A beautiful cover. I'm interested to note that the girls are beautiful westerners - I suppose that adds to the allure for a Chinese market - and that they have transliterated Lydia and Kirsty as the names rather than Sinofying them - also makes sense. Also interested that you went with a Sichuan publisher rather than Beijing. There is life and art beyond the capital! Good luck with it.
Got an unexpected item in the post this morning. The mainland Mandarin Chinese edition of THE ICE TWINS.
Absolutely beautiful. Delicate and haunting. It is by a distance the best of all the foreign covers of my book, and somehow symbolic, in its tiny way, of China's ascent.
Mr. Patrick, it's a while ago now, but when I was in China there was a piece on the news about the most popular cosmetic surgery being double eyelids (which Westerners have).
Yes - most Chinese have the slightly tight single eyelid. Virtually all Koreans do. The 30% or so of Chinese that have double eyes are very happy about it! Looks good on the ladies. I watch some modern Chinese TV drama (nearly all historical imperial court / martial artsy stuff a la Crouching Tiger) with the Mrs. The General and I is very popular right now (go Wiki). There are some very beautiful girls on Chinese TV! ALOT of them are a bit westerny in look. Many from Xinjiang and slightly Turkic. Yang Ying (wiki Angelababy) is gorgeous and 1/4 German. Can't act mind.
Latest daily rolling poll from ifop on the French election.
Surprised Macron seems to be slipping a little. Fillon seems to have stabilised and is up half a point. Tha head to head gap between Le Pen and Macron, closes slightly.
Mr. Thompson, one cafe (I think, Deets, or suchlike) has said it won't take cash any more, payment will only be permitted via apps etc.
That's barking mad.
That's the future.
For businesses cash has a lot of major problems. It is the biggest risk as far as theft is concerned (from both external and internal causes). Mistakes made in giving out change can lead to major cash shortages. The cost, safety and security implications of getting the cash from the business to the bank.
Electronic transactions are so much simpler. You do the transaction and the money is in your bank. Since businesses likely make virtually all their payments via bank transfer eliminating cash as an issue is cleaner and easier.
One day cash will be as obsolete as a check book.
Perchance do you mean "cheque"
No I mean "obsolete", however you choose your ye olde spelling that you want to use on something that doesn't exist anymore
I’m the Treasurer of a small educational organisation in our town. We run two courses annually..... Spring and Autumn. We’ve only just managed to persuade some of our attenders to use cheques! One regular attender more or less said she’d stop coming if she was asked to pay on line.
Mr. T, whilst I agree with a huzzah to the absence of total piracy, I quite like a mix of print and e-books. And from a self-publishing perspectives, e-books are a bit simpler and quicker.
Kingdom Asunder's paperback will be around £9.70, but the e-book is just over £3. I'll make about the same amount on each sale, so the e-book (as well as being easier for me) gets the reader a book for a third the price without hitting my income at all.
Also going to try my hand at a short serial. These things are notorious for not working, but an Outlaws of the Marsh style story is something I've always wanted to do. If it comes off, that's great, and if not I can recycle the parts into a solo anthology. However, serials wouldn't work financially if e-books didn't exist.
Mr. Patrick, she does look nice.
Edited extra bit: the serial will have a Chinese flavour. Maybe I'll see about putting in a drunken, fornicating scribe called Mu Yin...
All these arguments about the "right" levels of immigration into the UK, are like arguments about the "best" use and disposal of horse manure in London streets, in about 1890
So you are comparing people to faeces now?
Drink some coffee and dry out man.
Oh grow up. The comparison was metaphorical. Not literal. Horses were considered a big issue in London in the 1890s. We needed room for stables, liveries, mews, there was the problem of manure, where to put all the ancillary industrieers, etc.
Then came the internal combustion engine, and within two decades horses, and all the positives and negatives of their presence, were rendered entirely and
A universal basic income and retraining funded by a tax on robots is the inevitable result of automation
Promptly followed by all those robots (and their factories) moving offshore into a regime that doesn't charge the Robot Tax.
Every regime worldwide will impose the robot tax given global automation and that the inevitable alternative is a violent revolution or a Communist government from the new mass underclass
In your dreams perhaps.
