Status Report

01 July 2007

A long while since my last “real” post, then. In that time a lot’s happened; most significantly, I failed to pass comment on Russell Davies’ Interesting 2007, which was pretty excellent. There’s lots of stuff scattered around the web and Russell’s on site about it. It was a delightful, gentle, eye-opening, very British day of talk, tea, and apples. So good, I stayed out eating and drinking, rather than heading to Hack Day until the next day.

What I saw of Hack Day on Sunday was pretty good. I even attempted a hack in about half an hour, which went far enough as proof of concept without really being worth showing. It was a gag-hack, basically, but fun to have the challenge.

My talk at Interesting is available on Slideshare. Not only that, it’s also available on my slightly-revamped talks page. I say “slightly” revamped, because the whole markup could do with an overhaul, really, but for now, there’s lots of Slideshare action – including slides from my ETech talk last year, previously too big to host on my pitiful hosting.

Workwise, we had the official launch of Nature Precedings, which is a place for life-scientists and life-science researchers to share pre-publication and in-progress work; something a bit like a preprint service for the life-sciences community. If you’re within the larger scientific community, you might understand why it’s reasonably significant. It generated a fair bit of buzz, and I hope it goes from strength to strength. Great to work with many colleagues from NPG on it, as well as with the team at Thoughbot.

As ever, I’ve been neglecting the blog, but I’m thinking of ways around that – less, more often, might end up being some kind of solution. Right now, I feel on the cusp of something, but I have no idea what – how big it is, what it is. I’m just pushing myself forward, hoping to find that edge at some point soon.

In the meantime: I’ll keep linking, keep taking pictures, keep writing, and keep aggregating the results of those endeavours here.

Why?

First, I’m going to be talking (or prattling) about pipes and tubes at Russell Davies’ Interesting 2007. Should be excellent.

Then, when it’s over, I’m off to Alexandra Palace for Hack Day. I have some partners in crime there who I should be able to fall into line with.

Crikey. That’s a weekend and a half. I’m going to need a holiday.

Not much posting here for a while. Sorry. Lots of things going on, notably work, and also an impending hosting move. Erk! Anyway, I felt it was time to highlight some upcoming stuff I’m doing.

Exciting thing #1: I’m going to be speaking at Interesting 2007. The lineup looks awesome; I’m really glad that I’m going to be there, let alone be speaking. My talk is going to be about “pipes and tubes”. That’s not a metaphor. Things that might get covered: underground railways, pneumatic messaging, packet-switching, barrel-making, the logistics of building a chocolate factory. I’m still working it out, but it should be fun at the least. There’s so much other good stuff there – looking forward to finding out how to split a log with an axe, and to hear Schulze talk about comics (hurrah) and so many other things. And… I’m on the same bill as Matthew d’Ancona. Blimey.

Exciting things #2: I’m going to be at Reboot 9 in Copenhagen at the end of the month. Last year’s Reboot was a wonderful, wonderful experience: lots to chew over and lots of new friends found, so I’m really excited about this year’s. I’ll also be around in Copenhagen for a few days afterwards, for holiday. Everything’s booked apart from the hotel (tips welcome), and I can’t wait.

Exciting times, eh? I hope to be documenting them a bit more here.