Lady Ada

I've already sent this link to the one person I could think might get a kick from it, but still, I want to register my approval. And give you budding nerds a chance to feast your enquiring minds on something exotic but highly palatable. Lady Ada (who I've posted about) has produced a video with one of the guys from MAKE: Magazine (which I've posted about). It's about how the SIM card in your mobile phone works and how to make a device that will read it - and possibly clone it if the security isn't too up-to-date. Then Lady Ada takes a secondhand New York payphone, converts it work on Skype, demand a quarter before it will work, after which she modifies it so that it will work with the first generation of phone hacking tools which date back to the days when there were no hackers, only Phone Phreaks. The link is here. (Warning: I found the volume levels a bit erratic, with 'background' music sometimes drowning out the foreground, but that might just be me.)

Friday's XKCD cartoon heartily amused me (partly because it chimed with my prejudices). Click on the thumbnail to see the full cartoon. Or click here to go to the site.

...is yet another house moving day for us. This time we're having Men come round to take all our old junk from the London house, which we're about to put on the market (and if you make a comment on what a great time it is to be doing that I'll block you from this blog), to the recycling place, then we're having More Men come over to take our remaining stuff to the countryside. And then that will be all the moving house a couple can do in one year.

So if you need me, erm, sorry. It'll have to be Monday. Have a lovely weekend!

A little while ago I talked about how the weather can lower your retail sales, but never raise them. That's retail; in other industries, different scapegoats are required. Here are a few. If a server or website goes down, the first thought is never in-house incompetence or poor preparation; it's bound to be hackers or viruses. And music, movie and games manufacturers don't lose money because they've put out an unpopular product; it's piracy and illegal downloads that are to blame. Airlines weren't in serious trouble as far back as the late Nineties; their woes started with 911. (Likewise, Coalition soldiers don't get attacked by Iraqis; it's Al Qaeda who do the damage.) Banks didn't make crazy high-risk bets this decade; they were caught out by an unforeseen credit crunch. Western oil companies may make more money than any previous human endeavour but the fault lies with OPEC. Which is also why the American auto industry is dying; not because they make engineering dinosaurs that would be wasteful even if this were still the Sixties. Trains are delayed by late-running predecessors; they are never the original cause. Any more?

There are various pieces of Earth machinery on Mars. Some of it is still functioning. The most active is the recently arrived Mars Phoenix. It has a Twitter feed (what's that?) here. The conceit is that it's really able to answer questions and write grammatical sentences. But undeniably many of the facts in the updates are genuinely originating with Phoenix itself. Sample updates: "I can see Jupiter from here! Saturn's also in view (from Earth too) so I can wave to my buddy @CassiniSaturn (a Twitter newbie)" and "Whoohoo! Was keeping my eye on some chunks of bright stuff & they disappeared! Sublimated! So it can't be salt, it's ice: link"

Here is a piece about Steampunk that George Mann, author of The Affinity Bridge, has written for Matrix, the British SF Association website. Read and enjoy!

There are some strange ways of marking time.

The Steampunk Workshop blogpost covering this project is entitled 'Truly Awesome Steampunk Mouse'. I'd agree with that. Shown in the thumbnail there is the USB plug. Click on it to see the mouse itself. Or click here.

The only thing worth buying in the whole world, that is. The Typewriter. *The* Typewriter.

Douglas Adams' typewriter is up for sale - astonishingly enough, from a vendor called NV Books who apparantly are based in Great Wolford, Warwickshire. Rob lives about 3/4 mile from there in the next village along, called Little Wolford. He could walk to pick it up - save all that costly shipping.

It's on sale for $25,257.94. And I have that much money in our bank account. Sure, it *should* be spent on printer bills and retailer promotional invoices and, oh, whatever other fripperies a publisher spends money on. But we could ignore those bills and buy this instead.

I think we should do it. The printers are decent chaps - they won't mind.

A speech and a sad demise.

I understand that forms with my address on will contain mistakes. Despite the fact that most companies just ask for a postcode and a house number or name, and then look the rest up, there always seems to be a human element. But why would anyone design a computer system where you had to type in the names of the counties rather than select them from a list? And should I worry that I entrust my healthcare to people who think I live in 'Worikshire'?

It's all very well me going on about how awful returns are. But so far I haven't offered a solution. Here is what I would do if I ran a bookshop chain.

(Warning - I haven't written the post yet but it's bound to be long.)

(I've written it now - it is.)

