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Monday, May 26, 2008
Geekyoto: Summary
So, to summarise the previous posts and to reference the ones I haven't gone into more detail on, here's the list of talks from top to bottom (I hope!):
And that was that, a long day, really interesting, lots to take on board and think about.
Some notes I made about slides - the quality of which varied throughout the day:
See all my posts tagged with geekyoto or my geekyoto photos
- Christian Nold talking about emotional mapping
- Alex Haw talking about Spatial Control - and methods for losing it (a very fast talk - would like to see it again but slowed down to a more sedate pace)
- Simon Daniel talking about Moixa Energy's rechargable USBCELL batteries - it was part product pitch and part background information - 15 billion batteries are thrown away each year. He had an interesting quote "People won't buy things just because they're green but will buy them because they are better". The UK currently recycles only 1.5% of batteries - that is a lot of landfill.
- Adrian Hon and Naomi Alderman talk about the idea of "A secular and environmentally friendly sabbath"
- Gavin Starks talking about the AMEE product. Consumed by services like carbonaccount and dopplr, Sounds good, might have to try and think of something to use the APIs at some point - maybe the next Madgex Hackday if I can think of a tenuous link to job boards
- Vincenzo Dimaria from Central Saint Martins talking about "Design made in Sicily: a change of perspective" all about tomatoes
- Bruno Taylor talking about "Play in a changing public realm"
- Richard Sandford from Futurelab talking about the Beyond Current Horizions programme - this was the graveyard, post lunch, slot and I don't have many notes from this session unfortunately
- Greta Corke from Diy Kyoto talking mainly about Wattson - another product pitch
- Edward Scotcher who mainly told stories about communication, one about the Fashoda Incident (about which I knew nothing) and others about the more current political situations in Kenya and Zimbabwe. One of his comments was "Are we bold enough to contribute without wanting fame and fortune?" His slides are available here.
- Bryony Worthington from Sandbag who talked about emissions trading, and the permit system and how it isn't a good method for curbing emissions. This was the most political (small p, not big p), socio-economic talk and was a contrast to some of the more fluffy, or product based talks
- James Smith talked about "Can software save the world?" - more specifically two projects he's been involved with from a technical perspective - The Carbon Diet and Do the Green thing (a site which I stumbled across a couple of months ago).
- Jeremy Gould and Mitch Sava talked about using "Government Barcamp and Resolution (of the online kind)" which was about how the government is evolving to make use of technology - like e-Petitions, the no 10 twitter
- David Wilcox presented a video from Steve Moore all about 2gether08 which is a festival "to explore how digital technologies can bring us major social benefits".
- John Gisby did a quick talk about a Channel 4 initiative which is equating to £50 million available for projects over the next 2 - 3 years
- The final talk of the day was Ben Saunders talking about his recent North Pole attempt
And that was that, a long day, really interesting, lots to take on board and think about.
Some notes I made about slides - the quality of which varied throughout the day:
- put any text on the top of the slides so everyone can see it - some slides had key text at the bottom left-hand corner of the slides, which I couldn't see clearly. So a statistic that was supposed to be 95% of something-or-other actually read 5% to me - quite a different message
- always put up a slide with contact details - name, email address, web site - possibly both at the start and end of the talk. Some of the names of the speakers were mentioned so infrequently, and quickly, that I didn't get them noted down properly and have had to do some guessing.
See all my posts tagged with geekyoto or my geekyoto photos
// posted by Jane @ 12:54 PM 
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Saturday, May 24, 2008
Geekyoto: Ben Saunders
The last talk of the day at Geekyoto on Saturday was Ben Saunders.
This was of real personal interest as many months ago Jeremy pownced me a link to Ben Saunders web site to follow the progress of his attempt on the speed record of a solo trek to the North Pole. I've always had a fascination in arctic exploration and adventures so this was immediately added to my RSS feed. Unfortunately, he had equipment failure and some dreadful conditions and so
"After 8 days on the ice and at a position of N.83.57.686 W. 074.12.566 Ben Saunders' expedition to become the fastest man to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole is over following the critical failure of his ski equipment."
His talk was excellent, polished and high standard as you would expect from someone who does a lot of fund raising and probably quite a few after dinner talks. He also had the only picture of a polar bear during the whole day! It wasn't just pretty pictures though, he showed us imagery of the ice thaw over the last few years, and also some photos of what the surface looked like after being broken apart so much. This photo:
gives just a small indication of the height of some of the obstacles.
His next trip will be to the South Pole when he will attempt the first return journey to the south pole on foot
"SOUTH will be the first return journey to the South Pole on foot, and the longest unsupported (human-powered) polar journey in history".
He is due to leave in Autumn, so no doubt I'll be following his process again.
This was of real personal interest as many months ago Jeremy pownced me a link to Ben Saunders web site to follow the progress of his attempt on the speed record of a solo trek to the North Pole. I've always had a fascination in arctic exploration and adventures so this was immediately added to my RSS feed. Unfortunately, he had equipment failure and some dreadful conditions and so
"After 8 days on the ice and at a position of N.83.57.686 W. 074.12.566 Ben Saunders' expedition to become the fastest man to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole is over following the critical failure of his ski equipment."
