middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

I love it when little bits of ‘human’ appear in the midst of all the 1’s and 0’s of the web. For the second time now I just spotted the tiny ‘Get some sleep’ message from Google and it made me smile. It’s so small it looks a bit funny (I put the red thing on), but those little touches are great and more and more ‘human’ is beginning to break out of the sign up pages and 404 messages and into bigger things on the web these days. More to come on this and for now, I’m going to listen to Google and ZZZZ.

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)

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.

This really did make me chuckle. Found via Popurls, so you’ve probably already seen it.

A slow worm. Oh joy. I have a real fear of snakes and even though this is technically a lizard of sorts, it’s very much a snake to someone that doesn’t like snakes.

Although these lizards are often mistaken for snakes, there are a number of features that differentiate them from snakes. The most important is they have small eyes with eyelids that blink like lizards. This is a feature that is not found in snakes. They also have visible ears like lizards do, which snakes do not have. They also have a notched tongue rather than the forked tongue of a snake. They shed their skin in patches like other lizards, rather than the whole skin as most snakes do. Also, the pattern of their ventral scales is totally different from that of snakes.

Oscar (our cat) has been bringing in quite a few of these lately and every time it fully freaks me out. Also, “Slow worms are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 from being killed, injured or sold “. Random post over and apologies for the slightly crappy photo - didn’t wanna go too near and leaning made it hard to keep the camera still.

Ages ago I came across the image of a white cat wearing blue swimming goggles and I chose to adopt it as my avatar and profile image for Facebook. I now use it everywhere I’m online (look at the top of this blog or click through to one of the other places I am) and I’ve even just got some Moo cards printed up with ‘the cat’ on.

So, it was a bit of a shock this morning to be emailed a link to a massive picture of ‘me’ in the Daily Mail this morning - included in a feature on LOLcats. It just felt strange.

I once tried to get in touch with the owner of the original image to find out more about the cat and check he/she doesn’t mind me using their image, but the website I took it from didn’t reply. Seeing ‘myself’ this morning has made me realise how much I do really want to now more about the cat in the blue goggles so I’m going to get on the case with finding ‘my owner’. Hopefully I’ll be able to update on this soon and I might need your help in doing so!

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve been in the US for the past two weeks. I am in fact still feeling really jet-lagged which is on the whole a bit crap. I decided that although I took my laptop out there to do a few bits and bobs I wasn’t going to blog or Tweet. I failed on the Twitter front but haven’t blogged for ages, so by means of a gentle introduction back into it here’s some random US inspired thoughts, observations and images.

1) Mobile phones with massive aerials are very common in the US. They look a bit like our toy phones that are filled with sweets with those bendy little aerials. My guess was that it’s because coverage isn’t as dense as in the UK where we have a mobile phone mast rammed up anything that can take it without the local community kicking off.

2) There is no stigma attached to hip/belt mounted devices. Related to the above, I couldn’t get over the gadget belts sported by all sorts of people. Big racks of massive mobiles with floppy aerials in leatherette cases.

3) Stereotypes exist for a reason. Sorry guys but I saw so many incredibly fat people in the US and the whole place is geared around eating and driving. Well Florida is anyway. It really did amaze me, so much so I started a bit of a collection of fat people shots. I know. Really wrong but I couldn’t help myself. Here’s three generations of big asses looking at rays.

4) New York is very similar to London. Apart from the fact it smells different, there’s steam coming out of vents, the buildings are taller on the whole, the traffic lights swing and you can’t walk a block without getting hassled to buy something - mainly bus tour tickets.

5) The grid system is easy but a bit boring. I can see why US peeps think London is quaint with its little roads and streets. There isn’t really any of that in New York, only massive boulevards that give the impression of immense space and scale.

6) The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue really is amazing and it really is packed 24 hours a day. Bit of a mecca for me going to the Apple Store. When I got there, guess what, it was full of all the same stuff as in all the other stores. But that glass cube . . . it rocked.

