Tag: newyears

A review of last years resolutions 2011

Every year for the last few years I’ve been publicly posting my new years resolutions… 2011, 2010, 2009 and here’s a review of last years

  1. Ski on real snow
    Yes and this year I did it. Chill Factor in Manchester was where I skied on real snow for the very first time. So I can finally take this one off the list for good.
  2. Organise a Trance night in Manchester
    This (kinda) happened, I got together with Dirty Si and Composite and we did it in a small place called Arcadia on the Great Ancoats ring road. It lasted about 4 weeks but only shut down because the owners had a massive fight and we lost our venue in the aftermath. Shame as we were starting to build our night, Startup… Not to say its over, but I’m not pursuing it right now (for reasons below)
    Of course theres more mixes on mixcloud if you want tunes.
  3. Read more non-news stuff
    Ok so this hasn’t happen so much, still got many books I need to read on the Kindle but generally I’m reading less news stuff and more blogs and opinions. Also reading a lot of recommended stuff from people I follow on twitter.
  4. Live even more in the public
    This is all happening… I’m actually currently writing a presentation about this in the same vein as Jeff Jarvis. Over sharing or Over listening? Who knows, but I do know spilling my thoughts into the public domain is always going to cause conflict no matter how I think about it before hand. Perfect example is my thoughts about the late VivID Lounge, which still is getting comments, some negative and some positive. But they got people talking…
  5. Document more online (including films, books, photos, etc)
    Using Trakt to document all the films and tv shows I watch has worked out great….Specially when you look back across the whole year like this… Its much better than documenting them using Twitter or even Identica. Pushing things into Facebook has been interesting, specially when my friends commented “am I feeling alright?” when watching a lot like love. I keep meaning to add reviews there instead of Twitter but it hasn’t happened yet.
  6. Meet more young, progressive, single and central located people
    This is happening more and more, slowly slowly… Only real issue is they all seem to be gay (so no love action), but alas I conclude my gaydar is totally broken and I’ll just have to live with that now. Will have to work around this.
  7. Consider going out with woman who have kids
    Generally I’m more open to woman who have kids, but haven’t dated any yet. But I have spoken to a few in passing, so who knows what might happen next year…
  8. Get my finances in order
    I could have done better but to be honest, I’ve saved quite a bit money but I’ve also spent too much money on lunches and dinners out. A little look through my bank details shows a lot of transactions from the newly opened Booths in MediaCity, and Booths isn’t exactly cheap (its the Waitrose of the north for my friends down south).
  9. Work more on my healthy lifestyle
    Playing Volleyball, walking most places in Manchester and losing weight slowly but steadily. Its certainly going all in the right direction. I did sign up for the gym but they wanted a doctors note to cover there arses, which the doctor could not/would not give me. And to be honest, I think taking up another sport is more likely than the gym.
  10. Play much more
    This is one I’ve failed on for sure… Simon Lumb keeps saying, stop watching films and play instead, but I’m generally doing something else at the same time, so its continent. When Brendan was living with me for a while, we did play PES 2010 a bit but most of the time the Xbox 360 stays off. However, I’ve started pushing the Manchester Werewolf chapter again and the last one was very well attended and its great we got the venue deeply involved.
  11. Spend more time thinking deeper and focusing
    This year has been all about this. Less time keeping track of whats on everyones radar and more time focusing on things which matter to me. This could be seen as a social/media bubble but if it stops me trying to store lots of loosely related things in my head, then so be it. I’m very active about pushing away things which are not core to myself or what my goals/aims are.
  12. Take Geek Culture to new heights
    I’m pursing a few things which are related to this. There’s thoughts about whats next after BarCamp and Hackday? What would go into Geeks talk sexy series 2 and what other games can we play socially. I’ve done some ground work to work closer to Larkin About and who knows where it goes from here?

Next post has to be 2012 resolutions…

Achieving New Year’s Resolutions

Just discovered Derren Brown is blogging and twittering. One of the things he reblogged was a link to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions.

  1. Make only one resolution – Many people make the mistake of trying to achieve too much
  2. Plan ahead – Don’t wait until New Year’s Eve to think about your resolution
  3. Avoid previous resolutions – Deciding to re-visit a past resolution sets you up for frustration and disappointment
  4. Be specific – Think through exactly what you are going to do, where you are going to do it, and at what time
  5. Set S.M.A.R.T goals – Focus on creating goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time based (SMART).
  6. Carrot not stick – Focus on how much better life will be for you, and those around you, when you achieve your resolution
  7. Go public – Many people keep their New Year’s resolution to themselves.
  8. Be persistent – New habits take time to learn, and once in a while you will slip up and revert to the old you.
  9. Visualise – Visualise yourself doing whatever it takes to achieve you resolution as this will help you believe you can do it and see it through.
  10. Be positive – It is better to think about the good things that will flow from a healthier lifestyle than the bad things that will result from an unhealthy one.