His talk was excellent, polished and high standard as you would expect from someone who does a lot of fund raising and probably quite a few after dinner talks. He also had the only picture of a polar bear during the whole day! It wasn't just pretty pictures though, he showed us imagery of the ice thaw over the last few years, and also some photos of what the surface looked like after being broken apart so much. This photo:
gives just a small indication of the height of some of the obstacles.
His next trip will be to the South Pole when he will attempt the first return journey to the south pole on foot
"SOUTH will be the first return journey to the South Pole on foot, and the longest unsupported (human-powered) polar journey in history".
He is due to leave in Autumn, so no doubt I'll be following his process again.
// posted by Jane @ 8:52 AM
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Geekyoto: Diy Kyoto
One of the two product based talks last Saturday at geekyoto was DIY Kyoto. The key product is Wattson a well designed item which glows with a different colour according to how much electricity you're using, and also shows the electricity usage in either watts or price (you can set your own price). It is based in London, and made in London too.
There is also an associate tool, Holmes which provides a web-based view of your data - Wattson stores 28 days internally and Holmes that to be visualised.
I had a brief chat with Greta Corke (pictured) during a break and it sounded like a more fun (and prettier) version than some of the other similar functioning units. There's a video from Designers Block 2006 here.
There is also an associate tool, Holmes which provides a web-based view of your data - Wattson stores 28 days internally and Holmes that to be visualised.
I had a brief chat with Greta Corke (pictured) during a break and it sounded like a more fun (and prettier) version than some of the other similar functioning units. There's a video from Designers Block 2006 here.
// posted by Jane @ 8:34 AM
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Geekyoto: Play in a changing public realm
Two students from Central Saint Martins did half-length presentations, and the second of these was Bruno Taylor on play.
One of his statements was along the lines that "71% of adults used to play outside when they were young, only 21% of children do now". He also showed some photographs of areas that had been "vandalised" by young people playing on objects that looked like they should have been designed for play, in an area with no real play facilities.
He'd installed a swing into a bus stop to enable play in that environment which looks like a fun idea.
One of his statements was along the lines that "71% of adults used to play outside when they were young, only 21% of children do now". He also showed some photographs of areas that had been "vandalised" by young people playing on objects that looked like they should have been designed for play, in an area with no real play facilities.
He'd installed a swing into a bus stop to enable play in that environment which looks like a fun idea.
// posted by Jane @ 6:33 PM
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Geekyoto: Secular Sabbath
Adrian Hon and Naomi Alderman talking about the idea of a secular sabbath. Naomi is from a jewish background, and in the world of the Orthodox jews what can be done on the Sabbath is quite restricted. This includes turning electrical devices on or off during the period - so a water reboiler tends to be used to cope with the need for a cup of tea, and timer switches are used for lighting.
The list of things that can be done, as seen in the slide above, are all rather pleasant sounding. One of the key points was that "behavioural changes don't need to be sacrificial" but that the concept of a day of rest has pretty much vanished - you can go shopping, read emails, work, etc pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
So, how about every now and again having an off-line day - no internet, no mobile phone, no landline phone - spend the day with friends, eating good food, enjoying good conversation? Give the car a rest, and walk around - slow down, de-stress.
Sounds like a pleasant change to me, I might just have to book one in.
The list of things that can be done, as seen in the slide above, are all rather pleasant sounding. One of the key points was that "behavioural changes don't need to be sacrificial" but that the concept of a day of rest has pretty much vanished - you can go shopping, read emails, work, etc pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
So, how about every now and again having an off-line day - no internet, no mobile phone, no landline phone - spend the day with friends, eating good food, enjoying good conversation? Give the car a rest, and walk around - slow down, de-stress.
Sounds like a pleasant change to me, I might just have to book one in.
// posted by Jane @ 6:21 PM
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Geekyoto: Christian Nold
The first speaker at Saturday's Geekyoto was Christian Nold who was mainly talking about emotional mapping. He mentioned some work he's done with communities and groups to map emotional responses to areas. This photo is part of the San Francisco emotion map. Participants are given handheld machines which monitor sweat levels (similar mechanism to lie detectors) to determine the emotional state of the person who additionally annotates their thoughts.
An interesting first talk, and some beautiful maps amongst his slides:
An interesting first talk, and some beautiful maps amongst his slides:
// posted by Jane @ 10:43 PM
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geekyoto
On Saturday I attended the geekyoto conference. The subject was "Fixing The Broken World" and we had 15 different speakers during the day covering topics from politics, products, mapping through to playing. A really enjoyable and thought provoking day.
I'll post some more thoughts and reflections as the week progresses, but in the meantime here are some photos.
I'll post some more thoughts and reflections as the week progresses, but in the meantime here are some photos.
// posted by Jane @ 10:13 PM
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