Nice little interview revealing some of my background work and what I do at BBC R&D. It includes work like Perceptive Radio.
Thanks to Radio.co…
Category: design-and-ideas
Airbnb’s new slightly creepy advert?
The nextweb say airbnb’s advert is a little creepy…?
Airbnb’s new ad campaign is creepy as hell, says @nattgarun > http://t.co/KrBvXg616u
— Martin Bryant (@MartinSFP) July 14, 2015
And I have to say there are not wrong… Not quite sure what to make of it. Of course Airbnb have their reasoning.
But if you do book my spare room, please don’t think…
Sleep in their beds, so you may know their dreams.
— Airbnb (@Airbnb) July 14, 2015
Sleeping in my spare bed will fill you in on my dreams. This really sounds like the promising start of horror film…?! Honestly what on earth Airbnb? Human? More like scary movie?
What conversations would you put in the national archives?
Kate pointed me towards the BBC Radio 4 listening project which is touring and coming to Manchester in October.
The Listening Project is a partnership between BBC Radio 4, BBC local and national radio stations, and the British Library.
Capturing the nation in conversation
We are asking people up and down the country to share an intimate conversation with a close friend or relative, to help to build a unique picture of our lives today. Some of these conversations will be broadcast across BBC radio and archived by the British Library, preserving them for future generations.
I like the idea of this and funny enough I started listening to 33 Voices which reminds me of the sadly gone IT conversations.
There is something about conversations which are fascinating, its what made podcasts so raw and interesting…
Nothing like a overheard conversation although there are ethics too, maybe its the reason why I don’t use headphones when in cafes and on standard class trains?
I look forward to hearing more and maybe even contributing to the project in some way.
Time to be creative, BBC Microbit
https://twitter.com/andywilson460/status/618508749070843909
The BBC has had a bit of rough ride recently especially in the press and with the 600 million they have to take on and the cuts announced.
With all news stories like this, its easy to feel and think the worst. But its important to be positive and think about the way forward. The BBC must innovate and be creative about what happens next.
Talking about creativity, the BBC Microbit project finally was launched and it was great to finally see the concluding chapter to BBC Micro. I’d love to see a micromen style tv show about the many many years of getting this project to launch. So many people were involved in the process and they must all be proud to finally see the project come to this stage.
I still remember Ant Miller’s talk about the BBC Micro for the 21st Century at BarCampBrighton3 which Rain blogged. I’m not saying that was a turning point or anything but was one of many many people trying to make the BBC understand its essential position in the 21 century by looking at its legacy with the old BBC Micro.
If I tried to list others it would go on for ever! I did 4 years ago create a mindmap of all the people doing something and influences, be interesting to look back at now. A few core people stick out in my mind when talking about this project…
Michael Sparks, Howard Baker and Jo Claessens. These 3 people are deservingly front and centre of the microbit shot above. For me personally they put their blood, sweat and tears into the BBCmicrobit. They pushed and pushed, and made it work. They are embryonic of what the BBC needs to do now and into the future! A future which of course will be open!
Don't forget that the #BBCMicrobit will be open-source and available to buy later this year. More details here. http://t.co/O8sEbakxA7
— BBC (@AboutTheBBC) July 7, 2015
Of course I can’t help but mention Alan O’Donohoe, which had little to do with the BBC microbit, but following the BarCampMediaCity BBC Code lab stunt and momentous rise upwards, had a (mainly) positive external influence. Very interesting to hear and read some of the blogs and opinions back in 2012.
Howard Baker, BBC describes BBC Micro II at Hack To The Future #h2df http://t.co/JX6Ca7rd
— Alan O'Donohoe (@teknoteacher) February 12, 2012
The BBC Microbit is a long list of creative things only the BBC could do. Its great to finally see the positive and negative feedback but ultimately the biggest critics will be the year 7’s who use it this coming September.
The BBC needs to keep knocking it out the park and build a better future for us all.
