THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO LITERATURE

ITEM: Bookride has an interesting list of popular books amongst backpackers.

Criteria (alleged):

A backpacker classic should have an element of profundity, preferably mystical - if not it should have cult status or be a statement about who you really are. There is an element of self discovery in setting off - the path to enlightenment, the journey inwards... A backpacker book is not a 'beach read' -- the book must be worth the weight and space it takes up and should be reverentially handed on to other travellers or left in a hotel or bus station for another seeker to chance upon.

Which may or may not apply to the actual list, which looks a lot like the usual “Top 100 Books You Should Read Before You Die” mix of classic lit and modern classics (plus The DaVinci Code, for some reason).

Anyway, it’s an interesting list. Feel free to start one of those “How many of these have you read?” memes, though as I said, a lot of lists have these books. For the record, here’s how I rate:

Number of books read: 17
Number of books read while actually backpacking: 0

That second stat is worth qualifying. I’ve never backpacked in the trad sense – which is to say, the “explore America/Europe/Asia” sense. I’ve done camping trips, and I’ve done military field exercises in the middle of deserts, and was never without something to read. But what I brought with me was usually whatever I happened to be reading anyway – which at the time meant either SF or detective fiction.

The interesting thing there is that when yr in the military, in the middle of nowhere and have nothing to read (as I did when I lost an entire rucksack full of gear, as well as the books I’d brought), you can always scam a book off someone who’s already finished it. But you can’t be choosy. And you’ll read anything. I read a lot of Stephen King that month. (And also a PD James novel.)

Lonesome traveler,

This is dF

GLENN BECK: THE EARLY YEARS

"The Meteors - My Daddy Is A Vampire" (Watch on YouTube)

Words fail me. This sketch is at least 20 years old. How did they KNOW?

Over and over,

This is dF

MY OTHER PHONE IS A ROBOT

ITEM [via Pink Tentacle]: In future, yr mobile phone will also be a robot that follows you around recording and learning yr every move.

On the bright side, it’ll be cute as a button.



That’s the “Polaris” mobile phone robot, designed by Tokyo-based Flower Robotics and KDDI (the second biggest mobile phone operator in Japan). It comprises a mobile handset and an artificially intelligent robot sphere that charges the handset and displays data on the user’s TV.

According to Flower Robotics, the Polaris system ... is designed to learn the user’s lifestyle by collecting data, analyzing activity, and identifying trends. The robot keeps a database of information accumulated through the handset, such as the user’s daily travel and walking habits, calls and email messages sent and received, and online transactions. Using this data, Polaris learns to predict the user’s behavior and offer relevant advice and information.

I’ve seen a number of similar projects from Japanese companies that basically involve insanely cute robots with Ethernet jacks or Wi-Fi chips wandering around yr house acting as a personal data agent that surfs the Web for you and finds information you need when you ask for it, learning yr info patterns as it goes.

But this is the first one I’ve seen using a mobile phone. It’s an interesting twist, in that mobiles are designed more and more to collect data about the user. Imagine plugging yr iPhone into a Polaris, which will then register things like which apps you downloaded or used, web sites you visited, geotag data from yr GPS chip, stuff you bought from Amazon.com and songs you listened to on iTunes while you were out and about.

This is nothing new. Mobile phone companies and handset manufacturers have known for some time that both the networks and phones contain data that add up to a goldmine of potential personalized marketing profiles. The catch has been that it’s stored in such a compartmentalized way that it’s hard to access and compile into something that can be data mined. That’s changing – which is one reason why Google and Yahoo are suddenly a lot more interested in the mobile business.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is meant to sound scary or paranoid. But it goes back to what I was getting at in this post: yr digital footprint was already huge even before mobile phones figured into it. There are as many benefits to this as there are risks. The problem isn’t that all this data is being collected – the issue is who gets to access it, and how much say-so you have over that.

In the palm of yr hand,

This is dF

TO THE REAR: MARCH

NOTICE: This is the closest thing you’ll get me to talking like a f***ing pirate today.

"Bobby Bare - Vampira" (Watch on YouTube)

"X - Devil Doll" (Watch on YouTube)

popfiend knows what I’m talking about.

I’ll funk to that,

This is dF