Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - Got one

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, originally uploaded by epredator.

I popped along to the sony ericsson superstore in London high street kensington. They had loads in stock and as the phone is unlocked they can sell it on any network, so I changed networks too, to see if I get better coverage.
Its very cool so far, as it has a stylus you can doodle and write on it like a palm used to, or drag and point with a finger.
I am just working out how to go from nokia to windows contacts. Not obvious of course, but lets see.
So the next few days I will work out what it does and share.
At the moment I love it, even if it is windows :)

Is it really so hard to get a mobile phone?

So my n95 contract is up. I have a PAC code (to transfer my number to another provider. I still want to get the Sony Xperia X1 but still having been "released" on 30th September it is nowhere with any of the providers.
Vodafone here sent me a few emails to tell me that the X1 was available, but then when ordering it online having completed all the forms I got a page saying "sorry out of stock". So a new customer, invited by an email campaign, filling in lots of bits including the number transfer code, then gets told ooops sorry. A slight fail methinks.
Whilst in town I decided to go into the many mobile shops that intersperse the starbucks and macdonald on our hight streets. The vodafone shop was less than helpful, I heard them convincing another customer to buy something else. Mainly because they did not have even a static model of the x1 in the shop.
Then in carphonewarehouse they had an x1 model with prices and plans, but admitted when asked they had never had any in yet. (Where are they all then?)
So I wandered into t-mobile (who I am an existing customer with), they had a real functioning google G1 phone. I asked if they had any in stock, yes, they had one. So I thought, what the heck, it does not shoot video but it would be fun.
I was told the price plan, free with a £40 month plan. great. I then asked as an existing customer how would that work. To my surprise the shop assistant had a sharp intake of breath. Nope as an upgrade you have to buy the phone £500 or I was offered to be able to cancel my current contract, take out a new one and lose my number. So I cant just pay the saem and upgrade and be retained as a valued customer? erm no accroding to the shop guy.
That's customer service!
So, I would love to sign up to a new contract, pay the money and get the kit, but it seems that both as a new customer and an existing one the things I need are really not that important to these companies.

Pumpkin 1.0 to 2.0

Pumpkin 1.0, originally uploaded by epredator.

Predlet 1.0 drew her ideal pumpkin face and then we carved it out. No idea why we do this, we never did pumpkins when I was a lad.

Nowhere near as good as this predator one sent to me by lots of people recently :)

Bafta and me

Bafta and me, originally uploaded by epredator.

I went to a games industry biz fair today in London. I was a guest of Bafta doing some advice clinics for some willing volunteers. Not being mainstream games industry, but being close related this was very interesting.
I also really enjoyed the lower floor with some awesome early views of games that have not hit the shelves yet including the mighty little big planet. W00t
Still I got to talk on so many subjects, corporate life, web 2.0, public life, coding, social implications etc. It was great to meet so many cool people, and I got on the same bill as Jon Hare and with a bafta statue near by

No strings attached

No strings attached, originally uploaded by epredator.

I finally got around to putting some new strings on my old electric guitar. I bought this strat-alike when I started working as an industrial trainee at IBM in 1988. I have never been very good, atleast at rythm and chords, but I love the blues scale and just freeforming around to find that blue feeling that resonates deep into your soul.
Since the whole guitar hero/rockband thing I have felt the urge to restring and have anotehr tinker with it. Having old strings from atleast 10 years ago does make it tricky. The course layer of rust and oxidized layer basically hurts like hell if you try and slide or bend the strings.
So I said to myself, time to start again. Ordered some strings from amazon and whilst elemming was out tonight and the predlets in bed I gave it a go.
I managed to restring, retune and have enough of a go to make myself start to feel the potential again. My amp was a little unhappy some contacts inside being a bit messed I think.
Still its done, and if I keep the strings shinyby playing then that will be very cool indeed.

Now all I have to do is work my soft tipped fingers back into the caloused state again. I remember the blisters and the pain, but when you want to play the blues it sure helps :)

Roo on Watchdog

Roo on Watchdog, originally uploaded by nol.

Nick managed to capture this interesting moment of Roo's move into the world of television. That BBC move was always going to lead to this

New phone please.... Experia X1?

My N95 phone contract has expired. That is clearly no secret as I seem to have constant "helpful" phone calls from people in all sorts of weird and wonderful sales organizations that want to move me places. Of course non of these are really worth talking to as I like to pick and choose the tech. it is my job after all. The balances of minutes and texts pale into insignifance when compared to the needs for a good data deal.
Anwyay, I dont think i will wait around for the Google G1 phone. Though I love it's Augmented reality potential as seen in some of the videos showing google streetmap.
I pretty much decided I wanted to move off Nokia. The new N96 is the same as the N95 and i have loved using it, but I need new toys.
An iphone is the obvious choice, but we have one in the house.
So I saw the sony experia X1 and liked the look, the adverts even and the funnyviral ads and videos, the engagement with the web community, they are even on twitter. All good ticks in boxes, to see what has swayed my buying choice.
Also it shipped on 30th September, something Sony Ericcson are very proud of. The trouble is, its not available yet in any of the mobile providers. They seem to be happy to sit on stock, to wait a bit. Bascially this make a mockery of SE releasing anything. Its not a release dataif you cant use it as a member of the public.
Thats all a pity as I do want to change my phone, and in a very Web2.0 way I want to do it now! ;)
So I may not bother, supply chains and marketing departments getting all to controlling for my liking.
Find your passionate supporters and look after them. They will sell the product for you. Let them down, and they will have a huge impact too.

Patent ringbinder

Patent ringbinder, originally uploaded by epredator.

