Will Knott

Exactly what it says on the tin. Here is a pretty wordle (OK, black and white, it should be in the new colours, but I’ll go with the 1963 style) of all the villains appearances in the TV series Doctor Who all prettied up.
The Guardian created the Google spreadsheet (crowd sourced by a lot of fans naturally) of all the villains in Doctor Who and why they did what they did. Take over the universe is a fairly popular reason. Something to remember for your end of year review.

I took a much simpler subset of their spreadsheet, simply the name of the villain and the number of episodes they have been in. Wordle has an advanced setting where instead of counting the words themselves, you can format the list of words in pairs in a Alpha:10 Beta:20 type format instead of having to type Alpha out ten times. Works fairly well for visualising your analytics as to how people find a site. Its not pure data visualisation. I still want to drop the spreadsheet in to Pivot and do some of the “why” analytics.

This time is simply a homage as to how often the Daleks have been on Doctor Who.
Click through for much bigger

And no, I’m not a rabid fan boy. I’d need to work on it more. Any other data sets I can play with?

I’m waiting for Ikea Dublin to open. OK, not waiting, but making some plans. So I keep an eye on the Ikea Hacker blog.

And today, this shows up.

The Good Vibrations table was created by Tim G Taylor as part of an art exhibition.

• Materials:
• one Lack side-table top,
• four ‘ultra-smooth lite-up multi-speed simulators”,
• one book ‘Great Railway Journeys of the World’.

The idea would be to have a traveling table at the exhibition, but it stayed in place. Rattling.

Obviously the choice of dildo is important. It has to be rather hard (ahem) to hold up the the weight of the table. But somehow the sight of the flexible ones, flapping about, trying to go around the floor would be amusing. Maybe tongues would be better (a telephone table to get tongues wagging!). Also the table being considered a “Lack” despite its clear endowment means that the artist is a very happy man. Something like this should win the “Filthy Butt Fun Award” from Maxi.

But I think I could go one better (even if I get weird looks from the TOG guys).

You see, one of the most popular hacks for Ikea products, is to make a multi-station charger for your phone, MP3 player, laptop etc.

Well why not a battery recharger.

After all the legs need something to keep going.

Maybe I should apply for a business idea grant. Is there a business to be made designing furniture like this? After all I can see an excellent horizontal Saint Andrew’s Cross being made out of four Norden benches and an Oddvar stool. Or would something like that be considered blasphemy?

take care,
and insert the batteries correctly,
Will Knott

Want to buy a 30-foot Raptor fighter craft from Battlestar Galactica?

The full sized prop / set used on the show? Well because the reserve price wasn’t reached in the Ebay auction, on May 8th you can.

Seems that the production company is selling off lots of the props and costumes.

That is all.

OK, there might be a Cylon fighter on sale too.

Update : The props and costumes were created by Propworx who have theor own E-bay auction account to sell off used props.

Timing is interesting. Markham Nolan blogged about, well, bloggers being used and abused by marketing types and quoted the example of The Big Switch outreach done by Bord Gáis electricity. Go read it and come back. This post is my comment as he “plucked out” a comment I left and given that I’ve been named, I’m not intending to be shamed.

(I have shame, don’t use it much)

The rest of this post is the comment I left…

I think I need to defend myself after you “plucked me out”.

I’ll go with this one example of the Bord Gáis meetup. This wasn’t a scheme dreamt up by a PR firm, this was Bord Gáis doing it themselves. All the bloggers that attended did so out of curiosity. None of us knew what it was going in.

If we did, I suspect a different group of bloggers would have shown up.

If you want bloggers, ask bloggers who blog about your area. For the event the ideal group would be business bloggers, consumer affairs bloggers, green affairs bloggers. Oddly enough marketing and advertising bloggers would have been interested too.

Or to put it another way, would you invite a music journalist to the launch of a new cheese? (No jokes please)

I know that not everyone who attended blogged about it (yet at any rate). I know that it ended up being one of my longer posts.
From what I can tell, it was the first attempt at blogger outreach (not just their first attempt, but THE first attempt following the Collision Course).

Lots of information was freely given. It was interesting to see a “grown up” product that few would describe as “sexy” being used for outreach. Things are changing in the marketplace, bloggers may be invited to more, but that is no guarantee of a write up, let along a favourable one.

