David Wisehart's Kindle Author Interview.

David Wisehart, founder of the Kindle Author blog, interviewed me recently and the interview was posted on Tuesday.

Now, the questions and answers, for this interview differ from David Cleinman's recent interview...so anyone interested in my writing, my thought, my experiences, would find reading both interviews, to be beneficial.

David Wisehart's Kindle Author blog, is one of the more established platforms to raise awareness of the work of new writers, on the Internet.

I would like to thank David, for giving me the chance to discuss my life and work...besides which I enjoyed answering his questions.

The interview can be found here:

Kindle Author interview

Happy reading.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html

and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks. You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Lost in the static of the internet.

My blog is just over four years old. In that time, it has been read by over a third of a million of people. It has garnered, too, some regular readers whose comments on the blog, prove interesting. What is characteristic about these regular readers is that they truly appreciate my writing and think it something special, for them. Yet, in my mind, this appreciation is juxtaposed against a modest daily readership of several hundred readers. To me, this means only one thing: my writing is being lost in the static of the internet.

I shall have to explain. By January 2009, Technorati reckoned there were 133,000,000 blogs and counting. No doubt that number has since grown. Now, this number is both inspiring and depressing. It is inspiring because so many people have taken to writing of their personal worlds. It is depressing because so many people have taken to writing of their personal worlds. You see, the vast number of blogs out there, means that any blog, no matter how good, how well written, how insightful, how memorable or how unique, is going to be swamped by the vast horde of other offerings out there. Basically, it is very difficult for any blog to find its audience, or should I say, for any audience to find its natural blog: there is simply too much out there for it to be clear what a particular reader should be looking at.

Thus it is that we have the situation on my blog about giftedness. The number of gifted people in the world is truly huge: about 2% of the world’s population, or roughly 140 million people, is moderately gifted or greater. It is difficult to estimate what proportion of those would be inherently interested in learning more about giftedness and perhaps enjoying tales of like experiences. Clearly, though it is likely to run into millions of people, out of that 140 million. So, the question is: why does my blog have several hundred daily readers, instead of several million? The answer is simple: there is no more crowded a place, filled with distractions, than the internet. My millions of natural readers, for this blog, are never likely to ever hear about the blog, or to learn that its writing would appeal to them, because it is buried in a vast ocean of other blogs, sites and random web pages.

Writing a blog is, thus, a long term investment in a future readership that may steadily grow over time, but which is not likely to be significant, over night. My blog will, I hope, remain on the net, for readers to discover, many years from now. Over time, perhaps, I will reach a greater proportion of those natural readers, as word spreads. Yet, this is going to be a slow process. I may not even be writing any longer, by the time most of those natural readers find my blog.

This fate, whilst disagreeable is, though, the common one for all blogs not written by a celebrity. I am not well known enough for hordes of people to stampede their way to my blog, finding it by active searches. At least, not well known enough at this time: that may change in years to come. Until then, I must be patient and write on, for my select audience, not knowing whether the audience will ever be much larger, despite the evident enthusiasm of the audience I do have. It is, however, in that enthusiasm that some hope lies: if you enjoy reading my blog, perhaps you might tell others of it, so that they, too, in turn, might have the chance to enjoy it. Perhaps word of mouth can overcome the nigh infinite anonymity of the internet, and point out my blog to more of those who would, naturally, find interest in it.

I hope to continue blogging in the coming year, even though my blog shall, no doubt, continue to be lost in the static of the internet, and remain relatively unknown. It may be that it will have more readers, after I have stopped writing it, than it has now. If so, then those future readers will have missed the possibility of direct interaction…but heh, I can’t wait forever. At least, I have been trying to communicate my understandings, these past four years. I can do no more, in that direction, than I already have.

Thank you for reading.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

250,000 blog visitors and counting...

Today begins a new year...it also marks the crossing of a threshold, for me. This morning, my blog visitor count crossed the quarter of a million mark and, at 6.30 pm Malaysian time, on 1/1/10, New Year's Day, I have had 250,080 visitors to my blog, in total, since it began on September 19th 2006.

