the Ghost in the Machine

If I remember correctly, the first time that I saw the phrase “Ghost in the Machine” it was on the TV in my flat, being the name of one of the episodes in the Inspector Morse TV series which I liked rather a lot...

But then I have always loved BritFic Detective stories - don't get me started because I have a long list of shows that I positively enjoy, starting with A Touch of Frost, which is of course based upon the Frost novels by R.D. Wingfield, and I tell you getting David Jason to play Detective Inspector William Edward "Jack" Frost was bloody brill!

Second on my list of all-time greatest BritFic Detective Shows would be the Midsomer Murders series, which are based on the books by Caroline Graham. I have to admit though that I was very unhappy when Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) was replaced by his so-called cousin DCI John Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) the wanker...

Third would be Cracker, which is set in Manchester, and tells the story of Dr Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald (Robbie Coltrane), and its focus in addition to the crime in each episode is centered on the very human foibles of Eddie Fitz - who is both a criminal psychologist (or "cracker") and a flawed human being - but hey, I cannot watch that show without the little voice in my head jumping up and down and screaming IT'S HAGRID! THAT'S HAGRID! HAGRID!

I can't help thinking - IT's HAGRID!

Coming in at Number Four (but a close tie with No. 3) is Van der Valk -- whose protagonist is Dutch Detective Commissaris "Piet" (real name Simon) van der Valk totally reminds me of my father-in-law who is also named Piet and is Dutch but hey, he was not a detective...

The Inspector Morse shows are next, and Morse is of course based upon the series of novels by Colin Dexter.   The often visceral story of Detective Inspector -- later Chief Inspector -- Morse (John Thaw) always unfolds with intense mystery which you have to like.  Plus there are over 30 episodes and they are more like movie-of-the-week than a TV show as every episode involves a new murder investigation featuring several guest stars, and are 2-hours long...

Let me tell you the one thing that I learned from watching these shows - the region of England that is called “The Midlands” is a dangerous place! You want to avoid that part of the UK like the plague, stay away! People DIE there! A lot!

But this is not about BritFix Detective shows, is it?  No...  Where was I?  Oh yeah!

So later I learned that the person widely credited with coining the phrase is British philosopher Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) - and he was quoted by Arthur Koestler, who used it as the title to his 1967 book “The Ghost in the Machine.” 

That book was assigned as required reading by the professor who taught one of the philosophy courses that I took at uni - bearing in mind that the book turned out to be about philosophical psychology and not, as I initially hoped, about a haunted car.

But still I learned a lot from it, which is probably why when I got an email last Friday from one of the gamers who it turns out is a fan of the video game guides and walkthroughs that I write for SuperCheats - who sincerely asked me how it was that I got my Xbox 360 to write its own blog?

It had to be said...

A real Whaaaaaaaa? Moment

So yeah, I confess, reading that email the first time was a real Whaaaaaaa?! moment for me...  I can usually hit the ground running on the first try - figuratively speaking that is - but I actually had to pause, deer-in-headlights - and think about what I was being asked for a moment.  And if there really had been headlights, well, I paused good and long, so we are talking SPLAT! here.

But I eventually connected the dots and realized that he was referring to the "Recnef's Xbox 360 Blog" which I have a link to off of my home page in the Blog Section and which, I extrapolate, the young man found there, followed, and read -- and went away from the experience somehow convinced that it was a real blog written by my game console(?!).

Recnef's Xbox 360 Blog

 While this blog states that it is in fact written by my Xbox 360, in reality it is the machine-generated psuedo-blog created by the website 360voice.com that uses a selection of pre-scripted commentary and the monitored activities of your game console to create an amusing if actually rather scary blog that appears to be written from the point-of-view of the Xbox 360.

A sample entry that is most amusing reads:

Recnef's Xbox - Aug 23 2013

I had to set aside my plans for world domination yesterday when Recnef decided to game. Our score is 127,365 and always improving! That is an improvement of 50 points over last time! He rocked out to Gears of War: Judgment adding 4 achievements, and afterwards, there were some awkward stares and silence... you know how it is.

