design-and-ideas – Page 23 – Cubicgarden.com…

BBC pledges to get the UK coding

Should kids learn programming in school?

Its been a long time in coming but finally its happening. BBC Micro 2.0? Nope better than that.

We (the BBC) are going to get the Nation coding… with the help of others…

Over 30 years ago, the BBC played a leading role in helping Britain get to grips with the first wave of personal computers by putting the BBC Micro into the majority of schools. However, today the UK risks missing out on vital skills that inspired a generation of digital and technical thinkers, as interest in higher–education IT and computing courses falls. The UK currently faces a skills shortage in the technology sector and the BBC aims to help change that.

Of course I knew it was coming but to have it actually announced and from the very top is fantastic. Its worth stopping and thinking about all those people who pushed and pushed to make this all happen.

People like Ant Miller, Michael Sparks, Alan O’Donohoe, Howard Baker, Jo Classens, Keri Facer, Mo McRoberts, George Auckland, Chris Sizemore, and many more and that list is just people attached to the BBC. These are the hero’s who pushed and chipped away. Yes theres the big stuff like Eric Schmitt’s talk at the Edinburgh TV festival, RaspberryPI, Raspberry jams, etc (I actually have a massive mindmap going back a couple of years mapping out the area, which maybe I should blog one day)

As Andy Budd said on Twitter, shame its 2015, to which Michael Sparks said “2015 is relatively realistic given the turning circle of the BBC”

He could be right… The BBC isn’t well known for moving quickly but when its time to do it, hopefully they will do it right… Heck there might even be a BBC Code lab? How freaky would that be… Alan!

All just as the millionth RaspberryPI is made. But honestly the best part of the announcement is the BBC are going to collaborate rather than go it alone.

Details of the programme were limited, but the BBC said that it would partner with government, educators and technology companies. “From working with children and young people, to stimulating a national conversation about digital creativity, the BBC will help audiences embrace technology and get creative,” the corporation said in a blog post.

Of course some of those relationships we’ve built over time will now come into there own.

Is copyright reform on the way?

Torrentfreak has a thoughtful piece about copyright reform. As you can imagine its swings towards a very liberal reform, which sounds about right to me.

Let’s take a look at what happened when the compact cassette arrived. It was sort of an analog removable hard drive with music, that you plugged into an analog music player – the new thing at the time being that you could also write to it. Cassette players popped up everywhere, in particular in a form called ghettoblasters, where you’d carry a rather large box with loudspeakers and two cassette slots around, not to mention quite a few batteries.

Note that I wrote two cassette slots. All of these players also advertised how good they were at copying cassette tapes. You’d pop in the source tape, put a blank tape in the recording slot, and hit a gigantic button named “copy”. This was a feature that was heavily advertised – the better the blasters were at copying, the more music its owner would be able to collect.

The record industry at the time went absolutely ballistic, and said “home taping is killing music” in a largely ridiculed campaign. The bands at the time gave them the finger and printed that logo with the text “home taping is killing record industry profits” instead, adding “we left the reverse side [of the tape] blank, so you can help”. Nevertheless, this was the start of the war against ordinary people copying, something that has only escalated to ridiculous levels today. (Can you imagine a two-slot DVD player being sold today that would have a huge red button marked COPY on it?)

Nice example which later goes on…

When today’s teenagers have grown up enough to be pulling the strings, do you really believe they’ll buy the fairytale stories of how the monopoly construct that all of them saw as plainly abusive, oppressive, and extortionate is needed “for the artists to get paid”? When all they saw – when all everybody saw – was a monopoly construct that silenced artists, silenced challenges to the establishment’s status quo, killed technological innovation, and made sure that rich multinational corporations could buy the power they wanted?

There’s not a chance they’ll buy the fairytale stories from the copyright industry. They’ll all remember their own firsthand experiences. And they’ll kill the monopoly entirely, to thunderous applause.

I certainly like to imagine this to be true, but it doesn’t seem to include the fact people, the average slide of people towards a conservative outlook.

Of course this is nothing compared to the works of Lawrence Lessig’s thoughts, which must be read if your interested in this area.

What is BarCampEdu?

Remember a couple of times in the past I have said this will be the last barcamp I will do.

After BarCampLondon3, I stood up and said no more from me. Others took it onwards and upwards. A similar thing happened with BarCampManchester2 and BarCampMediaCity.

Anyway I’m at it again.

BarCampEdu or BarCampManchesterEducation is a 1 day barcamp held at the S harp Project in East Manchester on Saturday 16th November.

