tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6876042011-11-28T01:23:00.595ZBecause the strangest dreams may be the truest.Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.comBlogger1201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-88095143246088229772011-08-17T16:03:00.001+01:002011-08-17T17:56:37.068+01:00

I've been following PRT and the ULTRA project at Heathrow in particular since 2005, so I've been getting rather excited by the prospect of trying it out. Eventually I got tired of waiting for an opportunity to use the Terminal 5 business car park where the first loop seems to be in a Google-like extended beta, so I just took a bus from work to Heathrow, followed signs to the business car park

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-48145676403282484152011-08-03T05:58:00.002+01:002011-08-03T06:05:30.633+01:00

This morning Vincenzo asked if there were any product designers on the course - I'm not one, but as I mentioned in my introductory video, always wanted to be an inventor, so stood by with interest and was invited to knock up a door wedge to keep the doors open, which I did with creativity and enthusiasm. But when I finished my wedge made from coffee-cup holders, not only was it too big to fit,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-29107410463241845312011-07-21T23:49:00.000+01:002011-07-21T23:49:36.373+01:00

I'm reading Don Norman's Living with Complexity for a UX Book Club London meetup, but I am also trying to prepare for the Service Design short course at Central St Martins that I will be taking next month, so I'm going to focus on his comments on Service Design - especially since this is the first Don Norman book I've read where he discusses this topic. In many ways the book is something old,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-29860287671914186842011-07-02T09:16:00.000+01:002011-07-02T09:16:32.143+01:00

Being a dad can be frustrating sometimes. Johnny now watches CITV more than the BBC children's channels, and I've been getting polite but continuous requests for the much advertised Bey Blades. And he brings back reading books as homework from school every day - plus two for the weekend - and that's been turning into a mutually dreaded ordeal. So I was thinking I needed to take a step back and

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-4856683297932130942011-06-23T10:34:00.004+01:002011-06-23T11:47:45.427+01:00

AgileUX Agile Safari to MindCandyYesterday MindCandy were kind enough to host the Agile UX Meetup group for an Agile Safari where they showed us round their offices and discussed how they have combined User Experience Design with Agile development as part of their current success story. MindCandy’s original hit product was PerplexCity, but they are now best known for MoshiMonsters, a games,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-4613833481287801022010-12-04T23:04:00.000Z2010-12-04T23:04:53.514Z

The garlic press is a classic of redundant-from-birth gadgetry. What's wrong with it? It's pointless. I use the flat of a knife to crush cloves of garlic, followed by a quick bit of chop-chop, to produce more ready-to-cook garlic in less time than finding and fiddling with a press. It's inelegant. I loved being a French neighbour's kitchen while he cooked some supper. He happened to be a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-49837616685057574162010-10-10T11:08:00.000+01:002010-10-10T11:08:13.074+01:00

This afternoon I moved half a garage full of books from Hampstead (in North London) to Earlsfield (in South-West London), a process that was made much simpler and less painful by using a prompt and helpful Man and Van company specialising in small moves. Naturally I got them off the web, and since my work clients are typically rather large banks or building societies and my entrepreneurial

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-40673843130686926612010-06-29T11:03:00.001+01:002010-06-29T11:10:12.367+01:00

An Australian report on responsible reporting of suicides summarises two key findings as • Reports of suicide deaths can influence copycat acts in some cases;• The risk of copycat behaviour is increased where the story is prominent, is about a celebrity, details method and/or location or glorifies the death in some way.Leaving aside for the moment the human implications of all this (and if you

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-57338955013435909172010-06-13T19:21:00.001+01:002011-11-17T13:49:02.921Z

[retrieved from a long-lost backup of a 1998 proto-blog - I think it still makes sense] Introduction: Reader, meet Problem If you are human, there is a pretty good chance that you will at some point have looked at people or writing in a mirror and wondered why they are reversed from left to right but not from top to bottom. If you've ever discussed it with friends, you may have come up with

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-43099210899578259962010-03-16T14:43:00.000Z2010-03-16T14:43:20.950Z

                                        Tuesday 16 March 2010 Dear Sadiq Khan, I am a published technical author, software developer and interaction designer with a family - my wife, a freelance accountant, and a four year old son, Johnny. I am deeply concerned by the disconnection provisions of the Digital Economy Bill, which it appears is about to be waved through the house of commons in a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-68762546751641132582010-03-13T10:18:00.003Z2011-06-22T07:32:51.292+01:00

I was listening to a discussion on the train last week, involving someone talking to his friends about some kind of alternatives to evolution event he'd been to. The people talking obviously had some feel, some care, for truth; and they were clearly inclining towards a view that while Creationism wasn't very convincing, Intelligent Design was at least interesting and maybe it should be given more

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-43627659774343852922010-02-27T10:23:00.001Z2010-02-27T10:26:05.104Z

I recently had to design a top-level topic structure for a company-internal wiki. This wiki is intended to replace a predecessor which by now has a poor signal-to-ratio, being cluttered with obsolete articles and hindered by the absence of any kind of lifecycle-management, tagging or rating features. (The new wiki is being implemented using KwizCom's Wiki Plus, but that's not what I'm reviewing

