Here we are in 2008, then.

2007 was, I think, hectic. The first half was largely uneventful; busy at work, mainly. Everything ramped up from about May, though: another trip to Copenhagen to attend and talk at Reboot, which was fantastic as ever; then a short natter at Interesting 2007.

At the end of August, Alex and I eschewed our usual city-breaks for a week in Whitstable, escaping to the seaside with books, beers, and a camera. It turned out to be one of the best holidays I’ve ever had. A few weeks later, we went to the End of the Road Festival, and had a fantastic weekend amidst great music, lovely weather, and a bunch of peacocks.

And then, in October, I left Nature after 18 months. I enjoyed my time there by and large, but found myself clashing with the corporate culture far more than I’d expected. Working with a non-colocated team (the majority of whom were on GMT -5), in an environment that didn’t exactly support multidisciplinary interests so well, turned out to be tough at times, and it slowly wore me down. I made many good friends there, and learned a lot, so I was sorry to go, but I think I made the right choice for me. I left to join Headshift, returning to being in a smaller company, and which seems to be working out OK, so far. I’m still working out what I want to do; Headshift seems to be a good place to do that.

I liked 2007, all in all, although I found the hectic nature of it quite tiring by the end. I hope that this year will be no less eventful; I also hope to be able to manage it better.

On to the year to come, then. A new year is traditionally a time to make resolutions. Some will always be private, but I think it’s time to make some in public, if only so I can hold myself to them. And so: here are some things I want to be able to hold myself to:

• I’m going to write down what I read. Alex does this very effectively, and I’m annoyed that I haven’t got good records, because I’m convinced I read way more than I think I did. Still, I think I’ve done OK this year.
• Actually, I’m going to write down everything I consume much better - films and games, especially. This might involve a spreadsheet; it might involve an existing service like All Consuming. We’ll see.
• I think I might actually launch a web app, for real. I’ll keep you all posted on this one, but it’s not far off now.
• I’m going to write more about what I do, if only because I want to work out what I do. I write code; I design interactions; I think about things. When people say “what do you do?“, I say that “I make things on the web“. This is deliberately vague. I’m still trying to work out if that’s really what I want to do, or if I have some higher-level goal in mind. Right now, I’m finding it hard to juggle an interest in programming with a desire to push my design/product thinking a bit harder.
• I’m going to write more about what I enjoy. I want to write about photography a lot more, and my games-writing here has tailed out a little bit. That should be redeemed a bit.
• I’m going to write more, full stop. There’s too much to keep in my head and to the pub forever. I need records.
• I’m going to lose weight - get rid of some flab, try and vaguely acquire some tone. This is going to be hard, but more frequent runs and less snacking will get us a long way.
• I’m going to keep a better notebook. I’m always embarrassed by my scratchy handwriting, my shapeless layouts, my mucky scrawl. I envy my friends their tidy notebooks, often embellished with bold illustration. I’m always too afraid of making a mess, and I think perhaps too afraid to make the notebook an artefact in its own right (rather than an transition artefact). This fear also means my notes are, sometimes, either too brief or too illegible to be of real use, and I think if I took more care over the artefact itself, it’d be more useful to me.
• I’m going to learn to drive. About time.

I think I’m going to end up rambling if I don’t stop soon, so maybe that’s enough resolutions. I’m not sure I can keep to them all, but I want to have them here, in public, to be held to and to return to at the end of the year. We’ll see how we did then.

I hope you enjoyed your 2007. Here’s to 2008.

I’m off to the seaside on holiday. To Whitstable, to be precise (which still isn’t in Dopplr, despite the remarkably good gazetteer update). Looking forward to it a huge amount. I’ve been a bit burnt out in recent weeks, with piles of work and other things. Means I’m behind on uploading photographs, writing about things, putting things out into public.

Never mind. I’ve got 7 days on the coast to read, walk, eat, and recharge my batteries.

And then we begin again.

It’s hard to describe how much I’m looking forward to this. The beautiful weather can only be a good sign, right?

It had to catch up with me eventually. Matt tagged me with the “five things” meme. And then so did Alex. I thought I’d have some time to write this, but then everybody else finished theirs dead quick, and I got tagged twice, and this took ages - hence the delay.

The problem with things like this is that you often either end up sounding arrogant, or you give away terrifying secrets on the internet, where they’ll never be forgotten. Striking the middle ground is hard. I hope I managed that, anyhow.

1. I’m an only child
“So that explains everything,” is the traditional quip. It explains a moderate amount, I suppose, but I really don’t think it has a vast significance as to who I really am. Yes, I’m probably more comfortable with my own company than many, but as a bookish, quiet child, it suited me, I suppose. I never really wanted for a sibling until I got to University, really, and I’ve certainly never minded not having one. So, there you go. To me, it’s just my life, but people sure do love attaching significance to it.