Look what I got in my internal mail today. Issued patents used to come in a metal certificate frame, I know I have a few :)
However now they come in a snazzy leather ringbinder. This included the one I just had issued for reverse location based services that I popped in about 2004. I am not sure if I am supposed to smash the otehr frames open, but its a nice addition to schwag fest.

DearRobot my favourite twitter trend

I am not sure where it started or why I even started doing it, but it seems very twitter. Occasionally when something is a bit odd, weird etc but does not warrant a question to the twitter brigade I noticed I started saying "Dear why are you doing ". A sort of mini rant, with some facts and usually quite pointed and potentially sarcastic.
Dear Broadband provider, why is my ADSL line so slow all of a sudden?
It seems I am very much not the only one doing this. A bot has turned up called DearRobot it spots and collects up the worlds Dear x y comments. I think its a wonderful thing to have spotted and bothered to gather and re-twitter

1985 Portion Control - Great Divide- remember this?

I just bumped into a band that I had not seen of or heard of for years, in fact many other people look at me blankly when I mention them. It was way before the interwebs shared information, and I remember my mate Marcus back home coming across this record somehow. It was uber cool as no-one else was listening to it. I still like it now though, it counjures up many an image.

The band are stilling going according to the website (which of course they now have :))

I dont read much, but when I do....

Nowtopia by Chris Carlsson.
"Commonly the drive to do "good work" is ignored or surpressed by corporate behemoths, hemmed in by maladaptive bureaucratic structures geared to self-referential plans and immediate, short-term stimulation of stock prices"

Just saying :)

My New Moo

My New Moo, originally uploaded by epredator.

My new personal Moo cards arrived today

If you dont do it, the world will. Openstreetmap

Quite a few years ago I happened to explain to someone at a mapping agency that whilst I understood they had spent money and time creating mapping assets, and that cartography, rather like writing has been the preserve of a few with impact on many, that they really should prepare for the web and people just doing it for themselves.
Now with so many GPS enabled devices, and the whole web as a platform Web2.0 rise we start to see more things like this open source map of the world. We create the small bits of map that we need, in return for the small bits of maps other have created. Small is a relative term of course, as this is a fractal small, a self repeating pattern.
I checked out Openstreetmap, and my street (like on many of the main maps) is not there. Now of course I can plot it and add it and make this mapping more accurate than much of the paid for ones.

View Larger Map
This interest me on several levels, not least for having a world map which we will augment with data and images en masse. So, is your street on there?

12 seconds - whats the point of a metaverse evangelist?

I noticed a few people on twitter including @loudmouthman recording 12 second video clips on 12seconds. So he whizzed me an invite in to have a go.
It a quick live twitter video style. 12 seconds is an age and a blink of the eye at the same time. I usually do 1 take of things, but the fixed timing and immediate nature meant I had 3 goes instead :-)
I dont think my delivery will change the world yet, but I think I may do a few more.

Whats the point of a metaverse evangelist? on 12seconds.tv

Shopperdiscounts "scam" via interflora

A credit card event recently got me double checking my statements. I noticed a "shopper discounts" for £7.99 with a phone number by it on the statement. It turns out that I seem to have accidently opted into a montly payment scheme through using interflora to buy flowers.
The scheme does "send you emails" which probably look like spam. Having called them and complained and cancelled they are assuring me a refund, but there a few months payments on there.
How stupid to not see them on the statement, but these things happen.
Anyway, dont use interflora, dont click anything afterwards, do check you statements and do make sure the this shopperdiscounts legitimate but shady business stops.

Time to talk at VFWE08

The next big conference and expo for all things virtual world is happening in London in 2 weeks time. Its the second year of the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe
When the metarati gather there are always productive conversations and when you mix in the game companies too who knows where this will end up.
Anway, please come and talk or find me (or I will find you). Lots of things to discuss.

Last years event was very enjoyable a certain creative twist to this is very London and very Europe.
So come and see me at the expo or at the after show parties. Lots of excitement about the future to talk about.

My strengths

strengths, originally uploaded by epredator.

I recently took the strengthfinders 2.0 test, a study based on some gallup research to help people understand their strengths and take action in then. ( a close mentor and friend recommended it to me, you know who you are :) thankyou).
There are a whole stack of interesting questions in the test, some of which give some pause for thought.
The upshot though is as I would have expected. I think these describe me very well, and match who I see myself as. The first reccomendation is makes "Seek a career in which you will be given credit for and paid for your ideas, such as
marketing, advertising, journalism, design, or new product development."
Another interesting, and probably quite correct one is "Finish your thoughts and ideas before communicating them. Lacking your Ideation talents,others might not be able to "join the dots" of an interesting but incomplete idea and thus might dismiss it." which is something I have become aware of over the years. I like to strike a balance between the fully formed, obvious idea and the one that allows people to grow into it and make it their own. Anyway, I think this is a great book and test for anyone seeking to validate their values or discover them. I am just at the beginning of seeing what it says, but already have some insights.There are more details here you buy the book and get a code to access it, its not a free site, but the report you get is a suitably deep one.

