Book review: Dead Famous by Ben Elton
19 April 2006
![Book cover: Dead Famous](https://www.sean.co.uk/shared/gfx/blogbookreviews/deadfamous.jpg)
The book is about a murder committed inside the Big Brother house, neatly fictionalised for this book. It's satire rather than comedy, so don't expect to chuckle much. The time zones jump around, and Elton's desire to withold the name of the victim for the first third of the book makes for some contrived writing. At times it feels padded. But it's a page-turner, easy to read, with some spot-on descriptions of the ghastly characters you see on shows like Big Brother. You get the feeling Elton churned this out pretty quickly, but as long as you read it pretty quickly too you'll be entertained if not impressed.
Labels: book review, comedy
Photos: Exclusive unpublished Kenickie photographs
16 April 2006
![Kenickie photo](https://www.sean.co.uk/photography/lightbox/kenickie/thumbs/singitlauren.jpg)
Other news in brief: The Customer Service Pocketbook has been published in Arabic.
Labels: customer service, music, photography
Book review: The Mechanical Turk
02 April 2006
![Book cover: The Mechanical Turk](https://www.sean.co.uk/shared/gfx/blogbookreviews/mechanicalturk.jpg)
Why is it called a Mechanical Turk? It's a reference to an automaton invented in the late 1700s to play chess. At the time, mechanised artworks were popular inventions. They might play instruments or animated landscape scenes. Wolfgang von Kempelen was a member of Empress Maria Theresa's court in Vienna. When he was challenged to produce an automaton better than any seen before, he created a machine capable of playing chess. Dressed as a Turk, the machine went on to play against - and mostly beat - members of the public. The Turk moved its own pieces and corrected an opponent's illegal moves. Kempelen proudly exhibited the cogs inside the cabinet at the start of the game, showing how the box was empty except for clockwork devices. For a long time, nobody came up with a conclusive explanation of how mechanics alone could simulate such intelligence.
In his book 'The Mechanical Turk', Tom Standage uses many contemporary accounts of the Turk to tell its story. He pieces together the machine's complete history, and ultimately reveals how the illusion was most likely created. It's not giving too much away to tell you that human intelligence was involved and it wasn't fully automated. That's why Amazon stole the device's name for its own service, where a fairly convoluted technical arrangement creates the appearance of machine intelligence.
At times the exhaustive research gets repetitive: reading accounts of the same event from different perspectives can be tiring. But these moments are few and far between. It's accessibly written, shows proper research and tells a story that's likely to delight anyone with an appreciation of illusion and/or technology.
I often read about software that performs such sophisticated functions that I question whether human intelligence is really being used. The developers of such applications are - like Kempelen - often unwilling to discuss how their product works even in the vaguest of terms. Given how cheap educated labour is on the global market, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that some enterprise-scale software applications that simulate human judgement owe more to the Turk than they're letting on. For the so-called developers of such software, this book would make an ideal gift.
With thanks to Patroclus for the recommendation and loan of the book.
Labels: book review, technology, webdesign
Dip into the blog archive
June 2005 | July 2005 | August 2005 | September 2005 | October 2005 | November 2005 | December 2005 | January 2006 | February 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006 | May 2006 | June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 | January 2007 | February 2007 | March 2007 | April 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | August 2007 | September 2007 | October 2007 | November 2007 | December 2007 | January 2008 | February 2008 | March 2008 | April 2008 | May 2008 | June 2008 | July 2008 | August 2008 | September 2008 | October 2008 | November 2008 | December 2008 | January 2009 | February 2009 | March 2009 | April 2009 | May 2009 | June 2009 | July 2009 | August 2009 | September 2009 | October 2009 | November 2009 | December 2009 | January 2010 | February 2010 | March 2010 | Top of this page |![RSS](https://www.sean.co.uk/shared/gfx/rss.gif)