Status-Q

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years. Its Wikipedia page says that, “according to a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was second to the Bible as the book that made the most difference in American readers’ lives”.

I’m now reading it, or, more precisely, listening to it. Since I seem to have less and less time for reading, I’ve become something of a fan of audiobooks, and this version is magnificently read by Scott Brick. Unfortunately, it’s only available in the US Audible.com store, and not on Audible.co.uk. I have an account on both, which is foolish, but I can never quite decide which one to give up.

Having never actually seen the book in its physical form, though, I hadn’t gathered just what a massive tome it is. As I saw that I was approaching the end of the 8-hour audio file, it took me a moment to realise that this was just the first section. The first of eight. Yes, folks, this unabridged narration is 63 hours long! And you can get it for one Audible credit, which would be exceedingly good value even if it wasn’t so nicely produced.

I’ve only listened to the first 13% or so, but so far it comes highly recommended.

If stories of dystopian industrialism are not your thing, or you think you can’t quite stomach 63 hours of anything, let me recommend another really excellent book: Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers, which is available in both the UK and the US. Another great way to make better and more enjoyable use of that time you spend shaving, driving, or washing up…

On Monday I met the guys behind Codility – quite an interesting system designed to help with the recruitment of software developers.

Basically, it lets you set simple programming tasks for developers, which they can perform online and in the language of their or your choice, and then sends you a report of how their code performed against a variety of edge cases, for large datasets, etc. If you’re a programmer, try out the demo – I found it quite fun!

I think there is real value in this in a couple of areas, beyond its obvious use to those hiring developers. Firstly, as a way for teachers of programming to set coursework. And secondly as something that would give recruitment agencies a bit more credibility when they’re bombarding me with spam. I would be much more likely to look at their candidates if I knew they had gone through a preliminary level of filtering, especially if they had completed tasks in more than one programming language.

Anyway, very nicely done – worth checking out.

Michael reveals The Great Dried Fruit Conspiracy.

Long-time readers may remember a post from a couple of years ago about Keith Loutit’s photos of Singapore, cunningly taken to make the city look like a model:

Well, as tends to happen in the digital world, what was a still image yesterday is a video today. Sam O’Hare has done a day in the life of New York City using a similar technique. Worth playing in full-screen HD if your connection will allow it.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare.

More information about how he made it here.

Rose’s second novel, The Counterfeit Guest, comes out in standard paperback today.

It was launched a year ago, but these books come out first as a hardback and a ‘trade paperback’ – a large paperback almost as big as the hardback, sold chiefly in airports. Today, however, you can get a standard-sized, easy-to-read copy for the first time. I much prefer these, actually, to their bigger brothers.

You can buy it from Amazon UK here.

Of course, the really exciting event for us comes at the end of this month when The Mistaken Wife hits the streets.

More info on Rose’s books at RoseMelikan.com.

I launched a new web site on Sunday, which has the potential to transform your marketing materials. It turns any ordinary idea, product or service into an award-winning idea, product or service! Just like that! Visit Awardify.com, the internet’s premier award-granting service! OK, in case you’re wondering, this was partly to make people think more about meaningless marketing phrases, and partly to experiment with how quickly and easily I could something like this using Drupal!