Suzie's Book Pages

Match it for Pratchett

2008-03-18T12:18:00.002+01:00

Give a quid.

This is a seriously good cause and one very close to my heart.

Edited to remove a badge, and to add: there are times when it's important to protect your intellectual property, and there are times when it makes you look like an ungrateful misery.

Amen to that

2008-03-16T13:57:00.002+01:00

GRRM has finished another chapter (and his LiveJournal has a rather cute new skin). And it's a Bran chapter.

Bran's always been one of my favourites. Since he named his wolf Summer in contradiction of his family's pessimistic motto, and then fell off the wall, he's always been a random character in my eyes - 'random' like Stephen King uses the word in Insomnia, or like Darien in The Darkest Road - one whose path isn't set for him. Which I suppose must be something like the truth if GRRM took six years to complete this particular chapter.

As he says, lets hope it doesn't take another six years to write the next part of Bran's story. The wait for this book is killing me.

Smuggery

2008-03-14T17:52:00.001+01:00

91%

Are you an SEO Expert?

Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher

2008-03-08T12:17:00.001+01:00

We all celebrate today,
because it's one day closer to your death.

Picking your audience

2008-03-01T22:08:00.002+01:00

Seth asks a question. Do you pick, or does it just happen? Was The Da Vinci Code written for people who don't buy books, or did it accidentally go viral? I'm not sure it's something you can plan for, and even if you try to, can you really sit down to write for the lowest common denomenator?

I believe in you

2008-02-28T22:14:00.003+01:00

You don't know what's going to happen to you when you click a link. I went to read this story about Harry Knox, director of the Religion and Faith Program for the Human Rights Campaign, debating with an anti-gay church. Though short, it's a great story. Then I clicked the little link to read Harry's opening remarks.

If there had been people like him around me twenty years ago, I might have thought my faith was worth holding onto.

Research someone should do #1

2008-02-20T23:25:00.002+01:00

Louis Wain's influence on LOLcats.

moar funny pictures

Using Google to find a place to rant

2008-02-12T12:01:00.000+01:00

I read a post on John Chow dot com this morning, which contained this paragraph:

Understand most readers have an information requirement Once your content has slipped into your archive, search engine users will become your key demographic. Users from search engines will reach your content because they were told the answer to their question is on your page.

It seems to be taken for granted that search engine users are looking for information: they want answers to questions. I think bloggers in particular need to be aware that their archives are being searched for more than just information: search engine users are looking for a place to rant.

On TB we have a lot of old posts complaining about the sorts of things eBayers complain about: PayPal issues, and echeques in particular are a favourite. We talk about non-eBay auction sites, non-paying bidders, and feedback. We talk about companies, too, especially those who cause their customers problems. Some of these posts are still gathering comments months after they were written, and - here's the bit I think's interesting - even when there is a newer post on a similar topic on the front page of the blog.

These commenters don't seem to be seeking factual information. Instead, they want a place to tell their own problems: "I hate PayPal echeques too, I had one the other day and it bounced after four weeks and they didn't even email me..." might be a typical sort of comment.

Where am I going with this thought? It seems to me that Google is rendering the chronological blog format almost pointless. Even with datestamping *and* the "old post" tag for posts older than 6 months, still they come. Blog conversations don't necessarily happen only when the blogger starts them: they can start up again months later, and when we think we've moved on.

If blogs are going to be community - and I think they are already - then we need to change the format for some of them. The long scrolly format, with comments in a pop-up or a single post page, works well for a blog that (like this one) is essentially a diary. But it doesn't expand well into reader involvement. The elements of forum we've brought into TB have worked well (ironically, better than our forum): gravatars went down well, as did comment editing. Many of our commenters are now talking to each other without our involvement: there *is* a community happening, and now I feel our format needs to change to reflect that.

There must be something between the long scroll of the blog, and the punchy, excluding format of the forum. There must be something really user-friendly... I just need to figure out what it is.

I believe I can fly

2008-02-05T13:46:00.000+01:00

How can you not love a headline like Train in Spain sets out to beat the plane? It's not only UK travellers who are looking at Spanish train prices with envy. I was just checking prices for my next trip to London: on the horrible, cramped plane: €19,99 to go and €0,01 to come back (plus tax); on the lovely, spacious train: €440 return. However much I'd prefer to get the plane, it just isn't going to happen.

Why you should check Snopes first

2008-02-04T18:22:00.000+01:00

The UK government is taking the unprecedented step of writing to every embassy to stop a false e-mail rumour about Holocaust teaching being banned. A widely-circulated e-mail has falsely claimed that schools in the UK will stop teaching the Holocaust because it might cause offence to Muslims.

From the BBC.

Because no one ever killed themselves before the internet...

