Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

Snowden & Bunnie against the law

Quite a few people shared with me Forbidden Research
at MIT Media Lab. It going to be streamed live, which I hope to be tuned into. Its got Edward Snowdon and Bunnie (yes the orginal xbox hacker!)

In a world where seemingly anything is possible, there are still lines of inquiry and research that—for a host of reasons—remain forbidden. Exploring restricted scientific and cultural topics in the face of social and moral constraints requires a willingness to buck the rules; to disobey them conscientiously. You don’t win a Nobel prize by doing what you’re told, but there is a fuzzy line—sometimes obvious only in retrospect—between disobedience that helps society and disobedience that doesn’t.

https://twitter.com/bunniestudios/status/755746841925414913

Sexoration is now in the Urban Dictionary

test 2

I defined sexoration in the urban dictionary a while ago.

Sexoration

A type of dating scam which involves exchanging pictures and videos with a target. Then blackmailing them later in return for money or some other type of currency.
Works directly with Catfish, as the shared pictures are usually ripped from elsewhere. Also similar to Ransomware in impact. She contacted out the blue, it felt like it was for sexoration

I used it in my TEDxTalk: Dating against humanity

Is this a made up thing?

Although the video above isn’t strictly sexortation, you can see how blackmail crossed with catfishing can lead to a dangerious place. Its a very real thing, you only have look at the Skype support site. Its super destructive and one bad mistake can cause the endless worry and pain. I simply gave it a name which made sense from what I heard and seen, Urban dictionary agreed.

Undressed first watch

https://twitter.com/cubicgarden/status/754471829746704385

Its taken ages for me to finally watch part of TLC’s undressed, mainly because I don’t own Sky, Cable or BT. I cut the cord on subscription TV over 15 years ago. Since then I have been seeking other ways to view it, I would have imagined it would be online somewhere but it doesn’t seem to be the case (I won’t say anything more about how I watched it, but  hyperfast broadband and friends helps)

I didn’t see it from the start to the end, but I saw enough to learn its a lot shorter than I first thought it would be. There didn’t seem to be a lot of the build up you get with Channel 4’s First Dates which is a shame because I imagine it will suffer because of this. Its too easy to point the finger and shout nonsence or garbage when its cut a certain way.

sub-buzz-19087-1468580009-3

Interestingly the Buzzfeed piece made me laugh just like the Vice piece which I commented on previously.

Thats about all I can say for now, sure once I watch the whole thing. I’ll comment in full.

Pokemon Go: Return of the ARG?

Looking out my window watching small groups of people playing Pokemon Go and listening to yet another podcast talking about it. I started thinking does the mainstream success of Pokemon Go, indicate it would be time for alternative reality gaming (ARG) to make a come back?

I mean there’s been a whole ton of successful ARGs in the past and the dynamics got watered/broken down into transmedia (which isn’t meant in disrespect, but a must read from Dan Hon); but they are quite different beasts (pun intended). Looking back at previous ARGs they didn’t take advantage of mobile. Mobile data was expensive and was quite unreliable back in the early days. This is before you even look at many of the other things mobile can give you.

Of course there’s a lot of debate if Pokemon Go is augmented realty or location based gaming. The later would put it in the same ball park of Google’s Ingress and many others. But does it matter? There will always be privacy concerns (here’s a fix for those early adopters) and those who seek to take advantage for their own gain; but it’s certainly getting people out and about, for now at least.

If I was to design a ARG say for example We Dream The City (swear I wrote about it somewhere, but maybe I haven’t yet? findery.com is close);  I would be using the phone and building in functionality which brings groups together into little adhoc clouds like Firechat. Pokemon go shows there is appetite for these types of games and the technology can scale to this extent. Now’s a good time to build these systems and hopefully think about what useful things we could do for local community and society, not just collecting virtual goods?

The full’on classic trance set

I recorded this mix a while ago, on my travels. I decided to do it after Si Lumb recommended listening to Gareth Emery’s classic set from Gods Kitchen. Myself and Si had a chat about the tunes he used and Si pointed me to listen to his own classic mix sound  of cloudbreak.

