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The Shadow War: Getting Boys to Read
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2–3 minutes·
3 comments on The Shadow War: Getting Boys to ReadHow do you get boys to read? One way is to write entertaining and dramatic books, preferably including some violence. This is what Charlie Higson did for his Young Bond series of books, and judging by the fact that they have sold close to a million copies, it’s a pretty good strategy. Of course, in…
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Anathem and neologisms
A lot of people are criticising Neal Stephenson’s new novel, Anathem, for containing vast quantities of invented words. Instead of mobile phones, he has jeejahs; for video, he has speely; for church, he has ark; and so on. I had been warned about these beforehand, and yet I still became irritated during the first couple…
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Austin GDC talk
After becoming irritated about putting in a lot of work to prepare talks for conferences, and then for all that work to promptly vanish into the ether once my hour is up, I resolved to do something about it. I’ve bought a reasonably good microphone and have started recording the talks that I give to…
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Operation: Sleeper Cell – The Future of Fundraising
Just under a year ago, I announced Let’s Change the Game, a competition to fund development of an ARG that would raise money for Cancer Research UK. In February, the winning team, Law 37, began work on Operation: Sleeper Cell. Over the next eight months, over twenty volunteers in Law 37 built an original game,…
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San Francisco
I’m going to be in San Francisco from Thursday 10th until Wednesday 16th July, mainly for FooCamp but also for general meetings and so on. If you’re around and would like to meet up, just send me an email (you can get it from the ‘About’ page). The trip is not the reason why I…
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Defending the Library of Google
In the current issue of The New York Review of Books, Robert Darnton, Director of the University Library at Harvard, writes about Google’s efforts to digitise the world’s books and create a new universal library. For the most part, the article is really very well-written and enlightening. However, when comes around to criticising Google Book…
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Hay Festival 21
A couple of days after we’d arrived at Hay-on-Wye for the book festival, something in my brain clicked and the whole event made sense for me. The Hay Festival – 11 days of talks by authors from around the world – is a glimpse of the future, a future run by old people. I don’t…
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Bill Murray
I always found it a little odd how Bill Murray seemed to be so dismissive of Ghostbusters, and more recently, Groundhog Day. When I watched them properly a few years ago (i.e. when I was an adult and could understand all the jokes), I wondered what his problem was. As I saw some of his…
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Meeting Room Yield Management
Six to Start is based in a large building containing dozens of managed and serviced offices. On the way to the shared kitchen at work, I noticed two empty meeting rooms. It occurred to me that, just like an empty seat on a plane, an empty meeting room is lost cash. Sure, there is a…
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Flatmate wanted in Clapham Common
My flatmate is moving out in a couple of months to go to new pastures, so it’s time for me to find another flatmate. I’m going to put an ad in various places shortly, but I figure it wouldn’t hurt to post something here as well – clearly anyone reading this blog will have good…
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