rock

rock, originally uploaded by epredator.

this was a little odd, but having blasted around on guitar hero world tour i popped to the shop to get bread and milk. Even better than that i could not resist buying rock magazine. most mags are usually edge or 360 or at a push a car mag. with my guitar restrung, guitar hero in my head i just had to grab a mag with keef on the front and a story about the return of guns n roses.

guitar hero world tour

guitar hero world tour, originally uploaded by epredator.

Assembled, photographed (a bit blurred, getting used the x1). Still its here. So quick donation to children in need and then onto our own show. Lets rock

Patent 3rd Plateau

Patent 3rd Plateau, originally uploaded by epredator.

Yet more plaques. This time recognition of having a stack of patents filed for IBM. I wont explain the points system, but this is based on getting things in, filed and past the legal crew.
Ignore the fact it says November 2007 at the bottom :)

Another patent issued

Another patent filed, originally uploaded by epredator.

I do a fair few patent disclosures at IBM. Some of them get filed, but after a few years some get issued. You then get a plaque of the patent (or part of it). Its usually so long ago, and in such obscure legalize that its hard to remember what the original idea was.
This one arrived today, and, not being able to read chinese it has made it my most unusual work plaque.

life at the moment

life at the moment, originally uploaded by epredator.

The things other than family and food occupying my time. Including Rockband in the background

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.