Both were good but I couldn’t help but feel there was plenty of tunes missing from the mixes. So I present another pacemaker mix first of two mixes using just classic trance tunes.

Photo credit comes from lneprz.

Enjoy the retro tunes and don’t forget, sharing is caring!

  1. Vision Control – Marino Stephano
  2. Love Stimulation (Pvd Love Club mix) – Humate
  3. Gamemaster (Matt Darey 1999 Remix) – Matt Darey Presents Lost Tribe
  4. Seven Cities (V-One’s Living Cities Remix) – Solarstone
  5. 1999 (Gouryella mix) – Binary Finary
  6. I’m in Love – Star Party
  7. Pearl River (vocal mix) – Johney Shaker
  8. I can’t help myself – Lucid
  9. Redemption (Max Graham mix) – Conjure one
  10. Please Save me (Push remix) – Sunscream vs Push
  11. Airwave – Rank 1
  12. L’esperanza (Armin van buuren Mix) – Airscape
  13. Sunrise – Here I am (Ratty mix) – Tenshi
  14. Cafe Del Mar (Three n one remix) – Energy 52
  15. Out of the Blue – System F
  16. Avenue – Paul van dyk
  17. The Legacy (Club mix) – Push

Vice rips the clothes off undressed

Undressed UK

A certain person (rather not say at the moment) sent me a link to the vice piece about undressed… of course its going to be so snarky but also funny, so I had a read. Here’s some highlights…

Surprisingly it is not. Undressed feels like an odd peek 20 or 30 years into a dystopian future, when couples are picked via a database of their likes, dislikes, genetic inclination and blood, marched by armoured police into designated romance rooms, and instructed to kiss and undress. Congress and children follow. The state has abolished the concept of natural love. Big Brother is watching you. Big Brother is watching you fuck.

Ok yes I can see a Black Mirror episode with these as one of the storylines. You only have to fast forward whats happening in Tokyo with the local government paying bars to put on dating nights.

…watch First Dates and all the girls who have come down to Manchester for it are thrown by the idea of eating a meal with another human being. Is this 2016, now? Is it so savage out there that girls can’t even get a date? Do we communicate exclusively through dick- and tit-pics, now, never having to meet? Has technology thrown us so low?

They are litteraly writing the Black Mirror episode.

Watch enough reality TV and you will see that the motivation people have for going on it splits neatly into three:

  • They are an idiot;
  • They want to be famous;
  • They have a weird mental blockade caused by some damage in their past, emotional or physical or otherwise, and they need – deeply need – to work this through by going on television, somehow television is the only thing that can cure them, they need to hold their nose and dive into the icebath of TV, and like Jesus it will cure them;

I had a good laugh at this one…

My motovation didn’t fit into any of these 3. I am curious and as you will read in my blog post once I can post it, and to be reading previous ones. I kind of pushed myself into it as it would be a interesting experiment.

Some could/would say mybrushwithdeath might have something to do with it and sure I would agree. However I don’t have a weird mental blockade and certainly don’t want it cured on TV (not that I believe it anyway). Regular readers know how much I hate TV culture.

Theres a lot more I want to say but I can’t right now…

Viewers might find this disturbing

Manchester Ferguson protest

The last 2 weeks have been difficult to take. Theres been too much I have wanted to say and so much I have wanted to do. I have been thinking and deeply worried we have taken a few steps backwards in evolution.

For me two videos have summed up so much, and I do worry they exist in spaces like Facebook.

Video one is the shooting of Philando Castile, a black man in St Paul, Minnesota. #Blacklivesmatter but you can clearly see this isn’t the case, in a city I have visited and actually enjoyed in the past.

The second video comes in the days after the EU Referendum or Brexit. It shows a racist tram abuse at 8am in the morning in Manchester.

Each person who filmed the killing and abusive attack, showed incredible bravery to stand up and put a camera in the face of such situations. If you are old enough to remember the Rodney King beating, its important to remember George Holliday who filmed the beating.

Is slack actually a roach motel?

Trello into Slack via IFTTT

I have mixed feelings about Slack. Its good but I worry about the deadend nature of it. A clear sign of this is IFTTT’s recipes involving Slack. Every single recipe has Slack as the output (action), not a single one has Slack at the input (trigger).