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-83199046182413263202010-02-26T14:23:00.001Z2010-02-27T10:26:52.338Z

An interesting post in Zen Habits on how to ace exams without studying explains and illustrates the difference between learning by rote and learning by "making connections". While Scott Young includes "storytelling to remember facts and numbers" as one of five connection-making techniques for non-rote learning, I'm interested in a deeper connection, partly in the hope of understanding my own

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-64490453303137794762009-12-09T21:51:00.000Z2009-12-09T21:51:13.356Z

Dear Judit, I would like to support the open letter in support of the WIPO treaty, without hesitation. My credentials for signing this petition are as the co-author of three Wrox booksProfessional XML Schemas (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-XML-Schemas-Programmer/dp/1861005474) Professional XML Web Services (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-XML-Services-Programmer-programmer/dp/

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-73287389897632944172009-10-17T07:35:00.005+01:002009-10-19T10:34:25.181+01:00

So, I did my M364 Fundamentals of Interaction Design exam yesterday. I've got to the end of the course, and it's a good moment to look back and take stock. First, I discovered that I can actually study something properly. I remember my academic career as process of scrabbling through tests and exams despite having dreamed my way through classes and prep, until coming a cropper at uni. For this

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-54047193040662651392009-08-18T23:45:00.004+01:002009-08-19T00:22:31.326+01:00

Johnny needed a bath yesterday morning - but he wasn't in the mood. At all. So I (ready to catch my train) got called in, and found him sitting on the sofa, uninterested in either persuasion or authority. My efforts simply make him whine and wave his fists, but he holds off from hitting me (good start). I resist the probably futile and counterproductive temptation to drag him upstairs and offer

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-42188484857359725292009-04-15T17:17:00.005+01:002009-04-19T15:16:57.549+01:00

[Please complete the assignment on page 337 of the Set Book]Reconsider the HutchWorld design and evaluation case study and note what was evaluated, why and when, and what was learned at each stage?How was the design advanced after each round of evaluation?What were the main constraints that influenced the evaluation?How did the stages and choice of techniques build on and complement each other (

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-72773911759464220802009-04-15T14:53:00.006+01:002009-04-15T16:58:06.572+01:00

How user-centred was the approach taken by Tokairo? Start by listing the main stakeholders - beneficiaries, decision makers, gatekeepers and workers - and discussing their roles in the development process.Then analyse Tokairo's approach against each of the five principles of user-centered development given on page 286 of the Set BookThe main stakeholders in the project were, at a corporate level,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-24496890411194837812009-04-15T11:43:00.006+01:002009-04-15T14:48:27.712+01:00

Describe the approaches taken to user involvement in the Tokairo case study and discuss these using the issues you identified in Review Question 5 [List the (eight) issues you need to consider when deciding on the appropriate level of user involvement]. What alternative approaches might they have taken? You should refer to the case studies in Section 9.2.1 of the Set Book as examples.What

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-13950399500880313252009-04-13T15:38:00.003+01:002009-04-13T16:51:33.979+01:00

Look back through the previous sections. Describe Tokairo's approach to design. How these map  onto the ID activities and characteristics of the ID process?Having established the user requirements, Tokairo bought their own experience into the design process. Some of the major decisions - such as the choice of touch-screen input and the choice of a "big lottery ticket" form - were made rapidly,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-62664483191132634692009-04-11T10:42:00.003+01:002009-04-13T15:22:19.804+01:00

Look back through the previous section and list the characteristics of the approach that Tokairo took to the requirement activity. How do these map onto the ID activities and the characteristics of the ID process (as discussed in Section 6.2.1 starting on page 168 of the Set Book)? What is their attitude to stakeholders?Tokairo have a methodology with a first stage being the Site and System Audit

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-37352795134786660892009-04-10T08:40:00.003+01:002009-04-11T14:08:23.658+01:00

This activity builds upon Activity 6.4 on page 182 of the Set Book. Compare the two electronic calendar designs using the following usability and user experience goals:Efficiency: In particular, which design enables the user to find a given date most quickly?Learnability: which design will be easiest to learn?Aesthetically pleasing.Enjoyable.Which design do you prefer, and why?Efficiency: The

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-19023401260691651762009-03-15T20:49:00.007Z2009-04-06T19:35:26.460+01:00

I now want you to draw a design for an electronic calendar system that is radically different to the outline sketch in Figure 6.1. [which shows a page and book model] You only need to draw a single sketch in order to illustrate your design. Try asking yourself questions such as: how could a mobile telephone, with a small sceen, be used to access an electronic calendar? What are the

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-63358521988292318262009-03-15T19:01:00.005Z2009-03-15T20:48:00.834Z

Draw a stakeholder diagram for the supermarket check-out system from Activity 6.2 on page 172 of the Set Book.Without further ado...

