Tag Archive for 'London'

Leaving a mark

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bru
4 monthes and 1 week ago
in Chaos
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I don’t know if it’s because it was Bastille day or just because for two days in a row we had mostly sun, but today it felt different, so I made a small resolution on writing down a note about it, and here I am in the heart of the night marking this last thing off the list. I’ll get better with timing, eventually.

The day started with me finding in a pocket of the jacket one of my small notebooks. I thought they were all buried deep in the stuff that still lays packed from my move, but no, this little boy was hiding there in the pocket, waiting for the right moment to jump out.
I started taking notes on the train to work. It felt so good. Sketching, especially.
I’ve always been more of a sketch-and-mind-or-concept-map person, but you can’t really do that on a computer keyboard.
Moreover, the little, continuous attention and discipline required to write in a controlled and decent way is, I think, unvaluable.

But enough of my prodigal notebook. The rest of the day has been characterized by meetings, that tends to cluster on mondays, which is good.
Headshift is in an interesting moment. Maybe the gorgeous new office space is blowing new energy in the team (again, having a LOT of natural light helps, I’m sure) but it looks to me that, even if the pressure is as high as usual, we tend to be more willing to get out, interact with the world outside and with each other.


6 Points of View from Tom Taylor on Vimeo.

Oh, today the balcony hosted a lunchtime meeting with Dejan Dinčić of Diplo, that turned into an exciting conversation on online learning and what social media practices share with it. The bottom line I soaked is that as in our case it’s more about the people than about the tools (that were the focus in early e-learning experiments), yet the right tools (not necessarily fancy or too playful by themselves) can seriously empower the community to a new level.

On other news, I spent the last few weekends extending my little FireEagle experiment. It started just after the FireEagle development meeting here in London, as a way to understand this fascinating API, and then evolved thanks to a few inspiring conversations over the course of the months into a proper, if maybe trivial, application. More to come on this subject very soon.

post BarCampLondon4

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bru
5 monthes and 2 weeks ago
in Coffee and London
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another day, somehow shorter than the first, but equally engaging.

I eventually did my small presentation, with the effect that I realized a good title for it just while presenting it. Here you can find the slides, published on google docs:

Geeky note #1: presenting in google docs is ok… for a barcamp at least. But no nifty transition and no timer yet :(

Geeky note #2: the speech was meant to generate a discussion, no demo was presented, although some code already exists and I’m looking forward to push it to github soon.

Among the conversations I participated to today:
* Distributed social network primer, Ben Ward exploring XFN and microformats
* Guy Rintoul on the geography of technology - from a pretty abstract start this one developed in a quite rich discussion on scenarios of possible future perceptions of space and place.
* Pedro’s Agile Low Cost Usability Testing - a few tools and guidelines to squeeze usability testing into “everyday life” of development projects
* Some eye tracking case studies (cool to see a Tobii output again after quite a long time :) )

Kudos to Ross Bruniges and the whole staff. This has been a great camp.
Oh, and thanks to the sponsor too: eBay’s rubik’s cube’s been keeping me busy since I jumped on the train (and will probably haunt me for the next few weeks).

Out of the screen

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bru
8 monthes ago
in Chaos and London
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Saturday and sunday I managed to get “out of the screen”, even though still geeking out at the Arduino workshop.
I discovered a new and fun way of approaching electronics, same as juggling has been a gateway to physics in the past.

For those of you who wonder, Arduino is a open electronic prototyping platform, that comes with a pretty simple programming environment, plenty of code and experiments to get your hands dirty and a very active practitioner community to support your efforts and achievements. Just have a look at youtube and get inspired!

Now I have the tools to make some of those physical computing related pet projects happen… will I have the will, and time, too? :)

Kudos to Alex, Nick and Brock. They’ve been amazing. And the class was quite challenging and fun too, an experience I can’t help but recommend. Oh, you can have an idea of what’s all about from the flickr group.

A conversation with MattB

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bru
10 monthes ago
in Coffee
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Last week I participated in a conversation with Matt Biddulph (Dopplr’s CTO) here in London. Since it was set-up as an interview to allow Feba to gather material for her thesis, I joined in with a few questions and here you’ll find my personal highlights about it (for detailed notes, see Feba’s posts).

Together with us there were also Alexandra and Massimo of Tinker.it, who contributed some good inspiration, but I’ll keep this for a future post, with a that it would be nice to attend one of the forthcoming Arduino for Beginners workshops…

But without further ado, let’s go back to the notes:

Bits of dopplr history

Dopplr was built by people who had a day job. Most of the thinking, early design and even a working prototype was built over a weekend.

The renting of the place was the only “cost” dopplr had sustain that far.

