In case you didn’t catch it on BoingBoing earlier, someone has started a Flickr group specifically for showing off your ‘to be read’ stack of books:

Books I want to read

Originally uploaded by The Shmoopies.

I think I’ll be obliged to share, as soon as I can get all the relevant books into one place. I imagine Niall (and many others) will struggle to find a camera with a lens that can encompass the their whole stack, though … this reminds me of the brief flurry of fun we had with the sorted spine titles game.

Tags, tags, tags. They’re everywhere, from big name news sites to tin-pot backwaters like this one. But are they any real use to the average internet denizen, and more specifically to science fiction heads?

Continue reading “Tagging for today and tomorrow”

Much as the outside world may mock us, the sf community is a strong community. I’ve only entered the realm of involved fandom over the last couple of years, but have been continually amazed at how open, friendly and inclusive other fans have been toward me.

Point in case; after Niall talked about the recent BBC Four programs on British sf, I lamented my lack of a television (for the first time in over seven years). A fine gentleman by the name of Martin McGrath, who (as far as I know) I have never met in person, kindly volunteered to record all the programs, burn them to discs and mail them to me. Furthermore, he stubbornly refused to accept any offers of payment for doing so. The discs arrived in the mail yesterday, with a slew of extra material in addition to the programs mentioned. As a life-long cynic, it’s a pleasure to occasionally have your faith in human nature boosted.

Mr. McGrath, and all sf fans worldwide: I salute you. I’m proud to be part of the posse.

In fifty year’s time, people will look back and laugh at us for a lot of reasons. Apart from the fashions (“d00d, those jeans, like WTF!!!1!1”), what gets the biggest chuckles will surely be the hopelessly outdated concept of representative democracy.

Continue reading “The Demise of the Demagogue”

Opinion is still divided over the whole ‘wisdom of crowds’ idea. But the occasional inaccuracy (and somewhat more frequent bad spelling and grammar) does nothing to deter thousands of users, including myself, who want their answers quickly and conveniently.

Continue reading “Wikipedia, communities and consensus knowledge”

OK, just a quick thought experiment here; I’m sure someone has thought of it before, but it’s a new idea to me. Continue reading “Collaborative fiction? Wikis and the novel”