Some country will inevitably impose no robot tax and undercut everyone else.
It's called "capitalism" - and it works like that..
Nope as Greece proves once unemployment goes over 25% you get a hard left government. Capitalism only works if most people benefit from it, the moment it ext Tsipras!
SO you don't see the benefits of capitalism? No cheap cars, food or internet..
Greece was caused by a corrupt and lying Government which borrowed too much and lied and lied.. and has so pissed off its creditors they will not forgive its debt (which they should do as it will nver be repaid)
If automation leads to mass unemployment with no universal basic income to ease the pain funded by a robot tax there will be not even the basics most people got in the Soviet Union let alone the goods they can now afford when employed under pre automation capitalism
What a load of codswallop.
Automation leads to innovation and people fill new roles previously thought to be impossible or unnecessary.
Actually the precise point about automation, the 4th industrial revolution, is that unlike previous industrial revolutions experts do not expect enough jobs to be created to replace those lost. Hence the need for a universal basic income
Off topic, thinking about going to see This House at the Garrick before it closes. Anybody been to see it? A decent seat will cost me about 60 quid - is it worth the money?
Mr. Rex, that's a big problem, especially in an age of e-books. Hard to do much about it, though.
The expected wave of ebook piracy, and the demise of print.... hasn't happened. Thank holy fuck. People still want books. Indeed book sales are improving, in some markets (including the UK and USA). It turns out kids and teens are particularly resistant to e-books, and that resistance continues into adulthood
Off topic, thinking about going to see This House at the Garrick before it closes. Anybody been to see it? A decent seat will cost me about 60 quid - is it worth the money?
Rave reviews - if you're in town, tkts has had them on sale on the day for £35:
Mr. T, if it sells well there, that might outweigh all your other sales everywhere else
Mind you, it'll be pirated to buggery.
The Chinese are massively clamping down on piracy, in books as in much else. They've realised the worth of protecting IP.
They absolutely should. The likes of BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute, now resident in Shenzen) are investing billions into collecting and storing DNA data on the basis that they will own the knowledge emanating from it once GWAS (genome-wide associative studies) can be performed on it - a Big Data approach to crunching which bits of DNA do what, and which bits are markers for various diseases). They need to protect all that as proprietary data.
To put this in context, BGI is the second biggest storer of data in the world - second only after the NSA.
Off topic, thinking about going to see This House at the Garrick before it closes. Anybody been to see it? A decent seat will cost me about 60 quid - is it worth the money?
Rave reviews - if you're in town, tkts has had them on sale on the day for £35:
Mr. T, if it sells well there, that might outweigh all your other sales everywhere else
Mind you, it'll be pirated to buggery.
The Chinese are massively clamping down on piracy, in books as in much else. They've realised the worth of protecting IP.
They absolutely should. The likes of BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute, now resident in Shenzen) are investing billions into collecting and storing DNA data on the basis that they will own the knowledge emanating from it once GWAS (genome-wide associative studies) can be performed on it - a Big Data approach to crunching which bits of DNA do what, and which bits are markers for various diseases). They need to protect all that as proprietary data.
To put this in context, BGI is the second biggest storer of data in the world - second only after the NSA.
How does Google compare? I would have guessed they were up there.
If automation leads to mass unemployment with no universal basic income to ease the pain funded by a robot tax there will be not even the basics most people got in the Soviet Union let alone the goods they can now afford when employed under pre automation capitalism
What a load of codswallop.
Automation leads to innovation and people fill new roles previously thought to be impossible or unnecessary.
Actually the precise point about automation, the 4th industrial revolution, is that unlike previous industrial revolutions experts do not expect enough jobs to be created to replace those lost. Hence the need for a universal basic income
Experts didn't expect jobs to be created to be replaced in the previous revolutions either. They were wrong.
Mr. T, whilst I agree with a huzzah to the absence of total piracy, I quite like a mix of print and e-books. And from a self-publishing perspectives, e-books are a bit simpler and quicker.
Kingdom Asunder's paperback will be around £9.70, but the e-book is just over £3. I'll make about the same amount on each sale, so the e-book (as well as being easier for me) gets the reader a book for a third the price without hitting my income at all.
