I have somewhat of a penchant for barcamping. Not really sure what it is, but ever since my first barcamp, BarCampLondon3, in 2007 I have been totally addicted. I think the opportunity to meet so many fascinating people is part of the draw, it’s not every day that you can meet people from so many different backgrounds all of whom are so passionate about their thing, be it cupcakes, cartography or computers.

I think one of the key barcamp concepts is somewhat underplayed, and it’s certainly my experience that first time campers are often unaware of: Your talks needn’t be computer geek talks. I say it again, Your talks needn’t be computer geek talks. Actually, I would rather they were not. I work in the industry, I try to keep up to date with tech goings on. What I don’t know about is detail from the hundreds and hundreds of other topics out there. Some of the most fascinating talks I have been to have been about non technical subjects, and I make as much effort as I can to deliver a session on one of my other passions these days.

The challenge is making first time campers aware of this before they come to the camp. So many of them arrive with a techie friend thinking they will just sit and listen, and we loose all of that opportunity to learn. So my message to you, first time barcamper, is take whatever subject you are passionate about, be it cocktail making, modern literature, or even road sweeping, and run a session to educate us about Blue Curacao, Phillip K Dick, or Tarmac!

The conference I was attending in Malaga, unsurprisingly, threw their closing party the evening before I was due to fly back to London. This combination normally works well, you come home late, pass out, wake up and take a cab to the airport a few hours before your flight leaves. This doesn’t work so well when your departure airport is a once a day 3 hour coach ride away, leaving at 10 AM.

That specific night-before I was spectacularly drunk on enormous shots of tequila from a specially opened tourist dive in Torremolinos. The other conference attendees, of whom I only knew a handful for more than 3 days, managed to get me back to the hostel we were staying in (so I’ve been told), and into my bed. What I clearly didn’t manage to do was set an alarm giving me enough time to wash, pack my bag, and comfortably make it to the bus station to catch the service to Gibraltar, which if I missed, would also mean missing my flight. Miraculously I woke up 30 minutes before the bus was due to depart and in my still drunken haze threw all of my possessions into the suddenly very useful conference bag and ran outside to catch a cab.

The Spanish bus service is somewhat unusual when it comes to European transportation, their main ticket offices don’t take credit cards. Being my usual credit happy self I had been planning to buy the ticket on my card and think about the cost when the bill arrived, and so 5 minutes before departure I was sent on a hunt for a cash machine. Even my best hand gestures could not demonstrate a cash machine and so I resorted to the English tradition of speaking loudly and clearly “WHERE IS THE CASH MACHINE?” I felt incredibly stupid and arrogant when the security guard I was exploding at pointed behind me.

Cash in hand I ran straight to the departure gate (which I had the presence of mind to check whilst waiting inline for the fruitless ticket office), and convinced the driver to sell me a ticket. OK, I didn’t have to convince him, he saw the state I was in, was probably scared half to death, and just handed over the precious ticket.

Gibraltar, the little piece of England in the Med, was worth every panicked breath of the morning. Whilst watching the human like behaviour of the apes is incredible, and the view from the rock to die for, the most pleasure to be had was seeing real British traffic lights, sign posts, and pound notes! Whilst I love traveling, there is nothing quite like that coming home feeling, and that is exactly the what I felt handing my passport to the British Boarder Agency and walking into Gibraltar.

This story is about a trip to the IGLYO GMM in Malaga and the journey from there to Gibraltar in December 2007.

At BarCampCork2 I gave a session about how to get the most out of barcamp as a participant, especially aimed at first time attendees. I came up with a 10 step guide, gave each step a title and wrote a few notes about them. You can see the original presentation on slideshare, but I’ve also turned my own thoughts into some notes which actually make much more sense than the presentation.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any other suggestions I might do a follow up!

Step 1 - Prepare your session in advance
Once you have your attendance at a barcamp confirmed, you should start thinking about your session. Some signups even ask you to suggest what you might be interested in talking about when you signup, so that other’s can gauge interest. You can expect the sessions to be between 20 and 30 minutes long, though that might vary from camp to to camp. This might seem like quite along time, but it really flies when you are talking, and goes even faster when you have a well prepared presentation. By preparing not only will your talk flow more easily (because you will have time to iron out the ‘bugs’), but you will also be free to relax and listen during other people’s session instead of fretting over your own. Remember, you don’t have to do a technical talk, feel free to do a presentation on lead a group discussion about whatever subject you’re interested in, be it shoes, technology, health, or anything else.