So looking at these recommendations, I’ve pretty much failed on every point except number 7, a bit of 6, 9 and 10.

7. Go Public – Many people keep their New year’s resolution to themselves. Unfortunately, this makes it all too easy to simply forget about them. Instead, go public. For example, write down your resolution on a large sheet of paper, sign it, and place it somewhere prominent in your house. Tell your friends, family and colleagues about your resolution, and ask them to provide you with helpful nudges to assist you in achieving your goal. Either way, do not keep your resolution to yourself.

New Years Resolutions 2011

So after reviewing my 2010 resolutions its time for my 2011 resolutions

  1. Ski on real snow
    Yes every year I say this but seriously this coming year, I’m going to do it at that indoor snow place (Chill Factor) in the Trafford Centre.
  2. Organise a Trance night in Manchester
    Not only can I dj but i’ve found 2 djs from work and 2 other geek djs who are interested in djing out. Enough to surely put together my own night. Ok no one would get paid at the start but heck we’re all doing it for the fun of it.
    On top of that, I’m also hoping to get more involved with music and maybe do a few live broadcasts via the pacemaker. Either on my own station as such or else where. Of course you’ll certainly see more mixes on mixcloud.
  3. Read more non-news stuff
    Since I bought my ebook reader (the sony one) I’ve honestly read more that ever more. Even when I had my ipaq and use to take 3 hours to cross South London. But I seem to be reading lots of news and blogs rather that books. This isn’t necessarily bad but there are lots of books I would like to read. So now I got the Kindle, I’m hoping to slow down a little more and read more non-news.
  4. Live even more in the public
    I’ve come around to the fact that I’m a very public person and although there are certain things I won’t reveal to the public (isn’t a person able to keep a few secrets) I’m generally going to be more open and public that before. I know some of my friends will be saying heck no, please no more but I don’t really see a seriously bad side to all this. i’m already considering making my dating profile public, right now it links to my online persona in parts which might be why I’m getting the type of woman reply that I do.
  5. Document more online (including films, books, photos, etc)
    Luckily this should be much easier this time. I did microblog (twitter/identi.ca) every film using the hash tag #film but then I noticed Twitter was cutting off my entries past a certain date. Identica fairs much better going right back to Jan 09, but I only really post to identica when I’m at my laptop (really need to find a identica/statusnet client for android). Anyway, now I’m using Trakt, things should be easier. Although I got to say having my film collection online does raise lots of questions.
    On the photo front, the Nikon D40x (DSLR) is helping a lot, but I’ve still not picked up the courage to shoot people on the street like pebaline (susanna’s great work). I’ve also got first dibs on shooting our work area at Media City for Wovox. Of course Dataportability is still high in priority as always.
  6. Meet more young, progressive, single and central located people
    My boss (adrian) made the point a while ago when he took me to hospital with Tim (my ex-flat mate) I know lots of people from all over the world but I don’t know many people in Manchester or the North. I live in one of the party central locations of england and I should be out all the time but alas I don’t really have many people to go out with (yes cue the violins). So its time to change that and get to know more people. I say single but thats only because I already know lots of couples and its nice to go out with people with a similar status, be them male or female.
  7. Consider going out with woman who have kids
    I’m 32 this year and its becoming more and more difficult to meet women who don’t have kid(s). Although I’m not really bothered either way about single parent families, I’ve tried to only date women who have no kids to date. I spoke to my ex-wife (Sarah) and she gave me some advise (thats how we originally got talking online, she was giving me advice about a girlfriend I was having trouble with at the time) regards to meeting woman who have a kid. So I’m not going to rule it out like I was before.
  8. Get my finances in order
    Now I got a mortgage again, its time to be a little stricter about my spending. I earn quite a nice salary and heck I live in quite a reasonable place for going out. So I should be paying off more that I currently am. I was actually doing ok then I blew up my scooter engine and spent the good part of a grand buying a another one. I also think this might be the last motorbike regrettably
  9. Work more on my healthy lifestyle
    Although I had the bleed on my brain back in May/June, I’m certainly a lot more healthy that I ever was before. I had no idea I had high blood pressure and a lot of the small things were tied to that. So now I have that under control (thanks mum & dad for the blood pressure monitor for Christmas). I generally eat healthy but I do eat quite a bit. So hopefully little things like buying smaller woks will help aid with this.
  10. Play much more
    I have a feeling that play is going to be massive. Its going to be weaved into almost everything around us. I would go as far as to say play will be as big as social was in the late 2000’s. I say play because it doesn’t mean we’ll be playing more Xbox games, no the concepts and mechanics of gaming will make it into more and more things. So its time to get a lot more serious about my own playtime.
  11. Spend more time thinking deeper and focusing
    After the life/death experience I’ve had this year, I’ve done a number of things to improve myself but what still amazes me is our brains. Between hypnotherapy, mydreamscape and a few other things I’ve observed. I’ve come to realize that our brains are extremely powerful and even the idea of positive thought can do amazing things. My social worker (yeah they assigned one to me when I came out of hospital) said these type of life or death experiences makes you question your religious outlook. Although this hasn’t happen for me (although I am thankful to everyone who prayed for me) it has certainly made more interested in what can be done when you really focus hard.
  12. Take Geek Culture to new heights
    This is a bit of a aspirational one (not that there is nothing wrong with that), along side running a full barcamp at Media City UK and putting effort into the BarCamp WikiBook. I’ve been thinking, I’m really interested in what happened to the girl geekdinners, Sarah Blow and the other ladies worked very hard to make it the success that its has become. I feel there might be something with the geeks talk sexy series. We’ve only done one so far but there is something surprisingly compelling about geek culture right now and I think now the general public has the taste. So hopefully the rest of series will be even more successful and the chance to do run at the green room will really kick off something extra interesting.