In the North West of England there has been BarCampManchester, BarCampBlackpool, BarcampLiverpool, BarCampPreston, BarCampMediaCity and that is just the start…

The power of unconferences can be applied to all types of subjects and in BarCampEdu, we’re applying it to further education in Manchester. Bringing together the next digital generation with those in industry now to better understand each other and the opportunities available.

BarCampEdu takes the concept of BarCamp and adds a level of education to the proceedings. When I say eduction, I do not means its a barcamp about education, rather the most of the people in the venue will be students from the major Manchester universities. MMU, Manchester University and Salford University will be all working together and contributing to a great day of talks.

It came about when I attended the barcamp about barcamp (encampment london) Kate a lecturer from City University talked about how BarCamp ticks a lot of the boxes she needs to cover in a year. When I was lecturing, I remember some of the points shes talking about. Each university will get a selection of tickets for there students and staff. The rest of the tickets will be open to the general public.

We are seeking sponsorship to go along side the supporting universities and a few surprises coming soon.

To know more the event, check out the website at barcampedu.wordpress.com. Tickets to the public will go live soon.

300 seconds to tell your story

I have always wanted to help people around me, its in my blood and I sometimes end up doing it regardless of my work load (must stop doing so). Anyhow a few months ago I ran a series of events as part of the BBC’s Connected studio called BBC Connected Social. One of the events was a ignite event about design. Although I tried to get a number of women involved, I got nowhere.

This didn’t go unnoticed and to be fair rightly so… The event went ahead and was a success but I couldn’t help but feel crappy about the lack of women I got onboard. I have been known to level criticism at some events for the lack of women and diversity but I couldn’t make it happen myself.

Ever since (and to be fair before) I’ve been thinking about putting on a conference with the aim of encouraging women to give public speaking a chance. I originally thought about working with Madlab to put on such a event, specially after the last girlgeek barcamp (bracamp) and my rushed look at the success of Girl Geekdinners.

Anyway after getting a chance to hear Melinda’s (miss geeky) views on 300 seconds I joined the dots and connected people.

I believe the event matches the BBC values nicely…

We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best.

I’m now super stoked to be able to say the 3rd 300 seconds event will be at the BBC, MediaCityUK.

What is 300 seconds?

300 Seconds is a series of talks by and for the digital community. We believe that digital is better when we can learn from the brilliance of the many, not just the few. With our events we hope to give our peers, and in particular women, a means of gaining confidence and experience in speaking in public.

On the Thursday 14th November, you can get your tickets now to apply to speak or just listen and support. Of course the event is open to men as well, so what you waiting for? Go get yourself a ticket and I look forward to seeing you and sharing the special surprises we have installed for the night.

Top 10 tech hangouts in Manchester

Inspired by The next web and Martin’s Tweet for the Top 20 tech hangouts in new york city. I thought well I’ve not really done one for Manchester’s geek/tech scene. I’ve done some posts for top first dating locations which seems to get a lot of search engine referrals. Heck I’ve even talked about coffee shop clashes.

So here’s my list of the top tech hangouts in Manchester…

Madlab
Go there anyday almost anytime and it will be full of geeky/tech interested people. Its amazing the diversity of people and interests.
North Tea Power
Although a coffee shop, its usually full of people on laptops working away on startup ideas and new types of projects. Excellent coffee with plentyful types of tea. Owners are lovely people and take their coffee seriously.
TechHub Manchester
You heard of Techhub, well its the same formula just in the north of England. Of course this is where serious tech startups go to be taken seriously by investers of all kind. Its not the kind of place you can just rock up but they do have social events including Silicon drinkabout every Friday evening. There is also a Northstar Cafe (thanks Angie) below which you can sometimes find tech people and its only 5mins from Piccadilly Station.
Takk
New on the scene, and forms part of the new Northern Quarter or new Piccadilly Basin area. Putting the old Drip coffee to shame and taking a clues from North Tea Power. This rapidly is becoming the coffee shop work and be seen at. Now if only they can sort out the opening hours, like NTP.
The Classroom
The coworking space which is along side bakerie’s pie and ale store. This coworking space is membership only but pretty cheap if you want somewhere more social to work but not have the hassle of ordering coffee every hour or so.
Common/Home sweet home
When Edge street wasn’t so cool and didn’t have street lighting (I still think it doesn’t?), there was a bar with the full title, a place called common. Common has been around for years and hosted many social events in the past. Right next door is home sweet home which has established its self as a great place for the more chilled nights out. Of course both face Madlab, so its easy to go from Madlab to Home sweet home to Common in one evening/night.
Castle hotel
I am not a fan of the castle, but if you want to find techies, hipsters and digital folk, the castle hotel is a must. People seem to like it a lot while I always wonder where the cocktails are. But I’ll give it something, it certainly attracts tech people in the know. Oh and I have no idea if it really is a hotel or not.
Cornerhouse
The cornerhouse cinema is one of those places which is full of art people but you sometimes find an event which attracts tech people. Its generally a very cool place and one of those places which really attracted me to live in Manchester all those years ago.
Kim by the Sea
Just around the corner from Manchester’s Technology park, I’ve been there a few times and each time theres a mix of hippies, artists and technology people. Nice big portions and earthy feel which makes a difference.
Terrace
I haven’t seen it yet, but Madlab and terrace have come together to do a co-working space of there own. Meant to be a nice space, a little better than the classroom I hear. Terrace is of course another cool bar, usually quite loud not ideal for a chat

