Barcamp Cork III was on last weekend. Gordon Murray, Ciara Feely, Ciara Crossan did a brillian job, and the conversations alone are a good reason to go. the Talks are the icing on the cake. I did get there, and had a great time (take a look at Martha Rotter’s review for a better idea).
Why was I late?
Well.
Or was it something else? You decide.
Every so often you discover that some programmers are cool.
I don’t mean in the really skilled (can write a million euro application in 10 lines of code) but actually cool.
For example Luis be Bethencourt Guimerá one of the presenters at OSSBarcamp. No only is he a talented coder and software designer (who worked on the forthcoming Ubuntu release), but he also wrote his own VJ software (being released in the Jaunty Jackalope release of Ubuntu Studio) and digital DJ software, complete with intuitive interface, to help his gigging around the world.
That is cool! I’ll cover more on this later.
This OSS Barcamp was less like most other Barcamps I’ve been to in that the schedule was locked down in advance. It made an interesting change, but it didn’t stave off everyone’s technical difficulties.
OSS Barcamp has its worthy side too. Éibhear Ó hAnluain took the opportunity of a number of skilled and focused minds to look at “How to present a political party’s FLOSS-friendly IT policy to the electorate” or rather, what are the benefits to the country for using free and open source software. What I loved about this talk was actually Enrico Zini and the impact that open source software had on the Italian political scene and its civil service.
The lightening talks were fun, I missed part of James Larkin’s “Intro to CSS Frameworks”, but there should be a video of his talk (and I’m sure he’ll release his slides). One other thing which stood out is the effort to translate or localize Ubuntu to Irish. If you are a native speaker, talk to them.
I’m also fascinated by the formation of TÓG, hackerspaces in Dublin. In the same way that co-working has benefits, I can see similar benefits with co-hacking. And folks, this is the old style of hacking as in making things work, work beter, or creating something new out of other products. Not cracking which is breaking in to things. Think more of an organised “voiding your warranty”.
Due to the lighting talks I ended up missing David Coallier’s “Get Ready for web 3.0 talk”
Now, back to Luis.
First off watch this video.
Some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video
Looks pretty good. Not too fancy and suits the song.
Now just think that this video was created with
Cheap? And good looking too.
And then there is “Big Buck Bunny” created by the open source Blender tool. Now it took a long time to put together, but the Peach Movie Project Team include tutorials on how they did it.
Just remember kids; software is an art as well as a science. And artist in one field tends to have skills in other fileds.
Take care, and enjoy the short movie below,
Some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video
Thanks to Laura Czajkowski and Jaime Hemmett for putting the whole day together.
Will Knott
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If you are looking for me tomorrow, I’ll be at the OSS Bar Camp in Kevin Street, Dublin (with my badge bag, makes me easy to spot I suppose)
While listening to Enda’s podcast of his interview with Clare FM, I realised something.
I’m old.
No, that’s not right.
I’m not young. I’m not a teenager.
This reaction wasn’t due to Teencamp Ireland, taking place in Film Base, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin on Saturday (January 17 2009). No, I had planned to go and at least stick my head in. My reaction was from the presenter talking about teenagers and public opinion of them.
His reaction to how teenagers are “supposed to” act made me realise two thing. I haven’t done that stuff for years. Yes, I meet up with friends and hang around doing nothing, but now I require a roof, and maybe tea. And two, teenagers aren’t the problem. The generation gap is between those who think as adults and all the rules they think have to apply, and smart teenagers who take on the JFDI (Just Freaking Do It) attitude of getting stuff done.
Its not a generation gap, its an attitude gap. My shoes may be too tight, but I still dance. Badly and I need a rest afterwards, but I still dance. And I’m one of the more cautious ones. I haven’t had a brilliant idea to turn in to a new technology, or a new business to run. I was never a young technologist, despite my interest and love of all things techie. I’m only getting my head around the messy innards of running a business. I feel destined to be in the back room.
Getting things done. Done for others, but done.
Teencamp is an unconference for teenagers and technology. The notion of a BarCamp is easily understood. The focus here is on the teenagers getting together face to face about technology (I have no doubt that there will be a swapping of contact details so the conversation continue long afterwards). Its about people teaching their peers about how they do things. It’s about hanging out with others with the same interests. A normal BarCamp and a gaggle of teenagers hanging out share quite a few things.
So, can I call in? Be that embarrassing uncle. Find out if I can help… and then leave (I do want to ask the manga speaker a few questions about tracking down DVDs first).
An bhfuil cead agam dul isteach?
Will Knott
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Well I’m going to be running silent for a few days (I could automate a few posts, but I’d rather be honest).
Things are changing in my life. Firstly I have a contract in Dublin. Great stuff you say. Yes it starts tomorrow. And secondly, on Monday I have exams for a module in my Masters. In Cork.
Slight geography problem.
Given my job hunt has been going for a little while (and my new employers don’t mind loosing me for the exam day) I’m afraid to say that the opportunity of paid employment wins this particular day.
This means that I have to have a little conversation with the couse head to talk about the possibilities of dropping out, putting things in limbo, transferring to another college or seeing what can be done remotely.
