The Millions has a great essay about one difference between conventional books and electronic books that we may not have considered. You can learn a lot about someone by seeing what books they've kept. Perusing someone's bookshelf can lead to great conversations as you see what interests they have and what you might have in common. The author discovered his own mother as a person who had a life before he came along by noting the books she read, still displayed on bookshelves in his grandparents' home.

And then there was my wife, whose bookshelves I first inspected in a humid DC summer, while her parents were away at work. The shelves were stuffed full of novels—Little House on the Prairie, The Andromeda Strain, One Hundred Years of Solitude—that described an arc of discovery I had followed too. At the time we met, her books still quivered from recent use and still radiated traces of the adolescent wonder they’d prompted. In the years since, on visits home for the holidays and to celebrate engagements and births, I’ve watched her bookshelves dim and settle. Lately they’ve begun to resemble a type of monument I recognize from my mother’s room. They sit there waiting for the day when our son will be old enough to spend his own afternoons puzzling out a picture of his mother in the books she left behind.

With the availability of e-readers and books on the internet, will anyone ever know what the next generation will find important to read and to keep? Link -via Metafilter

Whatever you get when you combine games, Star Wars, and Lego construction has to be awesome. When it's big and useful, it's doubly awesome! Stefan built a foosball table completely from Lego bricks, and manned it with Star Wars minifigs. The game is completely playable, too! Link -via Coolest Gadgets

When the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York had a broken step in their glass spiral staircase replaced, Mark Burstiner asked for, and received the old step from the repair crew. Over a year later, he put it up for sale on eBay. Then he was contacted by a VP from Seele, the staircase manufacturer. The VP told him Apple was very unhappy and asked him to pull the auction. Burstiner stopped the auction, but then the Seele representative called him again and demanded that he return the step!

What this sounds like to me is Seele trying to save face because Apple is furious that they were irresponsible enough to relinquish ownership of the tread. Though it may be embarrassing for both corporations, it may simply be a lesson learned at a high price. Let me put it this way: If you caught a foul ball at a World Series game, got it signed by a player, received a high five from the security guard on the way out of the stadium, and went home, that ball is now yours, right? It started as one entity?s property, and through a series of consensual transactions, it ended up in your hands. Now, let?s say a year and a half later, the player who signed it is huge, and you decide to put it up for auction. If the MLB reached out to you and said, "Hey! No way, buddy. That was OURS. Hand it over!" Guess what? That wouldn't fly.

Burstiner put the step back up on eBay. No doubt publicity about the case brought more bids to the auction, which is at $6,300 at the time of this post. Link to story. Link to auction.

You know how people help their cats to reach upper floors by installing cat ladders? Those can't hold a candle to this cat-operated automatic feline elevator! Link (embedded video)

(YouTube link)

Designer Steven Heller gives an overview and critique of Olympic pictograms used over the past 74 years for the New York Times. When you only see these every few years, you don't realize how different they are for each Olympiad. -via the Presurfer

The final day of the Winter Olympics this Sunday has only two events: the gold medal men's hockey game and the 50km cross-country skiing race. Brian McKeever will be skiing for Canada. This race will make him the first Olympian ever to participate in both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the same year. McKeever is legally blind.

In 1998, McKeever was a promising 19-year-old skier when he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a type of juvenile macular degeneration that gradually leads to blindness. Twelve years later, McKeever only has 10 percent of his vision, and that tiny fraction is in his peripheral vision.

Rather than rolling over when he lost his sight, though, McKeever got back on his skis.

Read about how McKeever does it at mental_floss. Link

Obviously. Link

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This catchy song was born at TEDActive 2010, where attendees were invited to contribute their ideas on what the world needs. The entire production was put together in just four days.

Jill Sobule, John Doe, Sara Watkins, Stuart Johnson, Don Was, Dave Way, Krish Sharma and the amazing team on the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus came together to create write, perform and produce an original song, on-site during the conference. Aaron Koblin served as director and the TEDActive community transformed their ideas into impressive illustrations, with a little help from artist Jansen Yee.

Link -via The World's Fair

This application will give you a lesson in how difficult it is to control the universe. Select how many planets you want and adjust their orbits and other parameters. Then set it in motion and watch your planets crash into each other or fly off into deep space. At least that's what happened to mine! With some practice, you might get a real system going. Link -via J-Walk Blog

An unnamed 35-year-old female inmate broke out of a prison in Breda, the Netherlands. She was housed on prison grounds in a special building for inmates preparing for release. To escape, she dug a tunnel with a spoon!

The woman's tunnel began in a cellar under the building's kitchen, with its entrance concealed by a removable hatch. According to Dutch public broadcaster NOS, the police are assuming that the fugitive had at least one accomplice, who is believed to have loosened paving stones that were part of a sidewalk next to the detention center, allowing the prisoner to emerge from her tunnel.

The woman had only 22 months left on her murder sentence. She is still at large. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Flickr user Jeremy Brooks)

The Dresden Codex is an eleven-foot-long Maya manuscript, inscribed on both sides, produced around the beginning of the 13th century. Scholars believe it to be a copy of an earlier book composed between 700 and 900 AD, which would make it the oldest book from the western hemisphere. The contents covers the Maya calendar, mathematics, astronomy, and religious beliefs. See more images from the Dresden Codex and later reproductions at BibliOdyssey. Link

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There's just something about a man in uniform. However, most of us don't throw ourselves at the object of our affection in such a blatant manner. The music adds a special touch to this video. -via YesButNoButYes

When you show up at work or school wearing a cast and people ask what happened, you can show them with a Castoo. The company makes all kinds of decorations that you apply to your cast and seal with the heat of a hairdryer. Some pre-designed Castoos show arm or leg bones with breaks. You can also get one custom-made with your particular injury by sending them your x-ray! Link -via Geekologie

Your knowledge of the Old Testament will be sorely tested in today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. For each question, you'll be given the names of two Biblical figures. You must decide which one is also the name of book from the Old Testament. I scored 100% on this one. Link

Nominations are complete for the annual Diagram Prize {wiki} for the oddest book title of the year. Ninety books were suggested in 2009, and the top six are in the running for the prize, to be announced on March 26th. The nominees are:

* David Crompton's Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter (Glenstrae Press)
* James A Yannes' Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich (Trafford)
* Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes (A K Peters)
* Ronald C Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots (CRC Press)
* Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky's The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (SLACK Inc)
* Tara Jansen-Meyer's What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua? (Mirror)

You can vote on your favorite in a poll near the bottom of the site's homepage. http://www.thebookseller.com/news/112868-spoons-chihuahuas-and-autonomous-robots-make-odd-title-shortlist.html -via Arbroath

Previously at Neatorama: The Oddest Book Title Ever