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…

Mapping the creative industries

Mapping the creative industries

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino has drawn up her first thoughts on the creative industries and how they are connected. It comes from her experience at the V&A’s Power of Making symposium.

In her own words….

As I work my way through my notes on the event, I also wanted to start to unpick who was using the word “make” and what they were making. This is a first stab and not really about creating collaborative connections yet. I might also be missing some things, do let me know. In this, I think we can see where the “creative industries” overlap and therefore where skill sets overlap. This also proves perhaps that one should be quite careful with using any one term. Designer, artists, engineer…when you look close enough, can become one and the same.

I personally think its a great map and a very good stab at a difficult subject. Great to see Artist, Designer, Hacker, Developer, Engineer, Crafts person all given the footing as one another.

I specially like the fact Hacker is sandwiched right between designer and developer… Something I certainly like to class myself as.

Maybe if I was to change two things it would be the notion of 2D and Crafts person. Digital is maybe different from 2D and certainly from 3D. Crafts person strikes me as too descriptive and tied down to a format. However I don’t really have another name to suggest…

Imagine if you could remix books?

Cooking for Geeks cover

There is something about Simon Lumb, something that everytime we chat creative juices start flowing (wipe that smile off your smutty face, you know what I mean)…

Off the back of a conversation in Wagamama about Richard St John’s 8 Traits to be great, which I have a physical signed copy of after a TEDx. We got talking about how I tend to own a physical copy of most books although I also own the ebook version. Then we got talking about Instapaper and Readitlater, how they give you the ability to pull together elements from a range of sources…

Imagine if you could do the same thing as a published book? Remix books!

Books right now are like Albums, but imagine if they were more like singles and EP’s?

They could be like the Mixtape of the written word? Fits perfect with the self publishing trend.

  • Example 1: Custom cookbook. Pick a your favourite menu items and self publish your own cookbook. A bit of Jamie, dash of Heston and a lot of Nigella (yes please). Arrange them into a new type of cook book which is custom for you, or reflects your cooking style. It could be a cookbook for you or for someone else…
  • Example 2: The best of… Many times in the past, people have said the best way to learn about Z is to read chapters Y & X of book W and chapters A, B and C of book D… Want to know the best to learn how to skateboard or surf? I recommend reading my custom book which is made up of… you get the idea
  • Example 3: The best places in the world. Could be a nice mix of places you’ve never been to before, places you inspire to go or places you have been to before. Actually it kind of reminds me of off beat guides, but instead of building it from raw components its from previous decent reviews.
  • Sure there are many more including books for young children, books for different learning styles, etc, etc…

The remix methodology is actually very apt, because instead of building your own from the components, your remixing parts of others. Like a Dj remixing other peoples tunes.

The copyrights framework will be a nightmare to work out (we’re not kidding ourselves about that) but to be honest it could be something like the music rights framework for albums and singles? Might even increase the amount of readership for some books? It could be massive changes, or little changes like the art work in the book. Instead of lovely glossy pictures of food in a cook book, it could be technical diagrams for those more interested in seeing those? Maybe the remixes will cost more than the originals but to the person who gets it, its worth so much more. You get the idea…

Crazy idea? Tell me and Simon why? Maybe you love it and want to run with it? Well all we require is attribution… This idea is open to the world… Run with it and tell us when you get rich by changing the publishing industry. This is what places like Lulu have been crying out for right? Just like… My lifestreaming dating idea and my dreamscape idea. Go get them, change the world or go Lazy web make it so…!

Getting things done with Gnome!

Example of GTG

Why on earth have I never heard about Getting things Gnome?

I’ve been using Wunderlist because it ran on most platforms (more on this soon) and at the time Google Tasks client support was a mess (specially on Linux). Although I always knew it was always the wrong way to go about things, I went with it because I needed to Get things done (pun meant).

Anyway I’ve almost dropped Wunderlist because frankly it was exactly the same application across all platforms which meant it was heavy as hell on certain things (65meg! for a bloody task list?) and what drove me nuts was the fact it couldn’t be installed on 64bit Ubuntu without some serious messing. The only reason I started using it was because it was in the Ubuntu software centre, but after Ubuntu 11.04 it was removed.

Now I’m using Getting Things Gnome on my laptops and syncing to Remember the Milk. I’m also forced to use RTM type applications on my Android in the meanwhile. RTM is the weak link in the chain (it also does some weird things to nested tasks)  and I’m now investigating syncing with Google Tasks and the good old TomboyNotes sync with Ubuntu one again. Ideally I would use GTG on my laptops Tomboynotes to sync and something like Tasko on my Android devices.

Interesting to also see the integration with project hamster, actually thats how I first heard about it… Although its good to hear from Rescuetime they are working on there own linux uploader.