tuesday pm 21st december 2010

apprentice stars on twitter

Cyber-stalkers - 3 2 1 .. go!

2010
Chris Bates
Jamie Lester
Stuart Baggs
Liz Locke
Joanna Riley
Laura Moore
Paloma Vivanco
Alex Epstein
Sandeesh Samra

2009
Kate Walsh
Syed Ahmed

2008
Lee McQueen
Claire Young
Raef Bjayou

Let me know if you've found any more.

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monday pm 13th december 2010

motivation is .. a graph

Mission - instrument my life. I'm using an open-source graphing tool to record technical stats on my dedicated server every five minutes, and I've also written plugins to record personal stats:

• Bank balance
• Credit card balance
• Value of investments
• Number of Twitter followers
• Distance run
• Running speed averaged over last five runs

It's started to affect my motivation to spend/save, and to get fit. Latest addition to the graphs is strength measurements. i.e. how much weight lifted on five different exercises in the gym (3 sets, 10 reps per exercise), which is updated via an iPhone web app:

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friday am 12th november 2010

my mail to yasmin alibhai-brown

In regards to the Twitter Stoning Post

To: yasmin@alibhai-brown.com

I find it absurd and idiotic that Gareth Compton has been arrested after commenting on Twitter. Are you really so sensitive and humourless that you'd consider this "racist" and an "incitement to murder"

The result of this case will be a new fear across the web of saying anything that might offend anyone, and our cherished values of free speech will be hurt as a result.

Political correctness is killing the expressiveness of our society. Frankly, if you can't deal with free speech, you shouldn't be here.

Your actions here are abhorrent.

Chris Beach

comments (total: 3)

2

She says that it was insulting and her teenage daughter was offended by it....and "it's really scared us" I can't beilive this bullshit.

Austin

16/11/10
10:13pm

0

i believe free speech, especially political, are being threatened by the belief that what i say offends someone enough to cause them to do violence. this is simply blaming the speech and not the actions of the violent. the whole point of saying what is on your mind is to inspire dialog. if the listener cannot control his anger, maybe he should stop listening or attend anger management.
as inciting violence or yelling fire in crowded theater is definitely not protected, when, where, and who decides what speech is hate? is it hate cause i do not like it or it disagrees with my basic belief? by allowing such ideas as political correctness, we are arming people with the ability to make sure no one says anything lest they offend another's sensibilities.
we are not children who need to be told not to sass or talk back, but i hope we are adult enough to know not everyone will agree with what we say.

Dennis

Dennis Joyce

22/11/10
6:42am

2

0

Who are we to say what should offend people and what shouldn’t? Surely you see that alluding to her religion, at this, a most inauspicious time in our history, where people use religious incitement to cause the most heinous crimes and offences, could cause her to be more sensitive to the content and not the context of the tweet? People need to stop thinking about only their circle and take cognizance of how actions and statements affect others before jumping to conclusions man. Put yourself in their shoes.
I do not agree that the arrest in any way affects expressiveness or freedom of speech. No right is sacrosanct. Meaning that all rights are balanced by all other rights. Even freedom of speech has boundaries. Hate speech and incitement to violence are categorically, not allowed. This case will be tested before the judiciary and THEY will find whether it is incitement, hate speech, or simply a case of the complainant being too sensitive. THEY, however, will take into account the political situation before replying like you just did – shooting from the hip.

Jason

21/11/10
7:58am

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friday am 17th september 2010

are we geeks by privilege?

Your parents being able to afford a computer back in the 1980s is class privilege, not your innate geekinessBrenda Wallace (via Twitter)

I resented this statement when I read it this morning, but it played on my mind.

Ten years ago, my parents could afford a computer. But twenty years ago, they couldn't, and we had one on loan from my Dad's employer. But that wasn't the dawn of my geek tendency. Lego, K-nex, Construx and other Mechano-esque building tools started it for me. Then, polystyrene, rubber-band powered planes and collections of tiny, cheap electronic components.