If the boot sequence was this cool

Remember on Hackers when the guys all start up there laptops and your treated to a range of animated startup sequences?

How cool was it to have all those individualised, personalised startup sequences? Certainly beats looking at the Lenovo, Apple, Microsoft, etc logos.

Well someone is thinking along the same lines at least

Real Mind Control

From Gizmodo… Wow!

Researchers at the University of Washington have figured out how to send commands from one person’s brain to control a different person’s muscle movement. In technical terms, it’s the world’s first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface.

My home network explained again

So this is a turn around from my now usual ranting about dating…

Last Friday, we were in the northern quarter and some how got around to talking about networking. I mentioned I had 3 gigabit switches and everyone asked why the heck have you got 3 gigabit switches? To which I tried to explain, very badly. So I promised to do a diagram of why I need those switches and not just extra long cables.

So here it is… Funny enough its not the first time I’ve explained my home networking setup. With a little more time I might have done something a lot more attractive.

First thing is the rooms are serial not exactly how you see them above. Aka the bedroom is as far away from the living room as possible and the spare room is in the middle of them both. Ok maybe I should consider redrawing them… The ADSL2 line works best off the main socket in the cupboard (Its how I can achieve my 1.5meg upload consistently rather that 1meg upload). The next room with power is the spare bedroom, where the ADSL2+ router lives. The router is only 10/100, so I use it just as a modem but I’ve recently been turning on the 54G wireless and using it for guest connections. Turns out at the time it was very difficult to get a ADSL router with gigabit wired points, might not be true 2 years later.

The next step into the network is the WRT firmware upgraded Switch complete with 108N wireless. Because its running WRT I can do many things like Quality of Service (QoS), VPN and port knocking for remote access. I class this part the inners of my home network.

Due to the room layouts, I’ve decided to string the network together by putting a gigabit switch in each room. This means I only have to feed one cable room to room rather than 4+. As you can see I have about 4 devices in the bedroom and living room and thats not including a spare one for guests.

So why wired and not wireless? As I live in a set of flats, theres a lot of people with those BT/Sky boxes on random channels (would show how messy it is but you can imagine). The wireless is good but not really for sending full HD videos to my TV without waiting 5 secs for it to buffer and maybe some pauses in the middle. If I switch to wired 100megbit networking, its fine but if I start to do a large transfer over the network, for example if I’m working on some footage on the server at the same time, its noticeably slower and you may get slight pauses. Now I’m certain it might actually be a IO issue with my 54000rpm disks. But I get nothing like this with my gigabit network.

Once I went Gigabit, everything just worked smoothly. I don’t ever see any latency issue, even when streaming stuff to the Xbian in the bedroom at the same time. I once did a test of both my Lenovo XBMC and RaspPI playing Inception at 1080p with me pulling the same file to my laptop. Although the PI struggled playing it back, everything seemed to work as expected. I bought into Gigabit at the point when it just dropped in price. My laptop, Server, Lenovo XBMC box, etc have gigabit ports so it was a no brainier really.

I am keen to try out 802.11AC but right now my main focus is to replace my Lenovo XBMC box which outputs in VGA to the LED screen. This is why I was trying out Simon’s Ouya. I already removed all other desktop machines from the network (got 3 mini desktop machines in the spare room to get rid of).

