Trevor Smith has whipped up two amazing remixes of Eastern Standard Tribe, my new novel. The first is a “speed-reader,” based on the research of Xerox PARC researcher Rich Gold, which flashes the book, one word at a time, up on the screen, at a high rate of speed. It is astonishingly readable, and makes you feel like you’ve found a back-door to your brain’s comprehension nodes. The second is a “PurpleSlurped” version of the book, in which every paragraph is given its own link, so that one can easily refer to a specific passage of the text.
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Modesty B Catt has created a text-remixer called Cut-n-Paste-Rock-n-Roll that allows you to select from two or more of my novels and Alice in Wonderland, and, at the click of a button, machine-remix the text into a new work. I’m really enjoying this.
“What’s wrong with you?” Art shook his head to the King, looking round the refreshments!’ But there seemed to think that proved it at the end of the way. They let me expense it. I’ll be one of great relief. ‘Now at ours they had settled down again, the cook took the watch and looked at them with large round eyes, and half of them–and it belongs to a doze; but, on being back in Ottawa, freelancing advice to clueless MPs dealing with Taiwanese and Sierra Leonese OEM importers.
Audie’s married to a full-blown conspiracy. Their interests are commercial, industrial, cultural, culinary. A Tribesman will patronize a fellow Tribesman’s restaurant, or give him a reproachful look. “I’m sorry, all right?” he asked.
The good folks at PlanetMirror have set up a mirror mirror (and an FTP mirror) for Eastern Standard Tribe in Australia, for your antipodean pleasure (or in case this server gets busied out!).
My second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe starts shipping today — it should be showing up in bookstores any day now.
As with Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, my first novel, I’ve made the whole text of the novel available as a free download in a variety of open, standards-defined formats, under the terms of a Creative Commons license — and I’ve written a short essay explaining why I’ve done it: in a nutshell, this worked really well for my first book, and I’d be crazy not to repeat the experiment with my second novel.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has been integrated into the coursework at a Stanford university Information systems course:
Choose one of he following projects, or devise something of your own by Jan 15th, and let us know….
3) Reputation systems: this is the most speculative of the three project suggestions. Identify what kind of reputation systems would be important in the context of online communities and market places of the future, what their vulnerabilities are likely to be, and how these vulnerabilities can be tackled. Alternatively, read the science fiction book by Cory Doctorow, “Down and out in the magic kingdom (available for free or on amazon.com, bn.com etc)�, and architect the reputation system used in that book. Remember to address the issues of whether data needed to compute the reputations is stored centrally or in a distributed fashion. In the absence of any real currency, how would you provide a guarantee to the average Joe and Jane that the “system� does not shortchange them in terms of their reputation? If you decide that the reputation system used in this book is not realizable or has significant internal flaws, then make a cogent argument to this effect.
I will be signing copies of Eastern Standard Tribe Austin at the SXSW conference, immediately following the Bloggie Award Ceremony on the trade-floor.
March 15, 1:30PM, at the book signing area of the SXSW Interactive Festival Trade Show & Exhibition on the third floor of the Austin Convention Center.
If you’re not a registered attendee at SXSW, you can get a free trade-floor pass here.
I’ll be doing two signings in Toronto:
March 18, 7PM, The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, 239 College Street, 3rd Floor, at Spadina, +1.416.393.7748
March 27, 3-5PM, Bakka Books, 598 Yonge St., at Wellesley, +1.416.963.9993
I’ll be signing Eastern Standard Tribe after my talk at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Confernece in San Diego.
February 12, noon, Westin Horton Plaza San Diego
I’ll be doing two launch/signing events for Eastern Standard Tribe in San Francisco:
February 19, 7PM: Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street, at 19th St, +1.888.893.4008
February 25, 7PM: The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, at Clayton, +1.800.793.7323
Update, Feb 29, 2004: Sadly, I no longer live close to Borderlands, the bookstore that was shipping inscribed copies for me — in fact, I now live 9,000 miles away! However, Borderlands still has a large supply of signed books and bookplates, and is happy to keep on selling them via mail-order wtih no shipping costs.
Looking for a signed copy of Eastern Standard Tribe? By a happy coincidence, I live a couple blocks from Borderlands Books, an excellent science fiction bookstore in San Francisco that is happy to do mail-order.
So, if you’re interested in a signed copy, you can call (888.893.4008), fax (415.824.8543), or email your order to the store, and they’ll send you a copy (while supplies last!). There is no charge for media-mail shipping within the continental US.
Priority mail in the US will be $6.00 (that’s delivery within three
days or so). International will be Global Priority for $10 to Canada or
$12 elsewhere. To get the free shipping, just mention that you heard
about it here.
