It’s true – I am leaving the BBC! As of June 2nd, I’ll be a front-end developer at Nature.

The last three years at the BBC have been good ones. I think the quality of the output and massive range of products that have come out of the development teams has just been amazing. It feels like everyone I have had the pleasure of working with at the Beeb has been smart, engaged and really got the web and wanted to make cool things.

I’m certainly sad to be leaving. I’ll of course be missing the Glow Super Friends a lot, in particular, but I feel that I’ve made brilliant friends and connections in various corners of the company and there are many I hope to continue seeing a lot of and will no doubt get to work with again in the future. I leave knowing I’m going to miss everyone to pieces, but London really isn’t that big – so they won’t get rid of me too easily, even if I do have to stalk Vesbar.

But ever onwards – the season called for a change of scenery and getting a look at a whole new ecosystem of challenges. I think working at Nature will be great and I can’t wait to get stuck in. I only hope they’re ready for my special brand of optimism.

Possibly related posts:

1. DHL and City Link are incompetent
2. Writer’s block and Project52
3. New Things

Barbie has her 125th career – computer engineer! There’s been a few comments around about how Mattel are pandering to further stereotypes – sticking her in a pair of pink glasses is enough to insinuate that she’s now “intellectual”. I don’t think that’s all that bad. The glasses thing, sure, I’m a bit biased, but I don’t see anything wrong with putting Barbie in a pair of specs for her computer engineering job. It’s not an entirely false correlation. Many people who work on computers need glasses because they stare into the pixel void for 12 hours a day. So what? I think it’s kind of cute – and why not portray a computer engineer as cutesy? The fact is, that’s the only wearable “accessory” they felt she needed to portray her new job. That’s right, isn’t it? What more do you want? Computer engineers should look however they like – there’s no uniform. The bluetooth headset is a bit daft, but small details.

Rachel Andrew blogged today about a very sad incident yesterday, where herself and her fellow female speakers were mocked by audience members of Boag World’s live podcast event. Essentially, viewers in the backchannel decided to concentrate on their physical attributes rather than their well educated views, with suggestions that they were far too good-looking and well presented to be there for their abilities alone.

Rachel has rightfully pointed out that such behaviour shouldn’t be tolerated, but she also writes about how women in technology shouldn’t be encouraged to dress down or become more tom-boyish just to feel accepted or to avoid attention.

Barbie has a whole host of more fundamental reasons why she’s probably a poor role-model for little girls (her figure is the obvious one), but I don’t think having her careers be varied and non-traditional is one of them. I’m actually into the idea of a Barbie that helps to say that it’s okay to be as girly-a-girl as you want to be and work in traditionally male dominated industries. And hey, I think glasses look cool.

Possibly related posts:

1. Women of the web
2. London Web Standards Talks
3. Cold-calls and Madison Maclean recruitment

This year, I thought it might be fun to try taking part in something that would get me writing more. Anton Peck started Project52 with a simple aim to produce a blog post a week for all of 2010.

It’s hard. Really hard.

It’s week 5 and although I generally suffer various rage related incidents* over the course of a week, nothing has presented itself as particularly bloggable. Likewise, work has been fairly unspectacular and I’ve not been especially creative so I’m lacking anything of true substance to talk about or teach. Next week should be better, as there’s an upcoming event I’ll be involved with and I’ll have produced some extra-curricular illustrative commisions I’d like to share.

I asked twitter – the natural home for people who don’t know what to talk about – and the suggestions came back that I just get this stupid meta-post over and done with and talk about writer’s block (cheers Olly and Craig).

I like writing. I don’t think I’m particularly good at it, but I can string a few words together into something that vaguely resembles prose. Finding topics that haven’t already been talked about excessively in the web world is just an especially difficult challenge.

Only today, a mailing list I frequent has been discussing how difficult it can be to stay motivated and interested in a field that’s coming out of it’s emergent phase. Finding a cause that doesn’t already have more than enough band-wagoners is rare and finding something unique to add is unusual and perhaps it’s feeling less ground-breaking. There’s less to do for the invidiual as more hands come on deck. Ultimately, this is super for the web but not so good for personal satisfaction, in my opinion. The word “jaded” was used, but I think (and hope) it’s a bit early for that.

