A very pretty corpse

Went to Herstmonceux for the day and a delightful day it was too. The castle, though extensively rebuilt in the early 20th century, retains it's charming character and the grounds are well kept too. It's great that it's still very much a working institution too- Queen's University of Canada has its international study centre here, and in term time the place is all abuzz with students and faculty, and even when we visited they were setting up a reception for the Canadian High Commissioner. Also on the grounds is the Observatory Science Centre, Herstmonceux, occupying a classic peice of post war high quality British Architecture- I really hope it's listed as it combines the excellence of workmanship and aesthetics that the best of the UK can manage along side the hilariously excentric and impractical that we manage- at night astronomers would regularly find themselves stumbling into the lily pond placed centrally within the unlit compound.

There is a note of sadness to the centre though. Althought the castle itself and many of the other building the Royal Observatory built on the site during its residence are still in active use, and the observatory continues to provide excellent facilities for visitors and amateurs, the institution that founded it, one of the oldest scientific institutions in the world, was disbanded entirely in 1998. The functions of the once pre-eminent faculty are still ongoing, but again it strikes me that this was another example of the dying stages of an institutional life cycle.

The Royal Observatory had had a clear purpose when founded, a purpose defined by the limitations of the technology then available. It totally dominated the collection, interpretation and disemination of knowledge and expertise within its feild, and in a way this is another example of vertical integration (pace EMI of the 1920s, Sony of today). Key to this was the fact that all the science could be done in the UK, and that the end user of the knowledge was intimately intwined with the establishment- it was a department of the Admiralty, and ships were the end users of the astronomical data they produced.

So why is the RGO no more? Almost everything that could have changed did change- the science advanced to the point where a UK sited base was far less capable than one on the top of a mountain in, say, the Canaries, so that moved, leaving the Sussex Observatory something of a white elephant. More than that though, the science of cosmology marched on, demanding ever larger and more elaborate instruments to verify it's findings, so that the last soely UK financed telescope was procured in the seventies. The users marched on too- the Admiraly and the observatory became officially independant in 1965, and by the eighties astro navigation was an increasingly secondary tool behind the emerging sat nav kit. Astronavigation is still the fall back, but GPS is pervasive, cheap to buy, and requires far far less training to use. For the moment, we're pretty pally with the providers too. (It's not as if astro nav is any more independent from the USA- the almanacs are joint published with the US).

Still, it does seem sad that an institution that drew together such excellent science, and in such romantic surroundings, can have fallen from it's golden years so quickly. There is still n astronomer royal, but no flat in a castle, no extensive research staff, no rights of passage for astronomers allowing the formation of a proffesion wide esprit de corps. It may not matter, or it may. It's only eight years since the great institution disolved away into a collection of tourist atractions and disparate research functions in other instiotutions with different agenda. I suspect it'll be at least an orbit of Saturn before we begin to see the hole left.

A personal account of the rise and fall of the observatory.


The Observatory is having a special weekend to observe the 'String of Pearls' mini comets as they approach the earth on the 12th and 13th of May from 8pm to midnight (weather permitting!).

Speed trials

trim4
Originally uploaded by meeware1.

To Newhaven this afternoon, to recommision the Water Pippet after the winter. Seeing as the car boot sale was off we went over and met up with Goeff after lunch, remounted the engine and set off up the Ouse for a quick spin. I hopped off at the new dredger quay to film her running up and down, and to see if the trim was ok. The new engine is a bit lighter (and sooooo much quieter) and Goeff noticed the bilges were only getting wet forward. Looking at this shot I'd say she was well trimmed, but we might shift a little ballast aft when the anchor line gets looked at.

Nissan Micra throttlebody circuit

Nissan Micra throttlebody circuit
Originally uploaded by meeware1.

