Archive for the ‘Writing/Publishing’ Category
Am I a luddite? Neh!
… [T]he project of digitising the information held in the world’s printed books is too important to be dealt with purely as a commercial venture between rights holders and a potential supplier of services. …. If we let Google have its settlement we will all be the poorer. Not for a while, perhaps, but one […]
How to have a FAIR argument
For a number of years I worked as a political reporter at Parliament Buildings in Wellington (New Zealand). During my time in that highly competitive pressure-cooker environment I learned a lot about truth, perception, political ‘reality’, and human nature. I hope I also learned to be careful with what I say. While I was in […]
Is there a ‘whistle blower’ personality type?
It’s emerged that the latest book by economist Gareth Morgan After the Panic is being recalled because there’s “a mistake that must be corrected” (see notice from the publishers here PDF) … a new edition is being readied to replace the first edition (now a collectors’ edition?) This self-styled “straight shooting” book was launched just last month […]
Gulp. Surely they’re not talking about us …
from Nick Carr‘s ‘Roughtype’ blog (June 27, 2009) … The sour Wikipedian Forget altruism. Misanthropy and egotism are the fuel of online social production. That’s the conclusion suggested by a new study of the character traits of the contributors to Wikipedia. A team of Israeli research psychologists gave personality tests to 69 Wikipedians and 70 […]
RIP Michael Crichton
Another hero has died. Michael Crichton had the grace to answer my correspondence, and share some advice for me as a writer in the mid 1990s. I was so encouraged. He was already famous, and I had read his books Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man in college. I’ve read almost everything he published, even the non-fiction. […]