Finally, a suggestion from Matt:

@phae Ask for suggestions of what to write about. :)

matthewpenell

So, dear readers (probably, mostly, I should just address this to “mum”), anything I’ve hinted at in the past that you’d like me to elaborate on in the future? I know it’s a cop-out, and it’s lame to ask, but hey… you never know, it might work.

* OK, here’s a little bonus list of things that have made me want to strangle people this week:

• CSS3 being compared directly to Java Applets – please, people. Lets at least let it out of the stalls before we condemn it.
• More pro-homeopathy articles, the Pope, the Daily Mail, the usual.
• Email responses to technical debates that consist of nothing more than off-topic quotations.
• Latest version of Chrome reporting unexpected background-repeat values in JS-land.
• iFrames.
• A guy on the tube who complained about the placement of someone’s feet (they were a cm too close to his) and the crowded nature (it wasn’t very crowded) of the carriage.

Possibly related posts:

1. Computer engineer Barbie
2. Cold-calls and Madison Maclean recruitment
3. Facebook

I’m generally completely non-plussed about petitions and marches and all that freedom of speech type gubbins that angry people get involved with all too easily. I think you should pick your battles and save up your bile and wit for when it really counts. But there’s something about the 1023 campaign that really strikes a chord with me. There were government reviews in 2009 as to whether the NHS should continue to fund homoeopathy, so I think this could be the year we see it finally get cut and I’m happy to help tip the balance by picking a side.

If you haven’t already stumbled across the many manic rants about homeopathy, and why it’s such a ludicrous load of rubbish, then here’s a selection of posts I could recommend (Update: Here’s an excellent one from New Scientist today that covers everything up to now). The videos on the 1023 site alone are good and will help explain things quickly and often hilariously.

This weekend, 1023 has organised an active protest aimed at Boots. Around the country objectors to homeopathy will be necking a whole packet of homoeopathic pillules (sugar pills) to show that there’s no actual active ingredients in them, since they won’t be keeling over (I shall be amongst them). Homoeopaths are making defensive statements already to suggest that it won’t do anything (they know as well as we do that they won’t have any affect), because without a trained homoeopath prescribing the correct pills for the correct illness, it won’t work (something to do with it being like the likelihood of having an allergy, or you have to have the right illness for the right pill for the magic to work… I don’t quite get it). In my mind, that weakens their argument even more, since Boots sell non-prescribed pillules without advice to anyone – so they shouldn’t work for those non-protesting people either.

I love the NHS. It’s one of the main reasons I’m walking around now having a generally jolly good time of it. I think as a nation we’re proud of it and what it provides for us, but as with most things, it’s under-funded. Something like four million pounds a year goes into funding homeopathy treatments and hospitals. If you take a look at the research on homeopathy, it’s just an elaborate placebo effect, and it seems a lot of homeopathists don’t even deny this, and say that it’s the act of caring and talking and the long appointments people get to have that help make them feel better – so I’m all for scrapping the lunacy and putting that money into therapies and councillors. Should have a similar sort of result, no?

Anyway – all that aside, and all the obvious nonsense and I’m still left with my biggest issue with the topic. If you want to take a “them” and “us” approach to the argument, my problem is with some of the people on “our” side. You’ll see comments on articles and posts all the time that go something along the lines of “Who cares? It’s charlatans selling pills to fools“. Sounds fair, right? I don’t agree. Charlatans: yes, generally. Fools: I don’t think so. I think consumers and patients are well within their rights to follow recommendation.

Take Boots for example. Although clearly a commercial entity first, they still have a role in our world as a trusted pharmacy with a brand we recognise. Is it so wrong that people should trust a pharmacy to sell pills that have some efficiacy? Could you honestly say that you understand how the paracetamol or aspirin you take works? What it’s chemical structure is? How it’s produced? What it does to your body? You take them regardless, because you trust that those tablets have been tested to be safe, work and reliable. We’re not expected to be experts on medicine. We don’t have to be, because we rely on trained professionals to direct us. When the NHS provides money to a practice that is unproven, who are we as consumers of the NHS to question what appears on the surface to be a funding-based seal of a approval? Call people fools if you like once they’ve been shown and had to confront the science, but you can’t label general man-on-the-street consumers as those people.