This is the notion of the roach motel or walled garden, right?

I have been looking at alternatives; before anybody starts; YES I know IRC, yes I have used IRC in the past and more recently. I get it but I always find it not a great environment, especially for modern work, due to the obscure never-changing syntax and behaviors. I also know people who use slack via IRC and I have tried using Slack with a Jabber/XMPP client but its painful for anything but talking to individual people I found.

I looking at others and found…

But recently someone suggested trying Telegram groups and channels. Then using existing tools like Trello, Google Docs, etc.. for permanence? This may run back to the small pieces loosly joined way of working, which isn’t so attractive. But allows for diversity of uses, clients and services. Dare I say something to think about when thinking work 2.0?

Part of my worry is slack trying to be the end point for everything. Its seductive and easy like Facebook is, but scratch one of the sides and you find the walls are more concrete than expected. Yes there are permalinks, bots and markdown content but it feels very hidden?

Government’s response to the second referendum

 

Brexit
I fianlly got to see the orginial in Bristol just recently

 

I signed the much talked about petition,“EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum;” a while ago and finally it was debated…

The response is…

The European Union Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015, receiving overwhelming support from Parliament. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.

The EU Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015. The Act was scrutinised and debated in Parliament during its passage and agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including provisions for setting the date, franchise and the question that would appear on the ballot paper. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.

As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement to the House of Commons on 27 June, the referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history with over 33 million people having their say. The Prime Minister and Government have been clear that this was a once in a generation vote and, as the Prime Minister has said, the decision must be respected. We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU and the Government is committed to ensuring the best possible outcome for the British people in the negotiations.

So that’s it… it’s looking even less possible that the EU ref will be undone.

The nightmare is real.

The dream is real

We opened Pandora’s box and now have to deal with the negative consequences which will come in one form or another… Very fitting is the annaology of panadora box with the EU Referendum, I feel.

Today the phrase “to open Pandora’s box” means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching negative consequences.

 

Why Ade should be at Mozfest

https://twitter.com/cubicgarden/status/749985923597819904

I had a read of Adewale’s blog about Cargo cults and progressive web apps stores. While reading it, I thought this is perfect for the Mozfest space we are crurating this year. The tale of two cities: dilemmas in connected spaces.

What Ade is tackling is the notion that app stores or the walled gardens are bad and more native fuctionality is heading out on to the web. He ponders if this is a good thing or not?

I know the recent Web USB draft certainly got a few peoples noses out of joint; for good reason to be honest, especialy on security grounds. However I’m personally not convinced by the legacy background Adewale mentions.

It’s easy to forget that app stores emerged as a response to the difficulties of dealing with carriers to get your content ‘on deck’, getting your apps preinstalled and the extremely closed nature of that ecosystem.

Yes that was then and this is now. I clearly remember the pain of installing apps on my PocketPC devices. It was painful and clearly early adopter like myself were the only ones who would put up with it. However legacy isn’t a good reason to back an closed garden model?  Its a call card for the open web right? I mean Adewale’s reasoning is good…

  • give an obvious place to find apps that have particular functionality (try searching for “games that don’t need wifi” in the Play Store)
  • give developers an obvious place to find large numbers of users.
  • give developers a structured mechanism for exposing the features of their app so that users can filter the set of available apps for apps that have those features.
  • give users an obvious place to review apps.
  • give developers an obvious place to accrue reputation for their apps.
  • give platform vendors a place to assert policies that drive developer behaviour.
  • give every app on a platform a canonical URL ( for example here are iOS and Android URLs for the same game).

But its merly a step in the right direction, and to be fair most these features are just merely cracks in a flaw model of the walled garden or the garden trying to emulate the web? However I do also think there are lessons which can be learned from them.

Instead of ‘cargo culting‘ the app stores we should be asking what web-centric solutions to the problem would look like. For me that means lots of competing and opinionated PWA directories rather than one central PWA Store or even a popular search engine.

This is the start of not only a good workshop at Mozfest, but also the start of a good exhibit/experience/dilemma. He (or someone) really needs to submit a proposal for Mozfest before August 1st.

https://twitter.com/ade_oshineye/status/749996138393112577