In the meantime, I have a few days of intensive study (I’m not cramming, I’m refining) ahead of me. So silent running until Tuesday 6th of January.
In the meantime, I’ll direct you to a forthcoming event.
Teencamp Ireland is due to take place on January in Filmbase in Dublin. TeenCamp Ireland is a gathering of the techies/bloggers/fanboys age 13+ in Ireland to give talks, meet others, share ideas and have a laugh. TeenCamps are organised/planned/run by teens for other teens. So I’m probably a little too old to go (I might show up and embarrass a few faces).
4 days to my exams and 16 days until Teemcamp.
Good luck one and all,
Will Knott
I took a little too long with this, and with a question.
Joel Drapper of ProTwitter posed a question.
“What is twitter? How would you describe it? Because it is not just answering the question “What are you doing?”
Twitter technically is simply a means of communication. Its a giant instant message tool which is always on. You can choose to follow the messages (called tweets). Others can choose to follow your messages. There is a method to send private messages, but (unless you choose the option to only allow people you follow to see your messages) all your messages are public.
Its like holding a conversation with someone on the other side of the room by shouting to each other. Anyone can choose to listen.
I posed a different question based around how people use it. My plan was to simply collect information about twitter clients based on the observation that there were so many out there. My survey posed 4 questions.
A far more clinical set of questions.
But two things happened.
Firstly, TweetRush released a “by client” set of stats, where I could see some of the data I was looking for.
and secondly, While I asked some clinical “what” questions, I also recieved some non-clinical “why” answers.
I’ll go through my data analysis in a later post, but I wan to comment on the “why”s.
People communicate. Its possible that some areas of our brain evolved differently because of communications, and given our abilities to read expressions (and see faces out of random patterns) it seems clear that our desire to be with someone is something what drives us.
What does a tweet do. It (somewhat) reassures us that another person is there. A constant flow of messages via Twitter indicates that people we care (enough to follow) are still out there. Conversations aside, a tweet (or Jaiku or Pownce or Facebook / linkedIn status message) is simple a status update.
“I’m having coffee”
“The food here is terrible”
“Its wonderful here”
“I’m alive”
ping
ack
Twitter is a communications channel. Tweets are important messages. Mundane sometimes (“I’m finally home”), but important to someone (“He’s finally home; I was worried”).
In short, the importance is not the medium, or the message; but the messages themselves.
Anyway, the slides from my presentation on November 1 are included below, and I’ll talk about my findings of the statistics in my next post.
Take care,
Will Knott
Right now, freezing at the keyboard in my geansai gorm, I should be making slides and a talk for Barcamp Cork II. The talk is a HCI look at Twitter and twitter applications and interfaces (but I’m enjoying the data mining of the survey too much). However I’ve noticed something from that data.
I’ve asked people why they use particular twitter applications and interfaces. In the process of discovering that people don’t always answer the question you ask, I’ve collected a few stories about why they use twitter.
Some use twitter for marketing purposes. Social media monitoring either for themselves or for their clients.
Some use twitter, Jaiku or other micro-blogging tools for a quick response to questions.
But most people seem to use it to stay in contact with friends. With their Tribe.
Think about it. Are you a sports fan, or a fan of a particular team in a particular sport? No one is a fan of GAA but not a team, but they are a fan or their club and county (even when their club is in a different county).They can admire another team, but they are fanatics for their own. Their tribe.
A fairly lonely sport like cycling has a community? Cyclists look to each other. Sometimes look after each other on roads when they encounter each other. Even as strangers, as their bike identifies them as being of the same tribe. Help will be offered. Tips will be swapped. A spare tube will be ‘lent’.
Going to a Barcamp, an un-conference identifies you as being of a tribe. A technical minded, or technology loving tribe. A tribe identified by their laptops, mp3 recorders and gadgets. A tribe allied with web 2.0 and a love of problem solving. Help will be offered. Tips and urls will be swapped. A spare cable will be lent.
And then we have the Jaiku versus twitter debate. Almost everyone in Jaiku is bi-textual, but there are tribes, groups, clans etc. Everybody wants to belong, be part of something bigger. Be part of a grander scheme. And one which makes person to person contacts. Everyone wants to belong, even if its to a school clique.
The older, traditional tribes; church, local neighbourhoods and work are disintegrating. So new tribes are forming.
And once a tribe is identified, it will be marketed to. (Buy Burma Shave).
take care,
Will Knott
How do you use Twitter? Click Here to take survey. I’ll be presenting the results at part of a presentation at Barcamp Cork II.
Image via CrunchBase
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This post has changed direction several times in the last three days.
At first I was going to write about green issues. What happened was that I bumped in to a pair of representatives for Change.ie, a government run site for creating a plan of action for environmental change and reducing Ireland’s (and maybe the world’s) carbon footprint. I told the reps that I was surprised that there hadn’t been blogger outreach to other blogs concerning green issues, and pointed out a few that I knew of.
One rep asked me to e-mail in the details of the sites, the idea was to get something of an aggregator going.
The first person who came to mind was Ms. Phoebe Bright…
who seems slightly miffed in this photo about what happened next.