Value of a personal brand

The last few weeks have proved very interesting in understanding perceptions of my personal brand inside various organizations and pieces of organizations. Some people say oh wow its you and you do that stuff, thats very valuable, we love it. Others say "meh" its not all that. The balance of great versus not so great is hardly a balance, its a 98% vote for me being president, versus a 2% get out of my face you are not all that. The odd thing is the distribution of that, and in a connected world the slew of influence that has over so many things.
Anyway, I am still busy enjoying the epredator and eightbar brand. Those that don't have had an impact on me and I am sure they feel wonderfully clever. I am nothing if not open, and openness is scary to many people. Oh whats he going to say now?
I know that some of the things I could say and could do might have a wonderful revenge quality, but in the long run its better to forgive and move on. Sh*t happens its would appear. No I have not got religion as such, still a metaverse evangelist, but I do live by a code of honour.
Enough of all that here is a brilliant article and film from Sky, featuring me and me for IBM's 50th celebration.
What I do for companies seems to generate press interest, and customer interest, maybe more so than a press advert. It is a bit unusual to be a walking personalized advert but maybe that is what evangelism is in the end. Just still hard to prove the value isnt it :) Of course the evangelist and strategist curse is, once you let people know what they need to do, they cant remember why they needed you in the first place.

Predator in bolts

Which one is the Monster?, originally uploaded by elemming68.

During elemmings birthday trip to London we found this in the basement of Selfridges. It's made if iron. It was a tad pricey, but maybe one day we can get one like it for the garden as it was stunning

An unusual week

This week back from Los Angeles, award in hand, has been very unusual. The award got written up on a UK intranet piece and then circulated in an old school mail shot that seems to reach a whole lot more people that maybe have not seen all the cool things going on.
I got lots of emails from some of the very cool people I have worked with and for in the past saying congratulations and well done on the impact I and we have had on virtual worlds.
It has also led to a greater than average number of hits on my linkedin pages by people with IBM at part of their descriptor (its quite anonymous but shows a trend). There are also a fair few other industries coming to have a look too.
I have not checked the webstats of the actual CV. It is always interesting to try an understand interest in a personal brand like epredator represents. Of course volume is far less important than the right people seeing and valuing something.
I also got some more media coverage because of the metaverse evangelist job title a piece in the finance section. Ok so it was having a little bit of a dig at having a crazy job title, but the title starts the conversations, explains what I do and also gets some media attention.
It was suggested that I change to Metaverse Oracle as a few things I had set the seeds of a while back have now sprung back into life. However having Oracle as a title at IBM just gets confusing.
As I often remind people I dont just make this Sh*t up, just make it look like I am sometimes.
Midweek saw a bit of a tradgedy in losing my entire laptop in a hardware failure. yes I have backups, but not for the past month. So the most recent, most important code, docs, ppt and archived emails look like they have passed on. I am not sure how long before I get a new machine or fixed machine, but it will mean the massive re-install. Not just working on one thing, or in one environment or even in one job means a whole load of things will need rebuilding.
I wont get much time next week as atleast 2 days are blocked out to talk to some major CIO's and press and academics visiting Hursley for the 50th celebrations. The presenters are a few IBM distinguished engineers, lab director, the country general manager and me.
I am also supposed to be documenting my past 2 years of everything I have done, every customer, conference, engagement etc to show the value of what I have been doing. Its a pity things like the award from the industry dont just count as that job done. Still a refelctive look back will just add to the ego and help me know my true value to the industry.
Mind you, if you are reading this and I have done something that made you think better of IBM, buy something or push forward with something then feel free to either comment, email me or preferably join the load of people who very kindly recommended me on linkedin over the past 2 years feel free to connect of course.

And the winner is

And the winner is, originally uploaded by epredator.

more about this over on eightbar but I picked up the award for virtual world innovation in the enterprise here in LA at the VW expo last night.
Veyr very happy to get this one on behalf of myself and IBM

Nothing beats real life?

IMGP3256, originally uploaded by epredator.

I just blogged over on eigthbar about the Augmented reality experience that is the Simpsons ride at universal in LA.
I was struck by another thought about real versus virtual. The crowd interaction and the fantastic performance and stunts of the Waterworld show was fantastic too. It is a "real" experience, but of course it is not real at all.
We can learn a lot from hollywood about immersion and about performance.
Some of this is real some is not, but it all blends into an experience. Its not just media or atoms, but something else in human experience.

A new phrase/ thing to suffer from - CCM

I just twittered I think I am suffering from Corporate Citizen Masochism nuff said :-)

Off to the west coast US - Hollywood beckons?

The few times I have flown over to the west coast USA it has been to the San Jose area or to San Fran. This usually leave sme with a tune in my head of either "I left my heart in San Francisco" or the joke spoof "I left my hat in Sam Frank's Disco". If not that then "Do you know the way to San Jose" (Bup bup buppa baaaa) etc.
This time though its LA. I seem to have got stuck with the Robbie William's tune from swing when you're winning. "I will talk hollywood will listen".

I maybe should be more worried about getting hassled for my predator Avie in SL.
Anyway, next week LA. the virtual worlds conference. Its going to be a hard week one way and another. Though I guess when I do my panel I will talk a somewhere quite close to hollywood will listen :-)

Claridges room 547

Claridges room 547, originally uploaded by epredator.