2008-01-23T10:41:00.000+01:00

File this under 'oh puhleez:

[The mother of one of the victims] warned parents to keep a close eye on their children's internet use. She said: "I think the problem is they do not know how to speak like adults about serious issues like this. They can speak to each other on the computer but do not know how to express their emotions in other ways."

"Thomas would spend about three hours a night on the computer, talking to his friends. The thing is that most parents don't understand what they are doing or what they are talking about.

Any teenager who's ever tried to talk to their parents about depression or suicide will know just how impossible it is. Spying on internet use is just going to exacerbate the problem. As for the copper in charge:

"There is a growing trend for young people to communicate through telephone text messaging and also over the internet whether it's email or within chat room forums."

There is a growing trend for young people to communicate, so how about duck taping their mouths and chopping their fingers off at birth?

Or maybe we could address this problem in a more realistic way?

Pantone 292

2008-01-23T00:40:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure how much longer I can cope with this. My brain won't function. I can't write, I can't concentrate, I can't string two ideas together and I can't keep my temper for longer than half an hour. All I want to do is sleep, drink and take up smoking again. And all I really want to do is find a razor blade and carve my arms up.

Smeeeg heeed

2008-01-19T19:22:00.000+01:00

Swiss scientists have created robots who can lie:

The food sources charged up the robots' batteries while the poison drained them, and by using the genes of the most successful feeders in 50 successive generations, the team was hoping to select the fittest.

Three colonies of bots in the 50th generation learned to signal to other robots in the group when then found food or poison. But the fourth colony included lying cheats that signaled food when they found poison and then calmly rolled over to the real food while other robots went to their battery-death. Eerily wicked, to say the least. Saving the robots' honor, luckily, there were also a few "hero robots" that signalled danger and then rolled to their death to save the others.

All white

2008-01-18T15:21:00.000+01:00

Reading Problogger's list of ten great WP themes, I am struck by how same-y they look. With the exception of #4 (whose yumminess I commented on upon its release) and #10 (whose cunning layout is not dissimilar to my own intentions for TB's new incarnation), they are all remarkably similar. Monochrome. Boxy. Clean. It's about time WP skinning got drrrty.

Here's a first

2008-01-16T15:08:00.000+01:00

... I'm sending two books back to Amazon. I've never, ever returned a book to a store before (which explains why my house is overrun with dozens of boxes which *still* need to be unpacked), but The Didymus Contingency is just so appalling, I can't bear to have it in the house any longer, nor Antarktos Rising by the same author, which I bought at the same time. Didymus reminds me of nothing so much as Left Behind: the moment I read in the opening paragraph that 'he was a nuclear physicist with an IQ of 167', my heart sank. It's LaJenkins' tell-not-show method all over again. Then we have the bitchy woman-boss who, having granted our brilliant scientists doubled funding for their time travel machine, manages to smile as one of them gropes her hand. Pass me a bucket. And just like LaJenkins, one feels that the author's attention isn't on his story: sacrifice and science alike are jumped over because he's rushing to get to the main part of his story which is that JESUS IS REAL!!!1!

Honestly, born-again atheist though I am, I really wanted to see what someone other than Garry Kilworth would make of this idea. Wasn't it C.S.Lewis who said that, to be a good Christian novelist, one has an obligation not only to be a good Christian, but a good novelist too? And yet even Lewis, the more overt his religion becomes, the less good his novels are: how preachy does That Hideous Strength feel in comparison to Out of the Silent Planet? If anyone's found any religious fiction that's good as fiction, rather than as a validation of one's own beliefs, I'd be very interested to hear about it.

This is only still on Blogger because I'm too lazy to move it

2008-01-15T22:27:00.000+01:00

How to write a simple WP plugin. Because I'll lose the link *and* the thinking if I don't write it down. Plugins I want to write:

A nice simple one that will replace instances of words (e.g. eBay) with affiliate links.
A horrible complicated thing that will allow WP posts to sell things: with PayPal buy it now buttons, and a stock control list so you can't sell the same item twice.
The comments thing I promised Lynne today which will have comment previewing *and* editing, and BBCode in comments. And infinitely extensible extra fields (I want it for eBay Shop vs. website, but why not let people do whatever they want with it.)
[I will do this one first] A very simple thing to turn tags to lower case, seeing as with three authors on TB, we seem to be incapable of adopting any kind of standard :-D Will then amend this so that "eBay" is spelt like that.
Something for the posting console so that we can input a URL and have a properly-formatted eBay affiliate link output.
Something that will add (maybe to the post metadata) a link to guest posters' own websites.

Will edit list when have more wild ideas.