If you read the blog regularly you will see some of the lines repeated, particularly the humor-laced observations that the "Xbox" makes and its rather possessive (one is tempted to say possessed) attitude and jealous nature...

But that is the entire point of the site and its humor...  Under that humor though is a fairly useful set of services that among other things keeps track of your game play activities and provides a breakdown of your Achievement progress in the different games you play.

In addition to the daily summary the site also has a weekly summary that sort of collects all of the data from the week but delivers it in character - here is my last one:

Recnef's Weekly Recap - Aug 26 2013

This entry is a little different than the others. It is a recap of the last week of gaming. Check it: So yeah... Last week Recnef showed up 4 days total and logged some serious gaming. We added 190 points of gamerscore which ain't too shabby. Getting 13 achievements can do that to you. I was there. I saw it! Oh, and from what I remember, Recnef's favorite game last week was Gears of War: Judgment. He played it on 4 of the days.

So there you have it... Check back next week for another report from yours truly.

Like I said, it delivers it in character, but as I read it having been prompted to do so by that email I had to wonder if the person who emailed me was taking the piss out of me or what?  I suppose it is funny either way, but I wanted to know...

As it turned out - which I learned from emailing him back - he is 10 years old and actually thought that I had somehow managed to get my Xbox 360 to acquire Artificial Intelligence.  And he was so genuinely disappointed that it was NOT my console writing the blog that I almost felt like I should email his mom and have her give the bugger a hug, he was that sad over it.

So how was your weekend?

Audible Badges and the Keymaster

In the slightly less than four days since I finished the blog post before this one (Audible Badge Collection Revisited) a flood of email messages from other Audible Listeners (that's what we call ourselves and each other it seems - as Audible Listeners) has illustrated for me just how popular the service has become and, what is more, how intense the feelings are that exist within it.  I received a lot of email - a LOT of email - almost all of which was both supportive and equally of note, demanded to know what my personal Badge Count is?  With details?!

This Audible dot Com Thingy

As the exclusive supplier of audio book content to both iTunes and Amazon the folks at Audible have something like a monopoly (but not really) in the area of digital books and audio entertainment (not including music and/or songs) whose primary delivery system is the Internet via the World Wide Web -- the notion that a community, or perhaps a community of sub-communities would be a better take on the matter? Well, either way, the fact that such a community has sprung into existence really is not all that surprising. 

This being a very busy time of year for me, I cannot indulge in the philosophical aspects inherent in developments such as this, despite the fact that they practically beg for me to do so.  If ideas could talk this one would be saying "Explore me!  Delve into the quirky and yet mind-boggling fact of my existence!  Find the humor in me, it is there!  Really it is!  Please?"

But they cannot - and I wouldn't have the time anyway, in fact the best that I can do is jot down these notes and the briefest of observations as I attempt to fulfill the requests that have been made of me, and share with you the details of my Audible Badges since this appears to be a rather urgently important matter some of you...

Just be thankful that I am not Stephen King.  

I recently sent an email to the human interface at his publisher to whom one sends such requests  asking for just three minutes of his time to ask and obtain the answer to the questions: "How important would you say that your experiment in publishing your recent book exclusively online was?"  And "What did you learn from the experience?"

Those two questions are central to the issue that I will be examining in a column I am working on that explores the whole issue of PoD and online publishing. 

It has been suggested that we, each of us, have a book floating around in our heads waiting to be written, and but for the lack of a publisher to take our project on would all of us be published authors...

Of course Stephen King has never heard of me and I have no doubt was completely unaware of the exchange between myself and some faceless drone at his publisher whose job is to read the email that is submitted by that form on his "official" web page on their website. 