So thats the crux of why I got 3 gigabit switches…

Feel free to talk about other solutions but they need to be cheapish and not interfere with much else. Its worth pointing out the runs of cables between the rooms are roughly 20meters long. I will at some point drill into the walls but not quite yet. Finally I looked into powerline solutions but there pricey and I’m not sure of how good they are in a set of flats. Think I prefer a ethernet cable, as I would end up with a setup similar to what I have now.

Lifelogging a new way to look at reality

When I was at the Quantified Self Europe conference earlier this year, I was at a talk about lifelogging… It was interesting to say the least but I took away a number of things. Two stuck out…

The images which are taken, cease being images alone per-say.
Lifelogging is like having another sense.

Really interesting to think about that while reading Here’s What Memoto Does With Your Entire Life After Photographing It and How lifelogging is transforming the way we remember track our lives.

The images which are taken, cease being images alone per-say

“Photos make sense as contextualizers for all that data [from the quantified self movement],” Johansson says. By saving data like GPS coordinates and which direction the camera is facing along with the photo, Memoto has also positioned itself for possibilities such as putting together all of the photos taken from one place into a 3-D map or allowing users to opt into a photo pool when they’re at the same event.

None of this, however, will be possible unless enough people find the app’s automatic timeline of their lives compelling enough to warrant wearing Memoto in the first place. For that, the company is betting on something akin to an extreme FOMO–or a fear of missing out, not on an experience, but on the opportunity to capture an experience. FOMOOCE, if you will. “This is a way to get to an effective mindfulness by knowing you are not missing out on capturing anything,” Johansson says.

Lifelogging is like having another sense

In 2013, lifelogging is set to hit another milestone with the launch of self-tracking hardware devices like Google Glass and Memoto’s wearable, automatic camera set to hit market.

To explore the “lifelogging” phenomenon and the shift in how people are remembering and capturing their lives, the creators of Memoto recently launched a documentary about the lifelogging movement. The documentary includes interviews with experts in the field like Steve Mann and Gordon Bell, along with the technical lead of Google Glass — exploring the past, present and future of lifelogging.

Of course the whole lifeblogging movement is dominated with Google Glass right now and the idea is in many visions, (usually dystopian) of the future including Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror’s The Entire History of You.

Set in an alternative reality where most people have a ‘grain’ implanted behind their ear which records everything they do, see or hear. This allows memories to be played back either in front of the person’s eyes or on a screen, a process known as a ‘re-do’.

A promising and interesting future for lifelogging… Me thinks

Reminder that Jobs wasn’t always right

Got to love the new Google Nexus 7.

Recently I have seen a lot of people with the Apple ipad mini, so much when I see someone with the ipad full. I can’t help but touch it and lift it. Usually saying something like “wow its really that big and that heavy!”

Although I use to get ratty when people confused my Samsung Tab 7+ with the ipad mini

So ironic being the fact the Galaxy 7+ was released in the middle of fight between Samsung and Apple. Apple said the Galaxy tabs looked like the ipad and got the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 7.7 blocked in different parts of the world. Samsung fighting the blocks, decided to make a Galaxy Tab 7+ which I ended up buying.

Back to the point…

People making the mistake of thinking my Galaxy 7+ is a ipad mini… Thats finally starting to go away now the market is flooded with 7inch tablets.

Steve Jobs famously announced, there is no need for a 7inch tablet.

No tablet can compete with the mobility of a smartphone, its ease of fitting into your pocket or purse, its unobtrusiveness when used in a crowd. Given that all tablet users will already have a smartphone in their pockets, giving up precious display area to fit a tablet in our pockets is clearly the wrong trade-off. The 7-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad.

These are among the reasons we think the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival. Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning both customers and developers who jumped on the 7-inch bandwagon with an orphan product…

Well he was so wrong, even Apple themselves ended up building the 7.9inch ipad mini. But more interestingly is the overall demand for 7inch tablets is very high.

Why be a leader?

Gotta follow Umair Haque on Twitter… He posts a heck of a lot but theres some real gems. One such gem was his piece for Havard Business Review titled “How and Why to Be a Leader (Not a Wannabe)”

Leadership — true leadership —is a lost art. Leaders lead us not to a place — but to a different kind of destination: to our better, truer selves. It is an act of love in the face of an uncertain world. Perhaps, then, that’s why there’s so little leadership around: because we’re afraid to even say the word love — let alone to feel it, weigh it, measure it, allow it, admit it, believe it, and so be transformed by it.