2. I have hammertoes/bunions
This is my random physical skill. I always thought my feet were normal, but no; if you look at them, the top join of my toe angles inwards at about 30 degrees. I’m used to them now, but I’m assured they’re not meant to be like that. No idea if it was shoes or just my genes that did it.

3. I’m obsessed with film censorship and classification
This is my dorky interest - specifically, in the work of the BBFC. I love movies, but film certification itself is a fascinating mine of trivia. It’s also a really interesting guide to the mores and tastes of culture. Fortunately, the BBFC have a wonderfully detailed website, with their entire database online, and with listing for new releases. It’s one way I find out what new titles will be out soon, and also is interesting to see which films have been edited to reach certificates.

For instance: here’s the entry for Don’t Look Now, originally rated X in 1973, passed as an 18 in 1988 on video, and then given a 15 in 2001 when re-released to the cinema - all without edits. Also note the changing iconography of the BBFC, and, most trivia-tastic of all, the shorter running time on video, which indicates not that the film’s been edited, but is merely down to the fact that video runs at an extra frame every second compared to film.

Anyhow, I find it rather interesting, if only to mine the archive, and to watch classifcation, and censorship - or lack of it - at work. Another interesting board of censors is IFCO, the Irish film censor, who are interesting if only for their slightly different priorities (interestingly manifested in their split between 12A, 15A, 16 and 18 film ratings - on video I believe they just have 12/15/18).

I’m fully in agreement with Mark Kermode when he says that we, the British, have the best film classification board in the world. They’re smart, clued-in, and fair. Their site also provides RSS for recent releases on film, video, and digital media (games). Try subscribing some time - if only to get a laugh out of the terrible titles porn videos have.

4. I didn’t like curry until I was 18
Which isn’t that remarkable a fact, unless you know how much I like eating curry now, and, more to the point, how much I love cooking curry now. I think we make one a week, on average, and often make several when people come over. What I’ve learned time and time again in my adult life is that it often takes a very good dish to break the ingrained responses of millions of crappy school dinners.

5. My girlfriend hasn’t seen my chin in three years
My dad’s had a beard ever since I was born, so I’ve never really had many issues with facial hair. I grew my sideburns at about the age of 14, mainly because they arrived, and I quite liked them. I’ve kept them long ever since, though try not to let them get too bushy and look too much like a Victorian patriarch. Anyhow: this answer is about facial hair.

I grew my first beard the summer I was sixteen. It involved deciding very carefully when the earliest I could have my final shave of the school term was, and then just let the fuzz build up without looking obvious, in order to get the maximum head start. I ended up with a DJ-Shadow-like chinbeard. My body hair, when it has grown, always started out golden, and went red as it matured.

I grew my first adult beard in the first term at university. My beard for most of my time at Cambridge was a chinstripe with wings - an upside-down T - and no moustache. With hindsight, it looked a bit silly, but it was fun, and it felt like a good expression of my personality. I periodically shaved it off, and only ever in order to facilitate progress with some girl I fancied. Invariably, I discovered that it wasn’t the beard they had problems with, and so I grew it back immediately.

I grew my final beard in the third year, and, for the first time in my life, grew the moustache to go with it. Proper goatee, although it’s been hell joining up the sides, so to speak. I haven’t been clean-shaven since then, and you’ll see the beard on my graduation photographs. Given Alex and I got together in the final term, that means she’s never seen my chin.

Much as I love her, I’m not sure she will for a while. And when she does, it’ll be a shining white patch - it hasn’t seen the sun in a long whlie, either.

Gosh. They weren’t hugely exciting. Sorry I don’t have anything more interesting that I’m willing to tell you.

Anyhow, now I have to tag five more people, which is hard, because I have to choose five people who haven’t done it already. So I choose: Matt Biddulph, Matt Patterson, David Smith, Simon Willison, and Chris Heathcote (if they’ve not done it already).

I feel like I’ve been neglecting Infovore a bit in recent weeks, and so thought I’d begin my return to form (as it were) with a semi-obligatory year-end post.

2006 has been really quite a year, on many levels. Certainly one of the most eventful so far. The most obvious change it brought has been a change of job: after two years of working for the New Statesman, I left for a change of scenery. I haven’t mentioned where I am specifically, up until now, but given that most people who know me know, I’m happy to say that I’m working at the Nature Publishing Group, known best for their flagship title Nature. I’m a front-end developer there, writing markup and front-end code to build interfaces and sites. It’s been a great experience so far; after an inital unsettled period I’ve slowly managed to find my feet and am enjoying it a lot. It’s also given me a chance to work, full-time, in Ruby on Rails, which has proved most enjoyable - and at times eye-opening.