Also going to try my hand at a short serial. These things are notorious for not working, but an Outlaws of the Marsh style story is something I've always wanted to do. If it comes off, that's great, and if not I can recycle the parts into a solo anthology. However, serials wouldn't work financially if e-books didn't exist.
Mr. Patrick, she does look nice.
Edited extra bit: the serial will have a Chinese flavour. Maybe I'll see about putting in a drunken, fornicating scribe called Mu Yin...
Actually I think the most obvious takeaway from the IFOP French poll posted below is that Hamon is losing his ground against Melénchon in a fairly consistent way. I backed at 44 and am laying him right out at 21.
A beautiful cover. I'm interested to note that the girls are beautiful westerners - I suppose that adds to the allure for a Chinese market - and that they have transliterated Lydia and Kirsty as the names rather than Sinofying them - also makes sense. Also interested that you went with a Sichuan publisher rather than Beijing. There is life and art beyond the capital! Good luck with it.
Have they transliterated "Tremayne"?
Te Li Mu Yin - not bad!
Yes but what does it mean? When I was out East the Chinese loved giving westerners their own nickname, usually containing a pun and/or a rather pithy statement of what they thought of the kwailo's character. I doubt the Chinese have changed that much. So can anyone translate, "Te Li Mu Yin".
Mr. F, don't have a concrete date, unfortunately. It *should* be within a week. It's all done, I've checked the proof etc.
It'll be almost identical to the e-book, the only real change being a couple of small family trees in the back, which someone here requested.
Edited extra bit: upon checking, there's a page for it on Amazon already, but no availability/price as yet. I imagine that'll come in a few days: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542545803/
Mr. Rex, that's a big problem, especially in an age of e-books. Hard to do much about it, though.
The expected wave of ebook piracy, and the demise of print.... hasn't happened. Thank holy fuck. People still want books. Indeed book sales are improving, in some markets (including the UK and USA). It turns out kids and teens are particularly resistant to e-books, and that resistance continues into adulthood
My 2010 Kindle broke down a few weeks ago and I haven't bothered to replace it. It's nice to read paper books again for a change.
Not so good for reading in bed though. I have made a little stand for my kindle which means I can read in bed without putting more than a finger out from under the bedcovers and so remaining all toasty warm. Reading a proper book in bed requires at least one hand out in the cold.
Edited extra bit: Mr. F, yes. After your question I thought I'd search as well as just checking my author page, and it's up there. A bargain at £9.79 for 100,000 words.
Edited extra bit 2: Mr. Z, cheers. This is why proofreading is needed...
Off topic, thinking about going to see This House at the Garrick before it closes. Anybody been to see it? A decent seat will cost me about 60 quid - is it worth the money?
I've seen it, and I greatly enjoyed it.
However, you really do need to know about 1970s UK politics, in some detail, to appreciate it. As an example, all the MPs are introduced as 'the member for XXX', which is fine, but if you don't know what constituency Audrey Wise or David Steel represented, you might be a bit lost.
So I'd recommend going, but do some revision first and leave time to read the programme before curtain up!
Actually I think the most obvious takeaway from the IFOP French poll posted below is that Hamon is losing his ground against Melénchon in a fairly consistent way. I backed at 44 and am laying him right out at 21.
Yes, Hamon appears to be on the slide. Most obvious takeaway for me is how fragile Macron's support appears to be. A month ago he had momentum. One would expect him to be pulling away from a wounded Fillon, but the gap between them has halved from 3 to 1.5 points since the previous poll.
Also, it is the second poll today that shows an increase of support for Fillon. If he manages to avoid prosecution, he will be right back in it.
Off topic, thinking about going to see This House at the Garrick before it closes. Anybody been to see it? A decent seat will cost me about 60 quid - is it worth the money?
I've seen it, and I greatly enjoyed it.
However, you really do need to know about 1970s UK politics, in some detail, to appreciate it. As an example, all the MPs are introduced as 'the member for XXX', which is fine, but if you don't know what constituency Audrey Wise or David Steel represented, you might be a bit lost.
So I'd recommend going, but do some revision first and leave time to read the programme before curtain up!