Sounds fantastic… And I can almost feel my heart pounding. Umair then goes on to outline six ways to be a real leader… I won’t spoil it so here’s the top 3 which got me thinking

Conform — or rebel? Are you breaking the rules or following them? The rules are there for a reason: to stifle deviation, preserve the status quo, and bring the outliers right back down to the average. That’s a wonderful idea if you’re running a factory churning out widgets — but it’s a terrible notion if you’re trying to do anything else. And so leaders must shatter the status quo by breaking the rules, leading by example,= so that followers know the rules not just can, but must be broken. If you’re nail-bitingly following the rules, here’s the score: you’re not a true leader.

Talking my language, break the rules but cleverly. I’m all about the outliers and shattering the status quo. Been using the term “change the world or go home” a lot more around work. The status quo is so seductive and I see people around me wishing for things to be as they use to be alot more.

Someone asked the question the other day if things are better now or a while ago? Without a doubt its better now and it will get better still. This of course ties directly into the next point, vision or the truth…

Vision — or truth? The wannabe sets a vision. With grandiloquent gesture and magnificent panorama, the vision glitters. The leader has a harder task: to tell the truth, as plain as day, as obvious as dawn, as sure as sunrise, as inescapable as midnight. Vision is nice, and many think that a Grand Vision is what inspires people. They’re wrong. If you really want to inspire people, tell them the truth: there’s nothing that sets people free like the truth. The leader tells the truth because his fundamental task is that of elevation: to bring forth in people their better selves. And while we can climb towards a Grand Vision, it’s also true that the very act of perpetually climbing may be what imprisons us in lives we don’t really want (hi, Madison Ave, Wall St, and Silicon Valley). Truth is what elevates us; what opens us up to possibility; what produces in us the sense that we must become who were meant to be if we are to live worthy lives — and one of the surest tests of whether you’re a true leader is whether you’re merely (yawn, shrug, eyeroll) slickly selling a Grand Vision, or, instead, helping bring people a little closer to the truth. And if you have to ask what “truth” is (newsflash: climate change is real, the global economy is still borked, greed isn’t good, bankers shouldn’t earn a billion times what teachers do, CEOs shouldn’t get private jets for life for running companies into the ground, the sky really is blue) — guess what? You’re definitely not a leader.

This one really brings things home for me. Vision is important but the truth is much more important. We’re not kids, protecting us from the truth in the end. As Haque says, tell us the truth and in time we’ll respect you for it. I specially love the newsflash at the end.

Archery — or architecture? Wannabes are something like metric-maximizing robots. Given a set of numbers they must “hit,” they beaver away trying to hit them. The leader knows their job is very different: not merely to maximize existing metrics, which are often part of the problem (hi, GDP, shareholder value), but to reimagine them. The leader’s job is, fundamentally, not merely to “hit a target” — but to redesign the playing field. It’s architecture, not mere archery. If you’re hitting a target, you’re not a leader. You’re just another performer, in an increasingly meaningless game.

Metric-maximizing robots! Indeed… Its not about hitting those targets, its about redesigning the playing field. A true leader will change the world by changing the nature, landscape or architecture. I remember when Google talked about changing the patent process then they bought Motorola mobile and they shut up about that. Shame! Could have been a leader, but instead opted for the same goals as all the others.

I would conclude that having a business model which relies on year on year profit growth is maybe the constraining element, but were talking about leadership not business. If your treating both like the same, maybe your a wannabe and not really a worthy leader?

Hacking your input and outputs

I had the pleasure of supporting and attending Hacked.io which was a hackday in the most traditional sense of the word. Run by the Geeks of London for 02 Labs, it couldn’t have been more fitting to hold it at the 02 arena (the old millennium dome). Now I knew the plans ahead of most people but I didn’t really think that I might have been a good part of the inspiration for the event.

Melinda broke it down for Ankur Oberoi at 5am.

“Ian use to run Geekdinners which we use to go to. Then went on to run BarCampLondon 1, 2 and 3. After which he ran the first hackday and over the air. Most of the Geeks of London went to the events and once Ian moved on, he passed on geekdinners to me and Cristiano. So we did that and formed the geeks of London. Then we took over Barcamplondon. Now I guess we are taking over hackday. Taking it back to the original idea of sharing ideas and knowledge” (power phrased of course)

On the walk back to the hotel at 5:30am I thought about this… Not only am I delighted to be a inspiration but I’m also over the moon that they have given these events a level of professionalism and sustainability which I could not. No matter what I say about hacked.io, I was blown away by the little things and the ultimate aim of open sharing.

