A non-hypothetical genre bell at last? • 9 July 2008 • The SnowBlog
A non-hypothetical genre bell at last?
This week, I have a head full of quirky electronics (I'm referring to ideas, of course; to the best of my knowledge, my brain itself is still 100% organic). Here's a foolish gadget, designed in the run-up to last Christmas. It rings a little handbell every time someone visits your website. How cute! I'm wondering if I could adapt it to create a device which until this point has been purely conceptual: the Snowbooks Genre Bell. Not sure who invented it, but I'll guess Em. We mock our own lack of an editorial policy in that the bell is supposedly rung every time we publish a book in a genre that's new to us. And for a while that was pretty much every new title, such was our profligate multi-variedness. I reckon I could knock up some code that scans our outgoing Onix files and, if it sees a genre it hasn't noticed before, gives the bell a bit of a ding. The only question is whether to put it (perhaps even hide it) in Em's office or not. On the one hand, it might be fun. On the other hand, the last time I scared Em she thought she was being attacked by an adder, and that's not a nice thing to do to your best pal and business partner, particularly when she's busy being so pregnant (not to mention the very real threat of reprisals). Maybe I'll fall back on my old favourite spooky trick of making the printer start up and print a message - usually a ghostly 'Boo!' - when Em's the only one working late at night, but this time make it a 'ding'. Less chance of finding an adder in my morning mail that way.
Rob
This week, I have a head full of quirky electronics (I'm referring to ideas, of course; to the best of my knowledge, my brain itself is still 100% organic). Here's a foolish gadget, designed in the run-up to last Christmas. It rings a little handbell every time someone visits your website. How cute! I'm wondering if I could adapt it to create a device which until this point has been purely conceptual: the Snowbooks Genre Bell. Not sure who invented it, but I'll guess Em. We mock our own lack of an editorial policy in that the bell is supposedly rung every time we publish a book in a genre that's new to us. And for a while that was pretty much every new title, such was our profligate multi-variedness. I reckon I could knock up some code that scans our outgoing Onix files and, if it sees a genre it hasn't noticed before, gives the bell a bit of a ding. The only question is whether to put it (perhaps even hide it) in Em's office or not. On the one hand, it might be fun. On the other hand, the last time I scared Em she thought she was being attacked by an adder, and that's not a nice thing to do to your best pal and business partner, particularly when she's busy being so pregnant (not to mention the very real threat of reprisals). Maybe I'll fall back on my old favourite spooky trick of making the printer start up and print a message - usually a ghostly 'Boo!' - when Em's the only one working late at night, but this time make it a 'ding'. Less chance of finding an adder in my morning mail that way.