Month: August 2006
Pre-BarCampLondon Geekdinner with Ben Metcalfe
The next geekdinner will be on Friday 1st September 2006 with the most colourful character in London, Ben Metcalfe. Ben will be leaving London for greener and geeker land in San Francisco. If you don't know the smart, young and ever-so cheeky Metcalfe, here's a few pictures to remind you (oh and a funny movie).
Not only will we be seeing Ben off that night…. This will also be the perfect chance to meet up with other BarCampers and prepare for the long BarCamp weekend. Please note: The geekdinner is not exclusively for BarCampers, anyone is welcome including those who missed out this time around.
When: Sept 1st 6:30pm till about 11pm (Remember BarCampLondon is the next day, so no late night)
Where: The Bottlescrue, 53 – 60 Holburn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2FD
Nearest Underground: City Thameslink (Holborn Viaduct) or Chancery Lane Station
Special Guest: Ben Metcalfe
Cost: 5 pounds for food
Foiled terrorist plot at Heathrow
I first heard about foiled terror plot in my aggreagtor while heading to welling today (don't ask) but have been so busy, to read about it fully. Now sat on the train looking through the news and blogs, I'm getting much more detail. One of the most interesting is from Bruce Schneier.
The most interesting part is the ban on carry-ons. First up, I thought its about bloody time – I've seen people carry things as close to a suitcase as you can get, on board. But then I read the actual list of whats allowed.
- Pocket size wallets and pocket size purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards, identity cards etc (not handbags);
- Travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets);
- Prescription medicines and medical items sufficient and essential for the flight (e.g. diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic;
- Spectacles and sunglasses, without cases;
- Contact lens holders, without bottles of solution;
- For those traveling with an infant: baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger);
- Sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags);
- Female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (e.g. tampons, pads, towels and wipes) tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs;
- Keys (but no electrical key fobs)
What the heck! I have no idea whats caused this insane change in the rules but it must have been something pretty serious and maybe something to do with liquids? Either way, I'm in total agreement with the last sense from Bruce.
I'm sure glad I'm not flying anywhere this week.
Geek and Geekhag podcast number 12 – Religion
Me and Sarah this time get to grips with the very difficult subject of religion in this 1 hour podcast. This might be a little shocking if your not aware of me and Sarah's position on the religion debate. And yes its not going to be as clean and as well thought out as Dave Slusher's podcast about the same subject but its just me and sarah talking like we usually do. Nothing more, nothing less.
Apple keynote covered
Once again, those guys over at Engadget have the Apple Keynote covered.
BarCampLondon is on, 2nd – 3rd September 2006
Its what many of you have been waiting for… The first british BarCamp is happening in September, BarCampLondon 2006 is go.
What is BarCampLondon? Think of it as a way to get the tech/geek community together in London at the end of the summer. What will happen during the event? Only one thing is certain: It's up to you to decide. The most important thing you should take away from the event? Relationships with other geeks! (You can find out more about the BarCamp movement and the rules and principles of being an attendee on the RulesOfBarCamp page. Please make sure you understand what a BarCamp is before you sign up!)
When's it happening?
Saturday morning, September 2nd to Sunday early evening, September 3rd 2006. Exact hours to be confirmed. There will also be an accompanying GeekDinner on Friday 1st September, although you will have to find your own accommodation between Friday evening and Saturday morning.Where will it happen?
Yahoo! Europe's London office. We would like to thank Yahoo! for making this happen by offering us a venue.Yahoo! UK Ltd
125 Shaftesbury Avenue
London
WC2H 8ADMaps
Yahoo! Map – Google Map – Multimap – StreetmapGetting there?
The best way to get to the event is via public transport.Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road underground stations are nearby. Covent Garden is also close by, however it gets very busy and often exit-only at weekends (thus best avoided!). Bus numbers 24, 29 and 176 stop close by (map).
You can also use the TfL Journey Planner to obtain specific travel advice from your location (use destination postcode WC2H 8AD).
Please Note: There are no car parking spaces available at the venue. If you are coming by car we would suggest either parking outside of London and traveling in by Tube or using one of the pricey NCP-type car parks nearby (P icons on map)
Who's organising this all?
- Ben Metcalfe – Citizen Agency, blog, barcamp@NOSPAMbenmetcalfe.com
- Ian Forrester – BBC WorldService, blog, barcamp@NOSPAMcubicgarden.com
- Murray Rowan – Yahoo! UK
- Paul Hammond – Yahoo! UK
How do I sign up?
