An unassuming man in a jumper far too warm for the tiny venue and hot lights, but a mesmerising acoustic set with 50s tones and twee lyrics.
Energetic, heart-felt and as good-humoured as ever. I genuinely can't watch them for long enough. Chair percusion and the occasional screw-ups add to their charm.
I was lucky enough to get to attend Rewired State's "National Hack the Government Day" last weekend. It was a really good day and probably the best Hackday I've been to.
Things that really made it work:
I think what would work really well at something like that is mixing it up with some of the BarCamp methods. A great thing about BarCamp is seeing the 2 day schedule go up on the wall, and it being filled in with hand-written (often decorated) cards of ideas and names - as soon as you stick up your own card, you feel a bit committed to actually making sure you get your talk done. Perhaps what Hackdays need is to get all the ideas written up on cards, stick them up somewhere, then let people move them into "Doing", "Would like to do" and "Rubbish/Off-topic" groupings etc. Then it'd be easy to see what's up for grabs, or if there's some people who want to do something but need a bigger team to get it done, and just generally get a buzz around what's going on in the room.
Cool things did come out of RWS though, and you can check most of them out on the project page. Work seems to be continuing on many of the projects, and quite a few were offered further funding at the end of the event too. Kudos to James and Richard (and everyone else) for such a successful event.
Just a quicky - wanted to help link-love this to help out the bug squashing cause. Jake has found a rather fun IE8 bug: IE8 layout - Javascript / innerHTML bug.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?