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Notes on the BBC Audio Drama Festival
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1–2 minutes·
3 comments on Notes on the BBC Audio Drama FestivalOn Tuesday, after about five hours of sleep following the Second Life ARG panel, I found myself at the BBC Audio Drama Festival in London. As usual, I was due to give a talk about ARGs. I did think it was a little strange that I was invited to speak, because while we do have…
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Ecclesiastes
I’ve seen this hauntingly beautiful phrase from Ecclesiastes twice in the past week, in the context of Orwell’s essay on the English language: I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men…
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Thank you
Thank you… – this MetaFilter thread on how to write thank you letters is going to get very silly, very quickly.
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A Love of Memory
Why Kim Stanley Robinson loves the science of memory
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However… but…
Someone needs to tell the BBC News Online team how to write: “However, just a small proportion of educated people have access to IT – but the vast majority of Indians, about 70% of the population, still live in villages and the challenge is to make sure they don’t get left behind.” ‘However… but…’ –…
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Word Limit
“… You should aim for a total text length of 6000 words. Other than in exceptional circumstances, you should not exceed 8000 words.” That’s a typical guide for a dissertation at Cambridge. When I read that, I think to myself, ‘Okay, in that case I should aim to write around 6000 words.’ Seems straightforward enough.…
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Jargonwatch
As much as I love reading Wired, I find it a bit tiresome how they go completely over the top in using overtly techy terms when more normal (and accurate) ones would do. For example on the reviews page, Iain Banks is described as writing ‘post-cyberpunk novels’. Well, that’s interesting, because the last time I…
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Fun New Words
New words and terms I’ve heard at my lab: Fiascotorial, adj.: combinations or permutations of fiasco-like situations. e.g., “And then the squirrel fell into the bowl! Just imagine the fiascotorial possibilites!” Gene-jockey, n.: derogatory term for a geneticist or molecular biology. e.g., “Those gene-jockeys working on the squirrel genome project, they don’t understand that the…
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Retroactive destruction
There are some novels that are truly magnificent, that remain with you for years and at times influence who you are. Most authors, having written such novels, are wise enough to leave their works alone and move on to something else. A few authors will embark on writing a sequel. A few sequels match or…
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Cerebroscope
Psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers like to talk of a hypothetical instrument called the ‘cerebroscope‘. The first time I heard about this, in San Diego, I expressed a bit of surprise, and then asked, ‘Why isn’t it called a ‘brainoscope’?” I was expecting to be told that people used ‘cerebroscope’ because it sounded more impressive (always…
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