Category: culture-and-politics

Geeky&Sexy becomes Relationships 2.0

Relationships 2.0

Geeky&Sexy just became Relationships 2.0…

Herb Kim suggested to me after the amazing geeky&sexy event last Thursday, than I should change the name of the event. It might be putting some people off and actually it might do a slight dis-service to a great event. So after much thought, I changed it to Relationship 2.0 (which was suggested by Herb over email)

Just the right time because I’m preparing for the next event also at the wonderful FYG Northern Quarter Deli.

This time we delve deep into the world of the rules, the game and well beyond…

Do these systems work or are they totally bull? What use are they? And whats else is out there? We discuss in geeky detail… with lots of wine and fantastic nibbles from FYG.

You won’t want to miss this one sign up now…

TedxBradford: your life online

This is Friday in my busy social week

Last entry of my busy week. I took the day off and made the trip to Bradford for the very first time. I caught a direct train to and from Bradford from Victoria Station. One of the worst looking train stations I’ve ever been to and I’m pretty glad I don’t have to spend much time in most of the time. I could have changed at Leeds to Bradford but to be honest when I saw the off peak return for £10.50 I weighted up the price of changing and getting a taxi late night and decided its a deal.

Bradford is interesting city, and it seems I arrived at the very right time with the victory of George Galloway, the opening of a city centre square (although actually round) and the unveiling of the Bradford life online exhibition at the National media museum. I had always heard the National media museum was something special and although I didn’t really get a chance to walk around for a while, got a feeling it had tons of interesting things burred within it. Also impressed to see a full size IMAX rather than the knock off ones.

TedXBradford was for the most part a really nice TedX. All the speakers hinged around the idea of life online.

The whole thing kicked started in the usual style with a thank you from Chris Anderson followed by Tim Oreilly recorded a day ago in his hotel room in Washington.

The most interesting talks for me, came from….

Jane MacDonald, Tales of Things & Electronic Memory

Jane Macdonald at TedxBradford

I was familiar with Janes work before but hearing her talk about it live was great… Really interesting thinker

Maureen Pennock, Archiving the Web

Maureen Pennock at TedxBradford

Maureen’s talk was all about archiving the web… It reminded me of the work I had done with the Digital Preservation unit in Kew Gardens back when I was at Ravensbourne College. Sounds like things have limped forward but also reminded me to add cubicgarden.com to webarchive.org.uk.

Professor Paul Rogers, World Security in the Digital Age

Paul Rogers at TedXBradford

This talk was like no other. Most of the talks were pretty neutral about the web. However Paul literally sucked the air out of the room with his talk about the political mess and security woes the internet has accelerated. Afterwards there was a level of what just happened in the cinema. It reminded me of a talk at heard in BarCampBrighton asking what would happen if things went dark. Pauls talk was much more sharper and I think I tweeted – “Everyone is wishing for the Energy Singularity…”

I also want to add…

Anna Farmery, How 3D printing is the next social revolution on the web

Gwyneth Sutherlin, Open Access or Silent Culture: ICT user experience

Dr Kieran Fenby-Hulse, The Modern Mixtape: The Evolution of the Digital Playlist

were also note worthy… Kieran’s talk drove me nuts because I so wanted to tell him he was wrong. The Digital playlist is not the modern mixtape and here’s a bunch of reasons why… Anna’s almost like pitch on why small businesses should embrace 3D printers was passionate and great but I kind of heard it all before, sure many others had not.

After TedxBradford was a special showing of the twitter documentary Twittamentary by director Siok Siok Tan.
Unfortunately the Q&A never happened because Siok wasn’t contactable on skype afterwards but whats interesting about the showing was having the twitter backchannel on the side of the screen as everyone watched. This was no Ben vs Mena thing, just a interesting way to watch a documentary. However quite a few people did tweet that it was very distracting to watch a doc with people chatting about it along side.

The documentary I felt was a little sloppy and if it wasn’t for the subject I would have gone elsewhere. It was worth watching and confirmed my believe that together we can do amazing things, maybe even over turn some of the doomsday scenarios Paul Rogers had mentioned earlier.

Generally TedXBradford was good and enjoyed the day… I’d certainly consider it again next year

Geeky&Sexy… The politics of first time dating

This is Thursday in my busy social week

The politics of paying on the first date?