The early inviter will get the “well they invited us” posts, but if it becomes more commonplace, the “I was there” won’t be blogged. The “I’m interested in this topic, give me the info” will take over. After all, most (if not all) Irish bloggers are amateurs.  They have work, school or other duties in the mornings. They can’t attend a day-time press conference (or film screening). They don’t all live in Dublin (interesting to see how many of these things will take place in Cork, Galway, Kilkenny or Limerick). And bloggers are under no real obligation. A day without posting isn’t going to cause much harm. Not the same can be said about mainstream media.

Or to use your analogy, the swarm of locusts may find the field is empty when they get there.

Of course, locust only swarm then their serotonin levels increase. That’s the happy chemical of the brain.

Who says that bloggers make a happy meal?

take care,

Will Knott

Before you go to a Twestival, how should you keep an eye out for your friends off Twitter? Well, why not wear your Twitter friends? (yes that does sound like a very bad superhero team).

Wear their faces on your chest. (eewww) OK, pictures of their faces. Better? Or have their mug on your mug.

Walter Higgins at Sxoop (pronounced Skoop, or Scoop) is a image manipulation software developer for a a while now. The headlined Pixenate, an online photo editor, is integrated on many sites worldwide. He also has a history of making image manipulation tools for Twitter. He’s responsible for all the Santa hats this Christmas, and he’s brought out something new, the Twitter Mosaic.

You tell it your Twitter user name (no need for a password) and it generates a mosaic of all your twitter friends or followers. A big image. This can be turned into Mugs, T-Shirts and Bags.

All of this is made possible because of Web2.0 and the philosophy of open APIs (both Twitter’s and Zazzle’s). What has been done recently at http://sxoop.com/twitter/ simply wouldn’t have been possible a few short years ago. Needless to say, these APIs are being battered at the moment. Walter has more details on how to get things running quickly too and the end products seem to be reviewed very well.

So you can create a physical social (media) object and drink to the health of your fellow Tweeters from a Twitter Mosaic mug  (hopefully full of  clean water thanks to Charity:Water) and wear your friends in public.

The Twitter Mosaic is indeed the beneficiary of a Tuesday Push, so soon after demoing it at the Cork Open Coffee Club. And yes I got to know Walter through the Open Coffee movement. However its a cool idea, a great set of products and it since to see someone in Ireland making money in there times. And making money while Twitter is still trying out how.

take care,

Will Knott

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sxoop Technologies turn a buck on Twitter (patphelan.net)
• Tuesday Push was Sxoop (web2ireland.org)
• Twitter Mosaic: Using the long tail to make money from Twitter (antonmannering.com)
• My Twitter Mug is here – Merry Christmas to me! (u-g-h.com)
• Tuesday Push: Twitter Mosaic from Sxoop Technologies (ewritecork.com)
• Push it: Twitter Mosaic from Sxoop Technologies (cjwriting.com)

Get your twitter mosaic here.

A wise woman pointed out that it is perfectly reasonable to talk predictions for the year ahead up to and including 31 January! Well I’m going to type about resolutions.

Yes its a bit late to talk about new year resolutions, but here goes.

Get in to fights again

I ended up dropping out of Capoeira in 2008. A mixture of class clashes and commuting.  Now I can start again, probably from scratch. Of course, if that fails I may be asking for a different kind of trouble. In short, I need to do something which involves a bit of movement.

In camera

I got caught up in an interesting discussion about “what makes a photoblog” om Twitter, well lots. I play with photography, but I think its time I moved up to a better camera. I’m not going D-SLR this year, but I have my eye on something and I want my wallet to match. On a related note, I need to go to more events. Since I’m sort of bi-locational at the moment, when the weather gets brighter things might get interesting.

More sleep

An idea stolen off Phil IcedCoffee; I just need to get to bed earlier. As if that all.

Re: cycling

It’s usually better to keep old resolutions than to make new ones. — Chloe Sevigny. I’ve copied this quote off Tim Ferris‘ resolutions.  And I’ve copied this resolution from last year. This year I think I’m a commutable distance to work, but without showering facilities things could get sticky. Still given the Mad Cow traffic holdups, cycling to the office may not be a bad idea. The only reason I’m delaying this one is making sure I can do it, and timing a weekend run first.

