‘Invictus’ by John Carlin

A non-fiction book illustrating the power of sport to unify people.  More specifically it deals with the 1995 Rugby World Cup Final between South Africa and New Zealand and this single game’s immense significance in bringing together white and black South Africa under a single banner.  On this day The Springboks (S.A. national rugby team) were transformed from a symbol of Apartheid and exclusion to one of unity and hope.  Once a team supported pretty much exclusively by Afrikaners, The Springboks on final day enjoyed the support of countrymen of all races.  It is this point to which the author anchors this book.  For sports fanatics, you will not find a play by play account of how the final resolved itself on the field and for the politically curious you’ll find a great deal of Mandella biographies out there that will sate your thirst for knowledge more assuredly than this book.  This doesn’t appear to be the intention of the author.  What Carlin attempts here, and succeeds in doing, is to highlight the power of single seminal events in the progress of seemingly unachievable peace.  A game involving 30 players on a rugby pitch achieved more in terms of progress between Afrikaners and black South Africans than innumerable bullets and deaths.  There are some harrowing tales of injusctice and deprivation carried out in the name of the inhumane and unimaginably cruel Apartheid regime detailed in the book but the real message is hope and it is a message that resounds in the reader long after the final page has been turned.  If Carlin’s aim was to produce a piece of inspirational writing, has achieved his goal.

New Feature – Cover Designer Now Available on Our Writers’ Bloc

We have recently added a new feature to the site in the form of a free, easy-to-use Cover Designer that enables authors to design their own book covers right on the site. We are working with Aviary to offer the use of their online image editting package, Phoenix, which is essentially a stripped down, simpler version of Photoshop. It is perfect for our author’s needs and really simple to use. You can create a decent cover in a few minutes simply by importing an image, adding some text, playing around with the layout and you’re done! You can have a look and play around with it yourself by signing in and going to the ‘Publish’ page on Our Writers’ Bloc. (http://www.ourwritersbloc.com/publish)

FREE Cover Designer on OWB

Bill Gates – Book Reviewer

Since leaving the hot seat at Microsoft, Mr. Gates has thrown himself wholeheartedly  into his philanthropic endeavors through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The Billster, however, has found some time in his undoubtedly chocca schedule to become a book reviewer too.  He pops his reviewer cherry on Levitt and Dubner’s ‘SuperFreakonomics’ in his recently launched Blog ‘TheGatesNotes.com’.  For those interested in assessing his critiquing chops check it out at:

www.thegatesnotes.com/Learning/article.aspx?ID=59

Steve Jobs Unveils new Apple ‘iPad’ tablet at Apple Press Conference in California

Steve Jobs is legendary for his ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy with his incredible talent for building hype around new product launches and this morning’s press conference in Cupertino, California shows no signs of disappointing. Shortly after 10am Pacific time, Jobs unveiled the latest product in the Apple range, the iPad. He describes it as being in a third space, somewhere between a mobile phone and a laptop. Apple is now the largest mobile technology device company in the world, outselling Sony, Nokia and Samsung with over 250 million iPods sold and the company generating revenue in excess of $15 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2010 alone. Not bad for a company started by a couple of geeks in a garage 34 years ago.

Moses (Steve Jobs) carrying the new Apple iPad tablets down from the Mountain

In terms of using the iPad for reading ebooks, it uses the ePub format, (all of the books on Our Writers’ Bloc are available to download in this format), which is looking set to potentially become the universal standard in ebooks in the future. Jobs claims the battery life lasts up to 10 hours – impressive for a device that size – and it runs all of the iPhone apps out of the box. Will be buying one of these asap!  [http://www.ourwritersbloc.com]

Apple iPad Product Page: http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Detailed Specs from Wired’s Gadget Lab: http://bit.ly/9QTnPA

Colour me impressed

Finished Marc Horne’s Tokyo Zero and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I was hoping that the frenetic pace wouldn’t let up and I wasn’t disappointed.  Horne has crafted a good thriller here.  There is plenty going on but the author very nicely weaves his prose in such a way that the reader doesn’t drown in detail.  The back story is intriguing; so much so that a prequel would be very welcome.  As an aside, the author’s references to 2000AD brought back some fond memories.  And some not-so-fond…why did Hollywood have to run with a PG-certified Judge Dredd?  Maybe, with all the ‘rebooting’ of comic book characters going on Dredd might get another roll of the dice.  With David Fincher revitalising him in the same way Chris Nolan worked his magic on Batsy.  Ah, I can dream I suppose…

Tokyo – anything but – zero

I’m reading Tokyo Zero by Marc Horne at the minute.  It’s a fast paced thriller that revolves around the machinations of a doomsday organisation.  I’m around about half way through it now and have to say that Horne doesn’t take his foot of the accelerator with pen in hand.  Quite the attention-grabber of an opening setpiece too.  To date the book has had 36,000 downloads so nice work Marc.  The book is available to download from the site right now.