This is the bit I soldered. Those three resistors on the right join up with the plug via three joints that are rather dry and matt in this shot. A bit of reheating, suck off the old solder, and resoldering and the car is back in action. It's been a little jerky this morning (we went to a car boot sale that was cancelled when we got there) but now seems to be running smoothly, and hasn't stalled since last night when we ran down to Asda. I think all the compensatory adjustments that have been made 'till now have her running a bit rough and rich. A quick retune and she'll be fine.

I hope!

Mr Fixit

Just repaired the car, which is quite surprising, since I haven't been seriously under a bonnet in 20 years or more. Top tip- do it, it's easy. ish.

We have an elderly but happy Nissan Micra, and the throttles go, so eventually they start to stall a lot. Apparently it's down to some electrics in a sealed bit of the throttle, so you can get a new one from Nissan for £400, or a refurbished part from around £80 (usually nearer £150!), or you can roll up your sleves, hack it open and resolder the joints. Which I've just done. I shall be smug for most of the next two weeks off. As long as it doesn't fritz on me.

Fork in the path

Fork in the path
Originally uploaded by meeware1.

Out on the downs again at last on Sunday, with Rowan and Matty Mo. Glorious stark day, chill wind, but few clouds and the light was just piercing. Over from Littlington to Jevington via Lullington Heath, lunch at Eight Bells, and back by Charleston Bottom and Clapham House. Normally an easy schlep, but we were still recovering from The Wonderstuff on Saturday, so a tad sore later.

dti applications in....

Enourmous thanks to Matthew Addis of ITI and Tim Courtney of Xyratex for their sterling efforts in getting in the proposals for the dti autumn technology programme. Can't really go into a huge amount of detail on the proposals, but suffice to say we're looking at a very interesting range of areas.

The next project framework we're looking at is the EU FP6 call in April for advanced search in audio visual technologies. Not entirely sure what sort of thing we'll get into there, but I can imagine some interesting progress being made on work we've already done in Prestospace. New Media will probably be looking at some projects too.

Of course one possible barrier to this might be that EU projects do tend to work on quite a long cycle; it can be eighteen months after the initial submission before you really get started on the project. New Media are getting used to working in a far faster and more iterative way, through channels like the Innovations Lab. There is a real pressure on to get new and better navigation models developed, and trial and error is no bad way to do this. I'm sure it'll get some good results.

It is difficult though for a process like that to take the best of great efforts going on in the accademic and research domains, and that does bother me a little. There are really brilliant and effective tools being made, but getting traction and turning sometimes startling developments into the 'real world' can be extremely difficult.

lion_group.jpg

lion_group.jpg
Originally uploaded by meeware1.

Ah, here we are, all on stage for the dress rehearsal. Not a huge stage, as you can see, but very intimate with the audience, and the lighting was very good too (cheers Doug!).

Those cuffs are home made by the way, half a dozen toilet tubes, some warm leatherette, and a few dozen paper fasteners.

The Art of the Dog and Pony

To the dti last Wednesday to do a show and tell as a part of their 'Future of Broadcasting' day. Biggish audience, including all sorts of IT, University, technical and industry bods, and really rather good. It was really focussed on public funding for projects, but I was there to give it a bit of context- a voice from the real life broadcasters so to speak.

Of course broadcast covers a multitude of sins, and I'm only tucked away in the back corner of the archive, so I was spreading myself a bit thin trying to cover it all, but I did warn them that I had a biased point of view, and that I worked in a shed in Brebtford, not a nice building in White City, so they should take what I said with a pinch of salt.

I tried to cover all the things that make me worry about the future of the BBC, except those things which are due soley to the vagiaries of our leaders. In pointing out the core problems, rather than the mistaken solutions we may or may not be taking, I think I gave them a good flavour of the radical and revolutionary elemental forces at work in broadcast.

I did mention one particular blog in particular- the long tail- there is a link over to the right there>>>

Anyroad up, the whole thing went jolly well, thanks in no small part to some lovely graphics pinched striaght off of Matt Locke in New Media. And the University of Brighton have asked me to give them a lecture off the back of it, which is tremendously flattering, and I think I would like to do that very much.