Change the decor

Now that I’m the master of my own domain, it almost been a year since I moved in. Its time to redecorate a little. I had planned to use the Carrington theme with pallet swaps and image swaps (its the one Joe Scanlon is using) but I recently stumbled across a theme on Smashing Magazine which is almost perfect. Things may look a little odd here over the next few weeks.

I had also planned on trying out the Google Friend Connect here too, but I’m not so sure now.

Write more fiction. Read more fiction.

I more or less stopped reading fiction when my studies restarted. With the exception of one Cory Doctorow (which I inhaled in one weekend), the Pseudopod short story horror podcast and the NSFW Tales fomthe MU novel experiment in blog form,  I’ve not read anything for a while. To that end I’ve finally started reading “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (for historical reasons) and a few others thanks to the DailyLit. I’ll take suggested reads from their list please.

The spippets feel too small for me, but I’ll live.

As for writing. When I took part in the Blogmas Christmas Carol, I liked it.

it had been years since I last wrote fiction, and I’d like to start again. A few short stories may appear here. I also have an idea for a very free form group fiction blog. Ask if you’re interested.

Well, thats it. I can see the cycling waning again this year, and I don’t know if I can find an accessable Capoeira group, but the others are managable.

What do you think?

Will Knott

Go Home Productions 2008 Christmas offering.
Combines Blondie’s “Tide Is High” with Paul McCartney’s “Pipes Of Peace” / “Wonderful Christmastime” and J-Lo’s “Jenny From The Block”

I give it 24 hours before its taken down, but enjoy it while you can.
Will Knott

I had been looking forward to placing a call for photographers on the blog now and directing people to the PinkForOctoberIreland.org site to register as models and photographers.

But that is not to be. Instead, I’m afraid to say that there will not be a Pink portraits day on September 20th in Daunt Square, Cork.

If I was to do go back in time to prepare the Pink idea again, I’d have to go back to June. Then I would…

• Start the call for photographers.
• Get then to register.
• Explain that they need to register full contact details so that Gardai and City Council required
  • health and safety
  • traffic management plans
  • pedestrian management plans
  • first aid appointees
  • public liability insurance etc are in place.

  Also the Garda contact mentioned that mobile numbers (or at least contact numbers) of all the “staff” are required

• Also the HSA have legal requirements for event with more than 3 staff

So that seems to be that.
I would like to have a photo-walk in its place. A meeting of photographers and photo-bloggers to wander around Cork City with their lenses out on a busy Saturday. How does 11am in Daunt Square sound as a meeting point? If you want to contact me, my details are in the about page.

Sorry to disappoint those who registerd on the (admittedly half built) PinkForOctoberIreland.org site, but if you’re interested in doing something; I’m planning on turning the pinkforoctoberireland site in to a blog aggregater for this year (should be up soon), and make plans for the photography next year.

If you want to blog, comment etc as part of Pink For October, register with the international PinkForOctober.org site. And when I have the aggregater up, register and tag your posts with “p4oi”.

If you want to do more, bring pink objects to donate to the ICS shop just off Daunt Square when you are coming on the photowalk. Should make us easy to spot.

And as for next year. I’ll take all the help I can get

Care to join me?
Will Knott

Related articles by Zemanta

• Liable in a public space
• Just effin do it

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 …

1. We’re not angry and fighting enough. (But Mr Weckler things me are too angry).
2. We aim for consensus
3. We don’t do enough investigative journalism
4. Bloggers seem to be people who are fake

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

A long time ago, at MashpCamp I thougth about combining a Google Map with the geodata of pubs and a ratings system to generate a “Rate-my-pint” type application, which I’m sure a brewery could use for customer support and ensure that their product is being served properly. This is probably more useful.

Image via Wikipedia

I have no idea who made the Dublin Pub Crawl map, but I’m impressed. Essentially it’s a Google map with route calculations which allow you to create your own own pub crawl through Dublin City. However I’m not too sure how to get the data off the computer and in a format which would survive a “12 pubs of Christmas” tradition.

Choose an area, like Temple Bar or Dublin 15, pick some pubs you’d like to include, if you like. And you can edit the maps and add other pubs.

Like those outside of Dublin?

I suppose it’s all about how intelligent the routing code is, but would adding a bunch of Cork, Limerick and Galway pubs just mess things up, or make the map more useful for those who don’t want a pint of plain in the pale? And it it works, then we could have “centres of excellence”, in drinking.

take care,

Will