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-83864607306880904902009-03-15T18:23:00.003Z2009-03-15T18:52:48.757Z

Who are the stakeholders in the At Home website project?All groups shown in the associated organisation chart have some kind of stake in the project. The front-line, logistics and support, and customer support staff will all be affected by changes in the way the company communicates with customers, and the training group will be affected by changes in the job-description and turnover of

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-73469099194395602362009-03-15T12:17:00.005Z2009-03-15T18:23:25.853Z

You are being employed as a novice interaction designer on a project to develop a public kiosk providing information about the exhibits available in a science museum (this is one of the examples used in Activity 1.2 on Page 10 of the Set Book).Consider how you might implement each of the four ID activities. For example, you might observe users as a part of establishing requirements. As it is

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-35302625864062161112009-03-11T14:06:00.022Z2009-03-15T11:00:43.638Z

Complete the assignment on page 28 of the Set Book. [...]Find a handheld device and examine how it has been designed, paying careful attention to how the user is meant to interact with it.(a) from your first impressions, write down what first comes to mind as to what is good and bad about how it has been designed, paying particular attention to how the user is meant to interact with it.. Then

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-38770480799188331822009-03-11T12:48:00.005Z2009-03-11T13:45:16.276Z

Jade Goody was a public buffoon - someone who was made us all feel smart by comparison with her, with a small, grudging admiration only for her lack of illusion and her clear-headed determination to make a career as a "celebrity", until early cancer changed her tale from comedy to tragedy.Looking at the much-exposed wedding photo of her - in black, her hair lost to chemotherapy - kissing her

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-10622197465079835322009-03-08T22:18:00.004Z2009-03-09T07:16:43.014Z

Using the design principles (visibility, feedback, constraints, mapping, consistency and affordance) to informally evaluate the user interface of the rather old-fashioned Casio watch simulated on this DVD [...]As it is easier to evaluate an interactive product with a particular task or tasks in mind, I suggest that without looking at the Help menu (the user may not carry the manual with them),

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-23677275242649067112009-03-07T23:00:00.009Z2009-03-08T21:55:12.174Z

Using the definitions given in Section 1.5.1 of the Set Book, informally evaluate how well the National Health Service (NHS) Direct and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) websites satisfy the six usability goals described in Section 1.5.1 of the Set Book: effectiveness, efficiency, safety, utility, learnability and memorability.For each of these I suggest you role play exploring the site as a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-11108854599263367422009-03-06T20:13:00.011Z2009-03-08T08:42:22.225Z

Using the definitions given in Block 1, Unit 2, Review Question 2, informally evaluate how well the CBeebies and Chelsea Football Club websites satisfy each of the user experience goals: satisfying, enjoyable, fun, entertaining, motivating, aesthetically pleasing, supportive of creativity, rewarding and emotionally fulfilling.[... R]ole play exploring the site as a member of the likely target

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-23506453188900096192009-03-06T11:32:00.005Z2009-03-07T21:00:24.325Z

[Two screenshots] are taken from BBC website and the BBC CBeebies website.How do the two home pages compare with each other, with regard to the user experience goal aesthetically pleasing and the usability goal efficiency? Place two Xs on [a] matrix that indicate their relative positions with regard to these two parameters. A high score for aesthetics means that it is very attractive and a low

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-48962913944380998012009-03-02T14:01:00.004Z2009-03-02T14:24:27.128Z

Just documenting this recipe while I can, since I can no longer find it online, but luckily found an old shopping list which helped me reconstruct it:Cooks for 4-6 peopleIngredientsolive oil1 onion, sliced3 red peppers, sliced 2 cloves garlic, crushed2 sticks celery, sliced1 teaspoon turmeric2 hot peppers, shredded (or the Hungarian variation - 1 teaspoon Eros Pista)400 gms chorizo, diced400 gms

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-6009530783363295032009-03-02T06:46:00.007Z2009-03-06T11:31:38.914Z

Start by reading the interview with Gitta Salomon on page 31 of the Set Book.List the main characteristics of Gitta's approach and the activities she carries out.How do these relate to the activities in the ID process and the characteristics of the ID process?Gitta Salomon's approach appears to involve iteration through the following activities:decide how to engage with the client's team ("the

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-61256083594393083842009-03-01T22:55:00.005Z2009-03-06T11:31:14.511Z

The following are three of the currently important ID websites. I suggest that you:explore Don Norman's site to see what, if anything, he has to say about the latest piece of interactive product you have recently bought or read aboutexplore the Usability.gov site to see what it says about paper prototyping (paper prototyping is an important part of this course)read Usability News to see what the

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-83016375898650189212009-02-25T14:03:00.004Z2009-02-25T14:24:15.647Z

Such sad news about the death of David and Samantha Cameron's little son, Ivan. It's hard to imagine the horror of hearing such a diagnosis for your son, the hard slog of caring for and loving him, the sorrow of finally losing him.And time, of course, to consider all the other hidden heroes, quietly getting on with it like Claire Bates, whose very personal response to Ivan's death is almost

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-87448389087083514342009-02-23T20:38:00.005Z2009-03-06T11:30:24.467Z