New Year Resolutions 2010

Myself

So I’ve already done a review of 2009, so its time for my 2010 resolutions.

  1. Go skiing on real snow
    This is a carry over from 2009. I really need to just go do this, specially since there is a fake skiing place in Manchester’s Trafford Centre.
  2. Blog more
    Since Twitter, i’ve been blogging a lot less. This needs to stop as this is my base and twitter isn’t. Although I can aggregate with things like storytlr, i’m very interested the support for the twitter/open-microblogging api by wordpress/automatic.
  3. A better routine and live more healthy
    Goes without saying really but I’m already signed up to PureGym the 24hour Gym but need a doctors note saying I’m not going to die of a asthmatic attack if I use a running machine before I can go for the introduction. I’m also attempting to go to sleep before 2am every night and wake up at a decent time. I need to go to more comedy clubs too.
  4. Kick off Manchester werewolf night again
    We started playing werewolf in Manchester at the start of last year as a monthly thing in the BBC bar but moved it out to Space soon after as we got more people. I want to grow it a little and run a couple special one-off’s around events like FutureEverything and other conferences in the city. Actually the 1st one of the year will be Wednesday 3rd Feb if your interested.
  5. Find my perfect development stack
    I was meant to be learning Python but it just didn’t feel right for me. Apache Cocoon 2.1 is still my baby and I use it for all types of little bits and pieces but Cocoon 2.2 and 3.x are completely different. I could/maybe should learn how use them and the new Maven approach, Maven also seems to work well in Eclipse and Netbeans (didn’t I mention I like Netbeans).
    I like the idea of XQuery specially because it does most of the things I want to do in my web applications. Add in Exist DB the open source xml database and I got a complete backend stack. I’m also still liking the idea behind ZK to ease with the front end, although I know everyone is loving a javascript library over a complete framework. Lastly I’m looking more and more into XProc but I don’t feel this will help with my development stack.
  6. Playout live more
    I’m going out clubbing more which is great but I’m feeling the need to playout/dj out loud. There’s not many trance clubs in Manchester and I’ve already tried to join the Rong Trance night via a competition. So heck why not setup my own night? Well it looks like I found a venue (TV21 in the Trendy Northern Quarter) and a couple other djs who also want to play out live. So who knows…
  7. Use even more graphics
    Inkscape, napkin sketches, raytracing are all working for me. Now I’m sketching on my ebook reader in some meetings so I just need better ways to integrate them into my presentations and work.
  8. Upgrade sooner if it makes a noticeable difference
    Sometimes I wait too long to upgrade software and hardware. For example I waited till my old battery only holds 12% charge before getting a new one. This is fine but having to go to meetings next door with a power adapter is a pain. I should have bought a new battery ages ago. I also waited too long to upgrade to Gwibber 2.0 for sure. This also extends to other stuff for example I just bought some new trainers after 3+ years of wearing the last one to near collapse. All this stuff is worth just buying earlier to avoid all the stresses which go into keeping the previous generation alive. Talking of which I really should upgrade my camera to a DSLR soon.
  9. Be involved in a regular podcast
    I started one with a few friends but we never really got it off the ground due to our pretty hectic lifestyles. However now I know I can do skype over my Orange HSDPA connection and it still sounds great, I should be able to do it from anywhere I am. So its just a matter of being committed really.
  10. Buy a flat in Central Manchester
    People have been wondering what happened with this. Well it was all happening then the mortgage deposits when from 10% to 20% across all lenders, which ruled me out of buying a 2 bedroom place. However this year I’m confident that I’ll be on the property ladder again. Although I’m thinking maybe I should consider one bedroom places too.
  11. Avoid all online services which don’t perform to my acceptable levels of data portability
    Its 2010, theres no need for closed systems which don’t talk to anything else. No OpenID or OAuth? You won’t see me signing up in the future. Can’t get my data out on to my own site via some API? forget about it, I’m not even going to venture near it.
  12. Play more games
    I love games but never play enough of them. There’s a whole selection of great games which I’ve not played which I think I’m missing out on. For example I bought Portal the other day for a day when I’m sick and need to stay in. Theres some amazingly inspiring games out there which must be played.

