Monday, 24 January 2011
Bizarre
I bought Bizarre magazine this month at there was an article in it covering the larp system I play. It was a good article, quite sincere and interested rather than piss-taking. Shame it was surrounded by a huge number of pages of adverts featuring scantily clad women and cost over four quid. Still, I did get an article on Neil Gaiman in there as part of the bargain.
If this then that
I've just discovered a forthcoming tool by the name of "If this, then that" which is all set to start connecting together the social networks that are pervading everyday life. It looks pretty cool and I've signed up to be part of the beta as soon as they send out new invitations. My primary reason is that I want a simple way of archiving my Twitter feed in perpetuity without annoying other people with it. One of the irritations of daily online activity is trying to follow one person across multiple sites as man duplicate the content across streams. This is made simple by some tools that will cross post to a blog, Twitter and Facebook all at once. The problem, though, is that followers on each network then try to engage with the original post and the conversation is fractured massively.
http://ifttt.com could just increase the noise in that regard, it looks like it's going to be able to set up some powerful interactions across the board, but I'm hoping that it will also be something that lets me play with data I create in interesting ways when I get a chance to do a bit of hacking. We'll see. I have to wait for my invitation to come through first, anyway.
http://ifttt.com could just increase the noise in that regard, it looks like it's going to be able to set up some powerful interactions across the board, but I'm hoping that it will also be something that lets me play with data I create in interesting ways when I get a chance to do a bit of hacking. We'll see. I have to wait for my invitation to come through first, anyway.
Friday, 14 January 2011
Optimising the commute
So, we've moved offices. At least, my team has. We used to work in central London, colloquially known as W1 due to the postcode, and we're now in W12, White City.
As an annoying consequence of this, my commute has grown significantly worse. For the first couple of weeks of the new regime I found that my commute was taking longer than it used to take me to get into work when I worked in London and lived in Peterborough - a trip of some 80 miles. I now travel roughly twenty miles into work, which is beyond the realms of cycling distance, even supposing I were fit enough to do so.
My old commute went like this:
12 minute walk to the station
35 minute trip to Charing Cross
25 minute walk to the office
The new one goes like this:
12 minute walk to the station
25 minute trip to London Bridge
15 minute tube to Bond Street
15 minute tube to White City
5 minute walk to the office
On the face of it, the timing looks much the same. Unfortunately, every time you introduce a change you have to allow for movement between platforms, and a massive risk of failure. And every day there was a different failure and it was a total pain in the bum. I have at least discovered that the problems are reduced if I start the trip at 7am instead of 8am. Total time traveling from 8am is just shy of 2 hours. Starting out at 7 means it's more like 1hr 15.
Of course, there are further problems to solve. I have to get used to being up and active before 7am, not an easy thing for a naturally night based person (when I am not working for whatever reason my sleep pattern is to be awake 11am - 4am). And I also have to find some way to fit 50 minutes of exercise per day back into my life. These are not insignificant problems, but at least now I have the timing better sorted.
The 7ish trains are much busier than the 8ish trains. I find this strange as the exact opposite is true of the tubes out of London Bridge. I also wonder how much this is true for trains running twenty minutes or so later or earlier. The investigation into optimal solutions continues.
Meanwhile, I'm intrigued by the train signs at Abbey Wood station. For some reason they have switched their display method from something along the lines of:
7.12 Charing Cross due 7.13
7.11
to
7.12 Charing Cross due 2 mins
7.11
Is the latter considered generally easier to read? Or are they simply deliberately obscuring the mismatch between the due time and the published time?
As an annoying consequence of this, my commute has grown significantly worse. For the first couple of weeks of the new regime I found that my commute was taking longer than it used to take me to get into work when I worked in London and lived in Peterborough - a trip of some 80 miles. I now travel roughly twenty miles into work, which is beyond the realms of cycling distance, even supposing I were fit enough to do so.
My old commute went like this:
12 minute walk to the station
35 minute trip to Charing Cross
25 minute walk to the office
The new one goes like this:
12 minute walk to the station
25 minute trip to London Bridge
15 minute tube to Bond Street
15 minute tube to White City
5 minute walk to the office
On the face of it, the timing looks much the same. Unfortunately, every time you introduce a change you have to allow for movement between platforms, and a massive risk of failure. And every day there was a different failure and it was a total pain in the bum. I have at least discovered that the problems are reduced if I start the trip at 7am instead of 8am. Total time traveling from 8am is just shy of 2 hours. Starting out at 7 means it's more like 1hr 15.
Of course, there are further problems to solve. I have to get used to being up and active before 7am, not an easy thing for a naturally night based person (when I am not working for whatever reason my sleep pattern is to be awake 11am - 4am). And I also have to find some way to fit 50 minutes of exercise per day back into my life. These are not insignificant problems, but at least now I have the timing better sorted.
The 7ish trains are much busier than the 8ish trains. I find this strange as the exact opposite is true of the tubes out of London Bridge. I also wonder how much this is true for trains running twenty minutes or so later or earlier. The investigation into optimal solutions continues.
Meanwhile, I'm intrigued by the train signs at Abbey Wood station. For some reason they have switched their display method from something along the lines of:
7.12 Charing Cross due 7.13
7.11
to
7.12 Charing Cross due 2 mins
7.11
Is the latter considered generally easier to read? Or are they simply deliberately obscuring the mismatch between the due time and the published time?
Monday, 13 September 2010
Very, very quiet
I've been away from the blog for a while. First of all I went to a larp event (The Gathering) that totally shook the world's foundations for my character, meaning that despite the system officially having no down-time, the forums have been full of chatter, further roleplay and general frothing about the events. Outside of work that pretty much filled an entire week and it's not over yet.