Cubic food, yes please
When I saw the picture of cubicfood I instantly had to click and learn more.
The foods we eat come in all shapes and sizes, but something beautiful happens if you cut it all down to size — literally. Design studio Lernert & Sander did just that to make the remarkable piece of art above, which was commissioned by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant last year for a feature on the nation’s eating habits.
There is something quite lovely about cubic food arranged in such a way. But I’m less interested in the arrangement and wondering what its like to eat and build dishes of common meals as cubes?
Cutting down food down to the same basic shape brings something quite special to it, like the eating of sushi maybe?
See a future in Dot Everybody…?
Following Paula Le Dieu’s talk at OpenTech 2015, I looked into the dotEverybody.org.uk.
We have an opportunity to make Britain brilliant at digital. We’ve been going too slow, being too incremental – in skills, in infrastructure, in public services. We need to be bolder.
A new institution could be the catalyst we need to shape the world we want to live in and Britain’s role in that world. Today, we’re letting big commercial technology platforms shape much of our digital lives, dominating the debate about everything from online privacy to how we build smart cities.
fact, I probably wouldn’t call it an institution at all. This is no normal public body. It’s time to balance the world of dot com so let’s create DOT EVERYONE.
I was impressed with the scope of the ambition. The Richard Dimbleby Lecture is a great starting point, just the audience alone was equally impressive with some seriously smart people including Tony Ageh, Tom Loosemore, Matthew Postgate all in the crowd along side the director general and many others. But its worth reading the transcript, reading huffpost and watching the lost lecture which digs into the earlier thoughts including a mention of knowle-west in Bristol. Likewise the parliament speech is also worth watching.
Its strange that I heard about dot everybody and some how overlooked it, rather than having a proper look at it. They certainly are saying the right things…
Tim Berners-Lee started thinking about this with his recent Web We Want campaign.
Here’s a specific example: we wouldn’t make policy decisions about health care matters without consulting doctors and medical ethicists. According to the same logic, we shouldn’t make privacy and data policy without consulting technologists and encryption experts. The Snowden revelations and subsequent tribunal this year found that up to 2013, GCHQ had been undermining encryption and bulk collecting our data. Whatever you think about the effectiveness of executive oversight, everyone agrees that the legislation governing our data is woefully inadequate.
Right now, many of the people responsible for renewing that legislation don’t have all the technical knowledge required to do the best job possible. Surely this has to change.
There is no shortage of other issues to be explored.
Do children need different rights online?
What are the implications of wearable technology? Of an internet embedded in devices in your home?
How do we make sure that ‘smart cities’ are projects for the public good not just private profit?
How should we prepare for the so called “second machine age” and the increasing use of robots?
How do we protect against increasing cybercrime?
I believe we should make sure that the original promises of the internet – openness, transparency, freedom and universality – are a national asset, as integral to our soft power as the Queen, singing superstar Adele, JK Rowling, Shakespeare, or dare I say it on this channel, Downton Abbey.
Of course, the cynical could say well thats nice but wheres the action?
Like the Open rights group in 2005, things need time to grow and mature. You also need to be there at the conception of the idea and be willing to shape it, not just sit there and watch it fall over. This is why I sign and put money towards the pledge at the Change.org site.
I want to see this happen very soon, and I’m happy to pay a little to insure it happens for sure.
The ragged state of dyslexic help in Manchester
I hadn’t heard of Ragged talks but I was convinced to go as there was a talk about Making Manchester a Centre of Excellence for Dyslexia.
Ragged events are about getting together in social spaces, putting our feet up, breaking bread, and enjoying learning something new.
I like to think of Ragged talks as something between BarCamp and Tedx. Its certainly not as grand as a Tedx but much more pulled together by the community like a Barcamp. Their ethics and guidelines are well thought out too. But its single track and can be about anything interesting, theres also food and its free just like a barcamp.
https://twitter.com/technicalfault/status/609082575513112576
I skipped Technights to attend Ragged talks and the two talks were certainly interesting.