Step 2 - Go in small groups / alone
This one is a tricky one, especially if your going to a barcamp in your home town, but if you are traveling to a barcamp, don’t be afraid to go alone, or in a small group. Your opportunity to meet people is massively increased, whereas if you go as a group you tend to all stick together. If you are going specifically to network, then go in a group of 2 or 3, split up and introduce the people you meet to your friends later on, that way you can meet 2 or 3 times as many people as otherwise.

Step 3 - Arrive early
It’s always tempting to stay in bed that extra five minutes, but you can do that everyday (or every weekend), barcamps don’t happen everyday. If you miss the opening of the session board, or ‘grid’ then you may well miss your chance to hold the session your prepared. When you get there early you also have a chance to meet people before the sessions board is open, find out who is interested in similar topics to you, and if you’re lucky you might even get some breakfast!

Step 4 - Be prepared to change your session on the day
Barcamp is all about challenging convention. Don’t be afraid to change your session during the day if someone challenges what you think. Or maybe take a discussion you have with some people and turn that into a session you co run. Some of the best sessions are those that form out of discussions at barcamp because they guarantee to be topical. Group discussion session are particularly relevant to this concept because they need far less preparation than a talk (though it’s always good to have some notes and an idea of how you want to lead the conversation).

Step 5 -  Don’t be afraid to leave or hijack session
Not every session at barcamp is for everyone, and it may well be the case that a session you are at isn’t quite what your after. If it’s a group discussion feel free to hijack the topic. OK maybe you shouldn’t hijack the topic, but certainly bring up relevant points even if they are a bit left field, you never know, other people might want to discuss those points to. If it really isn’t working for you you should feel free to leave. Just remember to be polite. If it’s a discussion, let people know why you are leaving, they might even convince you to stay. If it’s a talk, try not to disturb other people.

Step 6 - Don’t make many plans
Anything can happen at barcamp. no, really! You might be offered a lift home, invited to an underground house party, meet the guy or girl of your dreams, or even be invited to another barcamp! You’ll meet people you want to hang out with, and opportunities will present themselves. If you make too many plans then you often miss out on these opportunities. Although it can be hard, try to prearrange the minimum possible. If you’re stuck for accommodation there will almost always be people able to help. Arriving in a foreign city for a barcamp with no specific plans (such as a hotel or return ticket) can be really exhilarating!

Step 7 -  Bring business and personal cards
It’s all well and good meeting people, but if they forget who you are you might miss out. Bring cards with your contact details so that people can link your name to your screen name. If they have something unique to you, even better - my moo cards have my picture on. It can also be good to have your own personal cards to give to people who aren’t relevant to your business, that way you don’t have to clog up your already full work inbox. When making cards you can probably skip the usual concept of putting your mobile number down. Seriously, almost no one you ever give your card to will ever call you. If you need to give them your number, write it on the card, or drop them a twitter dm with your number.

Step 8 - Keep in contact
Hopefully you also collect a whole load of cards and contacts while you are at barcamp. When you get home, or even on the way home if you have a fancy internet dongle, add these people to the various social networks you use. I normally add people to my gmail account by email address, and then use the importers on various sites to link up. Send an @reply to those who you had a real connection with within a couple of days (I’m really guilty of not doing this, so please don’t be mad if I haven’t sent your one!) to start that connection going in the post barcamp world.

Step 9 - Have fun
Really! Barcamp is great for learning and networking, but it’s also about having fun with like minded people. Play games, werewolf, uncricket, buzzword bingo, etc. are all great ways to meet new people. Play some games that get your heart pumping. They are great for your health when you might other wise be staring at screen all day and they take you away from that laptop for some much needed eye rest.

Step 10 - Organise your own barcamp
This is probably the most important one of all. Take all of the great experiences you have at each barcamp and use them to run your own barcamps or help others with ones they have already planned. Run specialist camps like HeroCamp or CupcakeCamp, and run local camps, even if you only think you’ll get 5 people, it’s still worth it. Just remember to let the world know at http://barcamp.org.

Image via Wikipedia

The other day I had an interesting conversation with someone at Virgin Atlantic about how they are trying to engage with their communities of travelers and technologist alike. They are really keen to learn from the community about developing tools that can help improve people’s travel experience, in an open and transparent way. It’s really refreshing to see a large company realise that they need to turn to innovators outside of their organisation in order to actually find out what people want, a perfect example of User Centered Design.

