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Permit me a bit of a brag here, because I feel rather good today after reading Bob Cassidy's good thoughts about Naked Mentalism on the Magic Cafe:
"Finally started reading Naked Mentalism 3
(and the first two as well), and I must say this is refreshingly good
and amazing material. Well thought out routines with the kind of
presentational subtleties that are the hallmark (or should be) of
professional mentalism.
Highly recommended."
Over the years, I've used a lot of open source software, and during that time a common theme has emerged. Open source developers are great coders, but overall, the standard of the user documentation can leave much to be desired!
True story: I was once commissioned to write an article for a magazine showing how to install an open source personal automated IP telephony package. The software itself had lots of dependencies, which I dutifully downloaded, complied and installed. Then, at around 4am and about 75% of the way through, the documenter seemed to have become bored. He ended the documentation with a phrase like: "There are a bunch of other things you'll probably need to do to get this running..." What the f**k...? That's not documentation; it's a joke.
Much more common are user guides and other documentation that are simply out of date. When a new release means changes to the way you install or use the software, the instructions need updating. They are a VITAL part of that release. People do not have time to plough through your code trying to work out what the hell you mean. We are not mind readers. We are your users. Trying to get software to run is not the object of the exercise: using it to complete a task is.
I fully realise and applaud the fact that the open source business model involves allowing the software to get to whomever can benefit from it, and to charge for consultancy, customisation and books showing how to go deeper, but come on: basic documentation is the difference between an enthusiastic user buying your time or books and thinking your stuff is the worst piece of digital excrement ever to stink up a hard drive.
Thank you.
I've started to place corrupt versions of Naked Mentalism 1 & 2 on P2P networks. Such larks...
Naked Mentalism 3 is nearly ready for release, and as usual I'm getting increasingly nervous. Will people like it? Will they understand it? Will anyone want it?
The feedback from the people who have read the manuscript recently has been very good and positive, but that never stops me from feeling that when it's released, people will hate it. When I released the first volume, I wondered if this nervousness ever goes away. It doesn't, but it's probably a good thing because it makes me try harder to create something of quality and worth.
I watched an item on the news this morning about "dumpster diving" for food thrown out by supermarkets simply because it's past its sell-by date. A shocking statistic flashed on the screen. The US alone throws out billions of pounds in weight of perfectly good food every year simply because it is "time" to do so.
In the UK, the big supermarkets have basically gang raped the hell out of our high streets, and local councils have held their coats while they did it. Up and down the UK, high streets lost small businesses as the likes of Tesco expanded into everything from dry cleaning to prescriptions. no one was there to help them and that was wrong of us. I propose a new law that taxes the supermarkets to fund a chain of high street stores that cheaply sell the "past sell-by" food they currently throw away.
I don't usually talk about my magic books in this blog, but about 5 years ago, realised that I rather liked using my smarts to come up with new material for magicians. Perhaps the thing I'm most known for inside magic is Naked Mentalism, which has to do with using genuine psychological principles in magic - specifically mind magic or "mentalism". I'm currently readying Naked Mentalism 3 for sending out to trusted friends to read and pick apart, and I thought it'd be good to throw caution to the wind and share what it's all about.
Volume three marks quite a departure in the series. By that, I mean it focuses on the way in which mystery entertainers can exploit the naturally occurring "bugs" in the way we use common sense thinking. It is the business of experimental psychology to discover these bugs. Rather than showing how to avoid them, this book shows how to use these bugs to enhance effects of all kinds (not just mentalism effects) to make them seem more natural and all the more remarkable. As well as containing more traditional "Naked" effects, this, I think is the "breakout" volume of the Naked Mentalism series because it spills quite naturally into other areas where the techniques I reveal are also applicable.
Needless to say, I'm very excited about this book, and excited to know what the magic community at large think about it.