Someone asked me once if it meant we should be up in arms over anti-aging face creams with false claims for all the same reasons and my response to that is I’ll start caring if they falsely claim to cure your illnesses too. Buying a cream and still having a few wrinkles isn’t likely to be fatal, but not taking the prescribed and proven medication, in place of a few sugar pills when you’re seriously ill, just might be.

Possibly related posts:

1. Writer’s block and Project52
2. Cold-calls and Madison Maclean recruitment
3. Computer engineer Barbie

I think it’s a fairly well agreed statement to say that recruitment agents aren’t particularly nice to deal with. Especially when they’re cold-calling you at your place of work with jobs you’re not interested in. I will just say that I have worked with 1 nice agent, who got me the interview for my current job at the BBC, but she had the right knowledge at the right time when I asked for it.

So, a little story about yesterday and what not to do if you’re contacting me.

Around 4.30pm my office phone rang (I don’t publish this number, and I’d have trouble reciting it myself – you can only get it from the outside by calling the reception and being asked to be put through). My phone never rings at work, except for cold-calls from recruitment agents, so I’d already anticipated answering, saying “no thanks” and hanging up. A 30 second call at best.

Instead, I answer and the chap on the end of the line does his usual speil of who he is and where he works and if I’m available to talk at the moment. I answer “No, not really. As you can probably tell I’m at work, and also, you’re a recruitment agent and I’m not looking for work at the moment, so I’ll save you the time and say “no thank you”".

“But you haven’t heard what I want to offer yet…”

Ok, that’s true, but I still wasn’t interested, thanked him for the call and as an ending question, I enquired as to where he got my number.

“From your linkedin profile”.

Now, I’d like to direct everyone to my linkedin profile. Click through to contact me and find the section. What does it say? You have to be a member to take a look, so to save you the time, this is what it says:

Please email me. Calling my company and getting to my desk phone via the switchboard is unappreciated (and this keeps happening, so stop it). *NO* cold-calls from agencies.

To be fair, I added the final line about cold-calls yesterday evening, but the rest was there about not calling my switchboard and to email me.

So, being caught out with a lie, I expected an apology or at least some sort of sign that he had become confused or disorientated, and I point out that I expressly say that I do not want people to phone me. No, instead, he says: “Well, I might have got it from a colleague that you’d previously spoken to, but you’re clearly all over the internet. You’re inviting people to phone you, and you shouldn’t expect people not to. I’m perfectly within my right…”. I’m sorry, what? I *invite* recruitment agents who can’t be bothered to read my profiles properly to cold-call me about jobs I’m clearly not interested in? I correct him and said that wasn’t the case, and he continued to argue the point, at which time I decided this wasn’t worth my time of day, thanked him again for his call and hung up on him mid-sentence. That might have been rude of me, but not half as rude as he was. I quickly vented on twitter, and some of the responses I received were interesting:

Some choice coloquialisms seem warranted. In the King’s English, you might remind them that a combative cold call accomplishes nothing

by erickolb

wow. does this mean you need to have a ‘no recruitment agencies pls’ signature appended to every online post you make?!

by gradualist

there’s something about that argument that strikes me as a bit—for want of a more appropriate adjective—“rapist-y”.

by fatbusinessman

Reading that again, it sounds like a horrible rape defence

by jaffathecake

From what I can tell, part of a recruitment agent’s job is building up a relationship and repertoire with potential candidates. Cold-calling people, lying to, and arguing with potential candidates does not seem to be the fastest way to build a lasting bond.

Identifying the company

I had to google the company to remember who it was that called me, as I’d seen red and forgotten exactly who it was. I’m so used to just saying “no thanks”, hanging up and that being the end of the story. I knew it was Madison-something, but couldn’t recall which. Turns out there’s a whole ton of Madison-something recruitment agencies in London alone, each apparently specialising in IT. It strikes me that there’s too many companies with names Madison-something, too many agencies and too many that specialise in the same thing. So, I can imagine the area is highly competitive.

He had hinted that he’d got my name from a colleague, so I searched my inbox for “Madison” and bingo, I had an email from Madison Maclean in 2008 from an Andrew Holden. I can’t recall if that’s the name of the guy that called me, but he’s certainly the person I responded to with “I’m not currently seeking employment at this time, and probably not ever in the financial services area.” after he emailed me in 2008 with job opportunities in the banking area, so I’m happy to let him take the blame for not taking me off their books (that I never signed up for in the first place).