I’m kind of gutted I didn’t hack something myself, but talking to people I learned a bunch of things and some of those things I’m following up with.

Hacked.io promised a lot and deliver much back many things…

Of course this is the same team which mainly wrote the controversial hackday manifesto. So it would make sense to compare Hacked.io against there own thoughts…

Announcing the event
Once you know when and how your event will take place, you’ll want to tell the world about it. At a bare minimum, you should decide on a canonical place where all public information about the event lives – this might be a dedicated web site, an event on an existing event online service or some other place which is publicly accessible.

Once you’ve decided where that location is, use tools like Twitter and Facebook to make people aware of the event, and also consider which Google Groups and mailing lists developers relevant to your event may be hanging out. Don’t spam them, though – nobody enjoys that.

On Announcing everything seemed perfect. Everything you needed to know was at hacked.io and the almanac seemed to have all FAQs ready to go. I also felt they hit the right level of communication. Not too much and not too little. Maybe from a supporter side a tiny bit more might not have gone a miss. But generally it was all good.

Registration was cool but my allergy information did get post in the mix. And I did feel sorry for those who were waiting in the massive line for a long while.

The venue should be relatively easy for people from outside of town to locate, with good public transport links. If it’s difficult to reach, try to provide alternative means of transportation, such as coaches to/from local transport hubs throughout the event. Provide a full address, and if necessary, additional instructions to all attendees well in advance of the event.

Include instructions/contacts/getting in arrangements, too (i.e., what to do at reception/security desks).

Print big signs that will guide your attendees to the venue (and in some case inside the venue).

The venue was top class and a dream to be able to use. The transport links to the 02 are great and I do remember the first time Cristiano and Kevin told me they were looking to use the 02. I was gob smacked. How on earth did they pull that one off? I had looked at the 02 when we were working on Hackday but it was far too expensive. Transport wise its got plenty going for it and heck its easy on the tube. Many signs and even billboards pointed people in the right direction. There were even helpers guiding people to the right place. Of course getting back was easy even at 5:30am due to the 24hour buses which run to central London when the tube stops.

Of course the venue was accessible with lifts and what not, maybe the stage needed a lift too? And I found the security staff quite firm but nice. I think they were a little bemused by the whole event.

Date clashes. One of the most frustrating things for attendees to see is two similar events on the same day in the same area. To avoid this, check places like Lanyrd, Eventbrite, Meetup, and ask on Twitter “is anything going on in X on X?”. Remember that people may be travelling long distances for hack days, so even if an event is a few hundred miles away, you are still diluting your potential audience.

Always a hard one to solve but they got it out there early enough and the only clash I saw was with Mozilla’s Party Hack which I believe was cancelled when the clash came to light.

If attendees are staying overnight, then a separate (dark, quiet) area should be available away from the hacking should people decide to sleep. If possible, this should be several areas potentially including dedicated areas, for example male/female/mixed, minors (+chaperones?), snorer/non-snorer, night-owls/early birds.

I didn’t check out the sleeping arrangements because I stayed up till 5:30am then walked to my hotel in Greenwich. I noticed there were areas upstairs for sleeping and I assume they were separated or whatever. While downstairs was a place for hacking all night. Of course some people fell a sleep at their computers.

The Network. Hack days have special requirements: don’t just trust anyone who tells you that “it’ll be fine”. Think about the networking issues, and verify that they work for the kind of capacity you are going to have. People from the venue or their commercial partner will tell you all sorts of things you want to hear but keep in the back of your mind that they may not have any clue what they are talking about. Given the importance of network access, if you are operating a commercial event consider requiring network performance as part of your contract with venues and suppliers.

One of the bug bears of almost any hackday event. Unfortunately hacked.io was effected pretty badly by 2.4ghz wireless problems. There was a figure banded around estimating 4 devices for every single person in the room. That means supplying wireless for 2000 devices! When we did hackday we estimated roughly 2 devices per person. There seems to be plenty of bandwidth in the backend pipe, because once plugged into a switches (the solution to most of the problems) it was fast and reliable. I had to download the JDK and I blinked and it was downloaded.

So what was the problem? Seems some device was spitting out packets into the 2.4ghz space and disrupting the network at the same time. I have some experience of this when the Nimba virus was prevalent and daily Ravensbourne IT staff would have to go find the suspect before they switched to 802.11x authentication. Nimba would just consume the network and all its resources, before you knew it. All spare 802.11 space was crammed with packets

They had the best guys involved in the networking and wireless. Nexus Global networking battled away till most of the machines were on wired network but it was a black eye on a perfectly run event.