Now, to some a quarter of a million visitors may not sound like much. However, I would like you to think about it, for a bit. How many people do you think you will meet, personally, in your lifetime? No matter how gregarious you are, there is just no way it is going to reach a quarter of a million. How many people, in your lifetime, will you actually speak to? Again, no matter how gregarious you are, it is not going to reach a quarter of a million - unless you are a performer of some kind and take to the stage on a regular basis - and talk about yourself. However, on a personal basis, there is no way you are going to speak to a quarter of a million people. Thus, that quarter of a million people that I have communicated with, is a very significant number: it is many times more than the number of people I could possibly have communicated, personally, to, in a lifetime of random chatter.

So, even though I have not left my computer to do so, I have managed to "chat" to many lifetimes worth of people, in the three years since my blog began. I think that is an unexpected and worthy accomplishment since, when I began my blog, I had no idea how popular it would prove, or whether anyone would find it and read it at all. I was writing, expressing my thoughts at the time. I had no idea of the size of the audience I would reach.

By another scale of reckoning a quarter of a million people is a significant number, too. Imagine, for instance, that that represented the number of book sales, I had made. It is quite something to sell a quarter of a million copies of a book. So, compared to the typical sales of books, my blog has proven to be a "best seller".

I am conscious, however, that there are much more successful blogs in this world. Yet, I am not crestfallen to know this. Those other blogs are not, like my own, niche interests. They are usually focussed on a mass market interest - such as film star gossip, some young woman's love life, or the like. I cannot, therefore, expect to compete with revelations of Tom Cruise's private life, or Brad Pitt's kids.

I am happy to know that my blog is being read by people with an interest in what interests me - and that is enough. That there should have been so many of them, over the past three years, is quietly pleasing.

Thank you, for reading. If you have enjoyed any of my posts, do let others know about my blog, so that they can enjoy it, too.

Happy New Year.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Perez Hilton/Mario Lavandeira, blogger: the meaning of his success.

Perez Hilton, whose real name is the less euphonious, Mario Lavandeira, is one of the world’s most successful “bloggers”. I use the quotation marks because what he puts on his blog does not compare to what most serious bloggers are trying to do. In brief, Perez Hilton blogs about the doings of the famous – and has an undying interest in the trivial. His blog consists of everything an intelligent person wouldn’t want to know, about people an intelligent person wouldn’t want to know in the first place.

It worried me to learn that Perez Hilton’s eponymous website secures around 100 million visitors per month. That is an astonishing number compared to the typical blog and is indicative, not of Perez Hilton’s greatness as a writer, but of his audience’s lack of discrimination. Now, I am not going to criticize his readership, for themselves, nor blame them as individuals for being interested in such classic items as: “Faeces throwing monkey” and “Soledad O’Brien: not as nice as she looks”. Other posts call Joaquin Phoenix’s rap debut, a “joke”, praise Whitney Houston’s good looks, and speculate that Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean (all of 16) has the hots for Robert Pattinson, of Twilight fame.

It all comes across as extremely unimportant, vapid, trivial and ultimately valueless. Yet, it sells. A hundred million people a month pop by to read what Perez Hilton considers important enough to highlight in Hollywood gossip. It is also making Mario Lavandeira a rich man: last year he earnt two million US dollars.

The big question is: why? Why do so many people actually waste precious time in their lives actually reading such material? The answer is that the culture in which they live has lost sight of what is important. They grow up surrounded by the trivial masquerading as important – and so lose the ability to distinguish what is worthy of attention, from what should be ignored. Everything Mario Lavandeira/Perez Hilton writes, should be ignored by anyone of any discernment – and probably is. However, there are millions of people who find the most minor deeds or misdeeds of “celebrities” fascinating enough to pop by for a daily read of “Perez Hilton, Queen of all Media”.