As a favour to me, could you avoid Madison Maclean if you’re job hunting? Thanks.

Update: I did email Madison Maclean to complain, with a link to this post on the 19th January, and as of a week later, I still have had no response.

Possibly related posts:

1. DHL and City Link are incompetent
2. Portfolio
3. Leaving the BBC, joining Nature Publishing Group

As with last year, I kept a list of cinema visits for the year.

Films (at the cinema, in seen order):

1. The Spirit
2. New Shorts: Funny Shit
3. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
4. Slumdog Millionaire
5. Frost/Nixon
6. Better Things
7. Revolutionary Road
8. Hansel and Gretel
9. Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes)
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
11. Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys)
12. Role Models
13. Tokyo Sonata
14. Gran Torino
15. Surveillance
16. Franklyn
17. Flame & Citron
18. Watchmen
19. The International
20. Bronson
21. In The City of Sylvia
22. The Boat That Rocked
23. Two Lovers
24. Cherry Blossoms
25. Martyrs
26. Let The Right One In
27. Monsters Vs Aliens
28. Knowing
29. In The Loop
30. Star Trek
31. The Grocer’s Son
32. London Sci-Fi Film festival Blink of An Eye Shorts Programme 1
33. Kurôn wa kokyô wo mezasu
34. Eyeborgs
35. The City of Lost Children (with Marc Caro)
36. London Sci-Fi Film festival Blink of An Eye Long Shorts/Short Longs
37. London Sci-Fi Film festival Blink of An Eye Shorts Programme 2
38. Synecdoche, New York
39. Coraline
40. Observe and Report
41. Drag Me To Hell
42. Terminator Salvation
43. Brüno
44. Public Enemies
45. Sunshine Cleaning
46. Moon
47. Inglorious Basterds
48. The Hurt Locker
49. Jetsam
50. District 9
51. Away We Go
52. Antichrist
53. Surrogates
54. Up
55. Adventureland
56. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
57. Fantastic Mr Fox
58. 9
59. An Education
60. The Men Who Stare At Goats
61. Cold Souls
62. Coco Avant Chanel
63. A Serious Man
64. Paranormal Activity
65. Where The Wild Things Are
66. Avatar
67. Sherlock Holmes
68. Thirst
69. Fish Tank
70. Unmade Beds

Bonus

Knowing about films can win you prizes! At least, it did for me. The Sonic Tonic had a halloween special podcast, which included snippets from horror flicks in between tracks. Whoever could identify the most won a t-shirt. I got all of them but one. Go me! As promised to the ST guys, here‘s my best myspace-esque photo of my winnings. Props to Paul Cripps for the tip-off and to my mum for always letting me stay up past my bedtime to watch scary films.

This year, I also recorded all the films I saw via oo5, which is Mike Stenhouse’s twitter app for ratings stuff, so all of the films above have a score out of 5.

Best

The start of the year had some really amazing films such as Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino. Let The Right One In, which I was hugely anticipating and felt rewarded for doing so, was brilliant, and Away We Go, A Serious Man and happily quite few others kept the year going with some real treats. However, my two favourites this year were sci-fis. The first is an obvious instant classic; Moon. It’s 70′s-esque styling and Sam Rockwell’s staggering performance put it up there with 2001, in my mind.

My other favourite, that I rated fairly averagely initially, is Timecrimes. It’s a Spanish language film about time-travel, but it’s not your usual showy film about changing the past and getting into a mess by accidentally shooting your aunt or butterfly or something, but a more subtle, accidental story that still has all the clever complexities you’d expect for the genre. I don’t want to ruin it, but it’s just such a neat film made on a tiny budget. It’s shot beautifully and the surprises last right up until the end. I really can’t recommend it enough.

Worst

Well, there were quite a few. Some failed because I’d built them up and expected a lot more, such as Hansel and Gretel, Franklyn and Martyrs. Others were just plain stinkers, such as Surrogates, Unmade Beds, Knowing and The Boat That Rocked (the last much more astutely criticised by Patrick over on Talking Animal).