The fact that this particular drone has allowed their "power" to rush to their head and so chose to deny me in so transparently obvious and passive-aggressive a manner, well, I try not to take that sort of thing personally.  I understand - he is so busy he just cannot find the time to answer those questions.  Ever.

I am just saying that you should be happy I am not the Kingster - or more to the point, you should be happy that I do not have such a tool screening my email; if I did we would not be having this little experience that we are having, and where was I?

Oh yes!  My Audible Badges!

The Audible Listener Badge Collection has become something of a point of pride and, for many audiobook fans, a symbol of accomplishment...  For this Audible Listener the badges represent pleasurable hours spent multi-tasking while he earned his TCoB Badge!  Yeah, I've pooped in the woods...

The Official Badge Count (and information)
of Audible Listener CM Boots-Faubert

So the email that I have been receiving from readers has included their present badge status and nicely and politely requested that I share mine.  Since it was nice and polite for the most part, I figure what they heck, why not?  So here is my Audible Listener Badge Collection Status as of 0600 GMT -5 on 31 July 2013:

1. Stenographer - Silver
2. Social Butterfly - Silver
3. Audible Obsessed - None
4. Weekend Warrior - Gold
5. Repeat Listener - Silver
6. All Nighter - Diamond
7. Marathoner - None
8. Undecider - Silver
9. Flash 80 - None
10. High Noon - Diamond
11. Binge Listener - Silver
12. 7 Day Stretch - Silver
13. Procrastinator - None
14. The Stack - Silver
15. Mount Everest - None

Thanks for your email, thanks for reading the blog, and thank you for reading the paper!

Cheers!

C

Audible Badge Collection Revisited

Back in January of 2012 -- during a period wherein I was gathering information for a column that related to early adoption of consumer technology for the column that I write for the Cape Cod Times (Digital Grind, appearing every other Tuesday in the Business & Tech Section of the newspaper) and having  accidentally stumbled upon the Audible Listener's Badge Collection built into the iOS version of the audio book app from online audio book website Audible.com --  I ended up briefly covering the subject in that blog entry.

I mention this for two reasons... 

The first reason being my genuine surprise at the explosive interest in that subject as shown by my readers.  In fact the post generated a whopping 73 email messages on that subject -- not counting the replies to my replies to those 73 original email messages mind you --  and considering that I did not know I had 73 regular readers for this blog, let alone 73 readers who were invested in it to the point that they would actually take the time and make the effort to send me email about something I had written about in it, well, let us just say that it was a gratifying experience indeed! 

This was a matter I found to be worthy of note personally as well as professionally, though come to think upon it, certainly it can be argued that as my activities with respect to the blog Speaking of... are more in the way of uncompensated and voluntary writing as opposed to writing assigned by an editor and in the general scheme of things, compensated, it is... but I digress...

The second reason has to do with the significant number of follow-on email messages addressing the subject that have been reliably appearing in my In Box over the course of the past eighteen months, the most common topic of which being genuine inquiries as to my own progress with respect to the Badges I have unlocked and, naturally, the sharing of their own progress in unlocking said badges.

My loverly wife and companion Yvonne, avid Pokemon Trainer and willing co-conspirator in the ongoing seemingly never-ending quest to obtain each rare and special Pokemon as those made available at GameStop's everywhere (or at least in the case above, at GameStops in Mashpee, Massachusetts), which is to say located in Paradise save for the fact that it is Winter in Paradise at the time that this snap was made so really not so Paradise as one might expect Paradise to be, there being no brilliant sun, heady temperatures, and Boat Drinks - mustn't forget the Boat Drinks, just saying...

Gibbs, Calvin, and the Odd Photo or Two

In my initial efforts to document the extension of what had at that point become a very well accepted and recognized means for promoting individual and group cohesion with respect to the obtaining of an established and valued visual symbol of status and rank in terms of participation in a given activity - in this case listening to Audio Books - I made it a point to include wholly unrelated photographs in the interest of illustrating that piece, and in keeping with that tradition endeavor to do so again herein...

