So this has been an idea festering for a bit. The Geek Paddle Fest. The main idea being that we go to the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham and have a big Yeee Ha! on the white water course.
For the uninitiated, you will be able to join in and enjoy the day.  Come along and enjoy the fun. This really will be a fun day for anyone, whether you have paddled before or not.
So the idea: A day on the white water course at the national water sports centre in Nottingham. I figure some of us will be ok paddlers and some of us may be complete virgins. I intend the day to be something for everyone.
White water rafting is a big thing on the course, and we have the chance to get stuck in and have a fun time. No experience is needed and we will have a guide to look after us. It is a fun filled ride down a bouncy course.
We will have access to demo boats and equipment, so come along and try the latest kayaks on this newly improved course.
I am yet to set a date on this trip. I’m interested to hear from people with ideas for potential dates. I’m thinking late July, early August?
If you would like to sponsor this trip, then get in touch!
Who knows, we could even enter a geek raft in the British Rafting Champs in October??!!!!
Hoping that @ActionLamb and @girlygeekdom come along. I think we probably need a wiki. But in the mean time, if you are interested in this, leave a comment and lets get this happening.
Image courtesy of Ebygomm under a Creative Commons license.
I am completely beside myself to say that we have our first paid enterprise client for Chinposin. What started as a laugh has turned into something useful and of relevant to visualising communities online using twitter.
I’d like to say a huge thanks to James Governor for continuing to hand wave on this one. He has shaped this release and relentlessly kicked me to make it happen. This is his baby. I am simply the puppet that has turned the hand waving into php.
We now have something that is actually quite useful for building a community around twitter and this reflects James’s vision in terms of functionality and usefulness.
What I hope this does is to start to visualise the conversation and the faces in the community. We will continue to build detail into the Eclipse Galileo Birds Nest and I’m looking forward to seeing the journey.
If you read this blog or follow me on twitter, you might know that a few weeks ago I wrote a script that queries the twitter search API for instances of the words Barnet, Hackney and Medway and retweets the original message.
I have had mixed feelings about these bots since setting them up, but it has been interesting watching them grow organically. I have never actively promoted any of these twitter accounts and currently their follower count is:
Given the number of followers on each account, clearly people see the value in using twitter as a local conversation tool. These accounts were not setup as a spam mechanism, but a way of building a local community over twitter and promoting local conversation.
This morning I have had a heated exchange over twitter about these bots again. I can appreciate why they might annoy some people and I have always been sensitive to this. Also, the last thing I want to do is to get up in the morning and have to deal with this type of conversation. It’s not why I get up.
So for that reason, I am stopping @medway_tweet, @hackney_tweet and @barnet_tweet for the moment. As these bots also use backstage.bbc.co.uk API for local news, I will figure a way of incorporating other news sourses. Perhaps the bots should only retweet messages from followers – if you follow, you don’t mind being retweeted?
I am interested to hear peoples opinions on this and possible ideas to avoid annoying people.
I decided to have a go at writing a script to integrate twitter with PBWiki. The main reason for this is because the Tuttle Club uses PBWiki to organise their events and attendees add their name to the list on the wiki if they are attending.
After seeing Lloyd Davis’s blog post on the idea, I thought I should whip something together as I already have scripts that can monitor key words. So this was just adding PBWiki integration.
This script means you can add your name to the list of attendees on PBWiki just by typing “#tuttlebot going” anywhere within a tweet. The script simply scans the twitter search api for the #tuttlebot hashtag and if the tweet mentions “going”, the twitter name and tweet is added to the PBWiki page.
You can see this in action on a test page that I have created on PWBWiki. Looking forward to hearing feedback on this and making modifications and adding more commands.
I have decided to build on the @medway_tweet engine and do the same for @barnet_tweet and @hackney_tweet. I am looking forward to seeing how these communities pan out. Using twitter as a local communication tool is realistic now there are so many users accross the board.
Since launching @medway_tweet it has been interesting watching the community build and seeing the conversation local to the area. The same can now be said for Hackney and Barnet.
Potentially I’ll be rolling this out over about 30 areas as a trial and then around 400 areas if things work as intended. I’m hoping these retweet bots have a positive impact on the local communtities that they are intended for. We’ll see…..
This is the place I like to go and watch a movie on a Saturday night. ReactionGrid on OpenSim. Each Saturday they play a crappy old movie, normally black and white. This week a colour 1970’s voted top 19th most rubbish movie, Track of the Moon Beast. They hold the movie to stress test their servers. Genius idea. Mixing business with pleasure. So dive in and take a look. It warms the cockles of my heart.