It’s also been a year of travel. Between leaving one job and starting another, I went to the USA for the first time - to speak at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. That turned out to be fascinating, exciting, and terrifying in equal measure; I poured perhaps a little too much of myself into the talk, but was very pleased with the results and had a great time at the conference - both in terms of what I learned and the relationships I made and solidified. A shame not to be going again this year, but I’m glad to have been once.

I also travelled to Denmark for Reboot 8 in the summer, again to talk. Less terrifying, this time around, and perhaps my favourite work of the past year - lots of lateral thinking and answering of what-ifs in that talk. Do check it out if you haven’t already. A very different environment to ETech - creative, artistic, and holistic in its approach to technology; really wonderfuly to attend something truly European. As long as it’s on this year, I’m definitely going again.

There was also travel that didn’t so much resemble work. Alex and I went to Barcelona in the autumn for a wonderful holiday - lots of food, sun, reading, and art. A really lovely city, and an excellent holiday. Just the rest I needed, really. Lots of photos of it are up in my Flickr profile.

Life is slowly becoming more settled, really. I’m feeling more confident daily in my work, in my play, and in the city I live in; London is really beginning to feel a little like home. It’ll never truly be home, but it’s great to live somewhere with so many good friends, and so much to do with them.

And what does 2007 hold? No idea, really, though I’m beginning to have some thoughts. I’m seriously considering a fortnight’s holiday - I usually stick to just a week. And I think it could well end up being spent in San Francisco - another trip to the US, to a city full of friends (and, seemingly, more of them every day), and a summer in the sun.

2007 should also be a year of making. I’ve got at least one project to launch very early in the year, and several more on the go. And I mean “making” of everything: making more words, more music, more photographs, far more cooking - more stuff. I’m always wrestling to create, but I plan next year to really make stuff happen. I hope to share more of it here.

I’ve really loved 2006 - ups and downs, for sure, but so many opportunities, so many new friends, so many magic moments - from watching the sea roll in at Barcelona to being mesmerised in the cinema, from late nights talking with friends in far-off hotels to many happy memories in the kitchen.

I hope your 2006 was good; I hope your 2007 is even better. Do keep reading.

Well, that was America. Thanks to the very generous Dan Heaf, I’m sitting in the Virgin Atlantic Lounge at LAX, sipping free drinks and catching up the world online. The presentation went down well, it seems; I’ve had some interesting emails as a result and some kind words. The PDF isn’t up online yet, but the most indepthwrite-up - featuring pictures of yours truly + slides - is over at Near Near Future. Given Regine was in the front row, hammering away at her notes, there are obviously some gaps but the basic premise is there. I’d argue it’s less a “consumer” perspective and more just a perspective on the gaming industry (rather than academic/research perspectives), but it’s still great to see it out there, and to a huge audience. Thanks very much for the write-up, Regine!

And so I’m about to board a plane and hop back to the UK. I’ve had a great time at Etech - it all began sinking in late on Thursday (and especially very late on Thursday, when I had a fantastic night, thanks to danah, Matt, Alex, and many others).

Many thanks must also go to the organisers of the conference, O’Reilly and especially to all those (friends and new acquaintances) in the British contingent who put up with me, nerves and all, and steered me through safely. It’s slowly sinking in just how wonderful an experience it was. My further thoughts from the conference - and there are, as ever, several, will follow in due course.

There’s been a long silence here, punctuated by del.icio.us links and the odd post (and the odd picture) but not much else.

There are various reasons for this. The first is the new job - and everything that’s entailed, namely, trying to tie up loose ends at my current job before I leave, today. It’s also been a busy month at work anyway, so that’s made things even more hectic.

And then for the past month or two, at night, and at those weekends, I’ve been working pretty hard on my talk for ETech. I’ve been nervous about that - still am - and it’s taken a fair amount of work to knock it into the shape it’s in. I’m pretty pleased with it now - just hoping it doesn’t bomb at the conference. So that’s the other reason I’ve been busy.

Now, though, it’s practically all done. I’m flying out to LA tomorrow, and then down to San Diego for a week, Saturday to Saturday. I’m really looking forward to ETech. Bar the fear of speaking, I’ve followed it for a fair few years and have always wanted to go; now I’ve got the chance. It’s my first visit to the US, too; the last transatlantic flight I did was Canada when I was 11. So it’s all rather exciting, all told.

If you’re interested in saying hello during ETech, do drop me a line (tom at this domain), or look out for the redhead with the sideburns. I’m going to try and update this blog a bit more frequently when I’m there (which won’t be hard), but it’s not going to approach live-blogging or anything - I’m going to be too busy taking notes, I hope. Keep an eye on my Flickr stream, too.

A bit of a holiday, then, mixed up with a frenetic burst of data that I can’t wait to see. In a few weeks, once I’ve settled into the new jobs, I can start pulling the chocks out of a few other little side-projects. (And, of course, giving myself and the girl some quality time).