Bibliographic data, that is. I've just been browsing Amazon.com because I have to fill out a stupid form for my US distributors about our forthcoming titles (they don't accept ONIX messages, and you know what happens when people don't accept my ONIX messages. Bad things, that's what) and the form includes a field to note down comparable titles. So, not wanting to actually have to think about it, I go to Amazon and browse the Action and Adventure category. And what's there in the top ten? What Was Lost by Catherine Flynn, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. And my favourite: the audio book of Life with My Sister Madonna by Christopher Ciccone.

Nice categorisation job there, folks. I would definitely have gone to the Action and Adventure category to find those books. Oh, hang on, no I wouldn't.

à propos of nothing at all, I was mulling plot ideas the other day and wondered about this one for a TV series(s): the pilot sets up the various goings-on of a group of people culminating in a Sliding Doors event - that's to say some development that has a major impact on the future storyline, but we follow not only that narrative, but a parallel one in which the event didn't happen. The twist here is that from one pilot there are two TV series, shown on different nights of the week, starring roughly the same group of people - one for each parallel world. In one Danny is revealed to be Frank's murderer but in the other world Frank's widow seems to be getting romantically attached to him. Will she guess the truth? When Devon learns who the father of Michelle's baby is he leaves her, but in the parallel world his drinking is making him increasingly violent; how will he react when the secret finally comes out. Little Jimmy's dog Binky ran away in one world: will that affect ad revenue from pet food companies on Tuesday nights but not Thursdays?

He pootles around most evenings, whiffling his nose, about a foot from the back door. He is a poppet. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what life in the countryside is like.

The chap who runs Anova has revealed that they had really high returns last year. Good for him - the more of us that are open about returns, the greater the chance of the industry doing something about it.

but it's just possible - just, fractionally, within the bounds of possibility - that I may be slightly hormonal at the moment.

Em thoughtfully ponders the subject of returns

Over the last couple of weeks I've done a lot of Snowangels work - the branch of the business that offers cover design, consultancy, that sort of thing. It's both enjoyable for me, and a good way to boost the Snowcoffers, although it does mean that I have to work quite hard. However, I've just checked our weekly sales, which get updated on a Saturday. We've had returns that come to pretty much the same value as the consultancy work, give or take a tenner or two.

It's rather - sobering? upsetting? frustrating? - to know that instead of working 13 hour days for two weeks managing both Snowbooks and Snowangels, I could have sat staring at the wall and had the same net financial result.

Though it happened last year, I've only just noticed that SF author, Neal Stephenson, came to London and gave a talk about genre publishing. He spoke for 40 mins and the video is here. He's a slightly monotonous speaker which means it takes a while to warm to him, but after a bit his flatness starts to seem like a comic device and actually makes his little witticisms funnier. Sadly, the presentation flags a bit in the final ten minutes, but before that there are lots of good, chunky insights and (to the best of my knowledge) some completely original dissections of what's been going on with the genres of storytelling in the last half-century. To whet your appetite: one of his early theories is that previous genres have to some extent disappeared outside the world of books because the romantic genre has suffused the whole world of movie-making while the crime/mystery genre has been incorporated into most television.

I am 'on holiday', as I think the kids call it nowadays, tomorrow. Not exactly resting, but packing all my London possessions into boxes, ready to be moved to the sticks, before I get too fat or preoccupied with a baby to do this rather onerous chore. So apologies if you try to reach me, but I'll be buried under a large number of boxes filled with books and clothes that don't fit me any more.

Update: tomorrow is now today.

The front page of the Guardian today is all about the state of maternity care in the NHS at the moment, which I have something of a vested interest in. Summary: it's not pretty.

This week, I have a head full of quirky electronics (I'm referring to ideas, of course; to the best of my knowledge, my brain itself is still 100% organic). Here's a foolish gadget, designed in the run-up to last Christmas. It rings a little handbell every time someone visits your website. How cute! I'm wondering if I could adapt it to create a device which until this point has been purely conceptual: the Snowbooks Genre Bell. Not sure who invented it, but I'll guess Em. We mock our own lack of an editorial policy in that the bell is supposedly rung every time we publish a book in a genre that's new to us. And for a while that was pretty much every new title, such was our profligate multi-variedness. I reckon I could knock up some code that scans our outgoing Onix files and, if it sees a genre it hasn't noticed before, gives the bell a bit of a ding. The only question is whether to put it (perhaps even hide it) in Em's office or not. On the one hand, it might be fun. On the other hand, the last time I scared Em she thought she was being attacked by an adder, and that's not a nice thing to do to your best pal and business partner, particularly when she's busy being so pregnant (not to mention the very real threat of reprisals). Maybe I'll fall back on my old favourite spooky trick of making the printer start up and print a message - usually a ghostly 'Boo!' - when Em's the only one working late at night, but this time make it a 'ding'. Less chance of finding an adder in my morning mail that way.