Together with NESTA (The National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts), Virgin Atlantic are organising an innovation day at the end of November 2008, where they aim to gather a wide spectrum of people from frequent fliers (with any airline), social networking gurus, and developers. They want this group of people to sit down and help Virgin Atlantic to scope out the direction they need to take their technology in, with the aim of kick starting the development of some tools that travelers can use which will improve their overall experience.

If you’re interested in going to the event you should fill our their short questionnaire which asks about your experience and background, and they will let you know if you’ve been selected to attend. The day will take an unstructured, almost barcamp style form with attendees creating the schedule as they go, and promises to be quite interesting. Oh, and I head rumor of some drinks afterward…

The event, known as V-Jam is going to be held in Central London, on Friday 28th November 2008, so hurry up and apply!

In the wee hours of early morning, sunday 9th november 2008, I was suddenly inspired to head away for the rest of the weekend. I had been toying with the idea of Manchester to go and see some friends, but it didn’t quite fit. I’ve been searching for a level of excitement in my life that I feel is somehow missing. I used to do insane crazy things, but in recent years I have become less wild. Not that anyone seems to have noticed, all of my friends would probably swear that I am the craziest person they know. I wonder what they would have thought if they knew me back then.

Manchester was thrown out and I turned to skyscanner to see if I could

bag a last minute cheap flight, but none of the options jumped out at me. Having ruled out Manchester (and with it travelling by car) and Flying, I was left with one option for escaping from London. The Train. But not just any train, Eurostar to Paris.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s been something approaching 7 years since I last took a trip to paris. It was a day trip with my friend Sarah, and it was around her 18th birthday, my present to her. We joked at the time that following on from our Paris trip I would owe her a trip to New York for her 25th. It’s approaching next year…

But I digress. I bought a ticket on the Eurostar, grabbed my iPhone, my passport and a credit card, and headed down to St Pancras International. This, however, was not to be any of my normal last minute trips, I was going to psedo live stream my trip via twitter / twitpic, engaging with the world about what I should do, where I should go, and what I should see.

The trip was an awesome success and you can see all the tweets and twitpics from the day. There were some things I would have changed, but overall it was awesome.

I plan to take this idea and run with it further. Watch this space for the next installment of traveller with a tale.

I’ve been invited by the guys at carsonified to speak at their latest addition to the conference circuit, FOWA Dublin 2009. I’m totally excited about this, and simultaneously petrified at the same time, given that I’m going to be talking about “The future is Ruby without Rails.” And DHH will also be speaking at the conference.

I’m not going to give away the secrets of my talk here before the conference, you’re going to have to come along and listen to what I have to say :p

Looking forward to seeing some of you there, and thanks again to carsonified.

I attended barcampcork at the weekend at the Webworks centre in Cork, Ireland, and it was an outstanding success. I’m not sure of the exact counts, but there number of attendees was easily approaching 100, if not surpassing it. People traveled from all over Ireland to attend to attend, which added, rather than detracted, to the community atmosphere. And, for me, it is the community atmosphere that is what barcamping is all about. You could feel the buzz and excitement of people who only knew of each other by internet legend actually meeting. The venue itself was beautiful, although it could have done with some rearrangement to allow for more session rooms and a separate breakout space. The pizza lunch was wonderful and warm (seriously, this is really important, there’s nothing like cold food to encourage people to leave and do there own thing).

The day was a little slow to start, with the bulk of the people not arriving until around 11am. Nevertheless there were more than enough people to successfully kick the camp of almost on time.

Personally I felt incredibly welcomed into the community, even though I was a clear outsider. Even my red hair can’t pass as Irish red hair! I abandoned my train trip to Dublin (where I flew out of) in favour of a lift with the guys from Contrast.ie and Claudgh who tried her hardest to get us surfing, unfortunately the surfing company didn’t play ball.

My talking “A Beginners Guide to Barcamping” went down a treat, especially with many first time campers attending. It even sparked off a movement to create an extra space in the venue so that additional talks could happen. This was mainly down to people not realising that talks don’t have to be about tech, and that session leaders needn’t be experts.

All in all, it was an excellent barcamp, and an excelent first trip to the Republic of Ireland, and I can’t wait until I find another excuse to visit.

My real involvement started with a twitter direct message (my first, incidentally) from Melinda offering me a last minute ticket to barcamp london 3 at Google. Still high from the fun at Berlin I jumped at the opportunity even though I was not really able to go. At the time I was still an Apple employee slogging my Saturdays away at Regent Street convincing people that AppleCare and .mac would be awesome. Hah! And that particular Sunday was my grandfather’s memorial service in the morning.