Paranormal Activity took the biscuit for me, though. I’d fallen into the hype trap and seen the trailers and the chatter about it (on twitter, of all places to take seriously) and actually thought that it could be the new Blair Witch. How stupid of me. I’m astounded that anyone thinks that film is good. It’s 81 minutes of a hell-of-a-lot of nothing – mostly a couple of pretty terrible actors whimpering and arguing with each other and unconvincingly never leaving their house to, you know, go to school or have jobs, but film every dull moment of their lives up until the final 5 minutes where there’s a bit of genuine, well almost, thrill. As with the massively underwhelming Google Wave, it’s the hype-machine success of the year that leaves you muttering “…is that it?”.

Books

I somewhat failed at reading this year. I’m blaming my commute going from around 40 minutes spent on a tube to get to work to about 10 minutes. It’s barely enough time to read your email and scowl at a few commuters, let alone open a book and really get into it. I did read The Outsider, The Road to Serfdom, the new Scott Pilgrim (which I rather nerdily now keep in it’s plastic wrapper due to having a limited edition signed inlay plate), Let The Right One In and a couple more K. Dicks. I didn’t really think to record what I read, so there is probably others. Must try harder this year.

Possibly related posts:

1. Film and Lit 2008
2. The Christmas Bunny book prop & illustration work
3. Full Frontal 2009

Last week I was lucky enough to get to attend Full Frontal 2009 in Brighton with a whole bunch of my colleagues to lend a bit of support to friend and fellow Glow developer, Jake, after his previous highly successful first foray into the world of speaking at last year’s @media ajax.

The range of topics was excellent. It was really good to see some more people speaking about server-side JavaScript and it seems that Simon Willison’s talk and demo of node.js was a particular highlight for a lot of people and certainly seemed inspiring (which is possibly why he’s always such a good last speaker).

I’m never terribly good at taking notes, but I didn’t think there was an off session of the day. PPK wowed us with the frankly impossible task that is mobile browser testing, Todd Kloots did one of the better and more thorough introductions to ARIA and accessible JavaScript development talks I’ve seen (and it’s a shame he ran out of time), and Robert Nyman did a gallant job of explaining closures and currying (amongst other things, via the inexplicable medium of Ben Affleck) – both of which I think are akin to explaining string-theory to primary-schoolers.

Of course, I’m slightly biased and I really want to tell you everyone else is just being kind and he actually sucked, but even though I’d already seen Jake’s “Optimising where it hurts” practice run-throughs and had already heard many of his jokes and examples, I still laughed throughout and thoroughly enjoyed his animated way of explaining the topic (which he does fluently and coherantly) and thought he stole the day.

Generally, I thought the day was a total success. The venue was lovely (although it’s a shame it wasn’t a slight bit more central, and the rain always sucks) as it was a fully-functional cinema – seats were comfortable and the quality of the screen and sound were excellent. Everything seemed to be organised extremely well and can’t really fault it, so big congrats to Remy and his lovely wife, and all the helpers. I really hope they organise one again next year – I’ll definitely be there.

Possibly related posts:

1. Film and Lit 2009
2. Pinback/Phosphorescent/Prego
3. London Web Standards – slides and further info

I recently opted to replace my first generation Asus EEE 701. It’s very convenient and mostly functional, but I decided I wasn’t finding it the best thing in the world for really Getting Stuff Done™ outside of sending a few emails.

I chose to get one of the new Samsung NC20s. I highly recommend it – it’s really on the netbook/laptop border, but the larger screen size and resolution is worth that little bit extra weight (and at just under £400, it’s a bargain too).

When I was selecting my new ultra-portable, the kind of things I had in mind were battery life, weight and form-factor (for carting it around to events), the specification (can I code and run photoshop?) and reviews of it’s performance. The one thing I wasn’t particularly interested in was whether it went with my handbag or shoes.

So why exactly have Dell opted to create their new “Della” site, which appears to be about specifically that one aspect?

The site is clearly aimed at women since it features lots of glossy photos of groups of ladies chatting over coffee and standing in fields staring thoughtfully off into the distance (or on the beach – because sand and cooling fans go so well), but it appears to assume that they’re not interested in the specifications or technical features of the laptop – merely how pretty they look and how they’ll help you lose weight or some other inane Heat magazine-esque topic. I’d call this patronising at best.