Thanks. I remember the 70s (sadly I am that old!) but couldn't honestly recall who represented what seat apart from a few of the obvious ones, so appreciate the tip.
Mr. T, if it sells well there, that might outweigh all your other sales everywhere else
Mind you, it'll be pirated to buggery.
The Chinese are massively clamping down on piracy, in books as in much else. They've realised the worth of protecting IP.
They absolutely should. The likes of BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute, now resident in Shenzen) are investing billions into collecting and storing DNA data on the basis that they will own the knowledge emanating from it once GWAS (genome-wide associative studies) can be performed on it - a Big Data approach to crunching which bits of DNA do what, and which bits are markers for various diseases). They need to protect all that as proprietary data.
To put this in context, BGI is the second biggest storer of data in the world - second only after the NSA.
The Chinese have made significant strides on the IP front, but piracy and counterfeiting are still huge problems - especially outside the big cities. We find a lot of our stuff is just taken. It's a cost of doing business there. But it was ever thus - the same pattern has been repeated in all emerging economies. For China now, read Japan in the 50s, Hong Kong and Singapore in the 60s, Korea in the 70s and 80s. Go further back and it was the US. Dickens was driven to despair by the rip-offs of his stuff by American publishers. As you say, it changes once locals start to create valuable IP. That is now happening in China. The Chinese courts are among the most pro-plaintiff in the world - much more so than in the US. A general problem is that counterfeits and pirate copies are so much better than they once were; and 3D printing will make them even harder to detect.
I see in today's guardian they are standing up for the rights of the rich and famous to pursue aggressive tax efficiency strategies...whatever next a reality tv show host as president?
Off topic, thinking about going to see This House at the Garrick before it closes. Anybody been to see it? A decent seat will cost me about 60 quid - is it worth the money?
I've seen it, and I greatly enjoyed it.
However, you really do need to know about 1970s UK politics, in some detail, to appreciate it. As an example, all the MPs are introduced as 'the member for XXX', which is fine, but if you don't know what constituency Audrey Wise or David Steel represented, you might be a bit lost.
So I'd recommend going, but do some revision first and leave time to read the programme before curtain up!
Thanks. I remember the 70s (sadly I am that old!) but couldn't honestly recall who represented what seat apart from a few of the obvious ones, so appreciate the tip.
It is awesome. I loved it.
When you watch it and then remember Diane Abbott missing a vote with a migraine....
Mr. G, would Le Pen prefer to face Fillon in round two?
Yes, latest head to head between Fillon and Le Pen is 58-42. Although having said that. Macron's head to head figures against her have fallen from 65-35 generally to 62-38 today.
I see in today's guardian they are standing up for the rights of the rich and famous to pursue aggressive tax efficiency strategies...whatever next a reality tv show host as president?
Which article are you obliquely referring to - can't see it myself.
Mr. T, if it sells well there, that might outweigh all your other sales everywhere else
Mind you, it'll be pirated to buggery.
The Chinese are massively clamping down on piracy, in books as in much else. They've realised the worth of protecting IP.
They absolutely should. The likes of BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute, now resident in Shenzen) are investing billions into collecting and storing DNA data on the basis that they will own the knowledge emanating from it once GWAS (genome-wide associative studies) can be performed on it - a Big Data approach to crunching which bits of DNA do what, and which bits are markers for various diseases). They need to protect all that as proprietary data.
To put this in context, BGI is the second biggest storer of data in the world - second only after the NSA.
The Chinese have made significant strides on the IP front, but piracy and counterfeiting are still huge problems - especially outside the big cities. We find a lot of our stuff is just taken. It's a cost of doing business there. But it was ever thus - the same pattern has been repeated in all emerging economies. For China now, read Japan in the 50s, Hong Kong and Singapore in the 60s, Korea in the 70s and 80s. Go further back and it was the US. Dickens was driven to despair by the rip-offs of his stuff by American publishers. As you say, it changes once locals start to create valuable IP. That is now happening in China. The Chinese courts are among the most pro-plaintiff in the world - much more so than in the US. A general problem is that counterfeits and pirate copies are so much better than they once were; and 3D printing will make them even harder to detect.
