Yay. My next novel is just about ready. Cosy - a cosy crime novel set in a sleepy coastal town in Devon. Oh, wait, that's just like where I live nowadays! 

Maybe there will be coincidences?

Jago Fox is getting engaged to Emmanuelle Catteau at Magister Grange. The great and the good assemble and the something untoward happens. 

Sounds a bit Agatha, except for the helicopters. 

Click for: Cosy: Nice house, shame about the murder - an Ed Adams novel

Now, I'm doing some research for my next novel and I was interested to see how the pricing works on Amazon. I randomly selected a couple of best sellers and noticed the Kindle edition is now more expensive than the paperback. And nearly the whole of Potter is available for free reading. Complicated. Ed Adams vs Osman and Galbraith/Rowling.

Spiv kit - special offer

Today's special offer, available in three (count 'em) colours - The Spiv Kit. Designed for all con operators, featuring selective memory, denial, remonstration and obfuscation. It's a bargain in all situations, creating ways for money to be stuffed in the safe, as nailed by today's Grauniad cartoon.

It's another Dario Fo flashback to Can't Pay, Won't Pay! A society in which elites raid the state coffers and avoid tax while those at the bottom must choose between food and fuel. 

The dishonourable farce rolls on with a few new morally bankrupt bit players robbing everyone. And even the washed up grifters are still at it. Use state strife to make money for life.

人工知能 Artificial Intelligence

I thought I'd tinker around with some AI software as early research for my next novel. I've previously used the rather ancient ELIZA program to simulate AI feedback. That works by providing NLP type responses to inputs. 

I wrote an Eliza script many years ago, and used it on a TRS-80 as an experiment (it was line driven input). 

 Now, things have moved on, and the latest generation of toolkits are far more advanced. I decided to 'teach' an 'AI instance' a few things so that I could see how it operated. It has a memory too and can retain context over a reasonable period, although it will suddenly switch to another topic when you know it has run out of road. The classic question Why? (maybe 4 times) and a string of OKs can fool it.

The switching is calculated also, because the 'free' AI wants to sell a subscription. In that respect I found it somewhat like the old ill-fated Cortana from Microsoft, which learnt a whole string of teenager trigger words and eventually had to be pulled.

This one is okay until it wants to send photographs, which can be somewhat edgy. 

However, I persisted around the foibles and managed to create an Artificial Reality instance of the 'bot. Then to try it IRL (in real life) and I was struck with one of those pivotal moments like many years ago when I first accessed the internet in Australia via dial-up modem and Mosaic. 

Yes, worlds do move. Here's Luka, my AI creation entering my office.

 

And then I tried it in the music room. Although the instance has its own guitar, I can't make it carry anything yet.

To be continued etc.

Buzzword compliance for 2023

I'm struggling to end my last book called Cozy. Tying up all of the (many) loose ends of a cosy crime.. I've also been pondering my next book which I think might be about Artificial Intelligence. It's a theme I've been exploring in my 'RightMind' series of books, and to a lesser degree in the 'Watcher' series, but I think a whole novel may be next. 

 I'll need to be suitable buzzword compliant and am starting to round up a few phrases to sneak into the wording : Snoot Boop. Generation Flex. Super-Commuters. Unretirement. Rewirement. Non-Linear Work. Five Star Offices. Virtual Leadership. Inclusivepreneuers. Cultural Prescriptions. Metamindfulness. Joy Workouts. Psychobiotics. The Superself.  Wellness Guilds. Cryptoliteracy. Twilighting. Multiversal design. Adaptogenic beauty. Surrealist Dining. Clubstaurants. Vitual ambassadors. Dark Zones. Metatravel. Urban Sanctuaries. Absurdist stays. Situationships. Virtual Nurturers. Artisnal Wave. Elevated expressionism. Rewilded minds. Creator Communities.

Yes. 

Buzzword compliant.

Get the Party Started?

Click to hear about the most unsocially distanced party in the UK. 

Awkward questions. What parties? The suitcase club. Fridays. 100 invitations. Especially in Number 10. All guidance was followed completely. Business meetings. Whistleblowers fear of reprisals. Serial denyers. 

Commons Standard Committee. 

Penalties.

Cozy Crime

My current novel, which I'm still writing, is intended to be a Cozy Crime kind of deal.

The cover artwork needs attention, as they say, and the typeography, particularly of the title isn't 'cozy' enough. Or should I say cosy enough?

I decided to set it around where I live, but to change the names of places to protect the innocent. I've loosely based the format on an Agatha Christie, but by Part 2 it starts to drift into more familiar Ed Adams territory.

There are early signals of this because the mansion where it is set, 'Magister Grange', has a helipad. It's also got a large cast, in the way of some Agatha novels. So many that I have to keep a printout by the side of me when I'm writing.

I suppose I could have finished it in 2022, but instead it will be a new style of my novel ready to grace 2023.

3%

3% of the year gone already. It has been surprisingly busy for me considering I don't go to work every day. 

Yet yesterday I was suited,  in corporate offices,  in discussion using Powerpoint and having proper minutes.

In unrelated activity I'm still on the clock about my latest novel - Cozy - too.

And later today I go out to help set up the AV for a presentation. and then next week I'm running a film show for German Speakers. Kein Problem, as they say.

I received a reminder from my podcast service today. I realise I've stalled part way through 'The Circle' and there are a few people who want to know what happens next. I guess I'll have to restart that again, although my listeners are somewhat limited in numbers.

Somehow I'm also keeping my cycling going (not yesterday though). Instead, on foot, I got wet from  the horizontal rain around Exeter,

Still, if I can be 91 miles ahead of pace, then I'm not doing so badly. I realised, by looking at 2019,  that my targets in miles were: Blue 1000, Silver 2000, Gold 3000, Platinum 4000.

So I received an immediate upgrade from Blue to Silver, having achieved around 2,200 miles last year.

I know it's only my own daft targets, but it still makes me feel better.

downhill?

I was informed by Strava that I was in the top 16 percent of users, which I considered respectable. 

I'd climbed and pedalled along a fair distance, but still no-where near as far as in a couple of years when I'd scored silver or gold against my personal targets. 2000 blue, 3000 silver, 4000 gold miles. 

Last year I cycled about 2.2k miles. A blue pass only. 

 The more telling statistic was the drop off in my participation. I wish I could blame the recording equipment or something else. Nope. The plain truth is that I did less exercise last year. 

Maybe a resolution is approaching? 

Or an obsession?