Education, education, schmeducation

2008-01-14T16:09:00.000+01:00

Schools should be forced to give impartial advice on further education courses, say MPs. Heh heh, they can try. I remember having the most enormous row with our school careers advisor because I said there was no way on earth I was prepared to consider the YTS scheme, and my only question was whether to do Latin or Maths alongside my other A'levels. He said I was bigotted and prejudiced: I said, no, I just wasn't going to pretend that I wasn't academically capable, just for the sake of his numpty class. The people who *were* headed for the YTS scheme weren't, after all, being asked to pretend they were considering A'levels.

A little piece of genius

2008-01-10T20:22:00.001+01:00

File under why didn't I think of that.

Drug brings "instant" Alzheimer's improvement

2008-01-10T10:45:00.000+01:00

Anyone who's ever lived with Alzheimer's has hoped for a miracle: now it seems they found one:

Before the drug, they measured his performance on cognitive tests, and performed poorly, unable to remember the name of the doctor treating him, the date, or the state in which he lived. He could not perform simple mental arithmetic, or name more than two animals. Ten minutes after a dose of etanercept, he was noticeably calmer, more attentive, and less frustrated. He knew he lived in California, and knew the day of the week, and the month. He could name five animals, and performed better at the arithmetic test. Interviewed at that point, his wife said that the improvement was "like some kind of science fiction story".

Of course, one patient over ten minutes doesn't make a cure. Not yet.

Internet to fund crap French TV

2008-01-09T10:04:00.000+01:00

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed new taxes on internet access and mobile phone use. The new taxes would help fund France's two public television channels, which would be free of advertising.

M. Sarkozy has reassured net users that the tax will be "infinitessimal". So why bother with it then? France's public service television is appalling: so appalling in fact that TF1, the main channel, has the distinction of having shown a programme that garnered no viewers at all*

I suspect the reason that M. Sarko is introducing this tax is that advertisers have also realised that most of France is busy watching dubbed American drama series on channels 6 and 9, and so he needs to do something to replace some lost revenue.

*It was, iirc, about an old Algerian woman talking about her life... If I can find an online source, I'll post it.

Best TV ad of 2007

2008-01-09T01:25:00.000+01:00

I must have seen it a couple of hundred times now and it still makes me laugh: that's the mark of teh funnie.

Inspiration

2008-01-09T01:14:00.000+01:00

I've just spent an hour looking through Creative Latitude's graphic makeovers: before and after shots of a huge range of logos from schools to investment bankers. It makes me want to go off and redesign everything I've ever done, but I think I'll start with TameBay.

In other webbery-related news, the professors have approved their new site, so now I just have to wade back into the mire of craziness that is attempting to register an .ac.uk domain name. Joy.

Like a care bear, with fangs

2008-01-08T12:19:00.000+01:00

I've known for a while that Mitt Romney reminded me of someone, and this morning, I discovered who it is: the Demon Mayor of Sunnydale.

My heart won't let my feet do things they should do

2008-01-07T00:20:00.000+01:00

I found this quoted on the Velveteen Rabbi (which has to be one of the best-named blogs I've ever read):

The soul knows things the body can never know: joy, sorrow, anticipation, yetzirah [the world of emotion] and briyah [the world of intellect]. But the soul is liable to sickness for that very reason, in a way the body is not; the soul can become depressed, forgetful, closed-off. So the soul's constant duty is to teach the body the habitual ways of dancing -- so that when the soul becomes sorrowful, the body can remind the soul of how to pull itself out of that.

From Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, apparently.

Riddikulus

2008-01-04T23:39:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time I read 'Left Behind' to see what all the fuss was about: I bought it for 1p plus postage from Amazon Marketplace, just so I could be sure that LaHaye and Jenkins weren't benefitting by even one lousy cent by my purchase. No one, least of all me, was surprised that I hated it, but thanks to Forest, I did at least discover Left Behind Fridays: if blogging had given us nothing else, LBF would have been worth it all.

Today's post contains this piece of especial genius:

The spiritual warfare gurus love to cite the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness as though it were an introductory course in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The salient point of the story, for them, is not its profound contrast of love and power, but rather its demonstration of mystical defensive techniques. A magic trick. When tempted by Satan, Jesus quoted scripture. Thus, they believe, when confronted by the forces of darkness, Christians should follow suit by raising their wands and chanting "Expecto patronus!" ... er, I mean, by citing chapter and verse from the Bible to invoke divine protection.

Well... yes. I was maybe seven: I can't have been any older because we hadn't moved house, but I can't have been much younger because I was left entirely on my own in the house, and my parents just didn't do that. And I was watching Dr. Who on our old black and white portable, and my mother told me that if I got too scared, I should switch off the television and read the Bible. Not "Bible Stories for Children" or the rhyming Bible stories from which I taught myself to read. But the actual Bible.

Thank goodness Dr. Who doesn't scare me. Who knows what I might have read.