After that, I went to Wales, and spent a pleasant week near Whitesands beach, where phone coverage is very poor and the internet doesn't want to pour through my iphone.
I'm back as of late yesterday night, and planning to try to posts out more regularly in future.
After that, I went to Wales, and spent a pleasant week near Whitesands beach, where phone coverage is very poor and the internet doesn't want to pour through my iphone.
I'm back as of late yesterday night, and planning to try to posts out more regularly in future.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Event running
As I mentioned previously, having noted that Barcamp London is coming around again, I decided to get a little more involved this time and attended one of the recent meetings. It was an interesting experience. I hope to stay involved although I'm not being awfully useful to the team at the moment as the major focus is on earning sponsorship for the event.
And that's what's actually so interesting to me. To date, the events I have helped to run have varied from small scale personal parties, through large parties to raise the profile of a cause at a convention, up to conventions themselves. The biggest of these was Eastercon in 2009. What most people imagine when I talk about a science fiction convention is a hall full of people listening to William Shatner and queueing up for his autograph, and while that's a valid understanding to hold, there are more kinds of conventions in existence. The ones I frequent and have had a hand in organising are a rather different beast. Ask around the community and you'll find many people talking about the difference between an entry ticket and a membership. Eastercon encourages its attendees to see themselves as members, to be a part of the whole, to offer their own expertise and ideas and to be more than a passive consumer. These events are run on a relatively small budget, drawn largely from selling the memberships. The guests are not big name TV stars, but there is a big focus on the literary and the big name guests will generally be authors, some of whom attend the convention outside of their invitations to be guests of honour.
The budget is never fixed, a committee can never be sure what they will have to spend, they can only estimate based on how many they expect are yet to sign up. However, the money is assumed to a degree, and allocated to modest costs while hard negotiating is done to get a decent hotel deal that usually involves a certain amount of required bar spend, and filled hotel rooms in order for heavily discounted or free meeting space.
With that all taken as known, the main work of the committee is to work on the programme, to find the volunteers, to slot everyone into a vast grid to try to get a nice balance of programme streams that don't clash horribly with one another, and to make contact to get the people on the panels or giving the talks ready to perform. It's all fairly informal, but the programme is a major headscratch.
That's where Barcamps differ from conventions massively. The convention is closer to the traditional conference, however the conference has a more professional air, while the barcamp has the same cameraderie of a convention. While a con expects to find much of the membership visiting the bar regularly, Barcamps have no such thing, but may offer drinks and encourage the attendees to visit a nearby pub.
The meeting I attended was looking closely at the venue for the first time, and that was almost exactly like the hotel visits I've been on in the past. The people leading things scratch their heads and try to view the room from various angles, working out how they best fit together for their varied purposes and envisioning the partition walls pulled back. But instead of a hotel with some awkward and eager to please hotel staff leading the tour, we had a university building and a knowledgable faculty member enthusing about how it could all work.
It's intriguing to be in early and seeing behind the scenes, but I'm at a bit of a loss for suitable sponsors to approach directly myself. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to be able to make the next meeting, so I'm hoping to find some other way to make myself useful, and am keeping my eyes open for more of the differences and similarities and wondering if there are lessons to be learned in either direction.
And that's what's actually so interesting to me. To date, the events I have helped to run have varied from small scale personal parties, through large parties to raise the profile of a cause at a convention, up to conventions themselves. The biggest of these was Eastercon in 2009. What most people imagine when I talk about a science fiction convention is a hall full of people listening to William Shatner and queueing up for his autograph, and while that's a valid understanding to hold, there are more kinds of conventions in existence. The ones I frequent and have had a hand in organising are a rather different beast. Ask around the community and you'll find many people talking about the difference between an entry ticket and a membership. Eastercon encourages its attendees to see themselves as members, to be a part of the whole, to offer their own expertise and ideas and to be more than a passive consumer. These events are run on a relatively small budget, drawn largely from selling the memberships. The guests are not big name TV stars, but there is a big focus on the literary and the big name guests will generally be authors, some of whom attend the convention outside of their invitations to be guests of honour.
The budget is never fixed, a committee can never be sure what they will have to spend, they can only estimate based on how many they expect are yet to sign up. However, the money is assumed to a degree, and allocated to modest costs while hard negotiating is done to get a decent hotel deal that usually involves a certain amount of required bar spend, and filled hotel rooms in order for heavily discounted or free meeting space.
With that all taken as known, the main work of the committee is to work on the programme, to find the volunteers, to slot everyone into a vast grid to try to get a nice balance of programme streams that don't clash horribly with one another, and to make contact to get the people on the panels or giving the talks ready to perform. It's all fairly informal, but the programme is a major headscratch.
That's where Barcamps differ from conventions massively. The convention is closer to the traditional conference, however the conference has a more professional air, while the barcamp has the same cameraderie of a convention. While a con expects to find much of the membership visiting the bar regularly, Barcamps have no such thing, but may offer drinks and encourage the attendees to visit a nearby pub.
The meeting I attended was looking closely at the venue for the first time, and that was almost exactly like the hotel visits I've been on in the past. The people leading things scratch their heads and try to view the room from various angles, working out how they best fit together for their varied purposes and envisioning the partition walls pulled back. But instead of a hotel with some awkward and eager to please hotel staff leading the tour, we had a university building and a knowledgable faculty member enthusing about how it could all work.
It's intriguing to be in early and seeing behind the scenes, but I'm at a bit of a loss for suitable sponsors to approach directly myself. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to be able to make the next meeting, so I'm hoping to find some other way to make myself useful, and am keeping my eyes open for more of the differences and similarities and wondering if there are lessons to be learned in either direction.
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