middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

Hammer, meet nail. Just watched this and had one of those spine tingly moments. A short video on the We Think proposition from Charles Leadbetter A great little piece of video based communication about an amazing take on how the web has changed the world. Wow. Big stuff.

More here. Illustration by Debbie Powell. Audio by Something Non Descript. Via here.

I saw this headline, got VERY excited, then clicked on it and was only a little bit excited. You see, I immediately jumped into thinking that all you’d have to do in the near future is make sure you’re near a Chrysler car to be sure of getting a WiFi connection. And not just your own car as it turns out to be - I mean any car. Surely this could be an option though, as a kind of mobile version of Fon using cars to share their WiFi connections?

Anyway, as ever, the future looks pretty cool but one full of questions that are often unanswered. Personally, I just want to pay one amount of money for my data stream and then be free to connect whatever I like to it and use it how I like. Not pay separately for everything and be told how to use it.

More here at USA Today.

Ages ago an article in Marmalade magazine (RIP) really struck a chord with me - it predicted that people would get sick of nice brands like Innocent and start wanting to be treated a bit rougher. The ‘nasty brand’ would begin to emerge, one that gave it back once in a while, took the piss out of its customers a bit, engaged in a bit of friendly banter and wasn’t quite so nice etc.

Well Faceparty today took that to the extreme and told its users that it’s ’shut the whole site down and fucked off to the zoo” because of their recent behaviour. In could of course be a big stunt to reinforce its anti-corporation stance whilst generating lots of online buzz at the same time . . .

Listen this is our HOBBY, not our business. there was a time when you understood that - back when the net was run buy [sic] the people like us, and not by massive corporations - just because MySpace and Facebook sold out to the corporate world, doesn’t mean we did - we said no. Stop expecting “customer service” from us, cos WE DON’T HAVE CUSTOMERS - IT’S A FREE FUCKING SITE - too many of you treat us like we owe you something. And quit the “you need us attitude” cos we really fucking don’t. We don’t make money from you - it’s free. The things you pay for only cover the costs for the things you use.

On a serious note too - it does make you think about the variety of FREE internet things you use everyday and what you expect from them. Um, Twitter!!!?

[Via the Register and Whatleydude]

Last Saturday in London saw lots of people (including me) head down to Interesting 2008, a truly unique conference (I think just in its second year) ran by Russell Davies.

People like Ged, Roo and Annie Mole have already done some good write-up of the event so as something slightly different, I’ve given each (well nearly, I actually missed loads in my excitement) presentation down to a single word, added a few sneaky ones and ran that through Wordle to create a visual summary of Interesting 2008.

Here are the words, with links to their respective creators or co-creators - Lego. Horses. Authenticity. Generalism. Geography. Music. WOW. Coins. Food. Insomnia. Ukulele. Meditation. Toilets. Alcohol. Hoovers. Animation. Future. Hiraeth. Community. Brains. WW2. Final Countdown. Recorders. Cakes. Tea. Biscuits. Books. Arthur. Um and I forgot Masks, Words, Winston Churchill and Informatics and probably more - it’s all too interesting! Well done everyone for pulling off such a great day packed full of lots of INTERESTING presentations.

A few thoughts I took away from the day.

1 - It all just felt right. Everyone was nice. Nothing was nasty. It was great to have some kids there. Some rough edges. All very real.
2 - Lloyd can really sing. I even saw him run past with a freshly boiled kettle (no lid mind!).
3 - People are up for getting involved in things. People leapt at the chance to play the recorder on stage. At the end everyone packed up rubbish into bin liners, put all the chairs and tables away. Co-created content and all that.
4 - Most conferences are shit. The last one I went to was Internet World. There’s so much that needs to be changed with the old-school conference format.
5 - It was nice not to hear the words “social media’ mentioned all day. The only appearance of Twitter was on someone’s screen as they were setting up. I didn’t Tweet once during the day. (OK I did, before and after, but you know what I mean).
6 - Meeting people offline (or achieving “fleshpoint” as Ian refers to it as) is just the best, especially when you’ve known them for a while online.
7 - Russell Davies is very funny. He tickled me by ending an announcement with ‘now go back to your business’.
8 - Music pretty much rules the whole Earth. It is GLUE.
9 - There’s so much interesting, genuine stuff out there, so why on Earth do some brands insist on creating their own synthetic stuff instead of getting involved with genuinely interesting things that come from somewhere a lot better than a brainstorm.
10 - It’s a bit rubbish when you’re sat at a conference (or in a meeting for that matter) and everyone’s just on their laptops doing something else. There was a noticeable lack of laptops there and instead much more scribbling in notebooks, analogue style.