Perhaps they could be making a bigger deal of their “nipple” cursor controller and getting a few more blokes buying their mini range, just to be fair?

Oh, and my NC20 is an always classic little black number.

Update: Sounds like Dell have had a turn-around on the marketing campaign, pulling the name “Della” just days after it’s launch (although a sneaky look at the website’s mark-up still shows the della references throughout).

Possibly related posts:

1. Women and geek events
2. Women of the web
3. Web Design Survey 2007 – Maybe not so hard-done by?

For no other reason than to have something to blog at the end of the year, I kept a list of films I’ve seen and books I’ve read from Jan 1st 2008 until the end of the year.

Films (at the cinema, in seen order)

1. I Am Legend
2. Sie, Jie (Lust, Caution)
3. No Country for Old Men
4. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
5. Sweeney Todd
6. Cloverfield
7. The Savages
8. Juno
9. There Will Be Blood
10. Be Kind Rewind
11. My Blueberry Nights
12. 10,000 BC
13. El Orfanato
14. Funny Games U.S.
15. [Rec]
16. In Bruges
17. Deception
18. Iron Man
19. Smart People
20. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
21. Gone Baby Gone
22. The Incredible Hulk
23. Kung Fu Panda
24. WALL-E
25. The Dark Knight
26. Elegy
27. Persepolis
28. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
29. The Strangers
30. Pineapple Express
31. Taken
32. How To Lose Friends and Alienate People
33. Burn After Reading
34. Easy Virtue
35. Choke
36. What Just Happened?
37. The Fall
38. The Day The Earth Stood Still
39. The Reader
40. Blindness

Favourites:

Fortunately, there were many I really enjoyed. Juno, Wall-E, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Funny Games U.S (or the original – it really is an identical shot for shot remake), El Orfanato, In Bruges, Easy Virtue and The Reader (on general release in 2009) are all ones I’d especially recommend, though.

Least favourites (or just plain terrible films):

10,000 BC (just awful on every level), The Day The Earth Stood Still, Be Kind Rewind (good concept, bad screenplay), Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (incredibly boring).

The Day The Earth Stood Still deserves special mention. I was willing to give this film a chance if it stood up as a film in it’s own right, rather than as a remake, since they couldn’t really make an accurate one set in today’s world. Such an utter disappointment.

This film is remarkably not ruined by Keanu Reeves. He actually suits his role. The film is ruined by an incredibly bad screenplay that makes half-hearted references to the amazing original, includes terrible dialog and unbelievable situations which lead all the main characters to constantly and whimsically change their allegiances so as to suit the ridiculous “human beings are wonderful” love-fest and unnecessary patriotism. Oh, and the CGI sucks too.

Books (fiction and non, plus some graphic novels – in finished order):

1. The Unteleported Man / The Mind Monsters – Philip K. Dick / Howard L. Cory
2. Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4 – Bryan O’Mally
3. The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman
4. Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
5. The Penultimate Truth – Philip K Dick
6. Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
7. A Handful of Darkness – Philip K Dick*
8. Dr Bloodmoney – Philip K Dick
9. Love and Limerence – Dorothy Tennov
10. Ubik - Philip K Dick*
11. Dark Stars – ed. Robert Silverberg
12. Bonjour Tristesse – Francoise Sagan**
13. Lost at Sea – Bryan O’Mally
14. Through a Glass, Clearly – Isaac Asimov*
15. The Gryb (and other stories) – E. A. van Vogt
16. Fear and Trembling – Søren Kierkegaard
17. The Game Players of Titan – Philip K Dick**
18. On The Genealogy of Morals – Friedrich Nietzsche
19. Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons***
20. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck****

Gracious book lends: *Michael, **Dave, ***Patrick and ****Steve

I’ve certainly been on a short-stories kick this year, having read 5 collections. I really like the medium, actually, and it’s a shame that the form seems to be dying. I only tend to come across good short stories, especially of the sci-fi variety, in now out-of-print editions in musty second-hand bookshops. The Blackwells and Foyles seem to push and stock mostly the latest full-length pop novels and not a whole lot else. Shame.

The other clear trend is my continuing appreciation for Philip K Dick. The man was prolific, but I find almost all of his books interesting to read. I really do recommend him if you’re interested in concepts of alternative realities, trust and philosophy of the mind.