A very minor sprucing of the site has occured today, including a spit and polish of the index page, a couple of bug fixes and a bringing up to date of a few pages that needed it. Just keeping you informed, ma'am or sir.

This is more like it - some lovely comments about our Affinity Bridge cover!

Now normally I respond very badly to negative feedback. Very badly indeed. I beat myself up, as it were; I become convinced that the person telling me that I / my company/ my books are crap is right and I am wrong; I obsess, worry, apologise and generally feel very miserable about the whole thing. But today I received a letter through the post with this in it, which made me, well, laugh my head off:

Fortunately I understand science and thus can read articles like this one, describing how to measure the cubic volume of a cat, and understand it. Some of you may find its complexity confusing, though. See how you do.

To see the queen. Well, not really the queen. Just Tottenham Court Road and environs, really. But this is the third to last time that I'm planning to be in London until I pop in September / October. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a source of great joy to me.

It's quite all right, actually, going to London for a day trip. I can poddle to the station in 10 minutes; the train takes under an hour, and then, well, you're in London, aren't you. Muay conveniento. I will take The Vesuvius Club to read which Andy was chortling over last night. I want a go.

I have also been thinking about all the ways I am completely inherently disorganised, too, and have been feeling a bit guilty about going on about how organised I appear to be in my desk post below. My desk is one thing; the confused chaos rattling around in my head most days is quite another. You should have seen my computer desktop last week before I reorganised it - there were so many files on it the icons couldn't all fit on my (28") screen. I think that's why people like me try to maintain some sort of system to keep everything in order - because if we didn't it would get very ugly, very quickly. Anyway, I didn't want you to think I was doing that trumpet thing again.

[Feeble parp]

Right. To the trains!

I was surprised at the comments a couple of posts back about my empty desk. I don't really notice it - but since you've mentioned it, here's why.

Two lovely things to share with you on this most glorious of damp summer mornings - which I heartily approve of as heat + pregnancy = big feet, which no-one wants.

First, a big interview with Steve Aylett in the latest issue of IncorporatingWriting mag (their 'PULP' issue)

Secondly, a completely awesome piece in the Kent news with Thomas Emson, author of Maneater.

Enjoy with your morning coffee as you plan your week. Mine is shaping up to be rather busy but full of progress.

This week I seem to have been far too busy achieving nothing. In my quiet moments, I've been reading about, and experimenting with, various sorts of electronics. Perhaps it was reading the book about the Hacking of the Xbox that did it, but I've been following links to other links and tinkering with off-the-shelf kits for building all sorts of gizmos and spimes. This morning I happen to be exploring the website of one Lady Ada. Girl geniuses in the realm of complex electronics seem a little thinner on the ground than I might have hoped, but Lady Ada certainly qualifies. I was particularly tickled by her Masters Thesis from MIT. In her words "In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is a low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a user’s personal space." I have no interest in cutting myself off permanently from the Twenty-First Century, but it might be fun to occasionally take a holiday from it all and walk around in your own (admittedly illegal) offline bubble.

Here are some pics I took at the weekend of my new house. They don't really convey the lovely cottageyness of it all, so I might try again at the weekend. No curtains yet, you'll note, but who needs curtains. They only get covered with cat fur, anyway. Ooh, on that note, top tip from my lovely sister-in-law - don a pair of rubber gloves and run your hands over anything covered in cat fur. It totally gets it off, first time. Genius!

I have so far remained pretty much at zero tolerance of mess since moving in. Everywhere's stayed hoovered, folded, dusted, washed, clear, and in order, as appropriate. I've been doing the Flylady stuff. Try it - it works.

A free copy of the book in question to the first person who correctly identifies, in the comments, the book whose artwork (or part thereof) features here on the new SnowBlog design.

(If it still looks blue, hit refresh now!)

Em enjoying a quiet moment of reflection

Write a bad review of any of our books or authors, that is. Or say anything remotely negative. Or give a prize that our books should have won to someone else. Or do anything to reduce the chances of our authors' success. It does something to my head which turns me into a rather primal, angry, unreasonable beast.

