little bits of everything

"Would I like For the Win by Cory Doctorow?", said no-one to me, ever. Book reviews are useful as such, but the most useful thing is for someone to give me enough information about the sort of book that a book is that I'd know if I'd like it. It may be lacking in depth of character, but if it's got spaceships in it, or mind-expanding travelogue (I'm looking at you Iain M Banks) then that's enough for me. So would you like it? I think you'd need to know a bit about gold farming , or at least read up on it before you start. I think you'd need an interest in video games, but not necessarily. You would have to enjoy, or not mind, explanations of economics as applied to the virtual world. They are sprinkled throughout but avoid being not too patronising. What I'd like to know about it is how much is made up, without having to do the tedious work of typing stuff into search engines to see, for example, if there really is an MMO called Mushroom...

Get old. While you're getting old develop a like for a variety of fiction styles: SF, historic detective stories, fiction that wins literary prizes but isn't too wierd, magical realism. Read about a book a month. Go to the library every three months. (And this is the important one.) Keep a list on your phone of authors you've liked previously, or that you've heard about on TV, radio, newspapers, book blogs or book podcasts. Visit the library and work through that list.

Answer as you see fit. No search-engining allowed. What were the skies like when you were younger? Why does it always rain on me? Tell me why. Do you know the way to San Jose? Why do birds suddenly appear? Is she really going out with him? What are words worth? Who let the dogs out? Why does my heart feel so bad? Do you really want to hurt me? What is love? Where did you come from? Would you hold it against me? How many roads must a man walk down? Will you still need me? Do you realise? Is there anybody out there? Like does he have a car? Are you waiting for the family to arrive? What does the fox say? Where do you come from?

Insert discussion of the original meaning of the word meme and what it now means here. Memes are supposed to be understood by lots of people without explanation. This one fails. I've been visiting Universities with one of my sons, looking at their Music Tech courses. (Insert link to blog post about thoughts on that when it's written.) At Portsmouth they had an analogue mixing desk that used to be used by Coldplay. The guy showing us round made some disparaging remark about their music. I wish I'd been quicker off the mark and asked, "Couldn't even Brian Eno" have saved them. For Brian has breathed on music by U2 and Coldplay and probably other people and made it more shiny. There was a BBC documentary a few years ago about him and I remember a bit from it where he said that he doesn't go on the internet as he would find it too distracting. I can't remember the exact words, but it was along the lines that it would ruin his creativity. Pictu...

Is there a song that you could listen to over and over again for the rest of your life without getting fed up of it? Is there a song where you think, "I want to live in this song. I want the intro to be my porch. I want to walk on the bass, to sit on the synth line and watch the melody. I want to sleep on the repeat to fade until it all starts again." This quote from Laura Potter has captured a nagging feeling I've had for a while: A significant amount of time and money are spent exploring ways to increase our emotional ‘attachment’ to products, yet we become attached to what objects signify, or to whom they refer, not directly or materially to what they are. I’m not convinced there is any point trying to actively design attachment into things, because the conditions under which objects become personally significant are highly subjective: either contextually dependent or serendipitously evolved. I'm taking it out of context, and it goes on to talk about making...

  I admire the PR firm that took on pirates. I imagine it went something like this: "Ahoy!, we're pirates, we'd like t' improve our image." "Just so I can understand how best to help you, can you tell me what your core business is?" "Piracy." "I see. How would you define piracy?" "Stealin' from other people." "Any other related activities?" "Kidnappin' sometimes, sinkin' ships, fightin'. Surprisin'ly always a bit o' fightin' with t' stealin'. Sometimes a bit of killin'." "But stealing is your core business?" "Yes." "Hmm, that is generally what most people think of when they think of pirates. You haven't given us much we can go on really if you want an improved image." "Some people say our accent be charmin'." "You're right, that is maybe something we can work with." At this point a second ...

(Or pocket lint for my US readers, I don't know what the Canadians say). Here are some font related things front the depths of the pockets of my mind. Is the hashtag for Kerning Conf really #keming ? If so, *that* is genius! — Tom Lloyd (@TomALloyd) May 3, 2013 Just my Type - a book about fonts by Simon Garfield. It's full of useful information, but light-hearted enough to say that there are worse sins than using Comic Sans inappropriately. I'm old enough to remember Sans Serriffe.