Phoebe presented at the recent Open Coffee BBQ about energy, energy demand and a technological solutions to change the thinking currently driving our consumption habits. Well worth a read if you weren’t at teh presentation.
Also, how can I forget Greennav. Actually I did, which is why I e-mailed in the links. Greennav is an odd mix of a group blog in that anyone can add to it. So its one better than an aggregator, is something of a community. And yes its full of green hints and tips.
Even the landscape gardener Peter Donegan has added a collection of green hints and tips to his site.
And now a change in direction.
Ladies and gentlemen. Get them together, as the response from the government sources was “that’s nice, anyone can blog, go ahead”. Or a “we’ll do nothing thank you”.
This is one of those areas where we should collaborate, and double, nay triple the voices to get the messages, and actions out there. A green meme. Not just an internet meme but a get off our backsides and do something about it meme.
I’m just not sure what.
But its this tendency for collaboration which brings me to to the next change of directions, sponsored by Twenty Major and Adrian Weckler.
They have complained about the fact that …
Well lets see.
I know that I don’t intend to ever get close to Granddad without a stab-proof vest, but the Irish blog-sphere is a small place. If you don’t count Bebo blogs, you could fit most of the Irish bloggers in a medium hotel for an awards ceremony. Because we are a small group, the chances of prolonged bickering are few. Grudges can be held, but so can tongues. And the word “community” tends to hold sway. (Besides, Twitter is the place for small short-lived Irish fire fights). And besides, Barcamps, Tweet-ups, Open Coffee clubs, photo-walks and general get-togethers happen enough to prevent full blown flame wars that lead to bits going missing.
As for a consensus. Well, the early Irish bloggers were either techies, or non-technical people in the technology industry (sometimes in the one person). In this world, standards mean a lot. Consensus gets the job done. And could a barcamp exist without consensus?
As for people who aren’t and don’t aspire to be investigative journalists not doing enough investigative journalism for Mr Wreckler’s liking. Well, circular logic only gets you so far. Maybe you would be willing to teach us the way, and teach us, using your blog or course, on how to do these investigations. I think a few hundred well trained (even if we are bored, lonely or angry) bloggers might do you some justice. (Besides you forgot about Maman Poulet teaching journalists how to do their jobs when it came to Michael Lynn).
And finally, “bloggers are fake”. Now he’s not talking about fiction blogs, nor blogs maintained by a fictional (or pseudonymous) character. He’s talking about people who create great blogs, to get employment, and once employed, stop blogging. I can only assume that he means people who want to write for a living, and are using their blog as a portfolio in the same way that an artist creates work for themselves, to get their own style (or voice) and use that portfolio as a way to become a writer.
Well, if they exist, and I actually expect that they do, then more luck to them. If the only reason they wrote was to get someone to pay for the writing, then isn’t it better that they stop blogging?
Can we all agree to that?
take care,
Will Knott
I’ve gone past the Cork Marts building as it was being built, and I called in to see if I could take a few shots. What I found is a modern building which can have a double life as a concert and conference venue (working around the mart days obviously). And given the fact that they are currently setting up building-wide wi-fi broadband, it might just be a suitable future BarCamp venue.
The marts themselves are just that. Marts. Three different livestock marts have closed and combined (literally) under the one roof.
The smallest of the three arenas is the Funcheon Arena which is the new home of the Mitchelstown mart. It deals exclusively with sheep and calves.
The next largest is the Owenacurra Arena which is the replacement for the Midleton Mart. If you haven’t guessed by now, the arenas are named after the rivers that run past the original marts. And I was told what this mart dealt with, but I can’t remember now (sorry).
Before I continue, I had better mention the paintings throughout the building. They are all by Brigid Shelly who is based near Ardmore.
The final and largest arena is the Blackwater Arena, which takes over from the near-by Fermoy cattle Mart.
This Arena is interesting for a few reasons. It’s the only wheelchair accessible arena in the building, and it changes.
The rails around the show area are removable, and a stage can be build over this area, allowing the auctioneers podium to become a stage. There is also a drop down screen for projections, and naturally a (presumable) good sound system for the auctioneer or presenter to use.
There are also the Corrin and Switzer Kingston conference rooms (currently empty and, lets face it, an empty carpeted conference room is less interesting a picture than the arenas) which can seat about 400. They have the projectors and flat screens to repeat the presentation throughout the large room. These flat screens, and the ones in the rest of the building are designed to show the agenda of sales in all the arenas (or in the other rooms) as required. The idea is to prevent missing the sale you’re interested in, but it could be used for a talk agenda at an unconference.
You might be wondering about the catwalks in the sign above. Well…
… the catwalks are the metal walkways above the animal pens where the sale stock can be viewed before the sale.
I can actually see events taking place here, but I doubt the tech geeks and nerds would be let play in there. But if there is a charity date auction… Oh never mind.
The building also has a number of (disturbingly sluice-able) breakout rooms. As well as full catering and bar facilities.
Well, that’s about it, but I’ll have to call in after the building opens to the punters, and the livestock.
take care,
Will Knott