Dad sat down with me after school and taught me extra maths, explained technology, and showed me how to write my first computer program. I was curious, and he was a good teacher. That's not a bourgeois trait. It's his personality, and mine.

So, I oppose the notion that young computer scientists are a product of "class" and "privilege." My parents have money, but that's largely because they've always been sensible with it. They don't smoke, they drink very little, don't gamble, don't subscribe to Sky TV, don't buy things on credit, they save and invest, and more to the point, they've worked extraordinarily hard all their lives.

These days, most people can afford computers. Some people can't, but I wonder how, and even if, we should attempt to address that.

It takes a unique environment to inspire the use of a computer as a tool for development. Simply owning a computer is not enough. The government could give away PCs to the poor, but in doing so it would establish a state dependency and entitlement mentality that crushes entrepreneurial spirit rather than fostering it. And, at the other extreme, rich families affording expensive computer full of software and games leaves kids with nothing but a consumer relationship with technology, rather than a driver relationship that us geeks aspire to. A computer has to be a sought-after resource for it to become a tool for development. Parents have to be inspired for kids to become inspired. "Class" and "privilege" often go hand in hand with inspiration, but they themselves are not the drivers.

comments (total: 3)

4

Another thing that creates opportunity is the local state libary - chock full of books and, even in the 80's - computer facilities that given anyone the means to learn a skill without spending a penny. Yes, this is a privilege, it's also not a class issue.

Chris Hatton

17/09/10
4:42pm

1

Too true, I'm 13 and I build my own computers, back then it was a real privilege to have a computer of any means. Kid who have a computer now just take for granted what it does, if it breaks they get frustrated. If they learned how to build one and how it works they truly wouldn't take it for granted.

Alessandro Ferro

13/01/11
6:56pm

3

1

You know, it continually amazes me how many people misinterpret Restructure's post this way. She's not saying that it takes privilege to make a geek--obviously there's more to it than that, or we wouldn't have poor geeks or rich jocks. Having money doesn't make a person a geek, but it does create opportunity. This is less true now that it used to be for geek interests, but when you run into people who are bragging about writing code at an age when the closest thing to a computer in your house was a manual typewriter, it's hard not to notice the level of privilege that they take for granted.

(And maybe this is my own chipped shoulder talking, but I feel the need to point out that saving and investing? Are things that take money. My parents always prided themselves on living within their means, but that still didn't leave a lot to set aside.)

Jayn

17/09/10
2:08pm

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saturday pm 21st march 2009

bedroom cupboard nostalgia

Tonight, at my parents' house I cleared out a cupboard containing memories from my childhood in dusty cardboard boxes.

First discovery is a coin-operated smartie dispenser that Dad and I made together when I was small. Obvious from the picture is the lack of security. Consider this a prototype

A box full of Construx (a mechano-like building kit). Expensive at the time; now fetches £2-10 per boxload on eBay

Videos containing "Falbro TV" episodes that my friend Richard and I made, including the "Alone in the Dark" films, with their ad-hoc scripts, high-pitched pre-adolescent "acting" and soundtrack painstakingly overlaid from a computer game.

A plastic car powered by air pressure, which I pumped up and released down the hall. Joy! It still works, making a tremendous noise and dispersing the cat in a flurry of paws.

Hundreds of disks containing DOS-era paraphernalia... boot disks, dial-up ISP disks from Compuserve and AOL, drivers downloaded laboriously over 300, 9600 and 57600 baud modems. Disks from Dad's old work labelled for accounting software, overwritten with games like Pinball Dreams, Lemmings, Xenon 2, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom - the best of the 90's. Dusty joysticks with 25-pin game connectors; a flight yoke.