It is common for members of a multidisciplinary team to have different priorities which can lead to conflicts. For [an interactive website educational website to accompany a TV series], list the likely priorities of each of the following team members:Interaction designerEducational advisorGraphic designerSoftware engineerDescribe three different conflicts that may arise in the team as a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-20708663721571314112009-02-22T16:39:00.004Z2009-02-23T16:22:38.517Z

Now go and look at your car dashboard (or that of a friend or colleague). List three aspects of the different controls which might distract you or make driving the car more difficult. Alternatively, if you do not drive, ask someone who does drive about their experiences of driving and the ways in which the controls on their car can cause difficulties.The Toyota Prius has a somewhat idiosyncratic

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-54369422931231498242009-02-22T15:05:00.003Z2009-02-23T16:26:04.062Z

Think about the system outline in Box 3 [The 1999 UK Passport Agency Fiasco]. Suggest what the consequences of the Passport Agency's computer problems may have been for the following groups of people:the general publicthe workers at the Passport AgencyThe increase from 2-3 weeks to 7-10 weeks more than tripled the waiting time for passports. This would have been real problem for people needing to

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-23087155864555541052009-02-22T14:32:00.003Z2009-02-22T16:13:07.677Z

(One personal frustration provoker is signing on to a course and discovering that you're not using the current edition of the book!)Study Chapter 5, Section 5.4 on page 147 of the Set Book, including the activities. This section is entitled 'User frustration' and provides a list of reason why users often become frustrated when using interactive products and gives examples of what the author refer

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-13887565999173718072009-02-22T13:12:00.004Z2009-02-22T14:58:19.077Z

So it's a new year, and I spent several months of last year mumbling to myself about finding a new direction at work. So I identified the direction I want to go as Interaction Design and signed up for an Open University course in Fundamentals of interaction design, and now I need to get my head down and get on with the studying.So, without further ado, here's Block 1 (of 4), Unit 1 (of 4),

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-65343281697859720692008-12-10T22:48:00.003Z2008-12-10T22:57:47.487Z

There's a scary scaled-down 11-plus test on the BBC today. I did common entrance in my day, but I'd heard of the 11-plus and the brutal way in which an 11-year old's future in the state education system - and possibly their livelihood and life - was determined by a single childhood exam.So I took the mini-version and found it harder than I expected in the time. To my surprise I received 11 out of

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-15800970161052493442008-12-10T22:36:00.005Z2008-12-10T22:48:30.854Z

Just to let people know, yes I did travel to Pune via Mumbai and yes, the trouble did happen while I was out there, but as I've explained to many kind questioners - when you're over there you realise exactly how far away from the trouble you are.In the event I had two long stopovers in the airport and in neither case did I actually leave it, except in a large Boeing of  Jet Airlines.I have

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-74864557274923883222008-11-26T15:19:00.002Z2008-11-26T15:48:42.921Z

It takes about 25 minutes to drive back from our temporary office in the Eon Free Zone to the Central Park Hotel in downtown Pune, and as far as I can tell there isn't a second when I'm not hearing car horns in action.Back in London I'd be distressed - horns there generally mean anger or imminent collision. Here it feels more that they are simply a way of gently nudging your fellow road users.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-29787943185916642042008-05-26T12:47:00.002+01:002008-05-26T13:04:56.146+01:00

Just been listening to my friend Jessica Duchen on radio 4's Music Matters. (You can catch it for the rest of the week here, starting just after 20 minutes in).I may end up tied to a stake by hooded culturati, the first wisps of smoke emerging from the Enid Blytons piled up by my feet, for this comment, but I really think that Jessica writes about music far better than Ian McEwan does. If I sound

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-50462653174908042242008-05-25T10:29:00.002+01:002008-05-25T11:02:33.535+01:00

We've just got a lovely Italian coffee machine - not something I'd been planning, an impulse buy when I spotted it on sale, ex-demo at half-price, at my local Ringtons.It quietly grinds the beans to make a truly delicious cup of coffee with luxurious layer of crema, and I am now an overnight convert to espresso.Apart from the pleasure of drinking the coffee, there's also the secondary pleasure to

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-31327045355062872922008-04-27T12:29:00.001+01:002008-04-29T07:39:09.971+01:00

Brilliant essay by Clay Shirky, I like the fact that someone can combine history, a few key numbers and a four-year old's hunt to give you a radical and persuasive perspective on why our recent decades of exclusively passive media consumption may soon come to look as archaic as rotten boroughs and the gin-wagon.I can confidently say that this is the first time I've heard (and now used) the phrase

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-44793895933210661592008-03-16T23:59:00.002Z2008-03-17T00:10:30.544Z

As Jimmy Gutterman says: Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard neuroanatomist, eavesdropped on her own stroke. As I wrote the day of her talk, she walked us through what she felt and thought while her brain was going wild, from the borderline-metaphysical ("I can't define where I begin and where I end") to the borderline-hilarious ("I'm a busy woman. I don't have time for a stoke"). Her description of her

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-67452781302043603642008-03-05T23:34:00.002Z2008-03-05T23:42:50.704Z