For Jan's birthday amongst other things I booked a couple of days in London at Claridges. For those of you not form around here it is a very famous, very posh hotel with a great reputation, and possibly the finest place in London to stay.
Amongst this finery there is also Gordon Ramsay's at Claridges so I also booked an evening meal there. Out table was not until 9:30 pm but well worth the wait.
Having checked in, after a couple of cocktails, had a bottle of champagne in the room and then ordered a famous Claridges high tea to the room we were feeling very good when it got to the time.
We popped and had another cocktail at the Fumiere bar drinking from Lalique crystal.
We were then whisked into the classic dining room, full of so many staff, yet so unintrusive and really not pretentious.
We started with a glass of champagne, whilst we checked the menu. We had some very fine bread sticks, more like mini loaves than those you normally get. With some very light dips.
The wine list is a telephone directory, full of some amazing prices. We are not wine buffs, but do like good food. We settled on ordering a Red Cab Sauvignon for a resaonble price. The menu itself is by no means as expensive as you might think. Not ot be uncooth and talk cost, but the a la carte is a set price. £70 a head for a 3 course meal. Now for one of the best restaurants in the world, and given you can easily spend £40 a head in a fried american food chain restaurant in London I think that is pretty darn good.
I cant remember all the fine detail on the menu, lots of sauce and garnish names. Usually I take photos of food and events, but this just needed to be remembered.
As a started I order a roast quail rissoto and grated truffle. Jan had Scallops. Both we perfect. My roast quail was so tasty it almost seemed wrong to eat anything afterwards. The rissotto was not a pile of dry rice, but more of a rice sauce or gravy. Perfectly balanced.
Before the main cause we got a sort of potato and brocolli mini cause. Served in a ramekin. The brocolli and potato sort of mashed, but not quite, a lovely texture. On the top was what I can only describe as a froth crossed with a mousse. It seemed to be potato. I have described it as firm version of the starch froth you get when you boil some potatoes, yet pure and white and set. I may be way off, it was a surprise course and we where quite food struck and occasion struck by then,
Jan's main course was Dover Sole. Two thick, juicy steaks of fish. They almost looked like they were not cooked, just fresh from the fish. The quality of the ingredient and freshness was obvious it sat on a stack of pink fir potatoes, artichokes, carrot and cardamon sauce.
Mine was a beautiful roast duck, the sliced duck breast was layered into what looked like a christmus pudding shape (if that makes sense) sat on a some shredded greens, so the juice had seeped down into that. With brichouttes and sweetcorn and truffle side.
Amazing..... real skill and a real difference from anything else I have ever had. up until now a Duck course at a restaurant in Paris called Roger the Frog (an accidental find but very well frequented by those in the know it turned out) had been my favourite meal. That was about 12 years ago. So this is very significant.
Before the dessert we were served a shot glass size cheesecake. Then by creme brulee arrived as did Jan's chocolate fondant. The creme brulee was not in a container, freestanding on the plate, perfectly formed and fantastic texture, with a raspberry sauce drizzled. Jan's chocolate fondant had honeycomb and and orange sauce. looked fantastic and tasted great too.
As it was Jan's birthday they then brought out a plate with a small light sponge cake, like a madelene. With a candle and Happy Birthday written on chocolate script across the plate.
We finished with coffee and I had a lovely smokey port.
By the time we finished we were practically the last out. We just charged it to the room and then went back to room 547 in the lift. The lift has a sofa bench and you seem to need to sit down.
So a fantastic meal, and for what its worth I can thoroughly recommend it if you are in London and can get a booking.
I think we will go again to the restaurant.
Next we need to go to Heston's Fat Duck with his 3 michelin stars and see what the competition is :-)
Happy 40th again Jan :-)

A great presentation on careers

This is well worth a few clicks through. Lots of it resonated with me :-)

Career Advice '08

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: advice career)

Sand turtle

Sand turtle, originally uploaded by epredator.

On our hols in france there was a "sand castle" building competition by the 3 dads. Being short of buckets, and prefering these sort of structures I made this sand turtle instead. I am quite proud of it as the light worked well for the flippers.
The rest of the pictures (though not with anyone else kids in yet as I have not asked if they mind) are here

Toribash meets james brown

I really like clever machinima. This one fits as I know how hard, yet brilliant toribash is to control. Basically think stop motion string puppets.

I thought Roo was off to the BBC?

It came to my attention today, (Thanks Michael our visitor from the US and Joel for finding it on Youtube), that Roo has not really gone to be a portfolio executive for social media at the BBC. I must say though this could be considered a step up from what we have been doing

Rooparture part 2

A crowd gathered to say goodbye. Roo felt the pace midway through, then it was done. (the final departure was slightly more drawn out than the 20 seconds of video :-) )

v8's in virtual worlds

v8_tauran, originally uploaded by epredator.

We have been chatting about needing a top gear style bbc version of the gadget show. Bascially with me doing a clarkson and strapping a V8 on everything. I am available to do the show should someone in the BBC be interested :-)

Ren, Dave and Ian

Ren, Dave and Ian, originally uploaded by Jim Purbrick.

Ren Reynolds, Dave Taylor and I enjoy the Brighton evening sun and the great hospitality of the Linden's Second Life gathering. Nice to be relaxing not pitching for a change.

Roo's Goodbye

Goodbye, originally uploaded by Roo Reynolds.

Roo created this montage to say goodbye to us all. He has also given us all our Legotar too. That's why we are so sad to lose him. Creative, funny and just does stuff.

Guitar Hero DS in action - well sort of....

I tried to get a bit of film of my new DS lite + guitar hero working. Bearing in mind I was using an n95 to film it and needed both hands to play the game, I think it gets the point across. It works, its great, I like it alot.

**Update I had not read the track lists online so it was an immense surprise and made me even happier to find my favourite song ever in here. W00t! for Stray Cat Strut

Cool.... Upgrades

Upgrades, originally uploaded by epredator.