Boxes of orphaned hardware parts, representing the costly and wasteful upgrade path of PCs: at least fifteen old ISA and PCI sound cards, network cards and graphics cards. A power supply unit with a web of coloured cables hanging off, tangled with bits of old PC cases. And then a real gem.. a music synth soundcard - the Yamaha SW60XG, which had inspired me and my best friend, Richard, to spend weeks worth of evenings composing music using my computer and MIDI controller keyboard. In a stack of CDs I find backups containing our tunes. Tracks written by Richard, Chris H., myself, my dad and my sister. With anticipation, I loaded the MIDI music files onto my modern-day Mac, and sure enough they play, albeit without the same authentic instrument samples that the tunes were written for. They still sound great, though, and I'm proud of them.

"The Punisher" - a rudimentary taser constructed by me and Chris H, with instructions that read:

"3 Steps to Retribution:

1. Hold charge button for 1-4 secs depending on punishment
2. Ram into preferably moist flesh of victim
3. Release button to discharge punishment"

Rocks laced with crystals that I found after hours scouring beaches near my grandparents house in Somerset. A small drill kit with broken bits from attempts to cut and polish the rocks.

Clay models I'd made at school - a cat who'd since lost its ears and tail, and a tiny model of a BBC micro computer.

An unused Marks and Spencer "Love in the Tub" set with two mini-bottles of Cava, a heart-shaped sponge, "bath bomb," a rubber duck and "do not disturb" sign. Intended for Valentines day with my girlfriend at the time, Suzy. No love in the tub was had, though, as she dumped me the following day.

An electronic gadget in the shape of a car bonnet, designed to mount on bicycle handlebars, with flashing LEDs and buttons to activate the sounds of machine guns, police sirens etc. Galvatron: a pint-sized man / gun / cannon-tank Transformer toy - these are prized possessions of my primary school days. Also, a disk containing a database of earnings that I made loaning a "Super Mario game watch" to kids at primary school. They paid me to borrow my game watch for a week, and I tracked the profits in a DataEase database. I was a child entrepreneur.

A tattered hardback: "The Spy's Guidebook," which taught a 9-year-old me how to make invisible ink from apple juice, wear disguises and shadow and trail people.

Printouts from "The Terrorist's Handbook," which taught a 14-year-old me how to make household explosives. I loved explosives!

A small jar of potassium permangenate - a substance which, when placed in a jam jar with a drop of petrol, capped and thrown against a hard surface, has the explosive power of a stick of dynamite. Memories of my accomplice and me siphoning petrol from a Mini, one dangerous night in South Woodham Ferrers. The bomb didn't explode.

That's just a few things from the cupboard. The nostalgia is overwhelming me, and I'm getting emotional. Particularly because I'll be having kids of my own in a few years and relics such as these, from a (mostly) innocent and unsophisticated world, are now obsolete. I'm an adult now. The world I grew up in is obsolete.

Allowing myself to get sad tonight. Sad because my children won't have the attention span required to construct things or compose things or blow things up. They will live in an consumption-rich, industry-poor world of cheap, accessible culture. They will have a false sense of maturity. They will be surrounded by spoilt children no matter where we choose to live. They will want "things," rather than tools. They won't want to build smartie dispensors from wood and plastic tubes. They will be too busy holographically gaming against their buddies around the world and trying entice me into some daft new social network. They will consume information 10x faster than our aging pre-millenial brains can cope with. Yet despite the massive resources available to them they will be intellectually stunted by attending a dumbed-down school where noone fails an exam, and where sports days are banned to avoid any child being a "loser".

I wish I was joking. My primary school banned competitive sports from sports day the year after I left.

I look forward to having children, and my girlfriend will make a truly awesome mum. I'll strive to build a loving, stable environment for my kids, but tonight has reminded me that their childhood will be totally different from mine. I'm worried I won't be able to entertain them, inspire them or relate to them as my parents did to me. That's why I feel sad tonight.

comments (total: 8)

1

RE: bedroom cupboard nostalgia

Fantastic memories Chris. I remember many of those things myself! I had the same spy book, the same pump-up car, a huge love of construx... and I remember at least one incident with your Punisher as well! You b#$%^&rd!

I disagree about the future of our children though. Our parents thought the same. We grew up with sophisticated computer equipment and games that were feared would kill our own imagination, and we used those technological trends to become more imaginative and inventive.