Google’s Nexus One Puts Android to the Test

[from Wired] You can now go to Google’s website and pay Google directly for a phone that bears the search giant’s corporate logo and the rather boring name of Nexus One. (Even if it is named after a robot in Blade Runner.)

This is quite a shift from the company’s original stance as a neutral distributor of the Android mobile operating system, used by multiple carriers on multiple handsets. Now Google is competing with the very manufacturers that use its OS.

Building the Nexus One (or, to be precise, contracting HTC to build it) may well tick off Google’s current and future Android partners. So, what features were so important to Google that it would take that risk?

And why would you want to buy one at the seemingly steep, unsubsidized price of $530?

The answers give a few clues to the next generation of smartphones: fast, always-connected, expandable and fully dependent on the internet. And while the Nexus One isn’t completely there yet, it’s a few steps closer to the ideal Android phone.

No-BS sales model. Google wants to make it easier for people to buy phones, and once they buy them, to control their relationships with network carriers. So, you can buy an unlocked version for $530 (the phone works with “nearly all” GSM SIM cards, says Google) or pay $180 for a two-year contract with T-Mobile. Google says later on, there will be other carriers and other plans.

I used my Nexus with T-Mobile, which had good 3G coverage in New York City and zero network coverage of any sort in my place in western Massachusetts. I was able to make phone calls, though, by swapping my SIM card with the one from my AT&T iPhone. (As Google acknowledges, this combination gives you voice calling, but not access to AT&T’s 3G network. Bummer.)

At $80 a month, the T-Mobile plan is $20 a month cheaper than what Verizon charges on the Droid Android phone. Hopefully, some of the future plans will be dirt-cheap, allowing people to amortize the initial cost of the unlocked phone.

Cool Design. Physically, the Nexus One is as pleasing as any phone in the market. The HTC-manufactured device (built to Google’s specs) is like an iPhone with curvy corners, cast in a classy burnished gray with a black frame around a brilliant 3.7-inch 800 x 400-pixel OLED (!) screen. There are four hard-wired touch controls on the bottom of that frame, including one that instantly brings up a search box. (Well, it is a Google phone.)

The home screen features “live wallpaper,” a dynamic and fun collection of animated backgrounds. It calls into question, though, whether this frill has a price. At one point, I peeked at the phone’s power meter and found that screen was eating up half the energy. This is a real problem: When I failed to recharge the Nexus during the night, it would inevitably be dead the next morning. The battery’s official ratings are impressive — seven hours 3G talk time, seven hours video. Indeed, talking or using media didn’t run things down too quickly, but the promised and paltry five hours of 3G internet use — along with the drain from the screen — is an issue for a device that urges you to use the internet all the time.

You can replace the removable battery on the fly, but Google clearly intends for customers to make use of the power management widget that dims the screen.

The Nexus One offers one of the more coherent implementations of the Android interface, which can sometimes be a bit rough around the edges. It’s easy to switch between the five screens that hold app icons and widgets, and you can get a thumbnail view of any of the screens by touching a dot on the home screen. Widgets are hit and miss: The Facebook widget just highlights single updates. But the constantly updating news and weather widget was always worth a look, as evidenced by the update onscreen as I write this: “Sheen’s mother-in-law has misgivings.”

One of the signature design features of the Nexus is a tiny tricolor trackball that glows when you have messages or notices. This isn’t terribly helpful for navigation because it’s just as easy to scroll with your finger. As for the glow: Uh, don’t we typically stash phones in our pockets?

Like other Android phones, the Nexus One does not support multitouch gestures on the screen, so iPhone immigrants will be frustrated by the lack of two-finger maneuvers, especially when trying to resize web pages.

Speed. One of Google’s core values is that when things run things faster people use them more and like them more. True to its principles, Google has loaded the Nexus One with a speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. I haven’t done the metrics, but the thermometer meters that indicate how fast something loads on the Nexus definitely zip by faster than on other phones. The speed provides a halo effect that really heightens the pleasures of using the Nexus One.

Heightened senses. Probably the best feature in the Nexus One is the ubiquitous voice recognition. Just about every time a text field appears — in search, in maps and even in e-mail — you can press a microphone key on the virtual keyboard and just say what you want to put in the field. If you take it easy and enunciate your words as if speaking to a fairly dense child, a reasonably accurate transcription of your words will appear on the screen. There are the usual cosmic misunderstandings, but expanding voice recognition is a welcome step toward our eventual liberation from Lilliputian physical keyboards and unforgiving soft keyboards.

This brings up a puzzler: The Nexus One, like other recent Android phones, has a solid navigation system that makes use of Google Maps and GPS, and it doesn’t cost anything. But the voice that gives you turn-by-turn instructions is the same grating metallic female voice heard on earlier versions. It’s weird that a device built around speech recognition should lag so much in speech synthesis.

The 5-megapixel camera, with zoom and flash and editing features, takes good pictures and clear video, and can location-stamp them with GPS.

• Manufacturer: Google
• Price: $530

Read full review.

Nudge – by Thaler & Sunstein

Nudge deals with the manner in which choices are constructed and presented to us as both consumers and citizens.  Examples as diverse as the display of cafeteria meals to organ donation decisions are used to illustrate the effects of ‘choice architecture’ (the design of the context in which choices are presented) on our behaviour.  Thaler & Sunstein use the book to promote a new paradigm in relation to choice architecture – ‘libertarian paternalism’.  Essentially, this boils down to allowing people freedom of choice (that would be the libertarian part) whilst at the same time attempting to ‘steer people’s choices in directions that will improve their lives’ (and this would be the paternalism/’nudge’ bit).  ‘Paternalism’ may be looked upon suspiciously by some but when modified by ‘libertarian’ the term very much slips clear of the more insidious Orwellian 1984-esque connotations.  ‘Big Brother’ (in the form of corporations and government) does play a leading role under this system but it is a much fluffier, more cuddly, caring, sharing Big Bro than Orwell’s creation.

Thaler & Sunstein have put together some well-reasoned arguments for their system to be adopted in a number of instances.  One example in particular could be of huge benefit to society in terms of saving lives.  The authors propose that organ donations (from the deceased) should be opt-out as opposed to opt-in decisions i.e. presumed consent should replace the need for explicit consent as the default option in such scenarios.  This is undoubtedly an emotive and divisive issue but the authors highlight some pretty convincing stats to support their stance.

The book falls into a similar sub-category as books such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and Outliers and Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics and, by and large, holds its own.  It doesn’t, however, quite grab and maintain one’s attention in the same way as these peers.  The amusing anecdotes which permeate Gladwell’s work are largely missing from Nudge.  Some parts of the book I found myself speed-reading through.  The section on prescription drugs especially kind of made me feel as though I may need some to maintain my concentration.  To be fair though, the number of sections where I wanted to just put my mind on auto-pilot and glide through were few and far between and the book’s pros outweigh its cons and if you’re looking to add to your behavioural economics library this is a worthy enough edition.  If you’re in virgin territory, I’d suggest getting your hands on one of Gladwell’s tomes to get you started.

‘F**k It’ by John C. Parkin

I’ve just finished John C. Parkin’s ‘F**k It’; a book giving a Western bent to Eastern philosophical ideas (most particularly the concept of ‘non attachment’).  Prior to reading Parkin’s work I’d dipped my toes into the great lake of Eastern philosophy with works like the ‘I Ching’, ‘Tao Te Ching’ and Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ (the usual suspects in this area really).  Hubristically, I thought I’d summed up their collective knowledge pretty concisely in a single line: ‘People would be far more content if they could just stop interfering in the natural ebb and flow of life.’  Parkin’s far more economical titular two word summation, however, is infinitely more succinct (and memorable).  The book revolves around the central premise of saying f**k it to various parts of your life – money, diet and even health – with a view to attaining a more anxiety-free existence.  Parkin writes with a sardonic wit, rare in authors of books which sit in this section of the library.  Far from diminishing the impact of Parkin’s core message (see title), his humorous tone lends the book a levity which makes it both incredibly accessible and effortless to move through. Whilst reading ‘F**k It’ I couldn’t help but thinking how much I was reminded of Chuck Palahniuk’s brilliant ‘Fight Club’. In fact I imagine if Tyler Durden were to give seminars on Eastern philosophy this would be a foundation text.  So for anyone who is currently questioning the importance they place on the (im)material, looking for some encouragement to escape overly prescriptive living or simply looking for a non-fiction companion piece to sit beside Fight Club on your shelf I’d recommend checking out Parkin’s manifesto.

Invitation to try our new website at OurWritersBloc.com

Our Writers’ Bloc has moved into the Beta testing phase and we would like extend an invitation to you to try out the site.

You can register here: http://www.ourwritersbloc.com/signup

We are still working out the kinks, so not all aspects of the site are fully resolved yet, however we would appreciate any feedback, comments, criticisms or suggestions that you may have.

Here’s a little info on what OWB is all about:

“ OWB provides a platform for authors to connect directly with readers by providing free e-versions of their work online. The benefit to readers is obvious – well it’s FREE literature isn’t it! What’s the benefit to authors though?

NAME RECOGNITION: With so much competition for aspiring authors (from both the traditional and self-published market) providing work for free offers an opportunity to cut through the ‘white noise’ of competition and gain the attention of prospective readers.

BUILD A FAN-BASE: Linked to the above, providing work for free provides an excellent opportunity to gain some traction and build a fan base. By far the most highly-downloaded literature online is those works which are provided for free. Building a fan-base with some free work opens the gate for authors to monetize future/other works.

FEEDBACK: OWB seeks to engender a community spirit whereby readers and other authors feel free to opine and offer advice on the available works. This offers authors an excellent opportunity to improve and refine certain facets of their work/writing style before releasing their ‘Gatsby’.

PURE UNADULTERATED VANITY: You’re an exceptional writer and you’d very much like to inform as wide an audience as possible of this very important fact. This is perfectly fine, many of the great names in literature were rampant egomaniacs.

http://www.ourwritersbloc.com