Today I had the pleasure of appearing on the fridaymorningreport.tv talking about HomeCamp. I was as nervous as crap about this. I tune in to this show every week and Craig asked me to appear on thre show and talk about HomeCamp. Shaking aside, I enjoyed it much. Enjoy.
Since writing the @medway_tweet application, I have been thinking about the idea of opening up to include more Medway town names in the twitter search API query. I had a conversation with Carl Jeffrey (aka @fellowcreative) about the app and he pointed out that maybe I should think about ignoring medway tweets from US twitter users, especially as there is a Rochester and Medway in the USA and this will help to filter out unrelevant and unlocal data.
But the thing with this is, it might also filter out some very relevant data. Especially if someone living in the USA is actually referring to the Medway in Kent, UK. It’s not a bomb proof factor. So a concession will need to be made somewhere along the lines, whether it is a data integrity issue, false negatives or moderation.
This got me thinking. Actually it could be a positive thing. Meaning @medway_tweet could become an online twinning vehicle, bridging the gap for those living in Medway anywhere in the World. Helping to build communities within a community and to share experiences.
So we’ll see how this goes and I am really looking forward to see how this app grows and evolves over time. There is also scope to include more data inputs – suggestions welcome.
In the mean time, I am trying to figure out the best way to roll this out for other areas.
If you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, move along now. Otherwise, stay tuned for a quick description of the new app I have developed.
Now to begin with, I do not claim that this is a unique idea. I have been following @ubuntutweets for ages. But this application is slightly different.  @medway_tweet aims to connect local people in the Medway area using an online community brought together by a dispersed and cached network. Twitter.
There is no website, everything is sent to @medway_tweet that checks the twitter search api for the phrase “medway” and simply retweets it. OK, there is more to it than that in the code, but that is the simplicity of the app. By retweeting whenever medway is mentioned in a tweet, the re-tweet encourages the follow, which encourages more tweeting which builds the community.
So if you are in the Medway area, follow @medway_tweet on twitter. Otherwise, stay tuned for for more locations.
[Update 21 March 2009] I have added support for news and sport mentioning the word Medway courtesy of the backstage.bbc.co.uk API. Pleased to be making used of this excellent API and hope this feed adds context to the local focus.
OK, we’re trying to setup a meeting on the HomeCamp sim. Since we burst on the ReactionGrid scene with OpenSim, we have been throwing up real estate and trying scripts. After playing and eating more memory and CPU than we probably should, we need a meeting to discuss quite a few issues.
1. We currently have script limitations that everyone needs to respect
2. We have ideas to overcome the script limitations. Fingers crossed on Plan A!
3. A freemium idea – office and house rental is free, script usage is a small monthly subscription.
4. Sponsorship opportunities
5. Land building ideas and general build styles
6. Regular events and training + publicity
We have had great community action going on at the HomeCamp sim and I am looking forward to the future with this one. We have rented a full row of offices now.
I’m thinking we have a meeting on Thursday 26th March. Seems a week away, but we all seem to be busy  Please let me know your thoughts and ideas regarding this on the google group discussion and whether you will be coming along.
We’ve turned on RSS feeds for this, so there is a Red Nose avatar feed and each user gets a homepage with their own Red Nose avatar RSS feed and wordpress or java widgets for embedding your red nose on your blog etc. My homepage is http://rednosin.chinposin.com/home/yellowpark.
I’m hoping we can get some more mosaic type visuals happening and a big thanks to Abesh for the wordpress plug in. Abesh – you rock. Thanks for your help.
We have also had a pets Red Nose meme happening, which is more than slightly bizzare and they have also submitted a pets red nose wall. Awesome
Tomorrow is red nose day and I expect it will be a busy day all round. Thanks to everyone for the support on this project. It has been fun putting it together.
Ryanair have sparked a wave of critisism from bloggers following the comments left by Ryanair staff on Jason Roe’s blog post about a bug he found in their online booking system.
Ryanair Staff #1 left the comment:
jason!
you’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is!
you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!
Quite an astonishing way to embrace feedback in a public arena which also means that I’m probably an idiot too, as I also use “a crappy CMS such as wordpress” and I also publish my mobile number on my blog.
While you can accept that a comment left by a random employee is not representative of a company policy, the comment left by their official communications team on trade blog Travolution rubber stamps the feeling:
Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.
Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.
Yikes! Pretty strong stuff. I’m a Ryanair customer and this is what they think of me? Ryanair have also released some bizarre new ideas recently too. Charging customers £1 to spend a penny is among the worst and there has already been a parody produced to great effect.
This is a serious PR fail all round. While Virgin Atlantic are reportedly experimenting with social media to leverage new revenue and value add for customers, Ryanair has succeeded in alienating a huge customer base.