Roger Broadbent gave the first talk – Making Manchester a Centre of Excellence for Dyslexia. It was shocking to hear how bad Manchester is for dyslexia support. It all seems to come from one man who use to be at the top…
Backbencher Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley, describes the condition as a “cruel fiction” that should be consigned to the “dustbin of history”.
He believes the reason many children cannot read and write properly is that the wrong teaching methods are used.
But Charity Dyslexia Action said the condition was “very real” to the 6m people in the UK affected by it.
Writing in a column for the website Manchester Confidential, Mr Stringer said millions of pounds were being wasted on specialist teaching for what he called a “false” condition.
Also in the Guardian (2009). Shocking stuff, and it seems to have caused a chilling effect on Manchester schools and support. Of course theres many people trying to reverse (small and large) this but I haven’t seen this level of ignorance in a long long time.
The second talk was about slow TV its story and its surprises… or as I prefer it ambient TV. I have heard of it and saw some of views following the BBC’s attempt at slow TV.
Surprisingly, it was quite interesting and started thinking about links to Perceptive Media. Quote of the night come from Tim Prevett while explaining why slow TV works….
I enjoyed the Ragged talks and may end up doing a talk if they allow me. Always good to go new places and try new things, there seems to be a ton of events in Manchester to discover.
Best talks of Thinking Digital 2015
Another year has flown by and I’m able to reflect on the Thinking Digital conference again in a blog post. Unfortunately this time I missed the workshops as I was giving a presentation at the BBC Connected Studio Drama lab in Shoreditch. But I jumped the last decent train to Newcastle and got there for 0045.
Because of the late arrival, this had a slight impact on my sleep and so I missed the very first talk of the day by Luciano Floridi. It was one which I had hoped to have seen, especially with my work around ethics in data. A lot of people talked about it, so I’ll have to check it out for sure.
Here’s my highlights of another great Thinking Digital conference. Can’t wait till see it in Manchester by the way!
Steve I heard talk last year at Thinking Digital a while back and he was excellent then and he didn’t drop in form this year. Touching on the Quantified Self, Data Portability and the consequences of our data collection. It was well meaning, funny and also full of things to think about. Already seeking out Festival of the spoken nerd
Seb I’m sure I have met before but his talk was about the elegance and joy of coding. Of course this included coding live which was funny and painful all at the same time. Only the brave do live coding in front of a audience at a Ted like talk. Well done Seb for making it a joy.
Seb wasn’t the only one to do live coding from the Thinking Digital stage. Sam, took to the stage with Sonic-pi and belted out live music while explaining what he was doing and how. As always with live coding there were issue along the way but Sam kept his calm and humor. So fun, he was invited back to do an encore. Excellent stuff, may have to play myself, and I’d love to see a DJ version (maybe time to hack the code at DJ Hackday?)
I had never heard Alexandra’s story about hassle.com but I did try and use them to do my ironing a while back (which failed). Her story was pretty entertaining and gave a realistic view on startup culture. It was well told, passionate and emphasised the JFDI idea.
Jennifer was recommended by myself to Herb and although Jennifer was quite nervous, the points came across well. I think a lot of people who had never really heard of her or consider what extreme capitalism would be like. Some of the slides Jennifer put up were fascinating. There was a price on how much her natural waste costed if you were interested in purchasing some! We also had fun thinking about what happens if Jennifer was to have a relationship.
@cubicgarden how do you have it a relationship as a corp ? #tdc15
— K_te N_rm_n ♥ (@sarahkatenorman) May 21, 2015
Partnership, merger, vicious takeover were all considered over drinks afterwards. Although funny for us, this is a reality for Jennifer.
Stefanie was fantastic and I kind of wish Jasmine was able to hear her talk (will have to wait for the video). Stefanie’s rebel against infographics was kind of fascinating. I disagreed with her on a lot of what she talked about but her focused seemed to be somewhere between Art and Design. For example the idea of data gathering by hand and the level of endurance needed is frankly insane, although I know people do it. Interesting point made about the behavior changing through the process of actual effort.
