Archive for April, 2009

Open Hack London

April 28th, 2009

In June 2007 I attended the BBC/Yahoo London Hack Day at Alexandra Palace where I teamed with this Thom and others to create a socially controlled blimp. In 2008 I attended the BBCs Mashed (sort of like Hack Day, but because of the unique way it is funded and all that) where Ewan somehow persuaded me to code a flight simulator in PHP. Regardless of the name, all these events are a chance for us geeks to get together and build something in 24 hours.

In 2009 it is Yahoo’s turn again with Open Hack London in Covent Garden, London. I have a place and I understand there are still some places available. The question is how can I surpass the awesomeness (or is that shear stupidity) of past events. I have a few ideas.

1) The most useless idea is inspired by Is it Christmas, but instead of looking out the window you can go to “Is It Wet”, have your location predicted, the weather forecast consulted, and you informed about any rain outside.

2) Slightly more serious is to produce a hardware navigation system for web sites to increase accessibility, and to simplify the user experience.

3) Finally a profile system for BarCamp attendees to put us in contact with each other.

Are any of these any good? Have you got any better ideas? I really want to do something with hardware but am struggling to think of a good idea that can be done in a day. Help!

Ps. Ewan, the answer is no. I don’t care what you say or how you say it, this time I am not going to be fooled in to doing the imposable. Just no. ;-)

Pps. If you don’t fancy a full 24 hour hack Moo are holding a one day event (at the same time, Doh!)

Ppps. Ewan, I have not changed my mind. The answer is still no!

BarCampNorthEast2

April 24th, 2009


I am please to announce that the long anticipated first round of tickets for BarCampNorthEast2 have been released. Again we follow the Thinking Digital conference on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th May. We will be based in the Centurion’s conference rooms in Central Station, Newcastle.

In summery a BarCamp is a collection of semi like-minded people who get together to socialise and learn from each other. When you come along you can participate in all sorts of interesting sessions ranging from the technical to the silly, and everything in between.

More information about the event, as well as information about signing up, can be found on the BarCampNorthEast web site.

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