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David Brake

Listed below are comments made by David Brake between Tuesday, 9th September 2008 and Wednesday, 14th January 2009.

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In Search of Cultural Identifiers 11:53am on 14 Jan 2009 I completely agree with your analysis of the problems with the otherwise excellent Open Library. Mind you, there is no automatic way I can see (short of user intervention) to differentiate between different instantiations of a book that are meaningfully different (second editions that have been extensively revised) from different instances that are essentially the same (second editions that are just reprints of the first editions). Should book, radio and TV versions of HHGTTG be grouped or separate?

I do think that Open Library should offer the ability to provide a "cultural artefact" metapage for each book though to help users to navigate.

This problem is also common to book sites like http://www.goodreads.com/ - none seems to have solved (or even noticed) it!

I hope that your raising this on a BBC site will get a reaction from some of the people running these sites.
Radio Pop upgraded 2:47pm on 18 Dec 2008 How about integration with LastFM so that if we listen to a radio podcast and it gets scrobbled it can also get added to our Radio Pop profile automatically? I am almost never at a computer or online when listening - I am out and about and offline...
Suggest a story idea 12:03pm on 09 Sep 2008 For a story about prostitution you might want to have a chat with fellow R4 presenter Laurie Taylor for academic sources on the subject. He's covered it a few times on Thinking Allowed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20080730.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/rams/thinkingallowed_20050914.ram

I was particularly intrigued by this interview:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20071212.shtml

"Laura María Agustin talks about her latest book Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry and exposes the myths surrounding ‘human trafficking’." (she suggests for many 'trafficked' women prostitution is a choice - not an ideal one but a rational choice given their circumstances)

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David Brake