I finally decided it was time to upgrade my old DS to a DS lite. In game there was a custom Guitar Hero bundle. Well it had to be done. The Guitar Hero on Tour is the most insane add on I have seen.
It is even more mad than the small rubber covers I bought to reduce the noise on the Rockband drum set. Turns out they slowed elemmings drumming down and ruined her mojo, so they have been removed again. Still the box had an amusing tag line on it

Hi dad, your are a blogger now no going back

This is very cool, my dad has dived into computing the last few weeks. (hi dad if you are reading this). The ability to get a 3g card and a laptop, in an affordable way has meant he is able to dive in and just get on with it.
Despite all the years of me and computers, whilst taking an interest there is nothing like being thrown in at the deep end and trying to figure these things out. He has already come to terms with the fact that Windoze just does weird thigns sometimes. He has understood what to ask Google. He has set up a gmail account.
I got an email telling me he now has a blog. Now we had a little chat about blogging on the phone and he has read all the stuff I have written in various places. I suggested that his memories of Great Yarmouth as its industry changed and as he grew up was worth writing down in bits and pieces on a blog somewhere.
So bearing in mind that when I was doing the initial phone support we had a misundersatnding on the difference between shift and space on the keyboard and that the mouse pointer over something means covering it up to us tech geeks, but can mean vertically above to the uninitiated (funny but all makes sense both ways I think), dad now has hit blogger.com and started with boyron-boyron
Bear in mind also that when I tell C level executives or key customers that they need to just try blogging themselves, just one article, just one submit button before embarking on suggesting blogging to their employees (web2 is web do), well my dad has put many of those who have not dared to shame. He has had a computer for about 4 weeks.
A brilliant first step and I am very proud :-)

Catch the handbag

A hilarious situation has just arisen. This week being school hols the grandparents have decided to take the predlets on holiday down to Cornwall. That's a good couple of hundred miles west of here. The plan was to leave at 9am this morning. So from about 8:30 to 9am we had a massive whirl of activity and car packing. Lots of "have we got x" and "yes we have y".
Anyway, off they went.

A great sign of relief, made some toast, wondered what we are going to do all week as the predlets not being around leaves a massive void.
About 15 minutes into the wind down elemming notices her mums handbag, sat on our dining room table. Containing money, mobile, address of campsite etc.
ZOMG! panic. We had to make a decision to hope they noticed and came back or chase after them or both.
We went for both. elemming jumped in the car with the handbag and headed south west. I stayed to man the phone. The basis being, if they noticed and cam back atleast the handbag was going the right direction. If the handbag caught up then good. Worse case being elemming ended up in cornwall. Though it also turns out elemming has left her handbag here though does atleast have her phone. More importantly my toast is getting cold as I had to write this before I collapse laughing.
Luckily whilst writing this the phone went. They had noticed about 10 miles down the road and elemming happened to see them coming back on a regular road (as opposed to the motorway) and flashed them down. The bag exchange has been made and the holiday is back on.
And relax.......

Bye Bye Roo, Hello again.

As has been swarming around the interweb today Roo has given his notice and is ready to take up his new role as a porfolio executive at the BBC. I said pretty much what I needed to say on eightbar
Many people assumed it was going to be your truly leaving the fold, especially after my very public outing of criticism of the lack of balance reward wise for all our efforts. However, Roo has got a fantastic role in a place that suits his media savvy self.
We are very similar and very different at the same time and working together has taight me a great deal about social media, working contacts and being a generally gregarious person. All that I learned from Roo.
A comparison that works I think is that I am Jeremy Clarkson and Roo is Richard Hammond (but taller).
Anyway thankyou Roo for a great couple of years at the bleeding edge, I am proud of what we have acheived, and really happy at your new gig.
My 18 years in IBM has seen a fair few people come and go, but this one is the hardest, but the most deserved.
See you in LA :-)

100% livin' on the edge

100% livin' on the edge, originally uploaded by epredator.

I managed to get a 100% in Aerosmith guitar hero on Livin' on the edge. It felt very good, if not a little ironic at the moment. Yes OK its only medium but in all the games so far of GH iii and Rockband I dont think I have ever just maxed it, especially not on a 1st go.
I do really really like this song though.
Having been off ill for a few days, not eating, not being able to think and being on my own as elemming was away and the predlets went to their grandparents, I have a theory that on gaining a sense or normality, my normal flowing threads of ideas, problems, solutions and ideas that never stop, had done. I was for once, playing, and completely lost in it.
The odd thing is the times this normaly happens is when I am on stage or enthusing to customers about the usual virtual world subject. Then I am lost in the moment, fully focused, delivering what happens as it happens pulling various threads together.
Maybe, just maybe I should dig out the real guitar and approach it with this state of mind, rather than worry about the technical elements?

My record is clean again on Youtube

After a slight delay of nearly 2 weeks my youtube video of the terracota warriors and court 2 at wimbledon is back. Thanks to everyone for helping and putting up with my stand on this. So I have come back from Wimbledon, I am recovering from what is digital equivalent of an endurance rally raid, and my name is cleared once more. Happy days (and saw Henry Winkler the fonz in the canteen the other day)

Dear Ian,IMG Media has retracted its copyright claim with respect to the following video:http://www.youtube.com/v/a_ROI-4VqDY Title:Terracotta Warriors at Wimbledon 2008
This content has been restored and your account will not be penalised. For technical reasons, it may take a day for the video to be availableagain.

Wimbledon Team Photo (nearly)

We were summoned along with the club writers to court number 1 at Wimbledon. There was a confusing conversation with a police officer despite being there with a club employee. Then before you knew it they were trying to line us all up. Just as they did, in a rather jaunty gathering, it started to rain.

film with comedy commentary

film with comedy commentary, originally uploaded by epredator.