None of this, however, stopped me. I managed to switch up my shifts at Apple, but still only managed to finish a mammoth 9 hour shift at 7pm, after which I rushed straight over to Google’s shiny offices in Victoria to be blessed with a much needed delicious meal and vast quantities of alcohol. After my first real game of Werewolf (in which, incidentally, I was a werewolf, and we won), I staggered home at about 5am.

First barcamp day 1, session attended nil.

Going from my grandfather’s memorial straight to barcamp was truly fitting. After I gave him an old computer a few years before he passed away he became utterly addicted to the internet, and I was often called around to help him upgrade something or other. A few weeks before he passed away I upgraded him from dial up to broadband, and we affectionately joke that he simply couldn’t cope with the speed his internet was now at.
Arriving at Google once again in the nick of time for food I started to earn my reputation as as a schwag whore. Whilst I could never truthfully deny such an allegation, freebies are not the only reason I go to these gigs. The rest of the afternoon was wonderful and I was in awe of some of the brilliant and inspiring people who I met and listened to.

I left Barcamp London 3 even more elated than when I left Web 2 in Berlin. Inspired and ready for more, more more. Unfortunately my life had other plans at the time…

This weekend I shall be returning to Berlin for the first time since my eventful, some might say life changing trip there last year, so I thought it might be interesting to surmise some aspects of my life since Web 2.0 Expo Berlin 2008.

I guess the biggest change is that I have actually become involved in the London geek community. This is quite possibly the most shocking of all. I had already been a student here for over 2 years when I visited Berlin, and a geeky one at that, and yet I had *never* heard of barcamp, of geeky shindigs (like pubstandards or geek dinners). I guess it never occurred to me to google the phrase “London Geek.” Much of this was probably my comfort in having my circle of friends as a student, and not wanting, or needed, to expand my horizons.

How foolish was I!!!

Becoming involved was probably one of the most awesome things to have happened to me in a long time. New avenues of friendship have been opened up, and a whole new level of clarity over where my future lies has materialized.

For me in late 2007 my serendipitous meeting of Mel, Cristiano and Patricia was novel and quirky. Little did I expect, nor even hope, to meet such wonderful people at an event so outside of my scope of experience. These days I feel let down if any event, however small, fails to introduce me to ever more interesting and wonderful people.

Have I become blase, expecting what should be seen as happy extra when it happens? Probably, but only because it continues to happen all the time. Rest assured, however, that I will continue to make my presence on the geek scene wherever, and whenever I can.

Recently the media has been inundated with stories of looming economic doom and destruction. Recession. Bank Collapse. Inept politicians meddling in the socio-economic capitalistic nature of modern British life creating the new socialist state. Ok, I half made the last one up. But the fact remains that our elected politicians are directly effecting changes in the money flow structures on which our free market economy is built.

It started small with the “Temporary Emergency Loan” handed out to the Northern Rock in mid september. The key words here are Temporary and Loan. The money was to be paid back to the Bank of England in due time, and was merely to tide the bank over and prevent a run.

Next came the HBOS Lloyds Merger in early October, which, it is said, the government backed. I would imagine in other times the Competition Commission would have much to say about creating a bank holding as much as 1/3 of all UK mortgages, but that this path was smoothed by the politicians eager to prevent natural market forces taking place.

The last nail in the coffin for our free market economy is the de-facto nataionalisation of 4 of the major high street banks expected to be announced today. The government has urged these banks to take a collective £50bn cash injection in exchange for Preferred Stock. Whilst not technically giving the government control over the bank, the people (or rather our money) is now what is keeping our financial institutions afloat. We are now paying tax some of which will be siphoned off for the banks, which will ensure that money which was ours in the first place is still there.

What strikes me as odd about all of this is that no where in the this chain of events is the incompetence of numerous bankers being questioned or challenged. More over tax payers money is now being used to pay the salaries of people who have perpetuated the current state of affairs.

Now I’m not a socialist, but it does seem to me that actually nationalising any failing banks into a single High Street Bank of England, circumventing the cause of our problems and ensuring that no profit can be drawn from the use of tax payer’s money to repair the damage already done, would be a far more intelligent idea. Of course banks that don’t need rescuing should be free to operate as commercial entities, which would hopefully rekindle the free market, new youthful banks could spring up in place of the old, and eventually any nationalised bank could be reprivatised to the benefit of the tax payer.

