Leeds Ignite updated to Feb 2nd

Little update to Ignite Leeds…

Part of the LSx series, Ignite Leeds is fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, global— a high-energy evening of talks by people who have an idea—and the guts to get onstage and share it with their hometown crowd.

Check out video of our previous speakers at vimeo.com/channels/igniteleeds

Head on over to igniteleeds2012.eventbrite.co.uk for details of our awesome lineup of speakers! They’ll cover everything from dating etiquette and DIY biology to shooting a film in three days and the secret dreams of your mobile phone…

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.

Distributed Social Networking, one day soon?

WordCamp 2011 Bulgaria

This has to be the ultimate standing in social networking. Distributed social networking is going to happen at some point but in the meanwhile, we all have to put up with these crappy social networks.

I read a few things recently which got me thinking about this again… The main one centres around this read write web piece.

The prospect of a distributed, interoperable, self-hosted network of publishing, reading and discussion tools is nothing new – but the idea is gaining a lot more support as more people react to recent news like FriendFeed’s sale to Facebook, Tr.im’s up and down and Twitter’s denial of service attacks. The tide may not be turning, but there’s sure to be some new waves of innovation that come out of this period of frustration.

The one which got me writing is the WordPress.com ability to do real-time blogging…

Jabber (XMPP) is an open instant messaging protocol used by millions of people daily. At WordPress.com we use Jabber to instantly deliver new blog posts and comments to subscribers.

It for me is very intriguing… Its a lot more like how Jaiku use to be (I actually wonder what happened to jaiku engine?). The WordPress ability is nice but if they bring the same idea to self hosted wordpress blogs too, now that would be amazing…

Diso the project all about this went quiet back in 2010 it seems, which is a shame.

I fear Matt Mullenweg the great guy that he is, may not be able to provide the ultimate standing. The im.wordpress relies on wordpress.com too much for my liking. It would be great if there was a way to do most of the piping through other distributed means. I’d also love to see the ability to post comments/feedback through im? And why not? You got the persons details, and you can subscribe to the comments, why not replies?

Matt had to said recently in GigaOM

The Internet needs a strong, independent platform for those of us who don’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s domain. I like to think that if we didn’t create WordPress something else that looks a lot like it would exist. I think Open Source is kind of like our Bill of Rights. It’s our Constitution. If we’re not true to that, nothing else matters.

The independent web is growing quite a bit. Although we have these great cloud servers for WordPress, the software that people run and install themselves is still as popular as ever. Our services are bringing more people online, but they’re also bringing more people who want to own their own space on the web–they want to own a house instead of rent an apartment. When we were first starting out, I thought, “Downloading and uploading software, managing databases, no one wants to do that.” But it turns out, a lot of people do.

Lets hope he follows through on that thinking…

There’s a open life in the Pacemaker yet

pacemaker_sonar_june_2007_07

Just when I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to switch back to using a laptop to dj… I receive a email message from the new Pacemaker community…

As you probably know we were trying to get hold of the Pacemaker source
code so we could see a future for the Pacemaker.

We have now had contact (has joined our forum) from Jonas who was to
original inventor of the Pacemaker and founded Tonium. He has purchased the
rights to the Pacemaker design & software back, and intends to take this
project forware again!

Not only that he has already offered that the GPL’d source code WILL be
made available on Sourceforge.

We are yet to find out Jonas’ intentions, but this is exciting news for all
us Pacemaker users. Keep checking our forum for any updates.

Jonas posted a message on the forum…

Dear PMD users, I invented Pacemaker back in 2005 and founded Tonium later that year. It makes me very happy that PMD is still alive and being used, despite the lack of support and hardship that I know you have gone through. I even recognise some of you from the good old Pacemaker.net days – Sox, Migzy, Regis and many more, you are all remembered.

Developing Pacemaker was among the most exciting things I have ever done. It was a project that came out of a pure passion for music and a feeling that it had to be possible to create a DJ system in the size of an iPod. Developing Pacemaker was also the toughest thing I have ever done. Starting from scratch with nothing but an idea for a hardware device. Luckily, I was very naive and did not foresee the challenges lying ahead.Following the launch and our expansion in the spring of 2008, I was exhausted. We had basically expanded from two people to more than thirty in just a little bit over one year, while developing PMD, PME and Pacemaker.net. Honestly, I was a little bit over my head in managing the kind of company Tonium had become. Therefore I stepped down as the CEO in May 2008. That proved to be a mistake. I was not too impressed with how the company was managed going forwards. But that said, it was not easy for the new management, they were in for a great challenge given the global economy crisis, the smartphone revolution and new disruptive music services popping up. And now, as you all know, Tonium have ceased its operations.

But! I have some news for all of you. On Thursday January 12, it will finally be official that my new company 100 Milligrams have purchased the intellectual property rights for Pacemaker, something I have been trying to do for years. Taking part in this venture is my long time friend Daniel Wallner, co-founder of Tonium and the engineering genius behind Pacemaker®. I am also happy to say that we have added a fresh face and a third member to our core team, Olof Berglof, an innovative designer and marketeer. We have also been able to get a little bit of funding and the three of us are now working day and night to transform Pacemaker into the new music and technology landscape.

We would also like to help supporting PMD users in the best kind of way. Your forum is fantastic and we will point people in your direction as well as trying to be here ourselves as much as possible. When it comes to hardware problems, we will try to be as helpful as we can by providing component information, schematics etc. Unfortunately we cannot promise new firmware versions, at least not for some time. We just do not have the necessary manpower. However, we will in time make sure the auto upgrade from Pacemaker® Editor is working and the GPL source code from Pacemaker Device will be available on SourceForge.