Patchouli Woollahra invited me over last night to a screening of the 50's house on haunted hill with additional funny sarcastic comments added. On top of that we have a set of us sitting there joining in with the heckling.
It was just what I needed having been in the same Sim for 2 weeks.
It was here (sorry that not a SLURL) the landmark was being a bit odd SyFy ComPlexus, Isles of Intrigue2 (160, 158, 25)
I keep talking like vincent price now

There is a chopper gag in here somewhere

Saturday and Sunday here at Wimbledon is a strange experience. The times we work and hours we do sometimes we just have to spend a few moments decompressing. Andy brought in his helicopter control kit. Sat and had a few goes, uttering as we do "we are here on a weekend and we are not getting paid" and then got back on with all the things we do all day.
This app is really cool though, its a trainer for RC helicopters. The model and simulation is brilliant and it uses the same controller as the real RC helicopter.
So for me watching this and seeing how it works was actually part of my work research. Mixing real and virtual as this does for training is an important thing.

Facebook, another reason it sucks (or is it lawyers)

We were having some fun with Facebook and a Wimbledon events profile and page. We thought it had been deleted by one of the team of writers. Apologies to Mike, he did not delete the Wimbledon Facebook page. Oh no.... Facebook did. Web2.0 corporate madness. The seemed to have taken the page down as Wimbledon is a company. Yet, Wimbledon is a community of people interested in tennis and a bunch of tech geeks from IBM too.
I have not been a great fan of Facebook, but apparently an organization cannot have a page, but an individual can. I see the need to stop spam, stop adverts, stop a takeover. yet here they have taken down a joint community venture that is a real social network because... well must have been too popular.
I am sure the lawyers have got hold of it all, control seeping in (like the mistaken take down by IMG of my Wimbledon youtube video and need for Viacom to be given all the youtube users details)
I know like the rest of the internet Web2.0 will route around this. However, I am very very dissapointed at facebook, and its probably the nail in its coffin for me.

Hands of my data Viacom!

It is dissapointing, but not surprising that a company like Viacom cannot seem to engage with the public in a way that makes them want their content, and those that do they decide to beat up on by forcing google to hand over EVERY users set of details and viewing figures.
I am not sure if Viacom realize that this is such an anti-web libertarian move that the damage it will do to their properties by this action is far reaching.
Yes, protect copyright, but.... if something is good people will pay for it. If you make it hard to consume on the web people will find a way.
You cannot have my details. In fact I think that each youtube user should take some class action or individual legal action against these bullying tactics.
A judge in the US decided how millions of users in the worlds data should be handed over.
I choose what I share, I am obsessively public, but by choice, not by large media company legal action.

Boogie with Britney and Ricky at Wimbledon

Ricky tried to play Boogie on my DS. It was outside in the back garden here at Wimbledon, it was late, very late, so dont judge his skillz too harshly

Odd coincidences and Wimbledon

Slot Racing, originally uploaded by epredator.

During a break at the conference in Rockingham some other people popped into the green room. One was Dennis Payne who runs the brilliant slot racing company Fordpark Raceway

It turns out Dennis was once a ball boy for a few years at Wimbledon and worked on cengtre court during a very different era of tennis. It was incredible to hear the players he had seen and the difference in the game to todays hi tech approach.
I love coincidences, and it was great to meet him. Also to talk about the various clever things we could gadget up to the slot cars, assisted GPS, rfid tracking, onboard cameras etc...
The slot racing looked great too, though I never got out to have a go with it running as I was usually presenting or working.

Michaela Hyde and Michael Rod (and my laptop)

Michaela Hyde and Michael Rod (and my laptop), originally uploaded by epredator.

I was presenting at Rockingham raceway in the midlands to hordes of kids. The MC's are Michael Rod and Michaela Hyde.
Now as a tech geek and film fan Michael Rod is part of my youth. On Screentest I distinctly remember watching it to see clips of Star Wars and Battlestar galactica.
Then I watched Tommorrows World relgiously. A fantastic expo of all things tech and future in the 70's and 80's. It was initially live too. Live demo's of the future. Very much like the gadget show.
It is actually a great rush and honour to be able to share what I do with people. When they are people who infleunced me and my choices in career it is even better and an honour for me to be here.
Everyone on this tour is realy friendly and knowlegable, I could do this for a living... hey wait.... I do :-)

An odd perspective

An odd perspective, originally uploaded by epredator.

This did come out as an odd perspective, but really the oddness was that poor old judge went to the Wimbledon media canteen to get 2 tea bags for a drink.
They rang up a cost of 3 whole english pounds, and he was distraught to finf something more expensive than petrol.

Widgets, Widgets, Widgets Dot Wimbledon Dot 2.0

A I have blogged this on eightbar and on my internal IBM blog I thought I would put it here too :-)

This year more than ever before the Wimbledon web experience is much more what us Web 2.0 geekanisters would like to see. Letting people experience Wimbledon wherever they happen to be. I am not just talking about the Second Life presence
This widget is another prime example, able to be embedded and posted all over the place, facebook, blogs etc. It is also personalized to the user, the players they choose to follow. Its been a quiet revolution for a website that got 266,311,332 page views last year over the event, but one that I am very happy to see.
So props to Stephen Hammer and the Atlanta sports event crew for putting this widget together. You have the next 7 days to enjoy its live features.

Fame and coincidence

Its really funny that we have a picture John Lydon on the wall here in the Wimbledon house. I took the photo the other day of Jay posing by it.

I was playing with my cut down crazy talk doing various faces and thought I would try this one.

