or donate a copy of either Context or Content to a school or library (which we would highly recommended, by the way).

Context
Homepage: http://craphound.com/context/
Download the book: http://craphound.com/context/download/
Download the audio book: http://www.archive.org/details/CoryDoctorow-Context

Content
Homepage: http://craphound.com/content/
Download the book: http://craphound.com/content/download/
Download the audio book: http://www.archive.org/details/CoryDoctorow-Content_268

Now here’s a lovely thing. If you know of one piece of romantic poetry, it’s probably number 52 from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. You don’t? Really? Are you sure? Well, it goes like this:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

And if you didn’t, well, you probably know the reference from either Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, or perhaps from Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Anyhow, there’s a very beautiful 1904 volume available at the Internet Archive. You can have it as a PDF of full colour scans, black and white, text, or in DjVu, Kindle or Daisy format.

Download page: http://www.archive.org/details/poemsbyelizabeth00brow

“The Art of Caricaturing“. This 1941 book, written by Mitchell Smith, is a fascinating read in its own right. Not only is it fun just to look at – most of the caricatures raise a smile in their own right, even if Kaiser Wilhelm II is a distant memory by now – there’s a wealth of practical information in here. …read more »

Andrew Pitonyak is an OpenOffice expert, who has written extensively on macro programming for OpenOffice.

The great joys of his document on macros – apart from its being free, of course – is that it includes many copy-and-paste ready examples that you can use to automate the tasks listed in the document. If, however, you need a paper version – say you want to read it on the bus, then that’s available too (it does include additional material not in the free book). He’s even working on the third edition at the moment.

Be careful, however. While he has additional material to add to the document, there is a bug in OpenOffice that causes it to crash when you close the document. So make sure that you save everything before you close the document!

Even with this caveat, however, Andrew Pitonyak’s book, or the document, makes a great tool in the arsenal of anyone who uses OpenOffice as a serious tool, and makes a cogent argument to persuade people to move from Microsoft Office to a free alternative.