We have a separate page for attendees: BarCampLondonAttendees. Please sign up there!Sponsors and Sponsorship opptunties
BarCamps are free events, organised by volunteers. With this in mind, there are some associated costs with running such an event – and it is customary for local BarCamp organisers to find sponsorship for these costs.BarCamps offer sponsors a unique and cost-effective way of increasing their exposure to the London geek scene. Most sponsorship packages are £350.
BarCamp attendees are usually either industry professionals or IT students.
If you think you might be able to sponsor this event, please visit the BarCampLondonSponsorship page.
We would like to thank the following companies who have already kindly agreed to sponsor BarCampLondon:
Yahoo! UK, who are providing us with a venue and connectivity
Talking about Security through obscurity – Bumpkey
About Ben’s disclosure of the BBC’s weather feeds
I forgot I haven't publicly said anything about Ben Metcalfe highlighting the direct urls of the weather feeds. My take on the whole thing is simple – Security through obscurity.
A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them.
Security through or by obscurity, is generally a bad idea. By the BBC developer putting the urls inside a plain text javascript file, he or she was relying on Security through obscurity. Ben simply disclosed this information to the world. You could say well he should have let the BBC know, but like software vulnerabilities company's will sit on this information for years because its not important enough. Nope theres no douht in my mind that Ben did the right thing, and maybe taking down the blog post was a good idea for the BBC. We should be thankful and hell this might have spurred some movement on the backstage front? I do wonder if the javascript file in question still has the urls inside of it?
What the heck happened to x3d?
Well it would seem the x3d community blog has the answer to my question.
5-10 years ago people were touting that it would only be a matter of time before everyone started building 3D web sites just like they were building HTML pages. What happened? Is it that 3D on the web failed? Or is it that many of us didn''t really understand that the Web is a much bigger and more diverse place than HTML pages? X3D, particularly in it's XML incarnation, is actually growing very very rapidly on the web. But it's not growing as HTML pages – it is growing as real XML-based applications that demand serious technical chops to develop
That maybe but come on, your telling me the x3d guys don't want people to mashup realtime data and api's into something x3d? Then looking back a little longer, I found this gem.
OK, so we've spent like 5 or 6 years moving from VRML to X3D…what's the point! Visually the advanced VRML browsers compete pretty well with X3D browsers but it's time to make the XML magic really appear.
Sandy suggestions some implementations and boy oh boy are they run of the mill. No disrespect but there pretty boring and if I saw these, I would shake my head in shame. Recently I've been very much into the visualisation of complex data and honestly I think via some very clever use of x3d you can generate something actually very useful. Lets do a better example. Take Digg data and boy oh boy you could do some very clever things to map whats hot and whats not. Through transparency and using the zindex it would be possible to show existing stories from days before and maybe there peaks. It would be like a landscape of stories with there digg totals in yindex (height), date in the zindex (distance) and maybe relvents or grouping across the xindex (across). Using your mouse you could hover over one and things would open up a little to show you more details of that story. Alright maybe my example isn't much better but at least its not your usual 3d on the web stuff.
I'm dying to try out some of this X3D stuff via XSL and the cocoon framework. I'm thinking about the fun I use to have with Povray and what I can currently do with XSL and XML. And I have done stuff with VRML and Javascript in the past, so I should be able do something quite interesting with a little time. I did download a X3D viewer the other day but only tried out the sample files.
Nokia most stolen phone
NOKIA mobile phones are the most-frequently stolen handsets in London, reveals The Mirror. They made up half of all thefts, with seven models featured in the top 10. The Nokia 6230 was the most-stolen phone, Samsung D500 second and Motorola.
From the Mirror of all sources. Either way, there is a reason why my mobile has never been stolen, maybe this might have something to do with it. I tend to pick not so beautiful and popular phones. In the usual way, I pick features and functions over style and brand.
95 Theses of Geek Activism
In the vein of the cluetrain manfesto, Devanshu posted a great post with 95 points about geek activism. Honestly there pretty awesome, but here's my favorate…
- Violating a license agreement is not theft.
- All corporations are not on your side.
- Everything will enter the public domain some day- even Mickey Mouse.
- Trusted computers must not be trusted.
- Proprietary data formats must never store public information.
- Fair use is a good thing.
- Use multiple operating systems regularly so you truly understand interoperability.
- Data mining will not stop terror.
- Express your opinion in public
- Blog
- Security is a trade-off- what are you willing to give up?
- Use Creative Commons
- Understand the difference between civil disobedience and breaking the law.
- Support the free, public domain archives of information.
- Undermine censorship by publishing information censored in oppressive countries.
- Voicing your views in a Slashdot comment thread is good, in your own blog is better, but in places that non-geeks frequent is best.
- Have a global perspective in ideas of geek civil liberties, intellectual property rights and so forth. Do you like your country’s policies in this respect? Can you help people from another country?