Power wasn’t a problem thankfully, lots of spare power sockets all over the place.

Food & Drink…Not everyone in the technical community is hypercarnivorous. Be sure to check with your attendees for dietary requirements: food allergies, vegetarians, vegans and people with dietary restrictions. Make provisions to ensure they are provided for equally. If you’re on a budget, prioritise allergies and vegan alternatives; the vegan alternative will satisfy most non-allergy based requirements. Common food allergies include milk, eggs, nuts, fish, shellfish, soya, and wheat (gluten).

Food was good (mainly salad pots) and there was pizza as a midnight surprise. The dinner was good because there was tickets for 4 different restaurants in the dome. But most people said the portions were quite small and seeked out more food elsewhere. For example my work friends were lucky to get the thai silk tickets which I gather were in high demand. GBK seemed to be 2nd. Last place was dinner at the 02 lounge Which I got stuck with. The last thing I really wanted to eat was mash potatoes and sausages. Weirdly I couldn’t mix the food according to the lady serving!

For the midnight surprise Pizza hut delivered Pizzas but the word didn’t quite get out so quickly so most of the meat ones were gone and we were left with cold pizza. That will teach me to sit and chat upstairs.

There was some confusion over alcohol too but it worked it self out. There was plenty of Fruit and Chocolate, Crisps, Soda and Water around all day and night too.

APIs and Datasets was a interesting angle because unlike other hackathons, there was no set API or datasets to play with. You could use what ever you liked but there were challenges for those who couldn’t think of something themselves or needed to be challenged.

Anyone who hacks should be a allowed to Demo at the end of the event, regardless of the quality or completeness.

Each demo should be given a fixed time limit, standard times are 60, 90, 180, and 300 seconds. Tell presenters ahead of time, let them know how much time remains (either half time cards or an on-screen count down), and don’t let them run over.

Try and communicate clear expectations for the demos to all attendees from the beginning of the event. Some attendees will become frustrated when they see others demo-ing paper prototypes or Photoshop mockups when they believed a working implementation was required. If hacks do not meet these base requirements, they should not be able to win a prize.

The demos were by the book. I was very impressed by the use of Hackerleague. Never used it before but I like it a lot. Now if Lanyrd and Hackerleague could connect together… 90 secs was about right for each hack. The only down side was being split up from the hackers presenting but honestly it was for a short time only.

I was really impressed with the range of hacks, I wrote some down which I’d like to follow up on from a BBC point of view and of course hackerleague makes it nice and easy to follow up.

The amount of Philips Hue hacks was impressive and makes sense because I think a lot of people thought it was a totally closed system which was tied to Apple. The amount clearly points the fact Hacked.io was comfortable. People were willing to take more risks and actually learn something new. That makes hacked.io a success right? A return to the learn, build and share ethics of hackers.

I’d also like to say it was amazing all the extra effort the team put in. There was a theme of dogs over cats, be more curious, plus fun and fake facts in the toilets, magically boxes on the tables, the tag line everywhere and finally the first 100 through the door got a prize! Talk about attention to detail! Now thats how you run a hackday!

Massive thanks to the Geeks of London, 02 and everyone who attended and made it a great event. Like everyone asked me after hackday, so whens the next one?

Apple have lost the plot

I have been meaning to write about those disgusting Apple adverts (yes disgusting, I was almost sick in my mouth when I first saw it) but been so busy, then Maggie reminded me at Hacked.io about what I wanted to say.

Fast Design write up pretty much how I feel…

Watch the ad closely for me. As we’re told that products are what matter, we see a series of shots in which people actively turn away from life to engage with their technology.

A woman closes her eyes on the subway to soak in electronic music.

A room of students looks down at their desks instead of at their teacher.

A parent and child cuddle, focused on a screen that’s so powerful it illuminates the kid’s face.

A couple kisses in the rain, then immediately turn away to look at a phone.

A tourist opts to FaceTime instead of bathing in visceral, smoky yakitori.

In what should be a warm, humanizing montage, people are constantly directing their attention away from one another and the real, panoramic world to soak in pixels. They’re choosing the experience of their products over the experience of other people several times in quick succession. And Apple has a warm voice in the background, goading us on.

Now I’m fully aware most adverts are like this but frankly for Apple, this is bad bad news.

On top of that, the fact Apple are advertising this factor, is worst still. So much for creativity…!

