Ianforrester

Welcome back to South East London

I was very excited to invited to the Mozilla Festival which this year was in London. Not only that, it was in South East London.

I decided to split the entry, so if your just interested in the Mozilla Festival, skip to the newer post…

For me it was a bit epic because not only was it exciting because I was leading the DJ Challenge on behalf of the BBC, it was in south east London and frankly nothing geeky happens there. The nearest place is maybe the Excel centre which is more east London or Docklands than anything. Not only that, it was North Greenwich which was 5mins ride from Woolwich where I lived with my ex-wife (Sarah) for years. I hadn’t been back for (I believe) 5 years! When I left they were building the DLR to Woolwich Arsenal and of course the housing prices had gone up. So I was amazed to see how it looked now things were actually open.

Woolwich to be honest has changed quite a bit in some parts and not so much in others. Most of the structures and shops are still where they were when I was living there (this is very true of Greenwich too) but things like the square have been totally revamped with a massive screen showing local information and BBC News. There’s even a Starbucks now but didn’t spot a Pizza Express? Its maintained its down-market feel but also embraced the new upper market shops. For example the market selling copied perfume, clothes, etc is still in place.

Lastly the college I studied & taught Interaction design at, was the host for the Mozilla Festival.

For years people in Ravensbourne banged on about the move to North Greenwich. right next to the Dome. It was going to be a landmark building, etc… Well its certainly different, not quite sure it fits in with the rest of the north greenwich developments but its actual quite nice inside. Reminds me of Salford University in MediaCityUK actually with all the space and multiple levels. Right now it feels very bland because they only moved in a while ago?

Good to see a whole bunch of people popping up who I use to work with including Richard, Roman, Arthur, Hamid, etc, etc… each time I saw one of them, I would take a picture and post it on twitter mainly for the purpose of showing Miles and Dave.

So generally it was great to tie all these things together because generally when I come down to London for work or a un-conference and there never anywhere near south London let-alone South East. My only wish is that I could have visited a few of the people I had left behind. Would have been great to know what my neighbours were up to now, see how big their kid, etc.

Should we teach people how to code in school?

I’ve seen quite a lot of blogs, notes, and even papers on the question of shouldn’t we teach the next generation how to code? Somewhere in the mix, there’s lots of thoughts that the problem we’re having keeping up with our american friends is because we’ve gone soft on teaching the next generation the essential skills needed to not just become workers but to think for themselves and ultimately take control and drive their own destiny.

And finally there’s a lot of thought that the BBC should be a large part of what ever happens, after the success of the BBC Micro ecosystem back in the 80’s. There is no way I could go on without mentioning the fantastic work which is going on in these areas from Ant Miller, Michael Sparks, Mo McRoberts, Alan O’Donohoe, Keri Facer, Adrian Woolard, etc, etc…

My own thoughts are quite complex on this issue but I wanted to talk about one aspect of it… teaching people to code.

Lots of people have said code is law, code is power, code is freedom, code is a way of life. They may even be right but I have a problem with this…

…I’ve never had any formal programming/computer science training. So obviously I would say, its not as biscuit critical as some people are making out. Don’t get me wrong its powerful and the ability to be able to manipulative the landscape around yourself and others is a fantastic thing to have. However there’s more to it than just this.

I have the power to manipulate and bend the landscape to suit myself, its not so elegant but it kind of works because I understand the systems and services around us. I would conclude this is the hacker mindset (although others would disagree or think I’m being a little broad with the definition.

So what is the hacker mindset? And ultimately what is a hacker and what does this have to do with the next generation? Bruce Schneier explains what a hacker is…

What is a Hacker?
A hacker is someone who thinks outside the box. It’s someone who discards conventional wisdom, and does something else instead. It’s someone who looks at the edge and wonders what’s beyond. It’s someone who sees a set of rules and wonders what happens if you don’t follow them. A hacker is someone who experiments with the limitations of systems for intellectual curiosity.

There’s some keywords in that statement which stimulate my thoughts… But the big one is the Curiosity.

From Secret & Lies, the famous Schneier book which I actually own, but I think I lent to someone? (Glyn?)

Hackers are as old as curiosity, although the term itself is modern. Galileo was a hacker. Mme. Curie was one, too. Aristotle wasn’t. (Aristotle had some theoretical proof that women had fewer teeth than men. A hacker would have simply counted his wife’s teeth. A good hacker would have counted his wife’s teeth without her knowing about it, while she was asleep. A good bad hacker might remove some of them, just to prove a point.)

How do we entourage young people to keep there natural sense of curiosity? Somewhere in the process of growing up its kind of knocked out of young people and I don’t know where it exactly happens. I also feel this fits well with my thoughts about the need for young people to explore their inner geek or passion if you prefer.