Anyone with no principles is a cynic.The person with one principle is either a simpleton or a fanatic.Someone with any two good principles is a nut - because at some point in their life the two principles will come into conflict like the two arms of a nutcracker, with him or her feeling the pain in the middle.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-64279589677595418272008-01-16T20:36:00.000Z2008-01-16T22:07:51.905Z

So our Prime Minister thinks it should be assumed that we are all willing to donate our organs to medicine unless we explicitly opt-out or our families object.Though I'm not a great fan of yet another state intrusion into a pretty damn personal realm, on consideration I think I'm coming round to this idea.After all, symmetry and reciprocity are always good ingredients for any ethical recipe. And

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-40938955556210865082008-01-09T23:25:00.000Z2008-01-10T08:03:46.634Z

Much as Johnny is good-natured and agreeable, we still haven't mastered the business of getting him to bed promptly. (This is more important than it may sound to those who haven't experienced it - the parental partnership needs time spent together before parental exhaustion sets in.)I read somewhere that childrens' reluctance to sleep was a form of separation anxiety - something that had never

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-37865370682758795522007-12-04T07:55:00.000Z2007-12-04T14:19:59.111Z

I saw "The Turn of the Screw" last night at the ENO, courtesy of some nice cousins who had spare tickets. Now, I'm not a great opera goer, and don't listen to much classical music beyond some of the easier-drinking works of Bach, Sibelius and Philip Glass, and I wondered how much I would really enjoy an evening's excursion into the atonal.All I can say is that Britten's use of disturbing

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-59528178626921726632007-10-30T14:05:00.000Z2007-10-30T22:29:51.756Z

Well, turns out it's a year and a half since I unwisely announced that I was going to adopt the Getting Things Done system.It didn't stick, but the situation didn't get any better. So now I'm having another go, concentrating just on my Gmail account, using the approach described in this article.I've made a couple of changes - the filters don't depend on me being the sender, so I can send myself

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-84558691114437598412007-10-17T07:43:00.000+01:002007-10-30T14:04:11.071Z

I've been taking an interest in Erlang and wondering how suitable it would be for anyone launching a non-telecoms web project, so I was quite impressed by this strong endorsement yesterday from the co-founder of a start-up called MochiAds.Naturally the next question you ask ourself is "how real is this company?" - so I did a double-take when I spotted this techcrunch post today, which seems to

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-19241687418262035052007-10-14T09:28:00.000+01:002007-10-30T14:04:54.653Z

Well, after the somewhat negative tone of an earlier post commenting on a TechCrunch item, here's something to get your eyes on the horizon, your foot on the accelerator and your heart in gear.To hear the following Teddy Roosevelt quote from someone with the entrepreneurial credentials of Yossi Vardi really adds something special:It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-56642474480554888682007-10-07T23:23:00.000+01:002007-10-17T08:17:29.916+01:00

Improvement on a certain video - the "Dad-dancing" has been replaced with something cooler. Behold: Johnny on the deck, best friend Jake on the sofa!Update: 2007-10-17 - got video link working(video shareable under this CC licence)

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-10133949639335148042007-08-10T06:34:00.000+01:002007-08-10T07:05:37.387+01:00

I see that Powerset have just started publishing their business models, and "This first set helps a company that intends to index the web whether it is better to purchase, lease or create virtual servers on Amazon EC2."Thinking of Amazon, they've announced FPS (Flexible Payment Services) to go with their S3 (Simple Storage Service) and EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud ). There's less and less excuse

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-12281249881397034292007-07-16T09:57:00.000+01:002007-07-16T12:06:57.783+01:00

Great blog on What would you do with 80 cores? by Sean Koehl, an Intel researcher. This is one of my longer-lasting hobby-horses - I find the argument that we will eventually run out of steam on single processor architectures quite persuasive, and I would love to have a go at programming the 80-core teraflops research chip (is it as similar to the transputer in spirit as it appears to be?).My

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-27147536491893173962007-07-10T13:53:00.000+01:002007-07-10T14:03:11.080+01:00

I may not believe in God, but I can understand and respect the urge, in those who do, to seek his forgiveness for a serious sin. A touch of humility from those in power is always refreshing to the rest of us.But passing on the news that you have in fact received not only your wife's but also God's forgiveness seems to me to reflect a slightly different virtue.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-63162037032126062652007-07-01T13:23:00.000+01:002007-07-01T13:38:07.245+01:00

I know a stopped clock is be right twice a day, and even my clothes may start looking fashionable about once a decade, but I've pretty well given up hope on my economic forecasting being proved right.But if I'm going to get it wrong, I might as well get it wrong on the record and go down with all flags flying.Evan Davis is worried about first quarter figures for UK real household incomes and

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-681182874739688292007-06-16T11:22:00.000+01:002007-06-16T17:46:13.846+01:00

An interesting Wired article on future engines - it seems that a surprising amount is happening here in the UK.I've written before about my hunch that Personal Rapid Transport is a technology that may yet transform our worlds - my interest in this article is that some of the future engine technologies mentioned, such as the PMLFlightlink Wheelmotors in Hampshire, would appear to be highly