I wanted to read as much as I saw, but, as pointed out to me, a film is just a couple hours out of the day, but a book is a lot more. Maybe next year I’ll do better (or watch less).

Happy 2009!

Possibly related posts:

1. Film and Lit 2009
2. The Christmas Bunny book prop & illustration work
3. King Creosote/The Pictish Trail/Player Piano

One of the exciting things about being on the internet is the ability to quickly and anonymously send messages. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive all kinds of interesting emails and notes – some of which border on the stalker.

I got one today, which I hope the sender will take as a light-hearted joke and not an invitation to send me a dead sparrow, that I would like to use as an example and also to make a point or two. I’m not suggesting that everyone who sends emails like this necessarily intends to come across as a stalker, but they don’t do themselves any favours and shouldn’t be surprised when I don’t reply.

Excuse the intrusion, but I stumbled upon your profile, and then was drawn in to your blog, and then got drawn in to your vast web presence.

Is he suggesting I’m fat? Regardless, it’s not strictly an intrusion, but it is a little weird that I’ve sent someone on a little personal tour of me on the internet.

I now feel like I know way too much about a complete stranger.

This is where the “stalker” alarm bells start to ring. How much does he know?

Have a nice time in Helston and (later) Petersfield.

Making sure I know he’s checked dopplr. I’m never quite sure how statements like this are supposed to come across. I tend to imagine circus music in the background.

My web presence extends to facebook and lastfm. That is it. I have no reason to be on anything else, simply because nobody would ever look.

This suggests “sympathise” or feel sorry for me. Also, if you’re suggesting you’re a loner, you’re encouraging that “weird” vibe. I’d suggest leaving a link at most and let the recipient make up their own mind.

Also, you would be the first person called Frances I’ve ever known. Actually NO. No you wouldn’t. I once worked at a summer play group in York with lots of little kids, and one of the little girls there was called Frances, and she was absolutely gorgeous and every day would make a big magic wand out of lego and pretend to be an elf. She would say “I’m a leeedle elvy”.

Comparing me to a small child, eh? I think this is the kinda thing my mother warned me about.

Feel free to ignore this message, I won’t be in the least offended.

It’s difficult to ignore messages that are basically telling you all about your own life, so I don’t think I can actively ignore it – I certainly wouldn’t like to encourage it though given the previous email content.

You know too much

I think what emails like this actually highlight is how easily we’re all putting relatively private data online, openly. If the above email creeps me out, it’s frankly my own fault. I update dopplr with where I’m going (although not specifically when) and allow my public profile to show this. I post all my photos to flickr without any privacy filters. I blog about inane things that happen to me. I post what music I like, what gigs I go to, what I love, what I hate, what I’m called, when I was born, where I’m from, who I spend time with… the list goes on. I make it incredibly easy for anyone to follow me around, and so do most of the people I know on the internet (professionally or not).

I’ve talked to people who work on the web about this before. Most of us have been using the internet for a pretty long time now, and have, in theory, learnt what is safe and not safe to put on the internet. We get concerned for “newbies” on the internet, our parents and children who are such “fools” for putting more than they should do on the internet about themselves and act very condescending towards them as if they’re doing things that we would never do.

We’ve all heard stories now of people losing their jobs over some drunkard photos of them on facebook, or status-updating that they’re not really sick – they’re just skiving, or people who are found out for cheating on their spouses. We think only internet novices do these things, because they don’t appreciate the difference between what should be private and public information.

I think the alpha-nerds can actually be much more vulnerable as they use ever more sophisticated technologies to keep internet up to date with who they are and where/what they do. We should all be taking a lot more care of ourselves, if we really believe that too much information is public.

Safety in transparency?

That might seem a bit scary, but sometimes I actually think it makes me feel a bit safer. If some wacko knows where I am at a given time, so do my friends and family – people who might have a genuine need to know where I am and that I’m OK. If something did happen to me, I imagine I’d be a fairly easy person to track the last where-abouts of, just through my activity. I’m always ambiently connected to an active community, even when I’m on my own.

Incidentally, I did receive an anonymous email a couple of weeks ago (this one I did reply to, actually) that seems like a good place to stop:

First time mailer, long time reader. Your blog (http://fberriman.com/) has completely dried up. Are you OK?

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