Then.... I happened to be showing Qdos for a laugh and it turns out the list I picked... There is John Lydon, in qdos terms slightly better score than me.
Of course I think Qdos needs to sort its act out and let us have single names. The Qdos is for Ian Hughes not epredator :-)
Not serious just a bit of a fun game and another strange coincidence that I said I would do a seperate post on later :-)

Wimbledon08 middle sunday - like a stop over on a long distance flight

Middle Sunday here at the Wimbledon championships is a much needed rest for most people. Usually we are just too tired to do anything much, but we tend to all go our own way now on the day.
Still being in the house in SW18 I really could not be bothered to head up the various hills to Wimbledon village, but instead (eventually) took a stroll to Wandsworth town. Basically just because I needed a long walk, and I got to see something different and different people wandering about.
Before I went that direction I popped to out local shop for some supplies, and its right near the park. Already there were quite a few people queueing for tomorrow. Whilst moving the queue for security reasons from the side of the club is a good idea, it is surely good for all the people. The park makes a much more festival side to the whole queuing thing.

It turned out on my detour walk to Wandsworth that a road near us is nearly Ricky's surname. Just an odd coincidence which requires collecting with all the other ones this champs in a post of their own!

A little local art shop, which was closed had some very neat urban gnomes too

So what did I find in Wandsworth (funny every time I type the W I want to type Wimbledon cant think why)
Well I ended up in Game and HMV, but I did see Young's Brewery

Armed with GPS on the N95 I took a bit of a detour, not much just the next road across and it turns out that there is a massively ornate church just at the end of the road. St Barnaby's.

Anyway, I strolled back and spent a few hours playing Boogie on the DS making a little fat man dance to britney spears and some other classics. It was odd as I was going to watch the new Rambo movie, but just could not be bothered. Save that for home when I have a proper TV and sounds system to hand.
The best thing though was my spinach and ricotta pasta. I bought a £2.49 packet, put ina pan with water, salt and olive all. 7 mins later served on a plate with butter and black pepper.
Given my previous post, it is amazing how for £2.50 and 7 minutes of gas I ended up with something very very tasty, cooked al dente. So.... be nice if the venue could sort that out given the prices they charge out companies. Or maybe just pay staff to clean a food prep area and we will cook ourselves and pay a small amount of whatever the food equivalent of corkage is.

Anyway, looks like Spain have just won the Euro2008 final against Germany. Twitter will be happy as Summize was full of chat about "go Spain"

DS drumming mad Skillz

Rob who joins us at Wimbledon to work with Jay dealing with all the photos editing, processing and sorting out for the wimbledon website is a true gaming guru and keep and amongst other things a Golden Eye N64 Uk champion.
He he is in the garden of our rented house playing a superb import bemania game on his DS. As you know I love rockband, well this is the mini version with drums.

Yes we have to live on this. How glamorous

Yes we have to live on this. How glamorous, originally uploaded by epredator.

The food here at the Wimbledon press centre is not great. I am not a pro-food photographer but this is the best thing I have had so far. Not saying a great deal.
Having given up on the 4 types of sandwich, I resorted to yoghurt.
As Jay points out there is also the profiteering immorality of the prices knowing media corps are going to suck up the expense.
So I think that tommorrow (middle sunday day off) I will have to find some real food to eat, but not this
which was my oh I give up no more stodge or bacon!

failwhale

failwhale, originally uploaded by epredator.

I decided to join the failwhale facebook group to honour the out of service picture we get on twitter occassionally.
I did a quick SL sign, but what I want to do is recreate it as a sculpty.
Maybe have an app detect and then rez it in SL when it happens.
Shirts, hats, contact lenses all to do yet too. A side project of course

When audio goes wrong

We normally have gladiator playing as we drive past the queue into Wimbledon. No reason, its just inspiring as is Wimbledon. It was an in joke for a few days.
Today our commute was adjusted in an amusing way

Andy as an Avatar @ Wimbledon

Another Crazy Talk special :-) it made us all laugh. Andy is part of the furniture here at Wimbledon

Jay and Johnny

Jay and Johnny, originally uploaded by epredator.

He could be wrong, he could be right. Jay our designer of legend poses with a Mr Lydon nee Rotten in our Wimbledon house before heading to the venue

Jay is making a foray into blogging this year on this site so pop on over and get his perspective on the designer and photo role that he has with IBM @ Wimbledon

Oi! where's my video gone.

**update 9:20am 25/1/08
Just had it explained to me that IMG had been trawling for copyrighted material and accidently revoked my video. I have had a conversation indicating that we want people to be able to youtube and record their time at Wimbledon and that we they need to be careful in the balance of brand ownership and protection, against the blatant ripping of content. As we engage with a brand we take a little ownership of that brand. Its a hard balance for media rights companies, and there are subtleties and impact way past the obvious. Still its getting sorted and normal service will be resumed. I did also point out I dont want special treatment because I sit in the room next door, this care for public content needs to apply across the board.

*original post for the record
I was a little surprised just now to have got this DMCA removal of a video I just posted to youtube. As I work onsite, I have access to the wimbledon grounds, but where I shot the video is open to the public, and we had a photo session there today for 10 mins.

The new number 2 court is being built and some terracota statues are in place of some of the players. I videoed them and the court and cut a small video becuase it all looked like a Second Life build.

"This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by IMG Media claiming that this material is infringing:

Terracotta Warriors at Wimbledon 2008: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ROI-4VqDY
"

Someone being a little heavy handed. So I have filed a rebuke via email. However i suspect some conversations will be needed tommorrow with some "colleagues"

And its posted on eightbar

If it turns out I am wrong in some way then that puts pay to any form of behind the scenes commentary. Could be an honest mistake on their part. Either way grrrrrrr!

Epredator at work

epredator at work, originally uploaded by rickydiver78.