A thesp is boUrnE

Just finished doing aplay in Eastbourne- very different experience- never trod the boards before, well, not for 20 years or so anyway. We did 4 nights of 'The Lion in Winter' at St. Mary's Eastbourne old town, and it went rather well. Houses of between 60 and 110 for the run, and very well recieved. I think my sister in law (the producer) broke even.

I did find I became a paranoid freak for a couple of weeks, and it's rather nice not to be again. It's very very difficult to know if you're really any good, and it's terribly difficult to take on board criticism, even of the most contructive kind, once the run is going. Still, I feel I did ok, I don't think I left any of the rest of the cast hanging, and it was, by the final night, actually quite a buzz. It took the whole run pretty much, bt by the last scene of the last act of the last night I was really getting into it, giving the part room to breath, really swooping along.

Maybe, just possibly, I'll try again one day.

Cast photos are somewhere on Flickr.

The broken crest of a wave

Had a visit a few weeks back to the EMI archive at Hayes, near heathrow airport. It's a fascinating place- not only do they hold the paperwork and the masters for almost a century of music recordings, but they've also a small museum. A museum of what? Well they have early TV cameras, Radars, magnetic resonance imaging kit, and of course many beautiful old gramophone. As we explored the place I noticed a picture on the wall of the site some seventy years ago or longer. Where we stood has once been a station, two schools, vast offices designing and managing the worldwide distribution of state of the art music replay devices, lumberyard supplying the raw materials, pressing plants. As the years rolled on the expertise in that place spawned countless innovations- and during the second world war the engineering expertise on this site was a huge part of the technological war effort; testament to this is a map on the wall that was found in a downed Luftwaffe bomber. The EMI plant is very clearly marked!

Today though, for all the fascinating museum exhibits, the archive has a melancholy air. The company that spawned so many revolutionary technologies, and had the nouce to exploit them all, now just makes music. In fact all it does is invest in recording music, and then licenses it's IP and markets it. The EMI that was a fully vertically integrated entertainment system, with diversification and innovation at every layer is now a far smaller and more specialized operation.

Look around and you'll see the other bits of what was EMI- Vodafone, Marconi and many others were once spawned under that umbrella. Perhaps some of them can still innovate and succeed. I think, perhaps not- they are tied into their core market, know their specialization, and do that pretty well. In the great capitalist scheme of things this evolution has probably brought a very great deal of profit for a very great deal of shareholders. But is it better as a company?

It's struck me since my visit that here are parallels today with the story of EMI (a story I have only the most cursory familiarity with). Entities like Sony are today stretching through the whole delivery stack, from content to the ear via products and services. They're not the only ones.

Are IBM and the BBC now slipping down the back side of this wave: shedding creativity and innovation? From inside the beeb it does feel a bit like it. I understand the pressures that lead to the drive to shed areas that technology has left behind- would it have made any sense for EMI to have kept the cabinet making part of the business into the early 21st century? Probably not, and similarly the loss of some area's of the BBC make sound sense.

But think what goes with that- IBM no longer have indigenous laptop designers and builders who can innovate with them- the BBC no longer has the indigenous IT expertise to innovate and run it's own digital asset management system.

Some people are still integrating, still growing, so I think the cycle still holds. I'd like to see it begin to loop back around here- just not sure how.

Spoken Word/ Annotatable Audio

I was stunned and then shrug shouldered happy to hear about a BBC project doing almost exactly what another BBC project was doing. Only different, but so similar it's amazing. Anyway take a look at Tom Coates' brilliant last project at the beeb, then look at the Glasgow Caledonian Spoken Word project , which is spokily almost the same functionality but done a bit differently, and as an education aid for legal students, but is largely the same approach to the same question.