Just to be clear the best adverts in this class were the Orange adverts, which never showed the actual device but rather the effect of the device. Now unfortunately Orange or rather EE have switched to another style which isn’t much better than most.

The technology should be the glue not the end point. However Apple want you to marvel at there devices. I’m not certain when this changed but its certainly changed for the worst.

Have to be clear I’m not against devices, heck if you follow this down the line you can end up somewhere with Sherry Turkle.

Our devices and software are great but I have to echo some of the thoughts about using your mobile while dating and dare I say it, some of the Orange Cinema adverts. Don’t let your device get in the way of a great time. No matter how pretty it maybe.

Its not going to take 20 years… Its outdated and shockingly backwards already…

Inspiring friends and people

When I wrote the blog post about me not being a player, it was following a heated debate at a party.

Chris has been a friend for a short time and after splitting up from a long term relationship 2 years ago has been single and looking like myself.As a response to my blog post, he wrote this…

Now, one of my good friends Ian, who’s been described as a Wikipedia of dating, has helped me with this process, and although the purpose of my retrospection wasn’t really around dating (although that was a part of it – I wanted to figure out exactly what I wanted), a lot of advice around dating is actually just self-help, particularly around self-confidence. A lot of the things that are covered in dating advice books and those communities, is around an area called “inner game” – that basically boils down to self-confidence. A lot of the other bits of advice from those kind of communities are to be taken which a pinch of salt (to say the least, it can be full-on misogyny at times), but GirlOnTheNet says it better than I ever could, in that a lot of the advice from the pick up community is basically just self-confidence, and then going and talking to women).

Ian and I have different views on some aspects of dating, and although his advice has forced me to push boundaries, I’m not trying to emulate his approach exactly, as we’ve got different personalities and experiences (which is fine – there’s not one single approach to dating which works for everyone), but I have been on more dates, of which the majority have been good dates, and I’ve managed to figure out what I’m looking for as well – which is definitely something that I struggled with a year ago, and not knowing that left me paralysed at times.

He’s right, for the short while I’ve known Chris, he’s really come out of his shell and heck I’m totally touched to think I had anything to do with his genuine confidence increase.

There is also something I missed out on with my me the player post, something related to Chris’s post (didn’t even know Chris had a blog).

Most of the dates I go on, involves some kind of insightful chat (dare I say it… knowledge transfer). I bet most of the woman I date walk away with a smile on their face. I guess what I’m saying is, my intentions are noble and if I can inspire someone, increase there self confidence then great. Does this sound like a player? I certainly don’t think so…

Do You Really Want to Know Your Future?

I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast today and heard a interesting piece which reflects my thoughts on 23 and Me…

Stephen Dubner talks to people who have a rare but terribly destructive neurological disease Huntington’s. And ask if children of the disease if given the opportunity would want to know if they were also at high risk or not.

As Stephen says…

If you could take a test that could foretell your future, at least your medical future, would you? Would it be valuable for you to know if something bad was going to happen? Or would it be more valuable to not know?

My post about 23 and Me, isn’t anywhere near like this question but has similar answers…

As one of the people asked on the podcast said…

I think this is something that is horrific information, very, very powerful information. If you’re somebody who has a 50 percent risk as most people at risk around the world there is nothing, nothing whatsoever that you can do that makes any difference whatsoever, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. There’s no treatment you can take. There’s nothing to forestall it. And if we actually had something that made a difference in treatment, I think that would make a huge difference.

Or another part…

DUBNER: Well here’s what I wanted to ask you. I mean, we do know that economists think about the world differently and we appreciate that, especially on this program. I mean, we love that. On the other hand, there is this assumption among economists and within economics that people do value information and that they eschew or try to get rid of uncertainty, because economists see that uncertainty brings about bad things. But I’m just curious if the rather strong evidence that so many people embrace uncertainty in their own private lives may have changed or nuanced a little bit the way that you as an economist think about the downsides of uncertainty and maybe there is something to be said for it.

OSTER: No, absolutely I think that I have come to think that in fact for a much larger share of the population than I would have expected it seems like this preference for living with uncertainty is quite strong. And I would have said some people have that preference. It seems surprising to learn that basically, at least in this population, it’s like the vast majority of people appear to be much more interested in living with uncertainty, which isn’t something that I think would be true for me, and I would not have thought would be true for some many people.

DUBNER: And it doesn’t weaken your preference for certainty at all.

OSTER: No, I don’t think so.

The answer is very tricky and not a simple one, but we already knew that…