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-13915692063186364572007-05-29T07:34:00.000+01:002007-05-29T07:50:11.946+01:00

The advantage of a sleepless toddler is perhaps the unexpected reading opportunity - so started and finished On Chesil Beach between 4-something and almost-7 this morning.It's a short book (166 pages) and given the apparently small focus of the narrative - a young couple on their wedding night in 1962, both virgins, both nervous - it's surprisingly gripping. This is perhaps a measure (perhaps

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-53470631066482168322007-05-28T15:14:00.000+01:002007-05-28T15:41:14.566+01:00

A band of OAPs with a combined age of over 3,000 have recorded The Who's "My Generation" for BBC 2's Power to the People programme, which I look forward to watching tonight at 9 o'clock.The video is amusing and moving, and has created a massive stir. And if you feel that a 90-year old singing "hope I die before I get old" is in dodgy taste, try and remember how you felt the first time you heard

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-20808660187648881392007-03-27T13:49:00.000+01:002007-03-27T13:54:09.648+01:00

Robert Scoble, the blogger I've followed longest, is going silent for a week in protest at the attacks on Kathy Sierra.What has our internet come to?Don't imagine anyone will notice, but I'm following suit. It seems kind of pointless, but less pointless than anything else I can do.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-13166529271301793942007-03-18T11:45:00.000Z2007-03-18T12:35:33.861Z

I took Johnny to the swimming pool at the Brixton Recreation Centre for one more try after two unsuccessful visits, where despite his love of bathwater he'd clearly found the whole swimming pool environment rather alarming.Unlike our first visit the training pool was open this time, albeit after a ten minute wait for a lifeguard to appear. This is good - it's warm and has metre-wide, shallow

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-85181631210135455412007-03-18T09:42:00.000Z2007-03-18T11:45:48.930Z

My favourite new utility is Babytype, which makes your computer into a wonderful baby-proof activity centre - every key pressed pops up an image and makes an entertaining noise, rather than sending emails to employers and old flames or reformatting the hard disk.The only flaw was that I kept having to dive across the sitting room to start Babytype whenever Johnny approached the keyboard, which he

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-38864741732153559992007-02-21T10:56:00.000Z2007-02-21T13:14:58.099Z

Interesting comment by Ophelia Benson on what religious fundamentalism and the commercial sexualisation of ever-younger girls have in common. Have I become a feminist without realising it?Of course, the complexity always seems to re-emerge under a different bit of the carpet. Even at eighteen months we see our firstborn as "all boy". Naturally we both hope for him to grow into a happy and

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-75904347910306343192007-02-12T16:16:00.000Z2007-02-13T23:51:40.198Z

Eva's doing an online test for her OU course in accounting today, so I've taken the day off to look after Johnny. After a pizza at Franco's in the Brixton Arcade (officially called Eco nowadays, but us old-timers like the old name) it started raining, so I took him to Adventure World in the Brixton Rec.Adventure World is great - a safely padded three-dimensional maze of slides and ball-pits,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-47483926876304874342007-02-09T14:09:00.000Z2007-02-09T14:08:34.000Z

It seems to me that you can have respect for individuals or respect for cultures, but these will inevitably lead to contradictions at some point, and that if and when the contradictions become serious enough you have to start making choices.This article and, of the debate that it kicked off, this supporting piece by Turkish German author Necla Kelek, persuades me of the case for valuing respect

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-67331377688658790582007-02-08T13:30:00.000Z2007-02-08T13:48:38.350Z

Let me be rash - I've just had my first look at Yahoo pipes and I think this will prove a major milestone in the evolution of the web. I believe that the semantic web is appearing under our noses, not as the result of the ontologies and predicate reasoning that I used to imagine would be involved, but through a rapid evolution of bottom-up folksonomies and strength-off-association relationships,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1161302469731856422006-10-20T00:32:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.413+01:00

I've been chatting with a fellow-commuter on the Hampton Wick train, Caroline from Stylish Resorts, for a few years now, and it's pretty obvious that she really cares about the service they give to their clients going out to the Seychelles (where she comes from), Mauritius and Dubai.Old-fashioned, personal service, you might think - just the kind of thing that is being destroyed by impersonal

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1158489175657386192006-09-17T11:27:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.357+01:00

Finally started posting some of my snaps - I'm particularly fond of this one of Johnny on a swing which is one of those lucky snaps which just works. And when I say luck, it really was more fluke than judgement - my little Dimage X60 has a lag of around a second, so to get him mid-swing I had to press the button when he was just approaching the highest point and then pan hopefully as he swung

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1158482236163953882006-09-17T09:12:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.302+01:00

Two weekends ago my friend and former neighbour Beatrice came from King's Lynn to visit us here in Brixton - she bought well-chosen presents for Johnny and we all went to Franco's (as we old-timers call Eco) for some serious pizza, followed by a trip to the British Museum for their Byzantine money exhibition and some Greek and Roman glass.I'd just like to report that the nice yellow flowers

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1156149604804017442006-08-21T09:25:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.245+01:00