Now to get really spookey- both have BBC input with, until this week, practically no, zero, nadda, knowledge of each other! Fantastic!

I shall work harder at this whole KM thing. Got a way to go though.

And a final p.s. in case anyone thinks this is inappropriate etc., you're wrong. Keeping this a bit private would rather perpetuate the error. I'm trying to fix things here!

Breaking barriers.

I realised the other day that the IT service we (the archives) get is not the same as other departments get. I knew about the integrated telephony and IT service the HR had sorted a few years ago- this is very handy. For instance if you have a telephony application that depends on a desk top client, a joined up service for your desktop and phones is good sensible stuff. And when only one company is delivering both you have to wonder what sort of idiocy kicked in when we got our contract signed. Ah well I thought, next time we'll get it right.

Then I found out about the New Media set up- Siemens, the new owner of our old IT crew, have subcontracted the desktop support to an outfit called Lapworths. And they will build anything you like. This is rather like running a steam train service, and finding out another part of your steam train organisation is allowed to use jet aircraft.

Often I find aditional barriers to doing my job, and I have to take these barriers onboard, and work with them, and learn to bend and adjust my aims. And then, every so often I fond out that someone elsewhere in the organisation has seen these rules for the abitrary whimsical nonsense they are, screwed them up, and binned them.

I shall do likewise.

Fnar translations

Genius to be found here:
http://americaninlebanon.blogspot.com/2005/07/backstroke-of-west.html

happy week

Horray into london three times and didn't get blown up at all! Yesterday's festival of flourescent jackets at Clapham junction was a tad surreal -seriously up to a dozen cops on every platform all day- but no obvious guns. Brighton station not so nice- two blokes with HK 5.56mm assault rifles do not make me feel reassured- and knowing the sort of mess those things make, I can't really see them being very useful in a crowd.

Anyhoo- the Glasgow Caledonian pair are back up north after impressing many with their Spoke Word a/v teaching tool. It's good to see people coming in and rocking the boat- shaowing us that there are plenty of ways to skin cats, and we shouldn't be too smug about our current feline peeling activeties.

Also R has bought a very natty sony mp3 player- sadly though it won't tak drag and dropped MP3s off a pc unless that PC is running Sony's own drm savvy application. Unless that is you install a new OS on the device. I got as far as finding the exe files for the new OS but she decided she'd rather not fillet the software on her shiny new toy just yet. Harumph.

Dusting off

It's Reith day plus four now, and I didn't lead a revolution. I have spent the week talking to loads of people all around the place though, and there has been just enough grass roots common sense, bravado, gumption, imagination and sheer go for it bloody minded ness to convince me the spirit of the duffer is still with us.

I think new tools are helping too- Blogs, Wikis and the whole punktechsuite is allowing peole to begin to rewire the whole place under 'their' noses.


Nice day in Brighton today. Lunch at Brighton Rocks was lovely.

Hemispheric exeunt

A few more minutes now and we'll be leaving this side of the planet. Next stop will be Singapore- further than I've ever been- other side of the equator? possibly! I ought to know, but it's not something I've needed to track previously.

The flat seems ok- it seemed to behave itself and stop falling apart yesterday just after lunchtime, so Jo should be fine. It's good to have a flat sitter, reassuring. Especially with a boiler that flakey.

Right, no more reithianess for a month- all chilled stuff- I'm not even going to hunt down mr witten and his greenstone people. Promise.

Something we haven't covered

I met a very nice lady in Edinburgh last year- she rented her apartment to us in the middle of town. It was very nicely firnished and very central, I can recommend it as a base for the festival. She had an unusual name, which turned out to be from her husband, an Iraqi doctor who has lived int eh UK since the seventies to avoid the predations of Hussain. She has plenty of family there now, and a more lucid and engaging condemnation of the actions of the US/UK forces could not be imagined.