- Read more
- Make sure that if a vendor locks you in, you lock them out.
- Linux is no longer a philosophy- it is a good piece of software. Use it if it fits your needs.
- More information available to the most number of people is a good thing.
- Vote
- Read our modern geek philosophers- read Bruce Perens, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and even Richard Stallman. Read Schneier to find practical reasons why stupid security mechanisms are stupid. Read them even if you disagree with them- it will help frame your point of view.
- DRM only keeps an honest user honest.
- Be proud of being a geek, a gamer, a privacy advocate, promoter of free speech and an innovator without fear of litigation, of government or restrictions on liberties- a geek activist.
London Geek Picnic – 26th August 2006
Almost directly from Geekdinner.co.uk and following on from my earlier post
This month we're going to do something a little different…
I call it a London Geek Picnic
The geek picnic is simply an excuse to sit around with other geeks, enjoying the sunshine and contributing towards an excellent day of fun. This is also a chance to bring your better half, friend, crush to something geeky but not overally geeky (save it for September).
Who's the Guest?
There will be no guest this time around, so we're providing a soapbox and megaphone for anyone to talk about something geeky. I'm hoping we can get everyone up at one point, even if its for 30secs.
Other entertainment will include Frisbee and anything else people decide to bringWhat will you need to bring?
Something to sit on like an old rug, some drinks of your own choosing and something from the list of picnic food and gear. And don't worry besides bringing plastic cups or crisps there will be no other cost. (the list and wiki are being generated)
What about the British Weather?
If it looks like rain a couple of days before, we will cancel the picnic and we'll try again for another better day. If it rains on the day, we can camp out at a local coffee shop till we get sunshine again. I would love to find an alternative venue, if you have one in mind let us know.
How do I sign up?
Unlike previous geekdinner's I need people who sign up to also bring a certain item. So you can now sign up on the wiki by marking your name next to an item or two.
Details
When: Aug 26th 3pm till about 10pm (expect to move on by 10pm)
Where: Hyde Park, London.
Nearest Underground: Lancaster Gate station
Special Guest: You!
Cost: Nothing, just bring something from the listMore details and the link to the wiki (use password ty1t1yyyp1p1)
will be published this weekend. Feel free to post a comment to show your interest. please note i moderate comments, they will be authorised asap…
Thoughts on the bombings in Lebanon
I found this on Ben's blog today and needed to post up this video which really outlines so well who's really paying to price for this pointless and meaningless conflict. Someone once said, Everything is lost in war, nothing is gained. And yes its easy for me to say this from my house in South East London but you know what, like Ben I'm really getting a nasty taste of whats done in the name of a religion.
I have to admit I generally dislike the concept of any and all religions its always been the number one cause for segregation and conflict in, and is used ultimately as a control/influence mechanism for society.
I'll leave it be for now, and maybe expand on this subject a lot more in the near future.
Visualisation of complex data
I was catching up with mobuzztv today and caught quite a few things in the links, which I felt like sharing.
First up was a link to a guy who has made quite aggressive objects out of his email spam.
The images from the Spam Architecture series are generated by a computer program that accepts as input, junk email. Various patterns, keywords and rhythms found in the text are translated into three-dimensional modeling gestures.
Nice stuff, but I was thinking it would be great to see a real time view of this thing growing over days or weeks then bits getting lobbed off when he purges his spam folder. And this could easily be done with x3d, hey what ever happend to x3d? Anyway, it also seems Alex has a few projects based on visualising complex data like this one called Brecht, a VJ tool based on SQL queries.
Second through the gates, and on a simlar vein is shape of song
The custom software in this work draws musical patterns in the form of translucent arches, allowing viewers to see–literally–the shape of any composition available on the Web. The resulting images reflect the full range of musical forms, from the deep structure of Bach to the crystalline beauty of Philip Glass.
I don't what else to say but I would love to see these drawn using multiple colours and animated to the music. Which (with my remix head on) could be done using clever use of SVG. Do check out the Gallery to get a feel for what I mean.
Third but somewhat deserving to be last, Brian Eno and David Byrne offer all there song data from there latest album My life in the bush of ghosts under a creative commons licence. Great, and lots of people have already started remixing but there something I can't let go of so easily. Why wrap the whole damm site up in Flash! Its really fiddley and means I can't permalink to any of my favorate remixes or even copy the text for a blockquote. One word…. suck! Although the general idea is good. Shame its let down by some over the top flash wankery.
Oh quick plug for one my favorate blogs about information visualisation, information aesthetics. Now if only someone could make the link between information visualisation and real world remixing of xml and webservices.