Last week I met David Crane from a website called Debatewise. Debatewise is an interesting concept. An encyclopedia of opinions and debates if you like and it intends to have debates covering all subjects.
Debatewise is a non profit organisation and is aiming to be self sufficient in order to generate revenue for good causes. Ther eare over 600 debates already on the website and it is a great place to go and see the “pros” and “cons” of propular and diverse conversations that are taking place.
Last weekend we silently opened up registration for the next Home Camp in April 2009. We are yet to confirm the exact date and venue. However, head over to the wiki and sign-up and suggest session topics.
We’re still planning on contributing to the FMR marathon when it does go ahead, in the mean time, indulge in some of the footage that we shot.
The first Home Camp TV video is a brief chat with Martin Dix from CurrentCost about how the company’s technology is moving forward.
The second video is an interview with Andy Piper, looking back at the first Home Camp and looking forward to the next one in April. General rambling about software and hardware hacks.
We cover a lot of subjects in this conversation, including home automation, Current Cost, Google Power Meter, Pachube, Nokia Home Control Center, arduino, Home Easy to name a few.
The CC128 is latest electricity monitor by Current Cost capable of monitoring your electricity usage and up to 9 individual appliances like the fridge freezer or TV.
You can also attach a data cable to the CC128, giving you up to 7 years of historical data and allowing you to tap into the realtime data to produce graphs and feeds or integrate into your home automation hub.
There is a great deal of work going on around this type of technology. If you want to see the type of applications available and the ways people are using these systems, head over to the Home Camp wiki, where you’ll find software downloads, videos and links to more information.
Talking with Robert Brook about the Skunk Works group at Parliament. Wikipedia describes a Skunk Works as
A skunkworks project is one typically developed by a small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of innovation.
A skunkworks project often operates with a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.
Insight into the Hansard Archives that the team have developed and the other technology and applications developed within the team like isthehousesitting.com. We also inevitably get on to twitter and location based services.
Nik Butler (aka @loudmouthman) posted the above question on twitter yesterday and it provoked a lively debate about the nature of the Cloud and the implications for us all in terms of our data security. For me, the Cloud doesn’t change a great deal. My email has always been in cloud. I did run an Exchange Server until a couple of months ago, but this was fed by a mailserver in the cloud anyway. So learning how to cope with a Cloud service was something that I dealt with from pretty much the word go.
But it does prompt a serious question. Especially after twitpic has been down for the whole day today. I use twitpic most days, and link to it everywhere and I have been building up a pretty good collection of the plates of food that I cook. Today I have been getting messages from people saying they couldn’t see my twitpics.
Posting phone photos with a Nokia N95 is so easy to do using gmail that it just has to be done. However, it was only today when twitpic went down that I realised this was actually a good move. There are obvious benefits to cross posting in multiple locations, spreading readership being a major one. Especially in this case, as friendfeed is still not the place where everyone hangs out and Phreadz is still invitation only, although my Phreadz channel is now public. So I do not pollute the same audience in any location, meaning I am spreading my readership by posting in all those locations. At least I hope.
But what this also does, is backup your images in multiple locations. It makes sure you have a full stream of all your images in a redundant manner, guarding against a service going pop, whether financial or from some kind of attack or incident.
If twitpic never comes back up from this, and currently it is still not backup, I have lost all of my food photos, and most of the images that I have taken on a daily basis and posted from my phone or laptop since the service began. OK, I am over reacting here and luckily I also have them backed up on a few drives in my home. So it is not the end of the world.
Twitpic will come back up and be working again and will hopefully be far stronger for it. For the whole time I have been using twitpic, it has been an awesome service and I’ve never noticed it to be down before. But this does highlight the need for redundancy, in multiple locations. Have a backup in the Cloud. In fact, have multiple Cloud backups in multiple locations. If they are free services, like twitpic, even better!
My original answers to Nick’s tweet from last night would still be the same:
@loudmouthman surely that’s the benefit of the cloud? live data in one location, backup data in another physical location.
and
@loudmouthman no one said that putting data in the cloud means you have to trust your provider to run backups. nothing changes there surely?
So there we have it. The cloud is a great place. Excellent free services. Don’t assume anyone just backs up your data. And if you can’t access that service, or it goes down, will you miss that data? Backing up data still has to be done. We just have more options.
You may know from a previous blog post that I attended an event last year called Amplified. Christian Payne (aka @documentally) interviewed attendees about their opinion of the future of social media and I was lucky enough to be interviewed.
The video is 16 minutes long and contains some excellent and diverse views of where social media is going. Amplified was an excellent event and I’m looking forward to the next one.
 Please let me know your thoughts and ideas regarding this on the 