Agreed. China is coming in from the cold. But the next big counterfeiter will be India.
Outside of pharma and software India lacks the infrastructure currently and because it is so protectionist and chaotic it is unlikely to get it. The Chinese will copy anything on an industrial scale and are also assiduous trade secret thieves. The Indians just don't have the capacity to do it. That said, the potential there is extraordinary. I remember speaking to one technology investor who was generally impressed with Asia's capacity to take core inventions and to improve on them; but the Indians, he said, can do the core inventing. Right now, though, the ones capable of doing this head to Silicon Valley and Canada, rather than stay at home.
Might be a while in some parts of the world. I dont possess a cheque book, and the only time I use a credit card is buying airline tickets!
I don't used credit cards at all. It's nearly all on the debit card now. Just visited the UK, UAE and Pakistan for a total of 3 weeks. Used no cash (didn't even have local bank notes) or credit.
Why don't you like using credit cards? Just curious...
Indian factories churn out fake Viagra, Xanax, Valium, etc, by the billions.
Do you mean fake or generic? Either way the issue of quality control of generic drugs seems gently to be moving up the scale of notice as it damn well should be. The scandal is ongoing but yet to erupt.
I notice that this month one of my medicines comes from a company in Malta. Makes a change I suppose.
Actually I think the most obvious takeaway from the IFOP French poll posted below is that Hamon is losing his ground against Melénchon in a fairly consistent way. I backed at 44 and am laying him right out at 21.
The question translates to; Would you say that you are sure of your choice or that you can still change your mind? Base: persons who expressed an intention to vote
"most of the UKIP people are either people who haven’t voted or have flipped in a radical way from Labour. They are toe-rags, basically. They are the bloke who nicks your bike"
“No, seriously, that’s who it is, it’s the bloke who does all the anti-social things.“
As I have said before I grew up on a council estate, was lucky enough to go to a Grammar school and worked long hours and put in time on top of that studying in the evenings.
It paid off for me, but Labour gives every impression of hating people like me.
I also grew up on a council estate, got into a Grammar School and now run my own business. I have never heard the Labour Party either officially or any of its members as individuals or even people who seem to generally support it without any formal connection with it say anything that suggests they hate people like me. I am not at all sure I will vote for them next time, possibly never. But that is to do with their policies and some misgivings about the calibre of their front benchers. Is there something I am missing?
If automation leads to mass unemployment with no universal basic income to ease the pain funded by a robot tax there will be not even the basics most people got in the Soviet Union let alone the goods they can now afford when employed under pre automation capitalism
What a load of codswallop.
Automation leads to innovation and people fill new roles previously thought to be impossible or unnecessary.
Actually the precise point about automation, the 4th industrial revolution, is that unlike previous industrial revolutions experts do not expect enough jobs to be created to replace those lost. Hence the need for a universal basic income
Experts didn't expect jobs to be created to be replaced in the previous revolutions either. They were wrong.
Well let us hope you are right but as yet automation is not creating any new jobs as previous revolutions did in factories or the railways or in computers
It's miles behind with the elderly and somewhat ahead with the whippersnappers.
Edited extra bit: cheers, Mr. G and Mr. Rabbit.
It's not just the elderly: the YouGov figures suggest it is at parity with Ukip amongst the over 50s as a whole, and I wouldn't be too surprised if Ukip were competitive for some distance further down the age profile than that.
Given that the median age of the UK population is now just over 40, and that children don't have the vote, this suggests that Labour is miles behind the Tories and fighting for second place with Ukip (in terms of votes cast, at any rate,) amongst a substantial majority of the entire electorate. It really is only FPTP, and its very well dug-in position in the deep heartland, that's keeping Labour out in front as the major opposition party now.
Also well worth noting is that this is another survey showing the Conservatives gathering half of the entire vote in Southern England outside of London. This is a position of overwhelming dominance similar to that of the SNP in Scotland, yet which usually garners much less attention because of devolution. The South East, South West and East Anglia together account for nearly four times as many MPs as Scotland, or about 30% of all the seats in the Commons.