There will always be people in the world that would rather sit on their IMs and slowly converse with on-line 'friends' about banal activities all day long. And then there will be those that will seek to create entertainment and profit from these bottom-dwellers!

Think of Maggie-Chat. Who got the most fun from that? The people who chatted to one another in Mr Priestly's IT class, or us developers who got to reset their machines with a cunningly transmitted 'call !-4' command?

People who had rewarding upbringings like us will always endeavour to pass on the joys we experienced to our children. In much the same way, your father's passion for invention and outdoor activities was passed on to you. Don't lose hope yet!

Ricky

08/01/10
6:01am

1

RE: bedroom cupboard nostalgia

Appreciate your thoughts. The photos are a touching essay in themselves. The collection said worlds about you and your childhood. I would love to see a hundred more.

Enochs Author

30/05/09
11:19am

1

RE: bedroom cupboard nostalgia

FAO "A Parent"

What are you waffling on about?? there is nothing in the world wrong with the tech enhanced upbringing Chris had... maybe you should let your kids have a more well rounded experience of life and education and not bring them up to shun technology...cos they'll end up struggling behind all the kids that WERE allowed to get involved!

Capiche!?

Not a parent

27/03/09
9:38am

1

2

RE: bedroom cupboard nostalgia

Here are some things that I do with my children who are not going to grow up to be attention deficit or intellectually stunted:

We make kites and fly them in the park; we make Christmas wreaths; we make parachutes out of bin bags and paraffin and send them up into the sky (OK not very eco, but we don't do it that often); we have a pond full of frogs and tadpoles and they have a little tank to watch the life-cycle from spawn to froggy; we go camping in the countryside; we go travelling abroad in every school holiday; we pick berries from the park and make apple and blackberry crumble; we go to the City farm and they feed the goats and sheep; we go to the kiddies' park every day when it's good weather - they LOVE this more than anything; we go pot-holing in Yorkshire; we play crazy golf; we hang out with LOADS of other kids and go to the many local activities such as the soft ball park, swimming, playgroups, day trips to museums - the list is endless.

These are just a few of the things we do - most of these in London and most of these are free. None of these involve any sort of sophisticated technology or dumbing-down.

It's up to you as a parent to intellectually stimulate your children, to let them have the innocence of youth, to give them an antidote to the world of accessible culture. This is why we become parents, to pass on our values to our children, who then in turn pass them on to theirs.

Children only spend about 6 hours a day at school, so you have another 18 hours to provide a healthy, stable, well-balanced environment for them. By giving them a broad view of the world, they can choose which path to go down. All you can say is that you tried your best to give them the tools that they need to have a fulfilling life.

Children's minds are malleable and permeable. The greatest responsibility of a parent is to not let their minds be polluted by outside influences, but to raise your child with YOUR values.

So I wouldn't feel sad, but feel optimistic that you can raise children to be productive, compassionate, intellectual citizens of the world. I look forward to seeing how my children develop and grow, and I fully intend on keeping them stimulated in as many ways as possible that don't involve television, computers, celebrity-nonsense and mass-consumerism.

Lastly, with regards to schools, state schools are not really the best option, but there are alternatives depending on your income:

-Private Schools
-Home schooling
-Steiner Schools

I am sure there are other options, but these are a few that spring to mind.

A parent

24/03/09
8:04am

0

You guys are young! I have experienced the same thing, twice. As kids, we build super-regenerative receivers/transmitters with tubes! The 954. We ran around with them, tied to a bunch of batteries, excited by being able to talk across the street, sometimes when the frequency was somewhere in the neighborhood of the right one.

The 1N34 crystal diode for a crystal receiver, cost a weeks pocket money, about $2. Fortunately, the AM transmitter in Stockholm had some 300 kW...

Then came what Chris describes and I recognize some of it, especially the painfully downloaded programs and DOS.