Following Tuesday’s talk at Preston Social, I was looking forward to deep diving on the politics of first time dating for the new look Geeks Talk Sexy…

We had it all planned out and about 4pm I got a text message from my partner in crime saying she wasn’t able to make it anymore. To be honest I was really really peed at this news. A few weeks back she had told me that she had a funeral on the same day and might not be able to make it. I did say back then, if she can’t make it just tell me but it would be a real let down but I could have struggled through. I mean its devastating when ever anyone dies and to be honest Geeky&Sexy can’t even be considered when something like this happens. However she said she will be there…

Except she wasn’t! The only reason I’m not naming her is because I can’t be bothered with the stress (i’ve had the same thing before remember…)

Anyway, I headed to FYG Deli early as I wanted to work out what I was going to do and have a nice red wine and cheese platter to calm my frustrations. I explained what had happened to the lovely owner and she had a think about the problem. After a while she suggested why don’t the two waitresses do the part which was missing? Brilliant! And after a quick preview of the justification why the guy should pay emailed to me a few days earlier. They gave a look over and went away to do there day jobs.

About 7pm people started arriving, some new faces and some old faces. The great thing is although we had about 15 people (which is nice intimate number) half were female and the other half were male. So we really had a spread of ideas and thoughts.

Kicking off about 7:30pm, once people had settled and got themselves a drink and little snack from FYG’s amazing deli menu. I started the presentation and handed it over to the two FYG waitresses to explain why the man should pay on the first date. They were nervous at first but quickly gained confidence together. I then explained why its best to go dutch or split the bill on the first date. After which I left the question of the woman paying in the air.

The conversations really got going as soon as the waitresses explained why the man should pay. There was very little prompting and poking for peoples views. Everyone felt so very comfortable in the intimate setting of FYG, it all just came out. People were very respectful of other peoples opinions and I swear I had a harder time trying to call breaks and move the topics on to the other aspects of the politics of first time dating. I’m sure if I had left it, we would still be discussing it all till 11pm still.

I know its hard to convey in a blog post after the fact but it was one of the best things I’ve done in March.

Everyone loved it and are looking forward to the next one on Thursday May 3rd. Its going to be at FYG Deli again, topic may change a little to how to end a relationship in the best possible way…

Geeks talk sexy becomes Geeky & Sexy –

geeky and sexy logo...

Photo credit: bigbirdz

I’ve threaten to do it for a while and its back with a bunch of changes…

Geeks Talk Sexy turns into Geeky & Sexy and the we move from the excellent MadLab to FYG Deli which isn’t far away from Madlab. Madlab is great but it wasn’t great for a fruity conversation. We use to rearrange the furniture quite a bit each time and couldn’t decide what worked best.

Madlab use to make special cocktails for each event, which was great but a event like this really needs drink on demand. FYG has lovely wine and some stunning deli dips and platters. Hopefully there will be a package for food & drink on the day, details coming soon.

Geeky & Sexy will be more about the discussion than presentations and we have new people on board (details to be revealed soon). Unfortunately Samantha is still very busy working on her PhD and Hwayoung won’t be as involved. I can confirm we have a new person on board. Shes the (self described) Nigerian Scouser, Ngunan Adamu, heavily opinionated (usually the total opposite views of myself) and will be very vocal about who pays on the first date, which is also one of the main topics in episode one : Social Etiquette and Politics of first time dating

geekyandsexy s2x1

You can sign up on eventbrite and we’ll be posting more information at the new home of geeky & sexy… Of course the hashtag stay’s #sexygeeks.

Teaching the next generation with Povray?

Reach for the Stars

On Saturday I went along to Hack to the Future, the idea of Alan O’Donohoe, Teknoteacher on Twitter. A very ITC teacher in Preston who wants to make a difference for the next generation. Alan’s one hell of a guy, after pulling off one of the most daring stunts at BarCampMediaCity with his fake BBC Codelab idea, he decided to take the idea of the unconference to young people in the form of a day of informal learning – Hack to the Future or #h2df.

It is an un-conference that aims to provide young digital creators aged 11 – 18 with positive experiences of computing science and other closely related fields, ensuring that the digital creators of today engage with the digital creators of tomorrow.

We plan to offer a day that will inspire, engage and encourage young digital creator

The event was all about the young people and it was amazing to see over 200 young people surrounding the make shift board where the talks and tutorials were put. H2df wasn’t a talking shop, all that was put a side for the day and the teaching started. (If you are interested in hearing about the whole problem space, you can hear Alan and the rest of the #techgrumps waxing lyrical about this whole issue here…)

So inspired by everything, I decided to do a 30min class on learning Persistence of Vision Raytracer.

The way I see it, is PoVRay as its called on the street, helped me to learn how to script all those years ago, and I think theres plenty of mathematical & raytracing techniques to be learned while having fun. And now its very quick to raytrace on the modern machines we have. So advanced, PovRay doesn’t even really support multi-core processors (its over 20 years old!) In actual fact people do ask, what licence is it? And I have to say Free before Freedom (aka before the GPL!)

The lesson didn’t go well for many reasons including trying to get the online version of PoVray working on IE7 was a no go. Switching to my laptop wasn’t much better due to the cable length and my dodgy thinkpad. Anyhow I did get a chance to raytrace some stuff and do some povray hacking with the class, so I guess it worked. Although if I was to do it again, I would make a ton of changes including a having a free whiteboard and focus on the hacking of Pov.

I’m sure PoVray could be used to teach scripting and I was amazed to find out Mark Shuttleworth was also a PovRay geek. Such a perfect picture for Hack to the Future, don’t you think?

It was an amazing day and really well done to Alan and the team of Our Ladies High School. Unforgivable we also had to listen to his #h2df rap which I can help but cover my head and cringe when I hear.

Great work Alan, less rap more chat?

 

Difference between Nerd, Dork, and Geek

A friend of mine from Bristol (Amy) seems to get very confused about the differences between a geek, nerd and dork.

She calls me a nerd and I usually have to remind her that I’m actually a self described geek.

Finally someones drawn up a diagram highlighting the differences…

To all of you nerds and geeks who–like me–have been unfairly and inaccurately labeled “dorks,” only to then exhaustively explain the differences among the three to a more-than-skeptical offender, I say:

You’re welcome. This nerd/dork/geek/dweeb Venn diagram should save you a lot of time and frustration in the future.

Venn Diagram for the differences

To those of you who have been called “dweebs,” I say:

Stop hanging out with people from the 1950s.

Via Matthew at Sed Contra, who will see you at the intersection of Blogging and Things that Have Latin Names.

Hello, do I know you?

Since my brush with death its hard to remember all the people I have met in the past. I’m rubbish with names even though I do recognise them. Its noticeable because I was ever so good at holding peoples names in my head previously

I find Evernote Hello a slightly interesting concept, but I won’t be using it because its iOS only. I also don’t really think the idea of passing your phone across to remember details is a good idea.

However what I do find useful recently is quick follow in Tweetcaster… Add the name, save them to a list for future use. Yes its not going to beat having a photo, etc but its a lot less intrusive. Only issue is I sometimes end up calling people there twitter name rather than there real name. Specially when they don’t have very distinctive names or use a picture of themselves when they were a child (not going to point at anyone).

I’ve been playing with the idea of putting pictures next to peoples names in my contact book but frankly do I want to be looking at my phone each time I recognise someone? Which also concerns me with Evernote Hello…

And they ask, how can you judge…?

Josh (technicalfault) will never let me forget about my idles to not date anyone who regularly shops in Aldi supermarket…

After reading my latest blog post he took to Twitter to tell me I’m a hypo-critic 🙂

He then puts forward a scenario…

how about this. a lady shops in Aldi so she can save money to help pay for parents medical treatment. yet you judge her!

Actually no… maybe I do but for good reason. We all have filters, preferences, likes. Like it or not, its being human

So why the dislike of Aldi? Well its a complex one, and can not be put down to some simple snobbery. Heck even I shop there between supermarket deliveries… But I don’t like it. Its about my own values…

Here’s some justification, which may make me sound like a snob but I’m not…

  1. Good food costs good money…
    I buy free-range eggs instead of barn eggs (even with the huge cost increase). Even when I was a student and had no money at all, working in starbucks coffee, I would still mainly buy free-range eggs. Very occasionally I bought barn eggs and although I knew they were basically the same, I felt terrible for doing so… That was my own values being stretched – not anyone elses. My own values tell me food pricing is screwed up… Good food should cost quite a bit and specially in the case of fresh food, the premium we pay should go to the people who help bring us that fresh food. This is why although Aldi does provide very cheap food, I’m not a fan because I feel good food should cost. (To note: I’m not saying everyone should pay that if they can’t afford it. Our values and priorities change through our lives, and right now I don’t have a problem paying for good food, I know that makes me very lucky)
  2. Quality of food…
    In my honest opinion, fresh food at Aldi is generally crappy… Things like Grapes and Apples taste really bad to me. When compared to Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Booths and even from the Arndale local Market. I can’t stand to buy fresh goods from Aldi no more after multiple tries. Maybe its just my taste buds but I believe its about right for the money you pay. Yes they have a reasonable selection of meats and cheeses but there fresh food is very poor in my view. So I would have a slightly tarnished view of people who enjoyed the fresh food… Its not me looking down, well at least no less than those who enjoy Apple products 🙂
I can go on for ever about Aldi but I just have so many problems with our local Aldi beyond what I said above…
Josh will hate my justification but frankly its a small filter and a little more context, we were originally talking regarding Asda’s supermarket dating service. I joked Asda dating (at least in Eastlands Manchester) would be a poor state of affairs. It would be like dating on Plenty of Fish while something like Sainsburys or even Booths supermarket dating would be more like dating on Okcupid. The later certainly would attract more of the type person I’d personally like to meet… Its not a snobbery thing, actually Sainsburys and Booths are both in Salford.
I’ll be hiding from the comments and twitter wraff for the rest of the week… I’m never too far from controversy it seems…