I will personally update you on the progress of the New Pacemaker Project and let me know if you have any questions or ideas.

Cheers,

Jonas (@jonorberg)

How awesome is that!!!
Can’t wait to see what comes next… Open is the way forward, open hardware, open software, open idles…

Will I move to Ubuntu TV?

Ubuntu TV was launched at CES yesterday and frankly I wasn’t that surprised by the move (rumors for a while) but to see it actually live with Unity was actually quite impressive. There is no doubt Ubuntu really has thought about the design of it all much more than even I’d expect. And for all manufacturers its totally free as beer/as software, which will tempt some… Although I do worry about a patent showdown in the near future.

Unity remember came originally from the Netbook Remix, so it actually works well from the start. Specially if you look at some of the Lens being built for Ubuntu.

Although I do praise the idea of Ubuntu TV, I’ll be sticking with XBMC simply because its a much better interface, cleverly crafted and has the development momentum. Bring on Eden… Worth noting I installed Ubuntu TV on a PC at work for a quick demo.

The late night mixes

A few mixes I’ve recently posted to MixCloud recorded from my Pacemaker… Both mixes are on the darker tip hence the late night titles… Looks like I’m going to have to consider switching back to laptop djing in the near future, as the pacemaker gets older and older. In the meanwhile I have 2 mixes for your listening pleasure…

This mix is both dark and light, a little something for the winter nights. Recorded on a cold late night in December

  1. Spotlight – Jornvan Deynhoven
  2. Ultracurve – Cosmic Gate
  3. Intruder – Armin Van Buuren vs M.I.K.E
  4. The Labyrinth (Part One) – Moogwai
  5. Circles (Andy Blueman Remix) – Robert Nickson
  6. Constellation (John O’Callaghan Remix) – Thomas Bronzwaer
  7. Surrender (Sneijder vs John O’Callaghan Remix) – Full Tilt Feat Deirdre McLaughlin
  8. Intution (Mathin Roth Remix) – Marninx Pres. Ecco
  9. Comet – Skytech
  10. Frozen – Dogzilla
  11. Turbulence – Klauss Goulart
  12. Body of contact (cosmic gate club mix) – Cosmic Gate
  13. Rheinkraft (extended mix) – Oliver Klein
  14. Everything’s Been Written – 8 Wonders
  15. Nothing Else Matters (Aly & Fila Remix) – Max Graham feat. Ana Criado
  16. Casino Fire – Matias Faint
  17. The string which binds us (8 Wonders mix) – Arnej
  18. From the Earth (Breakfast Remix) – Andrew Bayer

The late night ear killer mix by Cubicgarden on Mixcloud

This mix is pretty dark and moody, its full of crumbling tech beats and progressive cycles. You certainly want to take it easy with the volume control on this one. Recorded on a late night like the late night intruder mix.

  1. Body of Contact (Cosmic Gate club mix) – Cosmic Gate
  2. Kalopsia (Monogato’s Filth remix)- The Blizzard
  3. Strike – Signum
  4. Intruder – Armin van Buuren vs MIKE
  5. Rheinkraft (extended mix) – Oliver Klein
  6. One Night in New York City (Chris Leibing mix) – The Horrorist
  7. Transponder – Mauro Picotto
  8. Casino Fire – Matias Faint
  9. One for you (Oliver Klein remix) – Oliver Klein
  10. Ninety – Sander Van Doorm
  11. Strange Bends (Kyau vs Albert mix) – Sebastian Sand
  12. Joy Energizer (Psycho mix) – Joy Kitikonti
  13. Shnorkel – Miki Litvak & Ido Ophir
  14. Panic Attack – Simon Patterson

Host of seraphim, gives me the chills every time

I remember listening to The Host of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance, a while ago but I remember listening to it again soon after coming out of hospital last year. I believe I stopped dead when hearing it again during one of my more introspective times.

Then I heard it again while watching the Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, so I checked out the tune on YouTube, and usually the youtube comments are to be ignored, however this time it was amazing…

kristofolof – still gives me the chills every time i listen to it

jnrivers  – When the weight of the world stops you from feeling, listen to this song with a glass of wine and you will feel alive again. The Host of Seraphim is a masterpiece.

ttsmoke  – if i had one wish i would wish to know everything about everything in this universe.

JakotsuTheOne  – sad, disturbing, soul shaking and beautiful.

Emillysilly – I never cry…but this song makes me weep like a child…

morfridor – my body move by its self… like my soul want to come out from my body.

meatballsNspaghetti  – Overwhelming. Something powerful hit my heart, can’t explain just an incredible feeling.

WauZzeWauzZ – to be honest, i got tears in my eyes…it has been a long time that i had tears in my eyes…but i love it this time.

superknuffi1  – this song is amazing.i don’t know how to describe it.I makes us feel sorrow and happiness at the same time……

TheSCOTCHSOLACE  – Music which transcends this world – music from another plane of existence.

You get the idea… Anyway I bought the original tune and the remastered version from Amazon’s Mpeg3 store.

Manchester Werewolf chapter – Wed 25rd Jan

Manchester Werewolf Chapter

Manchester Werewolf Chapter is back for 2012 and were teamed up with the guys at Larkin About again.

On Wednesday January 25th, the Manchester Werewolf Chapter and Larkin’ About will be running the first Werewolf game of 2012 at Barcelona Bar in the Northern Quarter. For 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 expert.

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

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…