Now, here we are. I have a beautiful set of tools, a nice Myford 7 bench lathe with many accessories, two bench drill presses, sander, circular saw and a LOT of hand tools and even more good old electronic instruments and components. A Linhof Technika IV with two lenses and backs. Model Diesel motors, several complete radio controls with batteries and servos... I also have two sons who are not interested in it!

What I would have "given an arm and a leg" for, when I was young, seems not very interesting today.

What to do? Am I too old or are they too young, at 22 and 19?

Old dad

18/06/10
10:18am

0

epic

Eric Arnold

04/06/10
1:36am

0

Hi I have a 3 year old son who whants that car gadget where can I get one or are you willing to sell for £20

Pall 774

30/03/10
6:49am

0

RE: bedroom cupboard nostalgia

talk about taking me back , but i think you are being just a tad pesamistic lol kids will always be kids and your children when you have them will be as you want them to be , a spoilt child is spoilt if you spoil them, a kid will have a creative mind if you teach them, dont be sad about what lies ahead , look forward to becoming gr8 parents , remember kids learn from there parents as you did from yours , as they did from theirs, as for schooling there is nothing wrong with state schools, private schools etc still have the same problems, its how they are raised an educated child at home aswell as school will do brilliant no matter what school they are in because they will have the passion to learn.
so dont be sad think of all the fun you are going to have :)

Marie Reilly

04/08/09
10:36pm

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thursday pm 4th september 2008

iphone social

Tonight was a cracking evening of drinks and dinner with five people I met through the iPhone.

I've been using a social networking app called Twinkle. You post messages and pictures and people nearby can see them. You can specify a radius in miles and the app shows messages from people within the radius. It's a great concept and, more importantly, full of interesting people.

Tonight I met Leila, Marc, Rob, Adam and Luke. Drinks in West India Quay and a very decent meal at Browns, followed by Beluga Cafe. Quality evening. Won't be the last!

comments (total: 2)

1

RE: iPhone social

Hi Chris,
I found you via Twinkle too, I'm a twitter user and was looking for a client to use on the iphone but even without the twitter part enabled, I found a few people not far from me! Your updates were the most common on there though.

Spookily though - I've seen your site before. I used to live in Mudchute and remember finding your pic of the station all in blue. I can't remember exactly when, but I remember your site design very clearly, I recognised it instantly when I found the link on your twitter page!

Caspar

Caspar

02/10/08
10:08am

0

today's news

Sorry to hear about Lehman Brothers.

Hope you soon bounce back.

There's lots of jobs around at the moment.

andrew

15/09/08
1:24pm

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wednesday pm 23rd january 2008

poker

* rebought

comments (total: 2)

0

RE: Poker

nice getogether!!!

Joel Bazooka

30/07/09
10:33am

1

0

RE: Poker

evi mate

holly

21/04/08
3:27pm

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photos (total: 12)

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saturday am 5th january 2008

lodge on loch lomond

Cat and I spent our two-year anniversary in a romantic lodge on the banks of Loch Lomond in Scotland. We hired a car and explored lakeside villages, islands and mountains, getting into knee-deep snow at times. The Scots we encountered were wonderfully friendly and welcoming.

comments (total: 1)

0

RE: Lodge on Loch Lomond

nice pics!,.. pro?,..

Joel Bazooka

30/07/09
10:34am

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tuesday am 25th december 2007

christmas 2007

I had a wonderful, relaxing Christmas back home with my family in Essex. Here's a selection of photos:

comments (total: 1)

0

RE: Christmas 2007

They are really good photos! xxx

Cat Burton

30/12/07
11:17am

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photos (total: 45)

	buddha [Daniel Dorta]
	Wonderful Photos [George Sterpka]
		Mum's new car

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monday pm 10th december 2007

jon's photo featured on bbc news 24

Our cottage break in Devon coincided with some of the worst winds and floods of the year. On a windy cliff in Bude, Jon snapped this photo of Alex:



Clearly a faked pose but the BBC graphics are real! Jon submitted the photo to yourpics@bbc.co.uk and it was on TV, on BBC News 24 yesterday morning.

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