So who wants to join me in starting a new bank…?

For those of you cut off from the outside world, Spooks Code 9 is the brainchild of BBC 3 Controller, Julian Bellamy, a so called spin-off series of the BBC 1’s BAFTA award-winning series Spooks. Set in the quasi-post-apocalyptic future in which London and the South East have been destroyed by an unsubstantiated terorrist group (presumably al-Quaida) during the 2012 Olympics, MI5 is forced to hire the most incapable, dim witted and immature spooks since Austin Powers. This is justified as the disaffiliation to the ‘private sector’ of the vast majority of 5’s former employees has left the service bereft of capable individuals. What’s not adequately justified is why they were incapable of hiring anyone with any relevant experience.

I’m not saying that recent graduates shouldn’t be spies, but that the production lacks any sense of realism, which was one of the crucial factors in the early series of the original series. Furthermore it is Code 9’s (I refuse to denigrate Spooks’ reputation by associated their names), flaccid attempt at mimicry that is it’s greatest downfall, right down to the early execution of an officer. Unfortunately for Code 9, Spooks really set the bar high, what with boiling an officer’s entire head in hot chip pan oil, possibly one of the grizzliest scenes the BBC has ever conceived, and an execution carried out by a 15 year old sniper simply doesn’t hack it these days.

The BBC also seem to believe that decent spy drama necessitates the use of deadly force by intelligence officers, from torture through to carrying guns in the street. They are supposed to be spies, under the radar, blending in. Leave the gun wielding to the police or any other organisation whose officers are publicly known, and if you must, please find a more creative way to torture people.

My advice to the production crew is to abandon any links with Spooks, build up your own identity, rather than living in the shadow of your much better cousin, and you might have a chance at succeeding. Don’t be afraid to take risks, and I mean real risks, not the use of a racist slur.

Finally get your digital act figured out. I have no interest in viewing extended background information on the web, in some sort of 21st century copy of the gamebooks of my childhood, nor in taking part in some sick prediction of the outcome of nuclear holocaust Real interactivity is needed to keep modern day audiences interested. Simply showing me different videos based on a few link choices no longer makes the grade. I want real responses, I want to interact with real people, I want to feel like I’m part of the show, and not merely and observer.

For those of you who don’t follow my twitter stream (and you really should), I held an impromptu barbeque the other night (pics), which was a massive success and will, at some point, be followed up. I provided all manner of goodies, included burgers and hot dogs (which tasted fantastic, if I might say so myself). Now, those of you who know me will know that I’m not a big fan of cooking, and as such don’t frequently buy food, especially of quantity. This being a barbeque, things were different, and off I went to the local superstore to buy said produce.

I picked up some burgers. Packs of 6. Then some hot dogs. Packs of 8. Easy peasy I thought, I can do this, so off I trundle to find the buns and rolls, and that’s where it all goes wrong.

The buns and rolls are located about as far away as you can get from the burgers and hot dogs, but never mind, I found them with the help of a few friendly staff members. First the burger buns. Packs of 8. Then the hot dog rolls. Packs of 6.

I was close to going steve martin right there and then. I had always assumed that the film was making a joke, and that in the real world products were packaged in sensible amounts. Apparently not. I could, of course, have chosen to buy a combination of the lowest common multiple of both burger / buns and hot dogs / rolls, but it’s not like I had invited the entire internet to my home to feast! And furthermore this would have precipitated a journey back through the store’s maze of isles to find more meat, probably to find it had run out.

It’s crazy, it really is. If anything it’s wasteful. If they priced the buns and rolls the same as they are now, but gave me less so that they came in sensible quantities I don’t think I would care, at least I wouldn’t be wasting. Who eats a burger bun with out a burger? Not me

Yesterday was the Big Geek Day Out to Alton Towers, and was, of course, a day full of drama and adventure. I was one of seven people to be accidentally culled from twitter (although now restored, thankfully), disastrous on a day when communication between people whose mobile number you don’t necessarily know is essential. 

This started me thinking about how much we rely on services like Twitter, and how they control access to our data and communications channels. Even though my culling was only accidental, and was restored within 24 hours, whose to say that it won’t be longer next time, or that restoration might not be complete and data might actually be lost, or that it will be accidental. Information stored in my DMs might exist nowhere else and disappear forever. I have information in DMs that exists nowhere else. I would struggle to find even 50% of the people I follow. Many of my followers wouldn’t know how to find me if I was no longer at twitter.com/emmapersky. 

