EduKindle

The remarkable finding that there is a LOT more water on the moon than previously thought makes for an excellent story in the annals of modern space science. I mean, quasars and pulsars and the like are pretty interesting, but what could be more fun to minds of a scientific bent than throwing a rock really hard at the moon and seeing what splashes up? (Thanks to NASA for the picture.)

So I used Kindlepedia to make an article on LCross, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, from the page at Wikipedia. You can download it here.

One nice feature of viewing this article on Kindle for PC is that all the external links are live, meaning that you can follow all the footnotes and references to their sources. Of course, you can also use those links if you are reading on your Kindle and the Whispernet wireless connection is on.

At any rate, we are back on the moon, and the article points out that the results from LCROSS are expected to have a big impact on a decision about whether we ever could colonize the moon. With the amount of water kicked up by this little rock-throwing experiment, I’d say the future of the moon looks bright.

Yesterday, President Obama delivered a speech remarkable for its mainstream admonitions and for the brief firestorm of controversy it generated in the past week. Was the President trying to “politicize” the process of getting an education, as some critics suggested, or was he using the bully pulpit to encourage kids to crack the books? You be the judge. Here is the President’s speech, rendered in pristine condition for reading on your Kindle:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama

What I liked reading in the coverage of the event were the comments of school children themselves, most of who were pretty impressed that the President would take the time to speak to them directly…about anything. How did your students react?

I have been learning a lot about pandemics in the last few weeks. Who knew that the risk level for pandemics now stands at five out of six? The Wall Street Journal, which I read on my Kindle, has two articles in today’s paper, looking at worst case (The Age of Pandemics) and the most likely case (Why Swine Flu Isn’t So Scary) scenarios.

As usual, I thought it would be fun to read up on the situation on the Kindle. So here are articles on pandemics in general, the H1N1 outbreak that is affecting us right now, and the interesting case of “zoonoses,” which are diseases that start in animals and then jump to humans. The WSJ “Age of Pandemics” article points out that zoonoses “account for 60% of all infectious diseases, and 75% of all emerging infections.

Who knew? (Well, to be fair, I guess the WHO knew.)

You can download these Wikipedia articles on the “Science and Health” downloads page here.

If you want to prep for tonight’s new episode of The Tudors on Showtime, I have pulled a short article from Wikipedia on “The Pilgrimage of Grace” to assist you. As with all these articles, click on the download link and save the file to your computer. Then connect to your Kindle using the USB cord, and drag the article into the “documents” folder on the Kindle, or on the SD card, if you have one installed. You can download the article for your Kindle here.

Why the Pilgrimage? As the series, and the history behind it, progresses, King Henry demonstrates his Machiavellian nature by placating the rebels and then brutally crushing them. In the drama of the series it is easy to miss some or most of the underlying issues that drove the rebellion in the first place. In the article, you will find that the rebels achieved significant goals, even though the outcome was a disaster for the cause (as the monasteries continued to be pillaged and their riches transferred to the royal exchequer).

What did the Pilgrimage accomplish? From the article:

• The government postponed the collection of the October subsidy. This had been a major grievance amongst the Lincolnshire rebels.
• The Statute of Uses was negated by a new law, the Statute of Wills.
• Four of the seven sacraments that were omitted from the Ten Articles, were restored in the Bishop’s Book of 1537. This marked the end of the drift of official doctrine towards Protestantism. The Bishop’s Book was followed by the Six Articles of 1539.
• An onslaught upon heresy was promised in a royal proclamation in 1538.
• Thomas Cromwell was pushed from power in 1540.
• Lady Mary (later Queen Mary I of England) was restored to the succession in 1543.
• The Council of the North was re-established in 1537.

Of course, there is a lot more to say about the Pilgrimage and the individual historical figures involved. You can read more about them as we post additional articles here. Or you could just settle in by the t.v. and watch it all play out before your eyes.

The little saga that results in this post began early Saturday morning when the Whispernet on my Kindle silently delivered my Wall Street Journal to the door. I especially love reading the Weekend Journal, with its eclectic collection of articles on topics ranging from shashimi to secret agents. Plus, where else can I find recommendations for decent wine that’s less than $10 a bottle?

This Saturday, there was also an article about G. K. Chesterton entitled “A Century of Thursdays.” The author, Allen Barra, celebrates the enduring influence of a writer who was, at best, for many of us, a section of reading in a college Brit Lit textbook, and a small section at that.

Barra certainly caught my attention when he noted that Chesterton was “quoted freely” during the campaign by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and that President-elect Obama’s followers “claim to see the influence of Chesterton’s thought on [his] worldview.”

But I really sat up when Barra describes the work that is arguably Chesterton’s most well-known, the novella The Man Who Was Thursday:

Set in a surrealistic London of shadowy, labyrinthine streets, the plot is populated by poets posing as undercover policemen and policemen pretending to be anarchists. This may sound slapstick, but “The Man Who Was Thursday” presages the dark clouds gathering over Europe before World War I.

An air of impending dread pervades the novel; the term “anarchist,” after all, stirred the fear 100 years ago that “terrorist” does today.

Sounds interesting. So I got to wondering if this classic is available on the Kindle–I mean, that’s where I discovered it. And indeed it is, put in the Kindle store by publishers of the print edition and others. If you browse for it, you will find a price point that you’ll like.

As you can tell from the Downloads page, though, I have taken an interest in getting texts formatted well for the Kindle, and so I have attempted a version of Chesterton’s classic. It is done in Mobipocket format, which doesn’t seem to offer all the bells and whistles of an AZW file, but what the heck? This one is free…;-)

The popularity of Notepad for Kindle got me thinking about another utility that I’d like on my Kindle, a calendar utility.

With Notepad getting decent reviews, I thought, why not?. Mary Krieg wrote a comment, saying “I now have the Personal Notepad on my Kindle. It is fantastic! You truly designed a program that is both simple to use and yet so practical. Thank you!” And then Steve Shaw, who runs the Kindlelicious blog, wrote: “What a great idea! Thanks for posting this.” Kinda heady praise for a piker like me.

Len Edgerly called Notepad “the first Kindle Utility” in the “Tech Tip” portion of his weekly podcast at The Kindle Chronicles. Hmm, I thought, pretty cool.

A little further thought and Calendar for Kindle was born. This one took a little longer to create–multiple pages with a Table of Contents, a list of major dates for the year, and a “personal calendar” page, based on the format I created with Notepad–so I put Calendar up for sale at Amazon for $1.99 (my take: seventy cents per). Then I also realized that a user could keep their personal dates from year to year by saving the .mbp file locally before installing the new calendar for the following year. Cool beans.

So I offer it to friends at EduKindle for free on the Downloads page. Please leave a comment if you have an idea to add or a feature to request. Enjoy!