Really though if you pause to give the matter thought, the present level of both popularity and success that this particular form of rank and recognition enjoys can be said to have a shared link not only to the more obvious military practice of the display of square ribbons on the breast, but in more contemporary terms the dashingly successful affiliated Gamerscore and Achievements systems created by Microsoft for its Xbox 360 games console (about which I have written upon numerous occasions, including here, and here, and also here, not to mention here and here!).

It turns out that the Audible Badge Collection is not only of particular interest to the very large community of Audible Listeners (of which I am one), it also appears to be of interest to a somewhat larger community of potential Audible Listeners - that is to say consumers of audio books who are not as yet customers of Audible.com (by the by, I have in no way been compensated for the above plugs and promotion of the audio books from Audible - I am no shill, I just happen to really like and enjoy that service, for which just like you, I pay with my own money to enjoy).

It may interest you to know that I have been a client at Audible since the very month that it was launched in the previous century by founder Don Katz, and in fact I have actually written about the service - see my column titled Heard any good books lately? (DigitalGrind, Cape Cod Times, 27 May 2008) - just to comply with my own policy of full-on transparency.

Wouldn't it be great if the services of the Winebulance (photo inset above) truly were available throughout the USA?  The UK-based parent company and its rather interesting concept now available in the Miami, Florida area and elsewhere - but sadly (and I firmly suspect that the laws pertaining to alcohol where I live, on Cape Cod which is to say in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts though there are plenty of locals who might argue that we only slightly accept the notion that the Cape is part of Taxachusetts, it being a nation in its own right) would prohibit the operation of such a clearly convenient and valuable service.  If  we measure political independence by arbitrary scales such as fun, peace, and tranquility than Cape Cod is clearly an independent nation along lines similar to those of the Conch Republic...

Audible Badge Collection

The badges that make up the Audible Listener's Badge Collection at the present time (and as of the writing of this post) consist of a total of fifteen (15) unique badges, each of which have at least three distinct and graduated levels, those being Silver, Gold, and Diamond, which are based upon the level in a particular category unlocked by the individual user.

Each of the Badges represents a specific action (or nature of actions) and each offers the listener a means by which they can visually gauge their participation in a meaningful way while at the same time present that participation in a format that suggests rank or standing in the Audible listener community, and how cool is that?

The current list of Badges consists of the following, with meaning, as presented in the Audible.com iOS App version:

1. Stenographer - add a bookmark/comment X times.
   Silver = 10
   Gold = 40
   Diamond = 125
2. Social Butterfly - spreading the Audible word via Twitter, Facebook & etc.
   Silver = x5 shares
   Gold = x25 shares
   Diamond = x100 shares
3. Audible Obsessed - you have used the app for X days straight.
   Silver = x7 days
   Gold = x30 days
   Diamond = x90 days
4. Weekend Warrior - listened to X number of hours on the weekend.
   Silver = x5 hours
   Gold = x10 hours
   Diamond = x24 hours
5. Repeat Listener - listened to X number of books over again.
   Silver = x3
   Gold = x10
   Diamond = x20
6. All Nighter - listened to X number of hours at night.
   Silver = x4 hours
   Gold = x6 hours
   Diamond = x8 hours
7. Marathoner - listened to X number of hours straight (uninterrupted)
   Silver = x16 hours
   Gold = x18 hours
   Diamond = x24 hours
8. Undecider - listened to parts of X number of different titles in one day.
   Silver = x3 titles
   Gold = x15 titles
   Diamond = x40 titles
9. Flash 80 - awarded for checking your stats screen X number of times.
   Silver = x50 checks
   Gold = x200 checks
   Diamond = x500 checks
10. High Noon - listened to X number of hours during lunchtime.
    Silver = x2 hours
    Gold = x3 hours
    Diamond = x4 hours
11. Binge Listener - listened to X number of books start-to-finish in one go.
    Silver = x2 books
    Gold = x5 books
    Diamond = x10 books
12. 7 Day Stretch - complete X books in a single week.
    Silver = x7 books
    Gold = x15 books
    Diamond = x50 books (whoa)
13. Procrastinator - have X books downloaded but not marked finished*
    Silver = x10 unfinished books
    Gold = x20 unfinished books
    Diamond = x75 unfinished books
14. The Stack - have at least X number of books in your library.
    Silver = x50 titles
    Gold = x200 titles
    Diamond = x500 titles
15. Mount Everest - completed a book that is X hours in length.
    Silver = x30 hours
    Gold = x40 hours
    Diamond = x50 hours