This problem is not restricted to twitter. Any service which we use of communication or information management is liable to the same problem. Facebook links me to hundreds of people I know, but people whose contact information is only stored there. Friends who I see once a year are do not become detached, they are just a few clicks away.

Is it foolish of me to store all of this information like this? Yes, but do I have a choice? Not really. Facebook’s restrictive information policies do not let me export the email addresses of my contacts (although I could, and probably should, go through them manually). Twitter, on the other hand, allows me to export my friends lists (through the api), but I don’t receive any contact information useful outside of twitter. 

Both Twitter and Facebook have sections in their Terms and Conditions which allow them to terminate user accounts. Yes, when you signup to one of these services you agree that they can delete you from their service, without reason. Twitter’s Terms of Service provides for this in it’s Terms of Service with a simple line

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

Deep within the Facebook Terms of Use (which is longer than some novels I have read) I found this

The Company may terminate your membership, delete your profile and any content or information that you have posted on the Site or through any Platform Application and/or prohibit you from using or accessing the Service or the Site or any Platform Application (or any portion, aspect or feature of the Service or the Site or any Platform Application) for any reason, or no reason, at any time in its sole discretion, with or without notice

serious stuff. Twitter and Facebook can actually remove anyone from their portion of the internet at any time without reason.

Why is this? Because the contract between us is basically one way. They give us service for free, and thus they are not obligated to do anything more. This notion does not only apply to Twitter and Facebook, but almost any service you use for free on the internet.

In contrast, many real world services have contracts between provider and consumer that are full of conditions explicit on the provider. They must conform to a number of conditions such as informing consumers of changes in the conditions, providing a minimum level of service, etc.

The fundemental difference between these types of services is money. When you pay for a service, the contract between your and the provider is just as stringent on them (otherwise you probably shouldn’t hand over your cash).

I would be certainly strongly consider a small payment to use twitter if it meant that I was entitled to a contract with obligated them to a higher level of service, including not deleting because they felt like it. Is this a viable alternative business model for free service websites outside of the traditional (well, recently traditional) model of displaying advertising to users to generate revenue. Can free services move away from distracting adverts? Can websites really charge for their use? If you ask me, yes then can.

I came home tonight and twitterific asked me to login. Strange. So i re typed my details but it refused to accept them. When i tried to login to twitter.com I was presented with this

Yes, thats right, I have been deleted from twitter!

I’m not sure what happened, but I guess my account was hacked, so that’s the last time I’ll use a twitter client until proper authentication comes into play (not that I’m pointing the blame at anyone specific, but it’s awfully easy to steal password that way).

I’ve submitted a request to twitter to have myself reinstated, but not sure how long that will take. In the mean time please email me emma.persky@gmail.com

Last night I was wined and dined at the apparently well known celebrity hang out, The Ivy, for my sister’s 21st birthday. She has been clamoring to go there for several years, but their strict booking policies, and popularity have made it difficult to match diaries and fine a time for them to accommodate us. It was certainly a pleasent evening, company included, though not quite what I expected.

Located on the fringe of Soho, in a quiet side road, the top hatted doorman invited us inside, where we were swiftly shown to our table by a hostess who seemed to know that we had a reservation “ah yes, the Perskys,” indeed. Having already done some research, I immediately ordered a bottle of the award winning 2005 Balfour Brut Rose by Hush Heath, located on our own fair island, in the county of Kent. This champagne-like sparkling rose has a superb, unique character that I can only liken to the feeling of being a child running free in the country eating fruits and berries, and is a wine I am sure to order a stock of. Something about serving British bubbly instead of the usual French libation appeals to me. We followed this with a solid bottle of Cote du Rhone 2006, superbly smooth, with a slight twang of citrus.

Enough of the wine. The food was pleasantly acceptable, whereas too often in venues chosen by name alone the food is mediocre. It was not adventurous or outstanding, and the burger I chose for my main was a little lacking, it could have done with some garnish beyond a sliced on onion, tomatoe and pickle on the side of the plate, but was nonetheless tasty for it’s simplicity.

The desert was above my expecation from the main cause, especially when the Basked Alaska I chose was subject to a decent Flambeing in front of my eyes. And this spectacle was far more interesting that any of the other patrons, whom I assume my sister came to see. In fact, despite the title of this post, I was the most famous person in the room.

