that's interes

I ran a marathon on Sunday. The 30th Florence Marathon. It was a spectacular day. The sun was shining. I'd been training for this for 16 weeks, across four different countries, starting in Scotland, cruising through London, running through Italy and across the USA.

I crossed the finish line in 4 hours, 10 minutes and 10 seconds. Just as I was passing the 20km mark, at 01:59, I saw the Ukrainian runner who won it cruising over Pointe Vecchio. He finished his 42 km ten minutes later.

The evolution of "the Florence studio" for The Guardian's Tech Weekly and for simulrecs for BBC Radio 4's The Digital Human.

Here's how it's played out:

WEEK ONE: I started out with my fancy recorder and microphone, and the basic kit that producer Jason Phipps gave me when I left London: a tabletop mic stand and some acoustic foam.

WEEK TWO: I started getting fancy. The room I'm recording in is in the eaves of a renaissance-era stone house. The floor is stone tile, the walls are made of stone, there are big single-pane windows with wooden shutters (no curtains), the ceiling is, effectively, the inside of the tile roof, and there are two large skylights. In other words, audio recording nightmare.

So I started by putting a pillow on top of the audio foam.

WEEK THREE: I created a little cave for the mic. Unfortunately, the mic kinda got lost.

WEEK FOUR: As week 3, but with the dog's mattress on the lamp behind me. Just 'cause. See, every time I've been in a studio, there's softness everywhere, to catch the audio waves and reduce reflected sound. The recordings were echo-y to my ear, so I thought this might help. Thankfully, he doesn't shed.

WEEK FIVE: I started building forts.

The first one wasn't much more structurally exciting than adding a blanket over my head to the setup in week 1. But by the next week, my newfangled Editor's Keys portable vocal booth pro2 arrived, and I was able to get seriously creative.

WEEK SIX: There are pieces of bed involved. Suitcases. And the foam Jason gave me on the mic stand behind. And towels. And the dog's bed. And a lap desk. It's very exciting. it's also raining directly above my head onto the skylight, which is noisy. Must try harder.

WEEK SEVEN: I am in a more complete fort. Every pillow in the house has been enlisted. Every blanket. Clamps. Clips. And I am trapped. I literally can't get out. Help.

Over the past five years, every writer I know has been told by their agent to 'monetise the activity around their writing'. Give talks. Go to conventions. Judge prizes. Write reviews. Write articles. Go on telly. Go on radio. Go on Twitter. Build your brand.

The problem with all these activities is that nobody actually wants to pay you to do them. Instead, you are given vague assertions that it will be good for sales, good for your profile, and if you do all these things, then my son, there will be jam for tea.

Well, I'm now 41, have written 10 books over 12 years, and for me it's tea time. The kettle has come to the boil, the Crown Derby is laid out, the bread is sliced and I need the jam right now. In short, I want to be paid for what I do.

The Urban Homestead®

A crazy dream...

Science, storytelling, and "gut churn": Jad Abumrad on the secrets of creative success

on Brain Pickings

The Hidden Biases in Big Data. By @Kate Crawford at Harvard Business Review

HT John Wardley, whom I interviewed for the Analog Lessons project

Once upon a time, my best friend Alex said he wanted to become a roller coaster designer. That piqued my interest. I had no idea such a delightful thing was possible, that it could be done!

use your nose to get through the maze of mirrors. another inspired installation from jellymongers Bompas and Parr, this time at the RSC in Stratford.

From the B&P website:

The Waft that Woos is a mirror maze, navigable by nose and inspired by the Merry Wives of Windsor and Shakespearian comedy. Follow the scent of the only aphrodisiac known to mankind (which is absorbed via your lungs and eyeballs) to the heart of the maze.

Bompas & Parr's installation is geared to give visitors a tangible Shakespearian experience, exploding narratives, characterisation and criticism to an architectural and inhabitable scale. Come explore the maze and sniff the Shakespearean love oil our atmospheric aphrodisiac.

a description of the forthcoming "newest public amusement", A Trip to Japan in Sixteen Minutes, from 14 September 1902, in the New York Times.

All lovers of good smells are expected to patronize the convert, which will be given by Mr. Sadakachi Hartmann, an aesthete and odorist, or smell expert of no mean standing. This olfactory enthusiast will in a way feed the various smells into his machine, and by a series of stops and vales, vert much after the manner of an automatic piano player, will, he says, play upon the senses of his audience much as a great musician sways the listeners with tonal melodies."

also, delightfully,

The smell soloist may strike the low C by diffusing a strong smell of patchouli, then the high F with a piercing note of burning horsehair." A female Japanese dancer and "soft Japanese airs" accompany the recital to aid the public in their appreciation of this olfactory concert.