Category: Random

The perpetually unfinished experimental message-board that Cal and I made is coming up with some particularly interesting debates at the moment. Here are a few of my favourite ongoing discussions:

• No Such Thing As Talent
  “So for my degree I had to study ‘Art, Creativity and Excellence’ from a cognitive psychology perspective. After a few months of scepticism I reluctantly admitted my professor was right and that there is no such thing as talent- skills are acquired only through practice.”
• Wealth, Power and Race – is it just that the white guys want some things more?
  “Unless of course the levels of greed and family-destroying workaholism that lead to such high positions are, culturally speaking, predominantly a white male thing…..?”
• Is there any utility derived from anti-globalisation, anti-capitalist, anti-g8 rallies and demonstrations?
  “Speaking of violent anarchist action specifically, does this counterproductively alienate the common person from their cause, rather than promote it?”
• Gay Pop Music
  “Apparently, it’s Gay and Lesbian Awareness Month, at least on the public radio, and so they did this profile thing with three pop albums that document the history of gay civil rights.”
• Girls Rule, Boys Drool: The New Gender Gap
  “I am not sure if the switchboard is the right place for this, but let’s start here and move the topic if necessary. According to this article in Business Week, girls are snapping up all the top spots in schools, while boys lag behind. And it’s a major cause of worry for the future.”

Finally we know what it stands for…

So because my brain refuses to do what it’s supposed to be doing and is finding any and all other avenues to explore, I’ve read the entire seven hundred and fifty page Harry Potter novel over the last couple of days as well as produced an interminable amount of notes and scribblings of various kinds. My verdict on the book? Gripping and entertaining but also a bit meandering and lacking a clear escalation of pace / convincingly epic conclusion at the end of it. Seemed more of an accidental ending in some ways. Doesn’t compete with books three or four. But I look forward to the final two…

The big news from Cupertino via the WWDC:

• New Powermac G5s
• Previews of Panther
  (cf. user-switching UI and exposé)
• iChat AV
• iSight WebCam (want)
• Safari 1.0

While I could be out with Cory I have to do loads of work and stuff. very frustrating. So here’s just a few annoying quick Mac links to end the day with while I’m doing this stuff:

• There were Panther screenshots here, but no more
• iHam on iRye 2.0 is out
• The WWDC keynote will be here on Monday evening
• A 3D OSX finder interface
• Internet Explorer 5.2.3

During a break from the Aula event we explored the island. Sneaking over a gate, we wandered down by the shipyards. A lone seagull went nuts and tried to kill us. I got a nice picture of some stunning buoys, which may have meaning only for me…

A while ago I found out that they’d caught the guy who committed the burglary on my flat at the end of last year. I was delighted, but also a bit nervous – the whole next part of the process, possibly appearing as a witness, going through the whole legal process (forms!), seeing him in person in the dock – all that stuff scared the hell out of me. Also – that was the time when I found out his name. I didn’t expect them to tell it to me, but there it was at the top of the letter. That brought it all home, really. How personal the whole thing was. Well anyway, today – amazing news – not only has he been arrested, but he’s had his first hearing and he’s pleaded guilty! So he gets sentenced in a few days and it’s all over. Justice prevails! And I might now be able to get a decent night’s sleep.

Addendum: Having said all that, I forgot that last night at two in the morning, the police came around to search my next door neighbours’ flat (our front doors are six inches apart) because their son (who’s a bloody menace, noisy and aggressive) had just beaten the crap out of his girlfriend and she’d finally called the police. I’m not convinced I’m living in the safest area…

While I was in Helsinki, I finally had the opportunity to play with a camera phone without any sense of consequence – I wasn’t paying the bills! The shift in usage that occurs when suddently you don’t have to worry about paying 50p per MMS is extraordinary. Here are some of the pictures that I took while I was out there:

Here’s a snapshot of what the rest of the world looks like when you’ve just returned from Helsinki:

• Boy breeds beetles in his body;
• Iraqi man hid 22 years in a wall;
• NetNewsWire’s new views is 24/7 plasticbag.org;
• Jeffrey Archer gets out on my birthday;
• Someone explains Buffy Season Seven;
• The best asses are mobile;

So I’m back in the UK after the Aula MOM 2003 event and I’m feeling a bit flat. I was talking about “The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything”, which is kind of an old thing of mine that I’ve never really written about properly. It’s directly inspired by Clay’s Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing and indirectly insired by Dan Hill’s thoughts on Adaptive Design. I was on a kind-of-panel with Matt Jones and Dan Gillmor. Fun new people I met (alongside the whole awesome Aula crew) included the terrifyingly uber-connected Joi Ito, the insightful JC Herz and the charming Eric Wahlforss. And it was nice, as ever, to bump into Cory.

So why do I feel flat? I don’t know – I suppose a variety of reasons. I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I presented my piece, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I presented myself. Maybe I was unsure with the contribution I made generally. I don’t know. People said really interesting things, really interesting people said really interesting things. But I felt a bit … I don’t know … Unconnected? Unproductive? Maybe I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep…