by Terence Eden, aged 35 & ⅚ths. I often wonder how much I read during the average day. A few thousand words of tweets, couple of hundred in Facebook posts, a dozen articles on blogs and news sites - and an unhealthy smattering of Reddit and other fora. All told, I am probably reading the equivalent of half a novel per day. (Now, there's an idea for a "quantified self" app - "how much have I read today?") And yet... it doesn't feel like I'm doing proper reading. I don't get my teeth stuck …
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Late last week, I released an eBook copy of the Voynich Manuscript on Amazon. I sent a few tweets encouraging people to either download it for free from my website - or buy a copy from Amazon. Amazingly, given the choice, some people decided to throw a couple of quid my way! Once I saw that people were retweeting me, I rushed over to the Amazon stats page to see how I was doing. Holy cow! Not only had I actually sold some copies, but it was enough to propel me to the top 10 of several…
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One of the "perks" of running a moderately popular blog is that sometimes people send you stuff. I've been sent wine, phones, apps, and all sorts to review - usually by PR people who realise that engagement with bloggers is a little different that their regular way of doing business. Yesterday, I received this delightful email from the publishers Simon and Schuster. NEW book by the "Prophet of Silicon Valley", Jaron Lanier, available for your review! Dear Mr. Vogels, I'm writing today to…
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I arrived at Woking Library shortly before 1600 on a Thursday. At that time of day, the library is filled - somewhat understandably - with people who aren't working a normal 9-5 job. Retirees, students, and the unemployed. I walked through the extensive computer section of the library. Dozens of computers with free Internet access. While a few people were on Wikipedia, or checking out the library catalogue, the majority seemed to be playing free flash games on the web. For a moment, I…
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The Internet is "the world's most efficient copying machine" -- Cory Doctorow. This is a long and rambling blog post which asks two questions: Given that we can only read one book at a time - can we set up a "Kindle Stock Exchange" for our unused media? If so, what effect would this have on content producers and sellers who rely on artificial scarcity? This has been mulling over in my head for some time. Image from FreeFoto.com Transactional Friction One of the great advantages…
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My shelves are empty. The half-dozen Billy Bookcases I bought from Ikea are now little more than scrap. I have burned my books. A bonfire of ideas and ideals. My bookshelves used to burst at the seams. Every individual shelf bowed violently from the over-stuffed mass of paperbacks squeezed onto it. Shakespeare rubbed up with Straczinsky. A complete set of Terry Pratchett was enviously glowered at by a patchy Enid Blyton collection. Half-read oddities nestled with well worn volumes. A copy…
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(These are mostly notes to myself!) I love Calibre, it's the perfect eBook management tool. It comes with a built in WWW server so you can easily access your library on the go. The only problem is that this really only works if you have a single machine dedicated to Calibre. For various reasons, I don't have a single machine. I have a desktop, laptop, and server. The Calibre Library is just a database with a set of files and folders - so all three machines sync via DropBox. As long as I…
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In my last post, I was talking about generating new cards for the fantastic game "Ex Libris". I emailed the manufacturers to see if they had any objections - and to see if they were releasing any updates. With their kind permission, I'm posting their reply in full. Dear Mr Eden, We are delighted that you love our game 'Ex Libris' and understand your frustration about the limited number of cards in the pack, but I'm afraid that we would strongly object to you creating ' unofficial' new cards …
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Ex libris is a wonderful game. No - better than that - it's a beautiful game. Here are the rules: Everyone has to write the opening line of a novel, based on the novel's summary. One player has the real opening line to copy down. One other player (the guesser) has to guess which of the opening lines is the real one. If you fool the guesser, you win the point. If the guesser is correct, she gets the point. Simple and perfect. You don't need to be well read - you just need…
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An online acquaintance of mine, Becky Hogge, has released a book! Barefoot Into Cyberspace tells the story of the "hacker scene" over the tumultuous last few years. Yesterday, Becky released a transcript of her interview with Julian Assange - in it he discusses the News of the World hacking, amongst other things. A fascinating interview which helps set the scene for Becky's book. I've only just started reading the book, but it's clear that it's been written in a very accessible way. You…
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As I've mentioned before, Jasper Fforde is one of my favourite authors. His latest book "One of Our Thursdays is Missing" is a brilliant work of fiction - but contains a rather worrying flaw. Well, I say a "worrying flaw" - I mean an error. All books contain errata - I think that's a given - but outside of academia, Jasper Fforde is the only author I know who offers upgrades to his books. Here's a sample from the original Thursday Next "patch" 5: Using a fine black pen make the following…
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I was reading this article on Armed Services Editions of books distributed during World War 2, when I came across this extraordinary propaganda poster. Original image is from The Boston Public Library on Flickr under CC BY NC. What strikes me is how detailed the poster is. The power of the quote. The sheer neutrality of the sentiment. Books - any book is a weapon. Whether it is The Communist Manifesto or Atlas Shrugged. Imagine a Kindle full of books placed into the hands of a child. If …
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