The inclusion of all of the X's above is, of course, meant to represent the sliding scale of numbers that relate specifically to the Level of the Awarded Badge - that is to say that the number is going to be different depending upon whether it is for the Silver, Gold, or Diamond Level Badge Awarded.

The inside colour does not appear to mean anything with respect to the badges but the outside rim of the badge clearly does - as you can see above the Marathoner Badge is "Diamond" Level while all of the others appear to be "Silver" Level...  The disturbing bit is that at some point in the recent updates to the app it appears that the edge graphic has been disabled, as there seems to be no relation between their colour and their status.  For example, one I know is Diamond Level has a gold border, and one I know is Gold Level has a silver boarder, while a Silver Level one has a silver border, and so on...  I very much dislike being confused like this...  Sigh.

* Note that with this badge if you delete the book from your device you can "lose" the badge since it appears to apply to the present inventory/status on the device.

In addition to the above, you should be warned that IF YOU CHANGE YOUR LOGIN for Audible - say if you have more than one account, or your significant other wants to listen to books from THEIR account on YOUR iOS/device this will wipe and reset ALL of the stats.  When you log back into your own account your stats will be reset to zero on all.

The Badge Collection is also now available for the Android version of the app.

Listening Level

In addition to the Badges listed above there is also a screen whose title is Listening Level and upon which is displayed the five levels of Audible Mastery, which are:

1. Master
2. Scholar
3. Professional
4. Novice
5. Newbie

I do not actually know what the required times are precisely, though you can probably figure them out for yourself simply by reviewing my status at the time that this post was written (though bear in mind that the status only accounts for my listening statistics since I installed the app on my most recent iPhone - as my actual number of hours listening to books via Audible is a MUCH higher number spread across all of the platforms, from iOS to PC):

1. Master (1907 hours to go)
2. Scholar (907 hours to go)
3. Professional (407 hours to go)
4. Novice (7 hours to go)
5. Newbie (Achieved on 12/13/12)

Based upon the numbers above the overall total appears to be based upon 2000 hours of listening...

Back in 2000 my wife Yvonne had her own "webcam" that featured two field mice that she had captured in humane traps that had, until their capture, been playing hell with our stored food stuff as well as anything in a cardboard box in the basement - but once the outlaws were captured became the focus of Mousecam!  That's right, the image of their domesticated mouse dwelling was shared online via the web every 30 seconds.

You Know, Whatever?

If you are curious, 2000 hours of listening breaks down to:

• 83.333 Days
• 120K Minutes
• 7.2 Million Seconds
• Number of hours of Cosmetology Classes required by the State of Utah in order for an applicant to qualify for a state license to work as a Hair Braider for pay.
• The minimum number of hours that a non-partner lawyer is expected to bill in a 48-week year (they get four weeks holiday each year don't you know).
• Number of volunteer man hours it took to build the 2,000 Hour Trail on the western slope of the Massanutten Resort by the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition.
• From planting of the coffee tree to your first sip, 2000 man hours go into making that cup of coffee. (http://rnrcoffeecafe.com/blog/?p=428)
• Amount of time that budding game designer Alexander Velicky spent creating a mod for Skyrim just to get a job interview with Bethesda Softworks.