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I’ve just posted the second of a series of interviews I’m doing with folks who signed up to be mentors for aspiring speakers on Make Me A Speaker! This week it’s Jeremy’s turn to be grilled
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I’m going to be speaking at Refresh Edinburgh — come along and say hi!
An interesting project request came to me today — we need to build an interactive booth. Just one (a “show piece” if you will) for the time being. Now, much as I did a lot of design for these types of systems back when I was studying HCI, I haven’t ever actually built one.
So, friends and colleagues out there in the blogosphere, I need your help! Any ideas on good software, operating system, technical config and so on for interactive booths?
Notes: I’m willing to consider anything, but of course open source is always a winner. The ability to design kickass user interaction is a must, but I’m not particularly beholden to touchscreen vs mouse-driven, for instance. Any ideas, please share in the comments, whether it’s something to go for or something to shy away from!
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“Just because after I play Grand Theft Auto I want to ram other cars does not mean I’m a worse driver. Honest.”
LOL. Too true, too true. -
“My 6-year-old, Julian, can step into a video game and a world of rules and figure them out. He’s not scared of the unknown or scared of failing. I think that’s something valuable that video games provide.”
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“On the other hand, a woman with true class would probably not have taught her flu-stricken daughter to lick her wrist and then throw back the little cup of cough medicine like a tequila shot.”`
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“To all those people who wonder if the constant stream of other-people’s-consciousness is distracting, the answer is – not really, until it goes away.”
Elly has totally nailed this one. -
“There are two basic visions of the future of the web, and one of them is wrong. I’m going to work on the right one for a while. At Google. Starting today.”
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Interesting gender differences here…
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“The big “P” word in technology these days is “participatory.” But I’m increasingly convinced that a more important “P” word is “presence.”"
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“Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible.”
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“Whatever their reaction, the code of conduct is the same. Girls are meant to make themselves as appealing as possible, and wait to be asked. Boys are meant to ask, and if they are turned down, keeping asking around until someone says ‘yes’.”
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Interesting article about slowly changing your career via refactoring.
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My friend Mili is a crazy person and is running the Race for Life. Sponsor her if you have a fiver to spare.
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xkcd is on exemplary form at the moment. I LOVE this!
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Ah, there’s the Tory party we know back again…
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I love that we can learn more about so many fields — biology, physics, psychology, sociology — through the use of robotics. In another lifetime, this sort of thing would be the focus of my PhD.
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“There is so much dumb money. Mass media is coming in and saying we want to be just like WoW.”
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This is priceless, but the absolute BEST thing about it is the “flathicks” tag. I wonder if anyone will make “flatmeri” and “flatelly” dolls for this year’s SXSWi
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I think this is true for puppies as well. At least in our house.
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This is scary. And feels somehow … wrong.
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Very sad to hear that Chris Lightfoot has died. Lovely write-up of his work and achievements though.
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“Listen up, bitches: this is why real news organizations look down at you.”
Jacob is on good form again — and I happen to think he’s spot on with this post.
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“A wealthy Toronto lawyer bequeathed his estate to whichever woman gave birth to the most babies in the ten-year period following his death.”
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I’ve started a blog to go with the Make Me A Speaker! wiki, where I’ll be interviewing the mentors and mentees and so on. This first interview is with John Allsopp and he has some interesting perspective on getting started as a speaker.
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This is so cool it makes me want to go live somewhere that gets serious snow.
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Sad that I missed this — sounds like it was a really educational event. There are some disadvantages to living up in Newcastle…
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Very cool composite of the lunar eclipse last night.
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Strange, but ultimately very entertaining.
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LOL!
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New 30 Second Bunny production — re-enactment of a load of Bond clips.
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This is FABULOUS
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“One major consequence of this phenomenon is that the line between work and private life is much more blurred, now that e-mail and phones provide a 24-hour link between employers and staff.”
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I’m totally having this for breakfast tomorrow. Can’t wait!
I grew up bilingual — speaking English at home with my British parents and Afrikaans at school. I can actually speak passable Dutch and German as well. I find it interesting, having moved to Britain, that this is seen as unusual since I had many friends at school who were completely fluent in 6 or 7 different languages. After all, in South Africa we have 11 national languages to choose from!
Growing up in the Western Cape, there were a number of interesting effects of the majority of people speaking multiple languages. For a start, if someone seemed to be struggling in one language, the polite thing for the other person to do was just to swap into their native tongue, where possible. Equally, you quickly learnt that there were some concepts that were just more powerfully described in one language over another. As a result, you’d just use the best terms from the best language available — resulting in a hybrid mish-mash of the different languages.
Personally, this is what I think the true value of multilingualism is. It’s about more than just understanding different words for the same concept — it’s about understanding the different concepts that exist, that possibly cannot even be articulated in your home language. This social bilingualism gives you a base-level understanding of the differences between cultures and an appreciation for the value diversity can bring.
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“I swear it says: “We got the dinosaurs. You’re next” right on the asteroid!”
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“The sign of success in social software is when your community does something you didn’t expect.”
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“Diary of an intrepid entrepreneur’s attempt to build a start-up on her own”