For months now I have recieved email updates and passed these on to friends in output areas, but the reaction isn't there. I fear that there is exaustion, and that bar a few areas where the journalistic spirit is still kicking hard (in well defined limited areas) there simply isn't much fight left in this place.

Our semi- independant bretheren

Around the place at the moment are posters for UKTV content- this
seems a little odd. there is little or no public service rationale
behind their production, it's just the sort of programming that has
lowered the standing of the BBC in the audiences eyes, and it's only
available on sky- a mendacious and pernicious stain on the airwaves in
many ways.

In these troubled times a few staff members are less than happy with
this promotion, but then again many are unhappy with a challenge to
their role in producing this content. I've used strong alarmist
language in my commentary on this episode and it isn't really
appropriate to repeat it, but the intent was hyperbole, not
necessarily accuracy. In these troubled times though, umbrage was
taken, and probably rightly so.

Granfalloon Posts transplanted:

Granfalloon was my old blog- but a combination of typos and what not mean't it never had a proper URL, so now it has gone. Bye bye.

Here are the edited highlights of a short but happy blog:

Monday, March 21, 2005

The Birth of a Cult

And that got such a good response that I decided to start a cult:

Do you want the best for the viewers and listeners?

Do you believe in the redemptive power of public service broadcasting?

Then join me.

Be a Reithian.

I am starting a cult, based upon the principles of Lord Reith, and hope to garner members from across all of broadcasting and new media. I plan to hold an inaugural swearing in of the first 100 members on 2LO on Reiths birthday, the 20th of July

Still thinking of a suitable oath text- here's the first draft

I (name) do solemly swear on this the pattern of 2LO, to use this and all and every subsequent communications technologies to the fullest of my abilities to fullfil the highest aims of public service broadcasting; to inform, to educate and to entertain; to bring the best of everything into the greatest number of homes, in order to make better homes, better citizens and a better world for us all.

The circuit diagram as redrawn from the mechanicals in 1972 is here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/martin.ellen/oa/2LO%20Circuit.htm

Is the BBC Evil- a post that got responses

We were having a typically active discussion on the work boards and I posted this:

There are certain behavioral principles that emerge evolutionalrily in community based organisms- one of them is altruism. The game theory science illustrates it beautifully, but I'm no game theorist, so here goes with a friday afternoon outline:

If i assume you're nice, and act so, and you assume I'm nice, and act so, then we will be better off than any other two people we might be in competition with, even if one of them is really nasty. Weirdly, I'm also statistically better off if I assume everyone is nice, because I do so much better when I do meet nice people. Nasty people bugger me up, but so long as there are enough nice people around, I'm good.

Niceness, or a prevelance may be in our genes, a bit, but we're a flexible bunch, and we can be made nasty with just a few nudges in the right direction. A broadening wealth gap, a prevelant cultural approval of wealth and the corollary dispising of poverty (relative poverty that is, not the real ricketts and asthma stuff that still kills kids and old folk- that we just ignore) all change behavior.

Is there a lesson- yes!

We should build and foster cultural institutions that foster good citizenship, and have a clear conception of what that is. the institutions should know this in their very fibre.

This should be the BBC.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the BBC was put here to make the world a better place.