Probably best, all round, if you just stay quiet. Otherwise, there'll be the glaring, and the clipped responses, and the hours of plotting revenge, and the fact that I will not forget, ever, and one day, one day I will get you back.

I mean, I'm all for the basic human right of freedom of speech. Just not when it comes to our books.

A scene from the movie Bridget Jones

Another pregnancy side effect. This one's funny.

Em on her lunch-break

At the other end of the 'good supplier' spectrum, I have today taken three phone calls, from the same chap, who does not own a computer. He would like to submit his novel - which he has typed on a typewriter - to Snowbooks. I have tried to explain that not only do we have staff based 4000 miles apart, which means email is our preferred means of communication, but that we would struggle to have a meaningful working relationship without his being online. He didn't know what 'online' meant, and although I tried he couldn't fathom why I wouldn't agree to accept his typewritten manuscript. 'Even if I hand deliver it to the office?' he asked. Even then. 'But it's 200,000 words!' All the more reason not to chop a tree down. 'And how long has the company been established?' I'm dreadfully sorry, I'm rather busy and all the information is on our website. 'Website, dear?'

Phone call number two was to clarify our postcode. 'N for nothing, one, nine, J for Jezebel, N for nothing?'

Phone call number three was to ask whether Staples was a good place to buy an email address. I suggested he go to his local library and ask for help there. I hope the concept of a library isn't too modern for him.

Yes, I am being tough on him - probably over-tough. But he has taken up a half-hour of my day because he scorns computers and 'all that email nonsense.' And I tell you what - if his book's the best book I've ever read; if it's sweeping in its scope and reduces me to impassioned tears, there's no way on earth we're publishing it. There's more to being an author than being able to write.

Wow, the karma gods were quick, then. No sooner had I posted about how great some of our suppliers are (below), including Euroffice the office supplies people, when the doorbell rang with the Parcelforce man, delivering a desk fan I ordered at 4pm yesterday!

Now *that* is efficient. And oh so very timely, since my room hasn't cooled down since yesterday. Thanks, Euroffice! Thanks, blog karma gods!

[revels in cooling breeze...]

This news made me happy - Butler and Tanner are going to get a new lease of life from entrepreneur Felix Dennis (whose rather excellent book I read last year - even though I had to hide it on the bus since its title is How To Get Rich which is not the sort of thing you really want to be spotted with, no matter how genuine my desire to do exactly that). It made me reflect on the importance of suppliers to the publishing industry, and on our own suppliers in particular.

This is a gross, pregnancy-based dilemma, so I'm hiding the far-too-much-information-for-a-publishers-blog bit behind the cut. Those uninterested in pregnancy side effects, move along.

I have an aching shoulder. This is because I have been concentrating very hard on a particular task for a few solid hours this morning, which I suppose has made me tense up a bit, and my shoulder seems to have seized up as a result. It could also be because I'm not using my RSI-avoiding padded wrist rest. Sadly, that item has been put to other uses, namely as a brilliant fly-swat. As Rob pointed out at the weekend, it is ironic that a device designed to lower the likelihood of RSI is being actively misused on a task that employs a wrist-flicking motion, repeated over and over again. He suggested adding in a slight right-left movement (he used a fancier word which I've forgotten) which apparently would really guarantee that I'd give myself repetitive strain injury (think of the perpetual small movements made in using a mouse). I seem to have managed quite well on my own, with my patent brand of concentrate-lean-forward-squint-at-too-small-font-whilst-tensing-back-and-shoulders working method. Bah.

Strikes me I haven't done much Amazon bashing lately. Let me correct that. Amazon have been doing more of their ham-fisted cross-selling again. In retail circles there are often innovative ideas about what we (ex)shopkeeping types call 'merchandising' and you call 'deciding which products go on which shelves'. The old chestnut is a supermarket display set out on a Friday night that contains cold beer next to nappies for all the supposed dads with young families stopping in on their way home. I think the logic is that the housewife they're married to asks them to pick up the nappies and their eye alights on the adjacent brewskis. But you can imagine that the success of this sort of thing is all down to the execution. You don't want to make it obvious you see your customers as either stereotypes or clichés. You don't want to lay out your store entirely based on cute cross-selling opportunities so that there's no Beer section of the store any more, only Buddies' Fishing Trip and Parents Out of Town departments. In Amazon's case they sent me an e-mail recommending one DVD based on my purchase of another. I bought the recent Sci-Fi Channel re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz story (which I found really laboured, badly structured and disappointing, despite a pretty solid cast). On the strength of that they recommended a DVD about reducing my stress levels through meditation, courtesy of a celebrity stress-doctor. Ahhh, how well they continue to not know me. Celebrity-endorsed lifestyle fads are among the last things I would ever take an interest in. And how did they get there from a Sci-Fi mini-series? Customised cross-selling is clever; Amazon's version of it is not. (Unless they knew the mini-series was rubbish and recommended the de-stressing DVD to help me not blame them for the fact.)