What topped the evening off perfectly was the ride home in an Addison Lee Mercedes E220, what better way to arrive back home than in chauffeur driven luxury.

There was a lot of talk recently from some apparently well respected bloggers about how users were going to abandon twitter if they continued to be presented with the Fail Whale as frequently as we were. At the time I thought to myself nonsense. I love twitter, it keeps me connected to entirely new groups of friends, many of whom I would have no connection to outside of it. An important tool in my world domination you might think.

However, today I caught myself looking at the Fail Whale and pretty much giving up, instead of my normal click the refresh button. It the occurred to me that I had probably been doing this subconsciously and indirectly for a while especially taking into account blue Twitteriffic eyes and SMS fail too.

So, maybe these bloggers were right, maybe we are giving up on twitter, just not an intentional, mindful, screw you twitter but subconscious mind creep drawing us away without even realising it. don’t want to become disconnected form my twitter friends, so I promise to make more use of it, even if that does mean click refresh an extra few times!

I’m back from my Shetland Islands trip, and am about to start my first day of work, but I can’t go without at least posting one photo from my trip!

This photo was taken on my iPhone (sorry - proper photos are coming) on St Ninian’s Isle, a small island connected by a tombolo (a sand beach bar) to the main island. It’s a stunning island and well worth a visit if you find yourself up that way!

Mashed was an interesting one for me. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, not having been to a traditional hack day before. I was also about 8 hours late, having been at BarCampBelfast during the day, flying straight to Alexandra Place, well, not as close as Ewan Spence’s (t) SocialFlightSimulator made it, but pretty close!

I was interested in the crowd make up, which was quite different from my experience of previous London based events. Almost everyone there was based in the UK, compared to the more European mix found at our BarCamps. It was also quite a change to know so many people, when I’m often found at events where I know so few people. Refreshing change.

I was sorely disappointed with the lack of other female hackers. Or more specifically ones entering the competition. It didn’t occur to me until quite a way through the presentations, so I can’t be sure, but from memory there was only 1 other female entry presenter out of over 50 projects.

As for the hacks themselves, most seem to revolve around some kind of web mashup, which, to be frank, I’m getting kind of bored of. To me, a hack day should be about developing something that is a little bit different, a little bit out there, more than simply a composition of existing technologies in a non-novel way, something whose solution is not immediately apparent to someone in the industry (that sounds vaguely like the patent rules…). There were some really cool hardware hacks (the package which find’s it’s own way springs to mind), and some great bits of novel software, but a massive over abundance of web based mashups. What was more interesting is that the prizes were all awarded to these sorts of projects. Do our industry leaders no longer value the ability to do something outside of reading a few web api’s and hooking them up?

I think we might need a different space for really cool technology hacking. Anyone want to help me start a hack camp where you’re forbidden from using web APIs?

That aside, there was quite a commercial feeling to the event, sponsors were mentioned every 5 seconds, there was huge amounts of money being spent, and the staff didn’t appear to be attendees (something I think is critical for a great event). I’m not criticising the BBC for running it this way, that’s their thing, but again, I would love to see more community events in London (and yes, I know I should organise something, I promise I will eventually).

I loved the rock band playing over werewolf, and interesting change, prompted by my wanted to go home to sleep and not wanting a long game ahead of me. This turned out really well, because on returning the next day I was suddenly inspired and my Johnny Lee Eat Your Heart Out Hack came together - a VR Display from Head Tracking Using a Webcam and no Silly Glasses. People seemed to think that this was my entire degree project, and not a hack from a few hours work.

I was inspired by the people who came to talk to me afterwards about my hack, and pleased to see people genuinely interested in really cool technology. You guys have prompted me to do more work!

The mix of hacking and socialising was complicated. I felt compelled to work on my hack, but at the same time didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to hang out with friends, especially those from out of town who I don’t have a chance to see that often. Maybe it would have been easier has I been there all day, but hey, I had a great time in Belfast!

All in all, an interesting experience, was supplied with lots and lots of schwag and I’m looking forward to the next hack day, rumoured to be Yahoo’s hackday event in early September.

And so the hectic geek-event-fest of June 2008 started on Friday 20th with a short flight over the Irish Sea to Belfast for the latest instalment of BarCampBelfast.

My hotel, the Tara Lodge, as suggested on the wiki was fantastic. If you are going to Belfast I could not recommend this place highly enough. Perfect location (10 minutes walk from the city centre), charming staff, excellent food, and finished off to 4* hotel standards! 