My New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone…So in the usual vein, I'm going to blog my new years resolutions. I don't usually care or do these but I think the process of blogging them will maybe help because you guys might help me stay on track. I'm all about getting things done…

Finally go to Tokyo
I've talked about it for years and seriously know I will just explode when I get there. But have never got anywhere close. If I can go via Hong Kong then even better. So how is this going to happen? Well I'm looking for a site (besides Travelocity) where you can set a specific price on tickets and it will alert you when that price is close no matter which route or time of the year. RSS would be great too.

Not to do another BarCampLondon unless the BBC is the venue
So at BarCampLondon3 I decided I wouldn't want to do another BarCampLondon because people are starting to expect me to do it and thats not fair on others. Also BarCamps are poping up all over the place now (leeds, brighton, cork, etc) so this is a good time to say thanks to everyone who's kick started BarCamps in the UK but now its time for others to take it forward in their own vision.

Work on something very different but cutting edge this year
This is already happening. I think it wouldn't be a secret to say I could be working on an Alternative reality game (ARG). My feeling is that Play is when we are most open to learn and I think ARGs can be used to educate without the usual guff you get about educational games. So look out for that because I think the small team which have formed could pull off something very special.

Dataportability
I'm going to spend more time on this subject next year. Its a worthwhile cause and I think the link between all the trends like open data, the data web, authentication (like openid and oauth), etc is data portability. Giving people not only access to the data but also to move their data around. This was also part of my flow/pipelines concept anyway but much more tangable. I'm also looking to pimp this at a few conferences in the near future.

Small Routines
So I'm going to build up a few routines including reading my rss at regular times and going to certain events and not others. My Blogging has finally picked up which is good but I do need to keep it up. Theres also a bunch of other stuff I'm going to do including visiting friends and family regularlly.

Play a team sport
I've tried many thing to keep fit but what works best for me is playing in a team sport I enjoy. So something like joining Basketball, Volleyball and Handball team would be great. I've been looking around and there seems to be some new teams starting up in Jan.

Geekdinners and Geekvenues
So as you may have all noticed geekdinner.co.uk is down at the moment. I'm going to try and get to the bottom of this really soon but till then I'm going to move the geekdinners blog to my own server. The plan for the future of geekdinners was like the girl geekdinners to make it a charity or non-profit but this has been put off for a while because I need more help on geekdinners. Plus maybe its time to get a little more regular? I've not added enough to geek venues, and I do plan to add a lot more soon.

Start learning Python
So Python seems to be everywhere. From the xbox media centre scripts to conduit provider scripts. This seems like a useful programming language to learn or at least understand enough to hack around with. I'm also liking the idea of python with xslt using something like uche's 4suite.

Use the technologies around me better
I've been making do with some services, but actually I've been compromising with the limits attached to the free account. If I just pay the small fee, it will much more useful and effective. So for example paying for Plaxo means I can now sync between linked-in, plaxo and my windows mobile phone. On top of the syncing between Plaxo, Google Calendar, Outlook and Sunbird.

Go to more comedy clubs
I love comedy and I don't go to enough comedy clubs. So its a no brainer right?

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