Ricky very kindly took this photo of yours truly at my desk at wimbledon

More book thanks:- brushing print shoulder with fame

More book thanks close to fame, originally uploaded by epredator.

A former colleague Walter Hehl in switzerland has written a book on technology futures. I had a nice list in this post of books where I get a mention or had some hand in, this is now another one. The book has some pictures I had done of Wimbledon 06 and Walter, and many of the Zurich crew had dived headlong into Second Life and virtual worlds with us in eightbar.
The cool thing about this thanks page is the company I am sandwiched between. Grady Booch, Oliver Goh, Me and Ray Kurzweil.
It gave me a real kick seeing this today.

My CV as a Tag Cloud - CV 2.0 ?

A colleague at IBM found another colleague at IBM's side project website. A tag cloud generator, and decided to pop their CV through it. It gave some really great results so I gave it a go too on wordle.net
The results are very impressive, and quite an interesting way to represent who you are and what you do.
My full public CV is linked on the right of this post, it was the source for this.
If may be an interesting way to look at what people have written and decide if they fit in a role that you have or compare tag clouds of jobs versus people.

I suspect there are not that many tag cloud position descriptions that would match with this one though (he said modestly)

Radio control car with motion tracking headset - Awesome

On the gadget show last night they had this awesome radio controlled car. An in car camera, but one that responds to your head movements and tracks what you want to look at. It projects the incar view to you on a visor headset. Fantastic stuff.

Glassdoor, public salaries and does that add up?

I have become intrigued by glassdoor.com and I am not the only one I should imagine. It aims to help demystify salaries and employee opinion by gathering mass contributions in a web2.0 ugc style.
Clearly this taps into the whole trend for sharing, and one that I am usually quite happy to go along with. Indeed I think that openess in organization atleast on salary when performance is said to be relative to your peers when rated, yet the results are secret seems a bit barmy to me.
However the openess on pay has to be across the board, a few of us volunteering publicly to share will simply be used as a weapon by those who choose not to share.
The anonymous nature of glassdoor tries a different approach. Many corporates benchmark themselves against the wages and benefits of others, but again its cloak and dagger stuff. I mean that information in the hands of a potentially disgruntled workforce leads to all sort of problems for those attempting to keep control of the purse strings. A prime example if the current petrol tanker drivers strike. Fuel companies have to publicly declare their earnings and massive profits, also maybe the bonuses of bosses to shareholders for accountability. Well, thats public information and sure enough those workers down the food chain will say "where is my share?"
However, getting back to glassdoor. There is another side effect that will happen. Clearly people who share what they earn will feel underpaid and be wanting to prove it in general. If the mass amount of data on the site is people who feel underpaid and undervalued then the averages will be low. Those averages will then not help those salaries increase? The opposite may be only the very well paid confess, as an anonymous blag "loadsamoney" style. That make the average insanely high and makes the actually average paid not to badly done by population annoyed along with the undervalued.
Of course the way around this is not individual action, but companies publishing all their salaries, but that is very unlikely to happen.
So we are left with something that really should work, should be done, but seems to be in a place that would take a politician from the West Wing tv programme to sort out.
Yes I have shared mine on there, mainly to feel what it feels like to give that information. Its never really gone well if I have discussed my salary with anyone. People with less experience are bound to think its too much, people with more experience laugh at it and remember back, people with the same or near experience...well they are in competition so who on earth believes anyone.
Lets see where this one goes.

Wow I am in a lot of books

I just did a quick count up of the number of books I have made it into in various ways the past 2 years. I have kept fairly up to date with references on delicious to epredator I keep a pile of press cuttings and pamphlets to show the grand predlet's one day, and also to remind me of what an amazing time this has been with virtual worlds, IBM and of course Second Life in particular as Ian Hughes/epredator/epredator potato. So, by way of personal ego massage and plug for some great books here goes:

Second Lives by Tim Guest - A major part of the chapter on the rise of corporate interest in virtual worlds and of course Wimbledon
The Making of Second Life by Wagner James Au - A very kind mention in the list of thanks, something I did not expect as much of the great stuff in this book is before my time as epredator potato.
Eating the IT elephant by Richard Hopkins and Keving Jenkins - A nice credit suggesting I was helping put the final nails in the coffin of powerpoint architectures.
Second Life the Official Guide (Second Edition) (by lots of folks) - Not seen a copy yet, but I appear to be in the index (*update my copy arrived today from Amazon and ther is a shiny new whole page on epredator potato, thanks to Wagner James Au again as I now remember the vignette I wrote for the page)

A brand new book on marketing 2.0 on its way to the publisher as I type.

It seems I should write my own book, or maybe I should save that for when its all business as usual :-)

Yikes £1.19 a Litre

Yikes £1.19 a Litre, originally uploaded by epredator.

Enough said really. Very expensive to move around these days. If only we have some sort of way to communicate as humans, yet still feel the presence of others, we could call it a metaverse or something.

It's amusing when the sky schedule display combines in such ways

It's amusing when the sky schedule display combines in such ways, originally uploaded by epredator.

This happens a lot, either the names are truncated on the on screen viewer in amusing ways, or two programmes flow into one another as a concept.
One to look out for :-)

NakedGun GTAIV skit from games radar

Thankyou to Michael Buckbee for tweeting this
The guys at gamesradar have the full article here, but as they allow embedds, the video is here. The intro sequence to Naked Gun/Police Squad in GTAIV. Sheer genius.

I wish all my avatars had this attitude - Rockband

This is video of epredator on guitar. Green spikey hair (the consistent thread across worlds where possible) but its an awesome avatar. Nice work by Harmonix to allow this sort of customization. Check out Rockband.com