Apart from some weirdness on Friday night, which involved me being stroked by a strange man, and being asked (in Polish, by an Irish guy) if I was from Poland, and some confusion over finding people at the pre-party it was a pretty damn good weekend. 

The BarCamp itself was held in a venue at Queen’s University Belfast. The layout was perfect with the 2 rooms next too each other, and registration and food just outside. It’s so important for barcamps to get this right because if you start having to run around a building to get from room to room it can be somewhat frustrating. The only downside was that 2 rooms was probably not enough for the sessions.

There were about 14 sessions in the two rooms across the day, which was a little bit tight, I think it would have been better to have 3 tracks, which would have given everyone the breathing space they needed between sessions. Over run can really mess up the timetable, which needed to be rejigged several times to make everything fit. Fortunately none of this detracted from the barcamp as it was seamlessly managed by the fantastic organiser Andy (t), an absolute star for arranging the great event. 

I would also have stuck to the “make a timetable with blank slots and let people fill them in” principle rather than the “tell us what you want to talk about and we’ll slot you in”. Although probably counter intuitive, it really does work. It also means you don’t have to worry about asking how long people need (give every session 30 minutes, even the speakers who say they’ll be done in 10, they’ll need it trust me…). And adding some time (even 5 minutes) between sessions is always a good idea to allow people to change rooms, and so that speakers can be told their time is up! 

The sessions themselves were fascinating, including one on personal development / life coaching by Tracy (t) - I promise to do more photography. And a chat with Grannymar (t) and Darragh Doyle (t) about blogging - I will blog more often! Somehow I missed the talk on good coffee by Andrew Gribben (t) and the very end of the day because I had to catch my flight at 18:30.

It was a shame there was no overnight component, as I find that a game of werewolf and a few drinks in the small hours is the best way to actually get to know people. It’s much harder when your in a talk or grabbing a bite during a quick lunch. Having said that, I did have a chance to meet lots of interesting people, and my only gripe is that I didn’t have more time to spend with them!

The food provisions rivalled those of BarCampLondon3 at Google, with yummy pizza, chips and fizz provided for all. 

As for that, I left at 17:45, cutting it a little fine, but I do like to live on the edge, and Belfast City Airport isn’t exactly that busy. When I tried to go through security with my pre-printed boarding card (thinking “it’ll be OK even if check-in has closed, I have my boarding card”) I was stopped because the essential barcode had failed to print out. Luckily the Ryanair printed me a proper boarding card (the first I’ve had in a very long time), and I made my way back to London. Straight to Mashed!

Would I travel such distances for another event. You bet I would!

Image via Wikipedia

I had the pleasure of spending the day with one of my most long standing (not oldest, he’s younger than me, and really not very old) friends, Yosef Silver (t) who was on a stopover in London. I picked him up at Heathrow, we spent the afternoon traveling around North West London in search of a decent Kosher meal, and ended up back at the airport where we he wanted to take some photos of planes. After capturing some awesome shots from the long stay car park just behind the runway I thought we should head over to Terminal 5, since I had heard so much about it’s wonderful architecture.

I was, I will admit, somewhat excited about Terminal 5. Airports are a fairly big bug bear of mine and I have been known to choose flights based on what airport they are flying in or out of simply to ensure that my experience is remembered for the right reasons. For example I will avoid Luton at all costs, but gladly travel through Stansted. Why? Because Stansted airport is a pleasure to travel through, you’re never confused as to where you are, where you are going or what is around you. It’s a smooth transition from check-in, to security, shopping, gate, and finally  air side. Luton on the other hand is a maze of twists and turns, at one point you do a giant loop as you head up stairs, round a corder, through security, round another corner, and eventually you are lost and facing a giant No Entry sign.

But I’m getting off point, back to Terminal 5. The alleged beauty is hidden behind a concrete behemoth that is the car park. Instead of being treated to the majesty of a giant gleaming glass and steel structure, designed to inspire the traveller, you see nothing but a the raw wall of a car park.

They had free reign when designing terminal 5 and they chose to spoil it by doing what they have done at all of the Heathrow Terminals, hiding the front behind a carpark. Why? They could have sunk some of it into the ground, or spread it wider, so that atleast some of the building could be seen on approach. Or they could have placed the carpark next to the terminal. Instead they left the side vista in the open (which, incidentally, is only visible from small sections of the ring road, and not on approach to the terminal.)

All that remains to say is that next time we build a nationally important terminal, find a proper designer, like Normal Foster!