I am not sure whether this global fascination for the trivial is a temporary cultural issue, or whether it is indicative of a lasting decline in the mental powers of the human race. You see people who are thinking about whether Joaquin Phoenix really should shave, are people who are not thinking about anything more important. When you have a whole human race doing that, then matters are dire. From Perez Hilton’s traffic it would seem that a significant chunk of the human race are, in fact, preoccupied with matters as trivial as whether a particular 16 year old girl fancies Robert Pattinson, or not.

It is my hope that our present era of triviality will pass and usher in an era of more substance. However, the signs don’t look good. The celebrity culture has a great momentum about it. More and more media space is consumed with gossip on the most trivial of individuals. Then, on top of this, there is a generation on generation decline in the intellectual (genetic) quality of the human race as a whole, which is well documented and has been going on since at least the 19th century. (see Richard Lynn)

It looks like the future will be as the present, only worse – and the Perez Hilton’s of the world will find it as easy to make two million dollars a year, in the future, as they do, today.

Incidentally, Perez Hilton/Mario Lavandeira’s site was so busy it took me several minutes to load on both of the two occasions I have ever visited the site, in my life (both for research purposes, I hasten to add!). I found the whole experience rather uncomfortable and, had I not the need to come to understand the Perez Hilton/Mario Lavandeira phenomenon, I probably would not have bothered waiting.

The fact that Mario Lavandeira’s gossip can attract so many visitors leads me to ask one question: if Albert Einstein were alive today, and had a blog, would he attract 100 million visitors a month, even with his global fame?

I seriously doubt it. It is more likely that Einstein would attract a few hundred thousand interested souls lost in a dessert of others, consumed with whether a particular star brushes their teeth often enough.

We live in trivial times – fingers crossed for deeper ones, to come. A good sign would be if Perez Hilton’s site hit rate began to drop precipitously. Should it ever fall below a million a month, perhaps we could breathe more easily and look forward to more considered times ahead.

Here’s hoping.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Google search and successful blogs

If you have a successful blog, it is quite possible that no-one will be able to see it.

I should explain. Today, I have been unable to get to my own blog, using Google as a search engine. It just says: "We are sorry but your query looks like an automated request from a virus or spyware application".

How bizarre. I can't access my own blog. I tried using the search engine to find it, by typing in "scientific child prodigy". Sure enough, my listing came up No.1 - but when I clicked on it, I wasn't allowed to go to the page: I got the "We're sorry but..." page, again.

Every way I tried to get to my blog, I got the same result. Even from my blogger interface, I can't view my own blog.

Now, I don't know if it is just my computer, or if this is a global problem - and everyone who tries to read my blog is being blocked by Google. If so, it is very ironic indeed, since my blog is hosted on Blogspot which is OWNED by Google.

I am at a loss. So, if you have had trouble getting to my blog I apologize. Somewhere, there is a machine that equates popularity of search, with viral infection. There is no virus. There is just a simple case of a lot of people searching for the blog at the same time.

Thank you for your patience. I hope this is resolved soon because otherwise I may as well stop writing - for what would be the point if no-one can get to my site?

Unposted comments posted.

Some people have posted comments, recently, that I hadn't had time to address. Now, I have...well, most of them. So please look for an answer to your comment post, if you wish to find one.

Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Blogger formatting problem

Sorry for the formatting of the previous post: I can't create spaces between the paragraphs. Whenever I try, they are compressed together after publishing. If it returns to normal, I will have solved the problem, and if it doesn't I haven't.

Thanks for your patience.

Blogger display failure: help wanted.

First of all, I am sorry if the display looks strange. Everything is NOT meant to be in one vertical column with the sidebars beneath the posting text. I did not put it that way and have no idea why it is that way. So, I have a request: if you do know how these things work and have some advice regarding how to restore my formatting to its usual self, please advise me in a comment post or email so that I can correct it.

Note that before this re-formatting occurred, I did nothing to change it. All I did was post - and note the alteration.

Thanks very much for your help in advance.