How do we feel about book-scanning machines? <East End Gangster Voice>Takin' food outta the mouths o' my kids</East End Gangster Voice> maybe? Or making once-rare books available to millions of people? Or perhaps (you being such a nuanced lot) it depends on the use to which they're put. Irregardless (as I like to say), building one from scrap for $300 that can scan a 400-page book in 20 mins is pretty cool. That's what student, Daniel Reetz, did. And then he realised that other people would want to follow in his footsteps so he set up an online community for collecting and refining designs for DIY book-scanning machines. I love that kind of technology: simultaneously state-of-the-art while using scraps of plywood and junky old cameras. There's an intro article at Wired and The New York Times and the community site is here. Plus Daniel is an interesting guy to listen to if you track him down on the YouTubes, etc.

[Incidentally, I hate using those <East End Gangster Voice> tags. I'm always afraid I'll forget a closing tag and the whole blog will end up in a right ol' two-and-eight.]