Comments
I watch some modern Chinese TV drama (nearly all historical imperial court / martial artsy stuff a la Crouching Tiger) with the Mrs. The General and I is very popular right now (go Wiki). There are some very beautiful girls on Chinese TV! ALOT of them are a bit westerny in look. Many from Xinjiang and slightly Turkic. Yang Ying (wiki Angelababy) is gorgeous and 1/4 German. Can't act mind.
Surprised Macron seems to be slipping a little. Fillon seems to have stabilised and is up half a point. Tha head to head gap between Le Pen and Macron, closes slightly.
http://cdn-new-parismatch.ladmedia.fr/var/ifop/13-02-2017.pdf
Oh, and congrats on the cover. Very stylish!
Kingdom Asunder's paperback will be around £9.70, but the e-book is just over £3. I'll make about the same amount on each sale, so the e-book (as well as being easier for me) gets the reader a book for a third the price without hitting my income at all.
Also going to try my hand at a short serial. These things are notorious for not working, but an Outlaws of the Marsh style story is something I've always wanted to do. If it comes off, that's great, and if not I can recycle the parts into a solo anthology. However, serials wouldn't work financially if e-books didn't exist.
Mr. Patrick, she does look nice.
Edited extra bit: the serial will have a Chinese flavour. Maybe I'll see about putting in a drunken, fornicating scribe called Mu Yin...
http://www.tkts.co.uk/whats-on-sale/
To put this in context, BGI is the second biggest storer of data in the world - second only after the NSA.
It'll be almost identical to the e-book, the only real change being a couple of small family trees in the back, which someone here requested.
Edited extra bit: upon checking, there's a page for it on Amazon already, but no availability/price as yet. I imagine that'll come in a few days:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542545803/
Ah. Weirdly, it *is* ready on the UK site:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542545803/
Huzzah!
What's 9' long and offers 10 hours of excitement before a thrilling climax? Kingdom Asunder's paperback - out now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542545803/
Edited extra bit: Mr. F, yes. After your question I thought I'd search as well as just checking my author page, and it's up there. A bargain at £9.79 for 100,000 words.
Edited extra bit 2: Mr. Z, cheers. This is why proofreading is needed...
However, you really do need to know about 1970s UK politics, in some detail, to appreciate it. As an example, all the MPs are introduced as 'the member for XXX', which is fine, but if you don't know what constituency Audrey Wise or David Steel represented, you might be a bit lost.
So I'd recommend going, but do some revision first and leave time to read the programme before curtain up!
Also, it is the second poll today that shows an increase of support for Fillon. If he manages to avoid prosecution, he will be right back in it.
When you watch it and then remember Diane Abbott missing a vote with a migraine....
https://twitter.com/dailymailuk/status/831195999540543489
Aha Lineker.
A core vote of non-voters.
Nothing could be more fitting for the 'Bill somebody' party...
'Labour’s polling misery continues' – Indeed, if it was a dog I’d call in the PDSA.
It's miles behind with the elderly and somewhat ahead with the whippersnappers.
Edited extra bit: cheers, Mr. G and Mr. Rabbit.
Caparo v Dickman
I notice that this month one of my medicines comes from a company in Malta. Makes a change I suppose.
http://cdn-new-parismatch.ladmedia.fr/var/ifop/13-02-2017.pdf
The question translates to; Would you say that you are sure of your choice or that you can still change your mind?
Base: persons who expressed an intention to vote
Le Pen 81%
Fillon 70%
Macron just 36%
Macron's support is VERY flakey
Given that the median age of the UK population is now just over 40, and that children don't have the vote, this suggests that Labour is miles behind the Tories and fighting for second place with Ukip (in terms of votes cast, at any rate,) amongst a substantial majority of the entire electorate. It really is only FPTP, and its very well dug-in position in the deep heartland, that's keeping Labour out in front as the major opposition party now.
Also well worth noting is that this is another survey showing the Conservatives gathering half of the entire vote in Southern England outside of London. This is a position of overwhelming dominance similar to that of the SNP in Scotland, yet which usually garners much less attention because of devolution. The South East, South West and East Anglia together account for nearly four times as many MPs as Scotland, or about 30% of all the seats in the Commons.
Interesting info, Mr. Rook, of which I was previously unaware.