Dopplr releases are named after the next conference. That keeps the team on the edge, makes a good milestone date and automatically gives you a good time when to announce new features. Everybody loves announcement and “early access” at conferences

Dopplr and open source

The value of software companies is shifting from the code itself to the data. Google could proably let his search algorithm out in the open for free and yet not fear any real competition, because G has ten years of “history” behind it. Besides, everyone who worked in a fairly sized enterprise knows that software is always far too patchy, undocumented and/or business specific to be easily reusable “as it is”.
Releasing bits of software not only lets you benefit somehow from the crowd as well as providing useful tools (and ideas even more often), but it acts as a statement, and lets you also somehow model the industry and market in the way you believe in. Think OpenID.

Advices for young European Enterpreneurs

. Do something you know

. Do something you’re gonna use/need yourself.

. Do not spend months dreaming, just do it. You can start with a mashup that increase the value of what exist yet. And so, if you have to fail, fail early.

. Stay in touch with SF: go there, participate in events, dinners, show your face around. Or, if you’re not in London, stay in touch with SF through London.

A lazy day in hometown

Published
by
bru
1 year ago
in Chaos
. 1 Comment

Finally managed to take a break from the City, jumped on an easyjet and safely landed this side of the Alps.
Spent the first day with the family, and the second essentially sleeping and “decompressing” (which means that I’ve been in constant touch with London but not taking any commitment): I just can’t take a sudden break, I know only too well.
While I was there, I took the chance to have a few walks around town to progressively get in touch with the old (most) and the new (very little).
I also took note of the different perceptions, main one being related to amplitude vs. definition: London is bigger, faster, louder than here; colours, sounds, smells… they travel fast and are all-encompassing, while at the same time blending and mixing in a multidimensional smoothie. And leaving gaps behind, gaps much wider than those you can find on the shores of river Po, for instance: there’s a discontinuous thread that connects the social, cultural and architectural fabric and if you look carefully enough you’ll be able to see the difference in texture.
In the modest perfection of the elders dressed up for their monday walk through the village.
In the forsaken ground floor windows of ex shops on the south of the Thames.
In the orange rusty spots of a worn out corkscrew laid on the counter of the loco winery, permeated by the smell of laugh and salt and the regular ticks of a large, round wall clock.
Even in the

crowd assembled outside of a pub, consuming the after work pint.

Then you can start speculating on what can cause or be caused by this different texture. Suit yourself.

Me? I’ll be walking through Milan tomorrow. I have an exhibition to see and a few friends to meet. If you want to have a drink or coffee together, drop me an email, tweet, pidgeon by tomorrow morning.

after San Lorenzo cheese dinner

Published
by
bru
1 year and 1 month ago
in Chaos, Coffee and London
. 3 Comments

Last night I attended the second San Lorenzo dinner in London.
This time the focus was on cheese, of which we tasted a very impressive selection, paired with different types of honey and the usual generous quaff of piedmont wine (oh, Barbera, my love! :) but also Nebbiolo, Gavi to end with a sweet Moscato).
So that is much all I’ll say about the food: it’s just awesome and you should try to get the chance to taste it, the sooner the better.
One interesting thing I noticed during the evening, is that the people around the table took on a curious yin-yang configuration: the “anglo-saxons” on one side, with our Italian host Sara in the middle, and the continental/latins on the other end, with a cheerful london foodblogger in the middle. Two separate conversations, two different rythms, the same unifying context and texture.

P.S.: Chris has some very nice pictures of the food, together with a more thorough description of the menu.

Indulging

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bru
1 year and 1 month ago
in Chaos
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After a fairly sociable week, spent peeking from the outside at the FOWA, playing the two-point-oh at blognation’s party, stealing pizza at google open source jam and supporting the latest shiny green headshift rigfeat (well done, Tom!), I spent the last couple of days letting myself being cuddled by Victorian aestethics and traditional british flavours (teas, scones, pies and the rest), slingshotting as usual (but with a slower pace) between Mayfair and Oxford.

The Sheldonian

If you happen to step through Oxford and are looking for some inspiration, here are my favourite hangouts:
. Green Cafe - you can read my review on TrustedPlaces.
. The Eagle and Child - good for (pub) food and if you fancy sitting on the very chairs that witnessed JRR Tolkien giving shape to middle earth.
. Blackwell bookshop - quite huge, with rare books and second hand sections, plus a cozy Caffe Nero. In the middle of the multicolored Broad Street and in front of the Sheldonian… believe me, it oozes character.

…or just have a walk from broad street to north parade, enjoy the green campuses and sophisticated architectures, and then gratify yourself with an ice cream at G&Ds on your way back to town…

Photo by MildlyDiverting, on Flickr