This one really got me, its spoke volumes. Catherine talked about surgery robots and the trend to towards smaller and better operations but her point is we need to turn our attention to diagnosis. Lots to think about and shes very right…
I loved this talk by Tim. Adding the romance to business. I took it as putting the human into business. If you take one of his slides you get the general picture. I felt this was a interesting talk when you consider the creative destruction talks by Max Lines of UberUK. Danger over data.
I especially like the un-quantified self over quantified self.
I don’t quite think romance is the right word, but I like it and it conjures up interesting visions in our super efficient and predictable business world. I like it all but I wonder if its all marketing or is there substance behind it?
LJ pretty much stole the show with her improvisational system. Basically #LJtunes is a idea which LJ thought to play tunes on a piano in the style of a different genre than originally produced. For example Lionel Richie in Dub Step, on a classic piano!
It was amazing, engaging and full of interesting tip bits, LJ was so great.
I have to say almost every talk was great but these are the ones which stuck out for me. Other talks worth noting include Russell Davies, Ade Adewunmi, Tony Hey, Holly Goodier and Ken Banks.
I know some people didn’t like the dry ice machine but to be honest I quite liked it. It worked well with the music talks and added even more atmosphere. The idea of having one type of ticket was good but meant you had to be at the door pretty early to get a good seat.
Herb Kim is on fire with 8 years under his belt now. No wonder he’s so happy (with his new shirt style). Roll on Thinking Digital Manchester and the new format Thinking Digital next year with a starting price of only 99 pounds!
Amazing conference and amazing job done by everybody involved!
Makerba.se documents all projects
I recently joined makerba.se.
Makerbase is:
-
A place to tell the world what you made, and to find out who made the things you love.
-
Edited by everyone. You can change and add to anything that you see.
-
A way to see projects: Stuff like apps and web sites and digital works of art. (Not companies or employers.)
-
A list of makers: People who create projects, described by what they’vedone, not their job titles.
-
Limited access, for now, while we get things ready for everyone. We’ll add you to the waitlist if someone hasn’t already added you as a maker.
I like the concept, which allows you to document all types of project. When I say project I mean anything you class as a project. This means anything!
A while ago I mentioned documenting geekdinner and the past generally. I tried to do this with Wikipedia but my entries were rejected. Makerbase seems much more apt for this type of thing. The whole thing is a wiki, so you can easily link and join items together. It reminds me of Lanyrd in underlying structure, which is good. But like lanyrd I wondered about building up this tangled web of information and what happens when investment goes into it?
So before I signed up I read through the terms/end user licence agreement which was actually really well written with plain english. Theres nothing about what happens if the service ends, I was looking for a data portability angle but I’m sure its coming… something to tweet them about.
Is this a linkedin killer? No I don’t think so, its filling in the area in between linkedin and the stuff which happens on Github. Neither have the space for things like geeks talk sexy or personal projects like learning a diabolo trick. I can already imagine the links with other sites like meetup and even lanyrd.
I like it and the only thing better would be if it was distributed instead of centralised. It seems worthy of backing.
Manchester Quantified Self, rebooted on 1st June
Its been a while since the last Quantified Self Manchester meetup. Mainly because I was away in Tokyo over April, then in May there was the May bank holiday. Its meant to happen every first Monday of the month.
The meetup is always interesting but lacks repeated members, so I rebooted it with themes thanks to Vimla.
The theme for June 1st is Sleep and Wellness and we welcome talks around this including
- How you do sleep tracking?
- What are the benefits of sleep tracking?
- What you do with your data?
We normally start at 7pm with actually talks at 7:20pm, giving you time to meet other people and settle in. This part lasts till about 8.30pm.
If you have been interested in the Quantified Self to understand what self tracking is about or just nosy about what people are doing to improve their wellness. This might be a good time to come along learn more and contribute your experiences.