Flying into Austria- Thoughs on coming in to land

I think we're coming up on the alps now- the broad flat cloud quilt of northern europe is rucking up to the south, and more billowy forms are tumbling over jagged peaks in the distance. The sun is blazing from an indigo deep sky- the back of my hand is hot as I write this, and my eyes are squinting against the high altitude glare off the page.
We're dropping, slowing, gently. To our right the mountain puckered clouds creep closer; the ridges below are hidden, but for the highest and most distant. The ghostly powder blue of the shadowed flanks of the clouds reminds me of pictures in the Tate of Jerusalem. Landscapes by the Preraphaelites. Its a dusty hot blue to me- but it must be freezing out there.
A quick glimpse of brittle black mountain- so stark!
Lower, slower, feels faster somehow. Banking left, left, left I see sky deeper and wide.
Snowy fileds and dark forests- a scattered patchwork. Ski runs? Fire breaks?
Slipping between layers of clouds, filmy above and fluffy below.
Slight judder, first hints of the ground below.
Sinking- a valley wider and green, and gone again- in to cloud. Heat of the sun is gone.
Clouds a truculent grey.
Final approach- judders- looks flatter- had beenn wondering where they'd put an airport.
Bit bumpy now. Whoops.
All grey. Bank right, spidery dark streets and houses scratching between woods.
Do wolves live here?
Bank left- grey grey grey.
Tight judder- braking- smoother.
Level- low enough to see cars, gardens, trees, windows.
Quite flat out there.
Mittel Europe in Dunkel Grun and Weis.
A river- the Danube?
Landing.
Smooth.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Leaping, landing, leaping again

Right, well Graz was great- very very nice spot. The meeting was useful- though some areas seem a little slow in development things like front ends can cometogether very quiickly once functionality is settled. Would have been nice if it was further along, but there you go.

Spectrum was thought to be very interesting- lots of archives are in a position where spectrum covers there current ctiveties, and though it gets weak in the purely digital domain, the prospect of having solid standards for managing assets as they go through a digitisation process is very attractive. These are just the sort of standards that help projects get funded.

The town is really interesting- loads of old imperial building, even older town hall, and a great cultural scene including the very groovy Kunsthaus alien thing:.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon

Mid flight- or the moment under the moment

Tomorrow I fly off on a business trip, and saturday I move house, and in two weeks I go on a sabatical to New Zealand, and last week I ran a very large event, and just at the moment I feel like a pinball, or a log ball pass down the pitch- a hospital ball that could land anywhere, bounce anyhere, there or everywhere.

I think my life, my sanity and indeed my very existence as a cogent physical entity is entirely due to the manifest beauty and serentity of my wife.

Head vs Wall

Had a hard core week presenting the big project to loads of people, and thought great progress was being made. I actually got to speak to the 'makers', bypassing a collosal barrier.

However, the channels closed up again over the following six days to the pint where today I had to call someone to tell them I wouldn't be able to email them the crucial business analysis documents they needed in order to do the make.

Two steps forward...

There was a time, not so long ago, when phrases like 'you can't just make it happen' and 'its not worth the trouble' became anathama around here. What a lovely crazy scary time that was. Please let those times return.

Friday, February 18, 2005

Semantic web conference

Just when I thought my involvement in this conference's organising commitee had become a real strecth of my experience and how what I did for aliving was totally irrelevant and I should just back away quietly, the register points up this project at southampton: Southampton Classical Music Search . Amazing- this is just what I was working on in the archives the year before last! so I'm stiriing it up again withe the crew of grain to see if we can get back on the webby wagon.

Getting a bit open toed

I'm on a RN board, quite open minded surprisingly, and nuclear disarmamaebt has come up recently. Looks as though there is actually not much support for keeping the bombers for much longer- which was a pleasnat surprise. I sometimes wonder if there might not be a hippy in the heart of every englishman.

Progress on the meetings

Looks like all but one of the Crete programme commitee are on board. Wonder if I can find a heavy weight replacement for the columbia guy from around here? He's abig hitter, and the semantic web is a narrow field, but I'll have a hunt about.

KW is coming along well. Not sure on the numbers at the moment, but it's a good lineup- MS just got onboard. I think I could do with some accademics now, and maybe a few more archives... Need to make sure there are some good beeb bods.

Right, here we go, blogging. Hmm, this'll be nice, extra typping every so often.

I think I'll use this as a bit of an aide memoir. So, things to do:

1. Invite the committee for the crete thing, including sheffield bristol ibm and columbia
2. make sure the content is there for the sam site.
3. get the invites out for the KW workshop
4. Umm,
   
5. that's it for now.