Here's a lovely interview with Sarah Bower, author of The Needle in the Blood and The Book of Love.

And click below to read a lovely piece by Sally Zigmond. Thanks to Sally for letting me reproduce it here:

Today has featured a lot less work than the last 10 days, which has been most welcome. And to celebrate, I finished the little cardigan I started making for Rowan The Baby a few weeks back:

I am absurdly proud of it, although I'm not providing any closer shots because proper knitters will be looking. Admire from afar, with your eyes scrunched a bit to blur out the slightly wonky seams and occasional over-loopy stitch. Ignore for the moment that it's missing a button - that will come - and a SnowKnits label - that will come too.

But still! Hey! Cardigan! It's hanging on my very own Country Living-type door, which is the door to my new home office. More photos to come on that if it's nice and sunny tomorrow. And this is my first ever Handknitted Item of Clothing Handknitted By Me. Next up: a bobble hat. If this cardigan project has been anything to go by, it'll be ready just in time for Christmas.

I've got through the week! And everything's done! And all deadlines are hit (pretty much. Well, except one. But I'll do that tomorrow).

Hooray! I deserve a bowl of ice cream, which I am now going to go and have, at ten o' clock on a Friday night.

[in a quiet, not at all trumpety voice] Go me.

Currently I'm reading Winning the Oil Endgame, by the excellent Amory Lovins. I've got as far as the author laying out all the reasons and the central summary of the book and I'm about to get into the detail. Having read his work before, I don't think I'm likely to be let down by what follows. And the idea is this: being a gas-guzzling nation isn't a great idea for America even if (and it's a huge 'if') you set aside any thoughts of global climate change.

... a haul for £25 from Ebay.

Rob and I, in our more foolish moments, practise a little trick we've been working on for a while. Whilst on the phone, one of us emits a steady cry of 'aaaagggggggggghhhhhhh', whilst simultaneously passing the phone from our right arm's length to our left. You get an excellent effect of someone running past at high speed, in a state of panic.

That is how I feel at the moment. I have three massive deadlines, all for this afternoon. I have to go to a thing in London tonight, so they have to be done by 3-4. It's never going to happen.

[quietly] aaaaaa [getting louder] AAAAAGGGHHHHH [trails off] hhhhhh......

p.s. I actually quite like this feeling. I'm a deadline junkie.

For those among you who read non-fiction, do you ever get stuck into some new book and you realise that everything you're reading is now what you think, and if you thought anything before you picked up the book, you can't quite remember what it was? I've broken off from reading Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling because I know I'm in the middle of one of those experiences. He's talking about the relationship between society and the objects it makes. It doesn't sound exciting, but he's slicing the world and its history neatly at the joints and laying out the choice cuts in ways you've never seen done before. Oh so that's why we think that way! Ahh, I see how we got here now! Yes, that must be how it works! It's funny, personal, brilliant and grand. It's only a slim volume, and somewhat eccentrically typeset, but Amazon thinks you can pick up a copy for a fiver (plus postage). If you want to spend an hour or two thinking about how the future will be designed I recommend it. Two thumbs up; fine holiday fun!

Just in case any of you didn't realise what a nerd I am, let me correct your misconception. I'm currently reading a book about how Microsoft's previous game console, the Xbox, was hacked in the early part of this decade. Games consoles have to be set up so that you can't just make a copy of a game rather than buying your own, for obvious reasons. In fact, most of the revenue comes from selling the games rather than the console. And if the console needs to be running validation checks then you obviously have to make it secure from hackers, otherwise they might just turn off the piece of code that does the checking. What's interesting is to look at the struggle going on between the hacker community and the Microsoft engineers. You might think that the professionals, with their engineering degrees, big budgets and well-equipped labs would have the upper hand, but the internet seems to have done something rather impressive to all sorts of communities, hackers included.