Two excellent links which reduced the gloom of starting yet another Monday morning at my desk - first, an article on Forbes magazine (from an ad in gmail - shaming naivete or sohisticated support for the Web 2.0 business model of a valued service?) Beware of Infomania - the point is not so much the common-sense tips as a couple of brilliant quotes:The Institute of Psychiatry at the University of

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1154004741704731982006-07-27T13:18:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.132+01:00

This could be farcical if Fu Xiancai hadn't been beaten up so badly - when returning home after being summoned by the police - that three vertebrae in his neck were broken, and he is unlikely ever to walk again.His issue? He campaigned for people displaced by the Three Gorges dam. In effect he was hindering economic progress in the name of human rights - the property rights, presumably, of people

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1151389124238965052006-06-27T06:57:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.076+01:00

Came across this quote from my favourite poet, Philip Larkin, in The Week (itself quoting The Independent)I search myself for illusions like a monkey looking for fleas.Two days later I found myself browsing Edward Tufte on the Columbia disaster, where he quotes Richard Feynman's famous (and, it apears, sadly ignored) conclusion to his appendix to the Challenger commission reportFor a successful

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1150982698551287522006-06-22T14:05:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:29.022+01:00

I checked that Johnny was still cuddled up to Mr Monkey in his cot in the sitting room, and had a bath. Pulled on some clothes and went back in to the sitting room, have a look into the cot. Johnny's now wide awake, giving me his usual big smile from the bottom of the cot, both arms stretched out. As soon as his shoulders are off the sheet he straightens his back and legs to get on to his feet as

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1149146486442252862006-06-01T08:18:00.001+01:002009-05-06T19:38:35.754+01:00

Not sure this should be on the blog, but here goes...Family life, raw and unedited. Enjoy.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1147370214010316542006-05-11T18:43:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:28.908+01:00

Went with friends to see Embers on Tuesday, to celebrate Eva's birthday. I was a little worried - the early reviews were mixed, emphasising the near-monologue second half as a challenge that Jeremy Irons either surmounted or failed, depending on the reviewer.The other challenge of the play to an early 21st century English-speaking audience is that it Sandor Marai's story is, well, so un-English

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1147267508343630772006-05-10T13:45:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:28.851+01:00

A nice surprise to be mentioned by Gail Ilagan in the Phillipines last week - especially from someone who not only has such sound views on Eowyn and Aragorn, but uses passion and reason to write truthfully and movingly.I was gently lobbying her to get a blog so it would be easier for lazy folk like me to keep up with her pieces - like this, which as a new father, I especially responded to.Her

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1143531763300617382006-03-28T08:06:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:28.794+01:00

We watched Real Story: The Ripper Hoaxer last night. I hadn't expected it to be so moving - Beryl Leach in particular, describing the loss of her only daughter, gave back the human reality behind the "Ripper" headlines.I also hadn't expected it to be a story about a massive police hunt being led astray by group-think. The police team were so convinced that the hoaxer was in fact the murderer that

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1142427380550902642006-03-15T12:41:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.738+01:00

I keep an eye on Scott Hanselman's blog and a post yesterday finally got me off my backside and down to the local bookshop for a copy of David Allen's "Getting Things Done".I've got an IT job in a small company, my own software and study projects, and Eva and little Johnny at home. I simply can't afford to keep spending time being disorganised.So far the book makes a lot of sense. Right now my

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1139618336127611602006-02-10T21:49:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.684+01:00

I've been puzzled by how lightly our ministers seem to have been getting off when I hear them interviewed about the legalised kidnapping and torture that is extraordinary rendition. Chandra Sekhar has an excellent article on what is being done, and has ben done, and the laws that are being bent or ignored in the process.And what is wrong with Extraordinary Rendition? Follow Chandra's link to the

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1139332861656821472006-02-07T17:20:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.629+01:00

(Written while waiting for DB2 v. 8 to uninstall itself... )Excellent post on almost-Web Services. I've been there, seen (and suffered) that. Using MQ Series is not a problem, I've done more with that than with SOAP (which tells you a bit about our market). But what is it about XML that inspires host developers with an insane urge to write their own XML parsers? I've had messages going back

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1136469825824038812006-01-05T13:58:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.573+01:00

A brilliantly simple idea - one new Creative Commons single every day, selected by someone who cares about the music. Who knows if I'll enjoy them all, but it may stop my eardrums rusting over.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1134457430972339602005-12-13T06:18:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.518+01:00

Saturday night was time to get back in to the flow. Ian Smith suggested I come along to the Geek Dinner and I'm glad I did. As a new dad I have limited time for reading (and writing) blogs, and I spend very little time listening to podcasts, but the blog/podcast focus of the evening had a feel very reminiscent of the early days of the internet: lots of geek enthusiasm, no clear business models,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1133866197586765792005-12-06T10:49:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.463+01:00

We were taking a bus back to Brixton when a man thanked Eva, me and little Johnny for moving the pram so he could wheel himself into the wheelchair space which we had been occupying. Nice, but he then complimented Johnny on "her" looks."Call little Johnny a girl again and he'll probably head butt you", I warned him, with some reason. Not only does the boy tend to go into woody-woodpecker mode

