BBC Focus Magazine

[The Jules]

Are you allowed to post a review of a book you've read if you know the author?

I'll give it a go, as this one might be up quite a few peoples streets round these parts, not least for the interviews with some amazing (and often quite hard to get hold of) interviewees, such as emotional roboticist Cynthia Breazeal, futurologist Ray Kurzweil, Vint Cerg from Google and even the president of the Maldives amongst loads of others.

I'm glad I bought it, anyway. It's very thought-provoking.

I worte a review on Amazon for it and said (amongst other things):

Initially, I had some qualms about the applicability of optimism in this context, thinking that perhaps it flew in the face of realism, but the philosophy behind this book isn't about rose-tinted crystal balls. In some places, it takes current concepts of pessimism and asks for their justification. A good example is the regularly heard lament about how violent a place the modern world is. The truth might very well surprise you and tempt you to go out at night.

I was rather taken by the the fact that, as a man who had experienced the latest in emotional robots, in the potentials of human immortality, in the arguably crazy and/or genius predictions of world renowned futurologists, he was particularly blown away by a new concept in Australian fencing. As was I after I'd read about it.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Are you allowed to post a review of a book you've read if you know the author?

So long as you are not trying to profit from it yourself I see no propblem at all.

[The Jules]

I'm possibly hoping for a free pint at some point in the future, so . . .

[M Paul Lloyd]

I think we'll let you off.

[The Jules]

And I've just read the review in Focus mag that was already done by Henry Gee.

D'oh.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Don't worry you can never have too many reviews.

[Flakkarin]

Ooh I love futurology so I might have to give this a go! Is is like little essays/stories about various others or a sort of journey? Good on him for interviewing those cool people, must be an interesting friend.

[Louise Ridley]

Hi guys, glad you liked the book The Jules. We've got a review of it in February's Focus magazine, Dr Henry Gee gave it 4 stars. I'll post a link to your review on Facebook and Twitter so people can see a user review!

[Thinker]

Huh, It seems The Jules is the Editor's Pet!

[Flakkarin]

I just found out that the author will be interviewed this Friday on the awesome radio show 'Skeptically Speaking' produced right here on my uni campus by some good folks including some of my friends.

It streams free online and is available for download afterwards (it's on at 6pm Edmonton time which is... 1am Saturday in the UK, oo err)
http://skepticallyspeaking.com/

Edit: They have a form where you can send in questions that will be read out on the show if you like... or I guess you could always just ask the Jules