I would also suggest curiosity + passion is a killer combination and something a lot more people could do with (imho). This combination seems to be great (although not all of them appear in the 8 great traits) ironically.

Inspiring the next generation is the game and aim here, not teaching young people to code. Being smart, curious and passionate is what I wish for all the young people of this and every nation. How the BBC and BBC Micro Redux project (I totally made that up!) fit into this frame I don’t honestly know, but I know many people are chipping away at this in many different ways. I just hope there ultimate aim isn’t to just create a whole bunch of coders because that would be very dull and a crying shame…

Large eink displays?

Maarten Pieter emailed me after reading my blog post asking why there were no large eink displays and then my solution building a Kindle array.

Dear Ian,

I came across your blog on large e-inks displays and the kindle array idea. Have been looking into this myself for some time now but not found a good solution yet. There is another initiative out there from a Japanese company called soken to create a Eink wall.This would be what I wanted but by now I settle for the NEC a3 screen 😉 (which btw is supposed to have only a 1 mm border so could make tiles as well). I was wondering if you made any progress with your project or inquiries. I did not contact NEC yet did you give it a try?

I have some ideas on the software but the hardware is staying elusive and indeed it is not clear why these devices are not on the market. I am now considering contact some local people connected to Philips here in the Netherlands and see if they can explain why these large screen are not here. Some years ago I worked for a newspaper company and during my research in that period I know there was a test production line producing epaper. I think it will be hard to make the kindles fit well together but otherwise it is a good idea. Another lead would be http://www.epapercentral.com/ but the blog died some time ago though gives a good insight in what is happening.

kind regards,

Maarten Pieter, Netherlands

I did contact quite a few eink vendors but never got a reply… I did float the idea at work and it went down well. However I later found a photo of a large eink display prototype somewhere and I’ve become maybe too busy to experiment in the area myself right now… The A3 sized eink displays sound great and a 1mm border means its almost perfect for setting up an array!

Thanks to Maarten for emailing me and hopefully someone will email me and say, hey its been done or I’ve started work on the eink display array (good old lazy web style)…

Zuckerberg casts doubt on Silicon Valley

Some interesting comments from Mark Zuckerberg recently…

In a rare interview conducted over the weekend at Y Combinator’s Startup Schoool, the brash, young CEO admits he would have stayed on the east coast if he could have his time again.

He said: “If I were starting now I would do things very differently. I didn’t know anything.

“In Silicon Valley, you get this feeling that you have to be out here. But it’s not the only place to be. If I were starting now, I would have stayed in Boston.

“But I think that now, knowing more of what I know, I think I might have been able to pull it off. You don’t have to move out here to do this.

“Silicon Valley is a little short-term focused and that bothers me.”

Many others would say he benefited from Silicon Valley’s short-term focused nature and I would agree with that statement. I would like to see if he’s going to now shift Facebook out of the Silicon Valley area? I very much doubt it and that as far as I’m concerned is like moaning about where you live and not lifting a finger to do anything about it…

hindsight is always wonderful…

Although I got to say its a very small victory for other places such as silicon roundabout… Hopefully they will read this as a sign NOT to clone silicon valley

Manchester Werewolf chapter joins Larkin’ About – Wed 23rd Nov

Manchester werewolf chapter poster for november

Manchester Werewolf Chapter is back after a long delay and this time we’ve teamed up with the guys at Larkin About. Larkin about are the Manchester equivalent of Hide & Seek. They do social experimental games in and around Manchester. So its a perfect match. If this goes well, there will be many more…

On Wednesdays November 23rd, the Manchester Werewolf Chapter and Larkin’ About will be running a game of Werewolf at Barcelona Bar in the Northern Quarter. It’s totally FREE!

Werewolf is a simple game of strategy and deception, played by a large group of people.
The game is all about making accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, and social engineering.

All are welcome! We have a great location with a bar because we all know deception is thirsty work. The event is suitable for all levels of experience from absolute newbie to Werewolf pro. We hope to continue to host games of Werewolf as a regular event from this date onwards.

To register your interest, please visit our Facebook event page, or send us an email to larkin.about2009@gmail.com.

Nothing spreads like fear

Had the joy of seeing Contagion last Wednesday at the Salford Cinema Club.

After which I had to call my ex-wife to discuss.

Sarah had applied to join the Centre for Diseases and Control (CDC) back before we ever met and although she didn’t get the position, she later did get into the Heath Protection Agency (HPA) which seems to be the UK equivalent. So we use to sometimes talk about her role on the Tuberculosis register. Most people don’t know but tuberculosis is still a major killer…

Around 9000 cases of TB are currently reported each year in the United Kingdom. Most cases occur in major cities, particularly in London.

Although TB infection and Epidemiology was interesting it was generally not so bad (relevantly talking, specially if your one of the people unlike to spend time in a crack den or a shady part of the inner city) when Alexander Litvinenko (the russian spy) was poisoned using radiation. The whole of the HPA went into overdrive.