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1133521410081962182005-12-02T11:03:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.409+01:00

An amusing web site that correctly chooses a symbol matching the two-digit number you have chosen at random.These things always raise two challenges - first: how does it work, second: if you can see how it works, can you explain it in such a way that others can too?So don't read on if you'd rather work it out for yourself!The instructions areTake any two digit number, add together both digits and

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1133359753093611852005-11-30T14:09:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.354+01:00

Here I am, testing out writely.com as an on-line word processing site which happens to include a post-to-blog option. The editing looks at least as good as blogger.com , and the fact that I can write stuff with a view to never publishing it makes it more suitable for work-related documents that I can access from my desk and my untrusted-on-LAN notebook. It complements my other new

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1133284863514384242005-11-29T17:16:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.095+01:00

I see from http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic543.htm that the frequency of "Diabetes Insipidus" is - in the US, at least - about 1 in 25,000. Of these some 30% are idiopathic, in other words of no known cause.So the appeal of Ian and Angela Gay against their conviction for poisoning a child by force-feeding him with at least four and a half teaspoons of salt on the grounds that according to a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1132828515626674942005-11-24T10:09:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:28.041+01:00

My google alert on Advanced Transport Systems Ltd threw up this submission by them to a UK parliamentary committee.I was struck by a couple of counter-intuitive points if passenger km delivered by light rail are divided by primary energy used, then light rail is actually less energy efficient that the average car....It is routine for transport schemes to be returned many times for additional

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1132758351566486212005-11-23T14:54:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:27.981+01:00

European Telcos are joining the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to get it to change its standardisation rules to discourage participants from sneakily embedding their own patented technology in standards and then charging users exorbitant fees.My argument with software patents has always been that they are in fact extraordinarily anti-corporate. The beneficiaries will be lawyers,

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1132685823962513742005-11-22T18:43:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:27.923+01:00

Nice to see the Vatican's chief astronomer, the Rev. George Coyne commenting that intelligent design "isn't science, even though it pretends to be."I don't even have a problem with Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn statingit should not be seen as "an offense to Darwin's dignity" for people to offer criticisms of evolutionary theory. "The theory of evolution is a scientific theory," he said. "What I

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1132670161105279902005-11-22T14:28:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:27.870+01:00

I'm all in favour of charities. I'm also in favour of favouring the better run ones, in the interest of both their official beneficiaries and the credibility of the sector as a whole.So here's where you can check the accounts of UK charities - see if their accounts are up-to-date, and work out their ratio of charitable expenditure to costs of raising funds.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1132659851015625782005-11-22T11:16:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:27.815+01:00

I dislike urban driving whether as a driver, a passenger, a cyclist, a pedestrian or even as a resident; so I'm all in favour of Personal Rapid Transport, even if it doesn't yet exist.I particularly like ULTRA, as a techie it seems to me that solving public transport problems by building a packet-switched solution over well-understood technologies is a highly realistic approach and could be a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1131370643369227952005-11-07T13:31:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:27.756+01:00

I thought I was taking the mick when I wrote this entry this time last year.I've got far more important - to me - stuff to be writing about, but something is really wrong. It is madness to be going in this direction. And if the USA goes there now, we shall too, eventually.

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1124441377403153772005-08-19T09:29:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:27.643+01:00

I'm tired of the built-in Nokia ringtones, but I'm too old and snobbish to buy over-advertised chart-crap.Now I have a little plan for the ultimate classy, unobtrusive but exclusive ringtone - find a MIDI file of the 11 notes making up the theme to the track Proverb on Steve Reich's City Life and convert it into a ringtone.But I can't find such a file, and anyway, how would I escape a

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1122537040040051262005-07-28T08:29:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:27.525+01:00

I'm on the mailing lists for FIPR and FFII-UK (and have lobbied my MP for both) but it's pretty clear that the UK needs a funded, mass-membership body to represent the interests of the UK digital citizen, a role played by the EFF in the USA. Following a debate at Opentech 2005 it looks like something may be happening at last.Danny O'Brien reports that a Pledgebank page has been set up where you

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1122457661099619302005-07-27T08:54:00.000+01:002006-10-20T00:55:27.470+01:00

Something that happened in Holland on July 12th is helping me to make more sense of the troubles raised here in London by July 7th.In a Dutch court, Mohammed Bouyeri turns to Anneke van Gogh, the mother of the man he murdered for attacking Islam, and tells her "I don't feel your pain. I don't feel any sympathy for you. I can't feel for you because I think you are a non-believer."Meanwhile here in

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-687604.post-1109067742999870472005-02-22T10:11:00.000Z2006-10-20T00:55:27.305+01:00

12 Amberley Court,Overton RoadLondonSW9 7HL(020) 7274 398907710 864 775Sir,Your business supplement yesterday on the proposed European Community Directive on intellectual property omits to mention that the directive will permit the patenting of "computer implemented inventions" or, in a word, software. Under existing law software is basically protected by copyright - you write it, you own it, and

Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920814977898808481noreply@blogger.com1