7) Animals rock. Especially monkeys and killer whales called Shamu. He even has his own website. But, as Charlotte pointed out (and you can see in the image below) all the dorsal fins were bent over - a side effect of being in captivity. Left a bit of a sour taste.

8 ) Stuff is really cheap right now. The pound is spanking the dollar so the numerous malls and cheap factory outlet sites are rammed with people stocking up on Nike trainers, jeans and other stuff. Including me. I bought a pair of Nike SB Air Tre A.D.s that I tracked down in a shop in what felt like gangland. No-one else would get out the car.

9) Twitter really delivers when you’re in a different country. One day we were all starving and wanted to go and get a full-on American breakfast (see number 3 above). I tweeted and immediately got a response from Claudine at the Telegraph (@claudineb). We then headed to the Theater Row Diner and had an amazing breakfast, while I spent the whole meal explaining what Twitter was and how I’d found it.

10) For the second time now I saw a guy ‘pleasuring himself’ in public. It wasn’t good and left Charlotte and I feeling violated. And to make matters worse it was outside the Museum of Sex which I had taken a picture of seconds earlier AND we saw him flick ‘pleasure stuff’ off his hand and onto the phonebox. (The first time was in Soho in London by a tramp in his sleeping bag). Not good and sorry to present you with that image.

11) Going to Ground Zero is overwhelming and something you should definitely visit and pay your respects at. But for some reason I wasn’t as moved as I thought I would be. I think it’s because you see the massive US flag and you see people getting on with it and construction taking place and that stops you from reflecting 100% but instead makes you feel positive about the future. Don’t know what’s more to be said on that.

12) Britain just can’t seem to pull off a show/big thing like the US can. Disney, for all it’s cheese and tackiness, is amazing and the Magic Kingdom light show at night is insane. I think it’s down to the people. We just can’t be that false/enthusiastic/corporate/crazy/child-like/blinkered/professional (delete as appropriate). Think of Terminal 5, Millennium Dome, British Rail, Tate Modern crack etc.

Um, that’s it. I didn’t want to end on number 10 for obvious reasons and now don’t want 13 and more than that seems excessive. I’ll definitely be going back and thoroughly enjoyed my time in the US. In the meantime I feel I have a better understanding of US culture (well at least NY and FL) and an enhanced appreciation of the great things about London.

So, today is April Fool’s Day. And don’t we know it! As a sign of how connected we all are and how fast things move these days, here’s a comprehensive list of April Fool’s Day activity on Wikipedia already. Really does make you think about how we are indexing our own lives and everything we do on the planet. The BBC’s “Flying Penguins” seems to be a real winner in particular - especially on Twitter. Fair play I say. Do you think they were trying to beat the famous spaghetti trees April Fool’s Day prank (see below)?

Anyway, happy April Fool’s Day and all that. Why do we do it again?

Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (1957, yes 57!)

Don’t really know what to say about this, other than, check out what people have made using Tampons. There’s step by step instructions for each item and even a video of someone playing Ode To Joy on a pan pipe made of Tampons!!!? Nothing is off-limit when it comes to the interwebs. All a bit random but something I feel compelled to share. Sorry about that. This is definitely the oddest post yet. Wonder what Tampax make of it? Is this site helping to break down those taboos?

Here’s a selection of some of the things featured on Tampon Crafts and a snippet of some of the copy from the site:

The Menstrual Militia is now recruiting! Arm yourself with a Tampon Shooter and report for target practice and tactical tampon maneuvers. Safe for indoor or outdoor use, this air-powered gun fires tampons “bullets” up to 20 feet. Our Tampon Bandolier insures that you’ve always got a supply of ammo at the ready, plus you’ll never have to hunt around for a spare tampon in case you really need one.

Tampon Gun

Tampon Ghost

Tampon Pan Flute

A video of someone playing a Tampon Pan Flute, as you do

(Found via sk-rt)

UPDATE: Wired has ran something on this and it looks like it’s the SECOND Twitter marriage proposal!

I’m offline for a few hours and look what I miss - what must surely be the first ever marriage proposal done via Twitter. Congratulations Emily and Max! Quite literally everything is happening on Twitter these days.