Sarah was working something like 18hour days 7 days a week while they attempted to track what happened, who he had been in contact with, who they had been in contact with, for how long, where, etc, etc…

Contagion lasts 31 days and its so clear how the panic and fear spreads so quickly.

I won’t spoil it for anyone, but lets just say it seems so hollywood how quick it spreads and the mis-information which spreads with it. I say hollywood but actually I remember Sarah telling me some of the serious concens people had when phoning up the HPA hotline. Of course, I expect all those are confidential, but the thing which got me was the fear and confusion in peoples questions. The frequency of questions was also mind blowing… 100’s seems low from what I remember Sarah saying.

Panic grew when the HPA tried to track down people who possibly might have been infected. Many more called to check there own status. (I think I’m ok saying), some people who happened to be in the same bar 7 days before the poisoning called because they were deeply worried about themselves. I’m not a epidemiologist but this has got to be panic and frankly stupid (waiting for someone to say actually I’m wrong).

Anyway, I felt the film give a true but fictional account of the issues with tracking down sources, which information to spread and how difficult it is to synthesis cures fit for humans. In fact on the last one, it seems quite a few of our cures started life by being tested by its creators.

I did feel the film didn’t take advantage of the mutation of viruses specially when vaccine is available in only a smaller set of the population. Sarah use to point out this problem with parents not allowing there kids to get the MMR vaccine. (once again I’m not a epidemiologist) from memory, Its becomes a problem when there are parts of the population which are protected and others which are not. The virus can mutate, become stronger and even over throw the current vaccine. This is not good! I won’t say which part of the film but I thought this was coming…

During the credits, the cinema going public was silent. The dead silence just hung there in the air, people got up and left with the minimum of fuss and noise. It was like everyone knew this was going to happen and each of us was powerless to stop it.

Sarah always said and did say again, we are well overdue another worldwide epidemic. I felt the film, did a very good job of reinforcing this…. I certainly will want to see this again, and I’ve offered to take Sarah and her new husband along because I really want to get the insiders perspective on what they think of the film and how it covers parts.

Oversharing and living in public

I was listening to Twit networks Triangulation number 28 with Jeff Jarvis recently… Jeff Jarvis’s way of approaching the world is similar to the way I see things. Funny enough Leo Laporte also lives his life mainly in public too.

Known as an American journalist, co-host on This Week in Google, author of What Would Google Do?, and his new book Public Parts, Jeff Jarvis, is this week’s guest.

Most of the talk is generally about Jeff and his work on Buzz machine and other mainstream news organisations. Where it gets interesting is when he talks about blogging his cancer therapy and the series of following concerns which followed.

This certainly chimed with me because of my own experience when my ex-wife convinced my family to post updates of what was happening with me last year during mybrushwithdeath. I also experienced people who felt it was all too public and they shouldn’t be doing such a thing. They also experienced many people who were happy things were not as bad as the wild rumours suggested.

I specially liked the quote… by Jeff in response to someone who complained about Jeff oversharing…

“Really what he was doing was over listening.”

It was a excellent interview and reminds me why I do follow Jeff Jarvis on Twitter… Might have to go buy the book now

Steve Jobs… what more can I say?

I’ve said nothing about recently Steve Jobs, his death was very sad just like anyone who dies earlier than there potential age. His cancer wasn’t just life threatening it was a killer.

Saying all that, however I do have serious problems with his late view point on the world and I have a lot of agreements.

He was a smart guy and what he did for Apple and the industry speaks for its self but…. there’s some things which I can’t help but remember…

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said.

“I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

What on earth…? Who says this kind of thing and really mean it? Frankly I would suggest rightly or wrongly, a psychopath? This psychopathic nature is something most people ignore or overlook. I can’t, I mean can you imagine Bill Gates saying the same about Linux, with such venom? (I’m assuming not, but I’m sure someone will prove me wrong).

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Yes this is quite spooky but I’ll be honest and say death will do that kind of thing to you.

When I was lying in bed after my brush with death last year, I thought damn hard about my life and made quite a few decisions.

It sounds like Jobs had a similar thing but I can’t understand why he would hold on to his fear about Android?

As Yoda says…

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

It pains/saddens me that he went to his death bed worrying about the challenge of Android. Letting go is essential and not doing so, just seems like a very sad thing.

He seemed to have forgotten his own words…

all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

I never want to go to my death bed thinking how I wanted to right the wrong of Apple. Its ludicrous… Yes I’m not a fan but you know what I’m not a fan of a lot of things including crappy fluff filled TV. I would never want to go to my death bed thinking must see a end of Xfactor or something.