“To Thine Own Self Be True”

That’s what was written above the stage at the Conway Hall venue and I think that said it all for me. Interesting was basically a coming-out session for geeks and interesting people. That’s why it’s so frickin’ cool and every single person did such a great job. Quite a number of people introduced themselves as geeks and thoughout the day there was a mixture of both proudness and shyness when it came to people opening up and revealing their inner-geekiness. But I think everyone had that in common - be it food, hoovers, music and graphic design, lego or toilets - sharing something you’re so passionate about is always interesting and the best way of connecting with hundreds of other human beings in a room

And finally - here’s an image which I think captures the whole day nicely.

Why? Because someone sitting near me offered me a pack which I though was a really, really nice touch. The whole day was about sharing stuff and it felt so apt that it should be an old school box of Sunmaid Raisins. Something so familiar and nice. Amazing packaging. Free from crap. An icon. Something that evoked so many memories of school lunch boxes and being a kid. Something that I hadn’t had for ages but still love. So thank you Sunmaid Raisin provider. Your little gesture of kindness left me feeling satisfied that Interesting 2008 really was all I hoped it would be and a little bit more.

[Photo Credit ]

Bonus video: Just for the fun of it. Here’s 30 odd people trying to playing recorders (thanks to the Guardian), including Ben who I spent the day with too along with Ged, Will and lots of other people. (captured by Ged on a Flip video recorder thingy)

Technology moves super quick and over the past few decades we’ve come on leaps and bounds and pretty much take it for granted that we can broadcast live from our mobile phones. Every so often it’s nice to be reminded of that and I had one of those moments this morning.

Here is a link to what’s thought to be the oldest known recordings of computer generated music - in this case “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “In the Mood” - released ahead of the 60th anniversary of ‘Baby” - the forerunner of all modern computers. (Shame on you BBC for not allowing me to embed the player!) And here is a link to a great video explaining more about more the Manchester-based magical computer behind the music.

And, carrying on with the anniversary theme, here’s a guy retracing the very room in which the internet was born at UCLA (more details here on the forthcoming 40th anniversary of the birth of the internet).

Finding ARPANET: The First (Physical) Site of the Internet from Brad Fidler on Vimeo.

And to finish thing’s off - blending music and computers and the web - here’s a cracking rendition of Radiohead’s Nude, with the following band members (!):

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Up watching Current (193 on Sky) - the best channel to watch whilst on the web I reckon. There’s a pod about the Techtonik phenomenon on and can’t decide if it’s silly or very cool. Thoughts?

Oh and I hit Mahalo for pretty much the first time looking for some vids. Pretty good results.

PS - one comment on the video above from someone with great spelling and command of the language made me smile:

you move liek a gay and they like it 0.o i am gonna earn my money liek antoher way gays

Nice.

See that down there. No, down there in the bottom right hand corner. Yes, the orange thing. That means that middledigit.net is taking part in ‘the world’s first internet balloon race’ - Balloonacy - a spectacular idea from Poke (yes them again, promise I’m not being bribed to write about them) for Orange which definitely needs a look in. Basically you create and name your very own balloon which then takes part in a race on June 23rd at midday. All the balloons taking part will fly across the interwebz, across sites taking part (including this one) using a bit of Javascript and a dose of Flash 9 movie goodness . Don’t really know what to expect, but given my experience of the site so far, I’m excited and fairly certain it will be super slick.

I named my balloon digit and for some reason decided to talk about pies in the blurb about him/her - first word that popped in my head that rhymed with skies blatantly. Here he/she is in all his/her orange glory, along with his/her tag:

More here from Iain (who explains the whole thing better). The only thing I’d maybe like is a little balloon based countdown timer to whack up on the blog to remind me (and people) when the big day is - as it’s a fairly long way off. There’s a nice one on the main site . . . though I guess it’s nice to ‘discover’ the little bobbing balloon and find out for yourself on the main site. Guess I could try to knock one up if I was really that bothered and do some of that co-created advertising stuff they talk about? Hmm.

So, wish digit all the best and prey for good weather on the interwebz on June 23rd, 2 days after Interesting 2008 BTW.