Caleb Woodbridge's Blog, page 7
May 6, 2013
All change - part 1: My new job in publishing
The last few weeks have been crazy, and the last few days crazier still. After eight and a half years of living in Cardiff, I've just this weekend upped sticks and moved to London. Mad, right? But more on that in another blog post. What I really want to talk about now is the reason for my move...
Tomorrow I start as Assistant Digital Editor with Hodder and Stoughton. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that at last - at long last - I have a job in publishing. It's ten years ago this J...
March 3, 2013
Lincoln movie review
I'm a big fan of The West Wing, and this was rather like a period version of Aaron Sorkin's political drama. In many ways, that's high praise, but there's something rather small-screen about this film. My friend James argued that it never quite shakes the feeling of being a glorified TV movie, and it's certainly a talker.
Director Steven Spielberg restrains himself from giving it a more epic cinematic sweep and scope to focus on Lincoln's fight to abolish slavery. But it can't make up its...
March 2, 2013
Cineworld Unlimited + Orange Wednesday = Movie Watching Win
At the start of this month, I browsed through IMDB making note of the various films that I'd like to see this year. There were enough of them for me to feel it was worth treating myself to a Cineworld Unlimited card. It allows me to see as many films as I like for a flat monthly fee of £15, for a minimum subscription of a year. If you're seeing two films a month or more, it's likely to be worth the cost. I really enjoy films and seeing them on the big screen with great sound, andConvenientl...
February 17, 2013
MOOCs and the Digital Future of Higher Education
Image: stock.xchng
There's a lot of interest at the moment in Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), such as those offered by Coursera and Khan Academy - for example, this article from a US perspective about How to Save College, or this Times Higher Education article about Edinburgh University getting 300,000 students on its Coursera courses. On the latter, one commenter accused it of destroying the HE sector from within. They said this as if it were a bad thing, but really the r...
January 29, 2013
Choosing a mini-tablet
In the run up to Christmas, I'd been admiring the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Google Nexus 7 and, of course, the iPad mini. I wistfully played with them in-store, trying to find a reason to justify the purchase. I couldn't really afford or justify it out of my spare income, so I wasn't expecting to get my hands on one any time soon.
But a work Christmas bonus - specifically for a mini tablet - suddenly put me in the market for one of these cool little devices. Thank you to my boss! So which wou...
January 24, 2013
Review - Sophie Scholl: The Real Story, by Frank McDonough
Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler by Frank McDonoughMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I recently finished this moving account of the life of Sophie Scholl, a German student who bravely resisted the Nazis. The book does a good job of telling the story of Sophie's life and the events that propelled her into speaking out against the Nazis.
The White Rose group of which she was a part published leaflets trying to stir the consciences of German people to resist what the Nazis...
August 27, 2012
What's the point of education?
At the moment, Evangelical Alliance Wales are consulting Christians on a wide number of issues to put together a "Manifesto for Wales", a positive Christian vision for society. This is a great idea - Christian political engagement is often very reactive, simply trying to stem the tide on the secularisation of our society, rather than offering a positive alternative, so I'm glad EA is trying to get Christians together to think these things through.
I put together a few rough thoughts of...
June 21, 2012
How the Doctor Changed My Life, Five Years On
It's five years since I heard that my short story, The Shopping Trolleys of Doom, had been shortlisted in Big Finish's Doctor Who writing competition. It was published a year later in Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life. Editor Simon Guerrier has compiled a "where are they
now?" blog post about the crop of writers who had their stories published in the collection, How the Doctor Changed My Life Changed My Life.
It was really exciting to have that first publication and I've had two...
February 7, 2012
Quantum fluctuations - something from nothing?
Some late night musings on a classic philosophical question, given a new spin by quantum physics...
Can something come from nothing? In a vacuum, quantum fluctuations mean that energetic particles appear and disappear from nothing. Some atheists argue that this means we don't need God to explain why the universe exists.
But even a vacuum isn't really nothing: it's like an empty bank account - no money, but it still has rules governing how things can be put in and out of it. Absolute no...
Can something come from nothing? In a vacuum, quantum fluctuations mean that energetic particles appear and disappear from nothing. Some atheists argue that this means we don't need God to explain why the universe exists.
But even a vacuum isn't really nothing: it's like an empty bank account - no money, but it still has rules governing how things can be put in and out of it. Absolute no...
January 9, 2012
Poetry on the unprinted page, or, the trouble with ebooks
Right now, I'm in the thick of an exciting work placement with the Welsh publishing house Seren. Over eight weeks, I'm working as a Digital Assistant, getting them set up in the brave new world of ebook publishing. As both a book and technology geek, it's a great job for me to tackle.Seren have loads of great titles: last year, they published The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness, which was long-listed for the Man Booker prize, and shortlisted for the Costa first novel award...