Sure some of you are saying, yes but you almost went to your death bed hating Apple? Well not really, even in previous blog posts I’ve expressed happy feelings for Apple. The question should be, if I could stop Apple with all the money I owned, would I do it? Answer is a absolutely NO!

The plan was to buy the Steve Jobs book which was released but frankly I won’t really read it (plus the media has pretty much uncovered most of the book for us all) and as I said before, its very tragic but I’m personally not going to dwell.

He was a genius but also made other peoples lives hell and frankly if he was doing this still after learning about his cancer, he has certainly gone down in my estimations.

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

I know he strived for perfection but at what cost? The misery of others around him, was it really worth it in the end? Remember the way he treated his child? Once again was it really worth it in the end?

Life is such a precious thing and so many people never face the reality of how precious life really is…

I will remember Steve Jobs as a super smart man who was driven, who even on his death bed loved what he did, and did everything he could to building his own personal dream. I’m still convinced he was nuts to fight the opening up of the world and the more human engagement everyone is finally adopting…

RIP Steve Jobs…

Human insights in the data of Qriously

Data is a really interesting but you already knew that… I hope…

Qriously insights reminds me of the excellent insights we use to get from OkTrends (okcupid’s blog) before Match.com bought it (wheres the cool insights now then?). In aggregation there are some really amazing things which can be pulled out. Qriously puts the power to ask the questions and define the sample and scope in a very simple way.

I’m hoping to be able to use it at Ignite Leeds to finally decide who should pay on the first date?

More details are due soon… but the Leeds digital festival looks great, well done to Imran and others. Thanks to Monica Tailor too…

Tweet digging the rules

The concept is simple… Imagine if your Twitter client was crossed with your mail client?

Tweetdig is exactly that.

Currently in private beta although it feels slightly more like a alpha. I was lucky to gain a activation code when they previewed it at BarCampBlackpool last weekend.

So how does it work? well it works very well. Like most twitter clients you have the tweets going up the screen but theres a few options to do a bunch of things including create a filter based on the tweet you’ve selected. You can just write a filter but the best way is to start with something.

So in the screenshot above I have a folder called BBC discussions which usually come from my boss Adew, Si_lumb, or a number of other people. I actually added a bunch more people from the BBC, so now any tweets from them containing one of the others is classes as a conversation which I might want to be aware of.

The filters are pretty much what you’d expect but there a great start. I’d really like to see a better way to group people, so instead of listing everyone on each line, I could say if anyone in my BBC list says something to 2 or more BBC people, drop a copy of the message in a folder. In actual fact I’m not seeing much in the way of the twitter lists being used in tweetdig. Most likely because they haven’t got around to them yet or maybe because lists are not used much?

I’m sure the team will be all over lists at some point, they may even make it transparent, so when you create a grouping in tweetdig, it actually creates a list automatically?

To be honest, it really needs a lot stabilising, and I know there all working on that right now. But they certainly have plans to make a mobile client and maybe a desktop client. Once you start using it, its hard to go back and even more frustrating to use a mobile client without the rules and folders. In fact it would be great if you could assign clients to a folder. For example my mobile client would only show certain folders instead of everything and me having to cascade through it.

I did have a word with them on the side at the barcampblackpool and asked if they knew of any clients which support filtering or rules? Got thinking it would be good if you could simply export your rules out of the site and into your choice of client instead of waiting for them to create a client for your platform.

I’ve already created the dream filter which removes all tweets with the hashtag #sxsw to the bin so I don’t have to hear how much fun people are having in Austin next year. I’ve also setup the same for #iphone5 #iphone4s and #ipad3. Yes it may sound a bit crude but what I really need a little more structure so I could say, ignore all those unless @bbcnews tweet something.

As usual I’d also like to see a more Xpath type logic and the ability to do conditional things like, if @tdobson tweets a link to a video and its retweeted by at least 2 of my followers tell me about it (usually I can never trust what @tdobson links to, as its usually balls or great). Also like to see stuff like the ability to mute someone if they tweet more than x times in a set period of time. Automatically send anyone who tweets the same thing over x times in a set period of time to the junk folder.

Lastly I’d really like to be able to feed Facebook/Buzz/Google+/Idents status/updates/messages into the same thing. Maybe these guys are sitting on the perfect idea of the social operating system (stowe boyd?)

You get the general idea…

The humour of the startup is fun and reflects the people behind it. Its great to see a original idea being pushed forward by these guys who are regular barcampers and such friendly people.

I wish them lots of luck and I think they got something that in the end may be copyable by others but at least they can say, we had the original idea and followed through with a decent product. I can already imagine Tweetdeck or Seesmic with rules which span across not just twitter but also Facebook and Buzz.

So impressed with this service, I’ve closed down Tweetdeck (for now) and made this my number 2 in Top10 interesting tech startups. Novel service with a good solid concept, although I do feel the email methodology will trap them in the end. Its all about the rules 🙂

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