A message for Ian

A message for Ian
Originally uploaded by adactio

Around the world messages of love an support are pouring in for Ian Forrester- AKA Cubicgarden, who fell ill a couple of weeks ago, and is in intensive care in Salford. Herb Kim paid tribute to Ian at Thinking Digital today too.

If you'd like to follow Ian's recovery his family are keeping up a Caring Bridge journal.

The BBC Backstage blog, which is Ian's usual stamping ground, is under my tender care for the moment, and we hope to post major updates on his condition there in future.

The Arch Umbrella

Ok so this one is more by way of illustrating the antithesis of my ideal. Sort of. This is a top end brolly from Swaine Adeney Brigg- possibly the most archaeic purveyors of overpriced, underspecified and lovingly crafted flimflammery. All jolly lovely if your idea of quality is to have had someone employ medieval techniques for hundreds of man hours over a design that hasn't changed in generations.

And frankly, yes, that sometimes is good, but what I realy want is the high tech uber design approach.

Still in the mean time check out this absurdly expensive, moderate understated, well made, umbrella with a secret booze compartment!

Brolly update

This is a glorious addition to the catalogue of excellence in umbrellation. An evolution of the not so humble sword stick, this is agressively pushing the envelope of the collapsible rain cover- bravo!

Le Parapluie Uncassable pour Self-Défense

How to fix an old alien

A few years back I wangled an Alienware M9700 to do tests on high end graphics and their impact in UI. This is an insane device- twin SLI video cards, raid0 striped hard drives, HD screen, 64bit processor. A very fetching metalic green too. Absurd, and at the time, for about 3 weeks I think, it was the fastest laptop money could buy.

Today it's still a very grunty machine- perhaps a little low on RAM to be considered truely top flight, and the video cards don't support the latest video formats. Never the less, when it started to cook itse;f and break down, it was well worth trying to fix. I spent weeks downloading various alittle bits of software to get into the temp sensors and see where the problem was- SpeedFan turned out to be a slightly patchy but useful tool, and showed that Elphaba was running hot enough to cook on, and that was why she was conking out after about ten minutes of doing anything complicated.

There is a coda to this inspection- at some point or other I downloaded an inspection tool that infected her with a really nasty 'windows security' virus. And at that point things went south fast. Anti virus software was working so hard and taking so long to hunt down the virus that it would conk out before finishing a scan! Heat, illness, all bad!

So, the first thig to do was to fix the hardware- cue a full heatsink stripdown, clean out and application of Arctic Silver, as described perfectly here! To be honest I was a bit nervous about this process- but the instructions are nice and clear, and after a dry run, the process went pretty well I think. Yesterday I just about managed to get Gimp running some pretty big transforms to push the processor and the temp topped out at 72 degrees, but was well handled by the fans and quickly drawn down again.

Now all that needs to be done is to completely rebuild the software layer, and I'm thinking of trying a 3way multiboot set up with win XP (for reliabilities sake) ubuntu 64bit (though possibly not with Grub2- found that very awkward in the past!) and Windows 7 x64. You know, for giggles! Might upgrade the RAM and disks too. One to ponder. Suggestions for OS's welcome too by the way- always up fro trying something new. Bear in mind though that just to turn on this beast really does need some pretty odd drivers!

Phinding the Ferpect Phone Part 1

Android, Symbian, WinMob, Apple, what to put in your pocket? As I have whinged a few times before, I'm on the road a bit these days, not least on the two and half hour commute to the office, so it seems sensible to explore how I can get on with the day job away from the desk, either at home or in the office.

I do have a very deeply retro Nokia Communicator 9500 at the moment as my personal phone- I occasionaly get it out amongst geeks and it couldn't get a better reaction if it was a portable difference engine with a foolscap Ada Lovelace OS.

It's actually a pretty dreadful phone, and a borderline useless PDA more or less gaffer taped together - the screen is ace, but almost completely wasted by the truey grotty UI with mixed UI patterns, nasty menus, and useless implementation of the d-pad pointer controller (apart from the random old school opera lite instal).

In truth, I only use this machine as an SMS terminal and phone, and it has been the source of may tweets etc. Crucially, I've not really developed an understanding of smart phones at all.

Next Post- The New Work Phone!

Milage

Apologies for utter blogging slackness of late, but basically I'm either on the road, or doing DIY right now, so there's barely time for the day job, let alone random bloggings. In fact, that post that just went up ideas and stuff, that's about a month old.

On the upside, I would like to say hi to everyone I've met for the first time at the Prototype sessions in Glasgow, or at Maker Faire in Newcastle, or anywhere else on the road since mid Feb, and say, yep, this is me, Ant Miller/ Meeware, and I would be delighted if you dropped me a line.

Ideas 'n stuff

Having a weird few days of doing prototyping, brainstorming, experimenting and thinking and talking with cool people in Manchester and Glasgow, and today, though I am a little sore headed and tired, the hangover seems to be distilling some cracking ideas.

So, in an effort to estanblish 'prior art' ona few things, here are this mornings top ideas:

Arduino breakout sheild built into a notebook cover.

I've got this recycled pcb notebook, but wouldn't it be great if I could plug an arduino into it and use it as a giant breadboard, with LCD matrix and other stuff built in. Pages from the notebook could be used like the Oomlout breadboard overlays. This is a cracking idea, and we could just build it!





Wood Lathe app on the iPhone.
Use the accelerometer to drive the bit into the wood as is spins, the vibrator to give a feel for the bite. Choose woods, make designs, trade your turnings. Have the screen fill up with wood dust so you have to shake and blow it off. It's all nice, it's a delight. You can take it to a meeting and legitimately call it a workshop.

Other great things I have learned this week:
Only two tube stations contain no letters from the word Mackerel (AHA! No correction- there is no "Bow" station- so there's only ONE!)
The longest word you can make from the top row of a qwerty keyboard is 'typewriter'
The international space station runs on GMT

Last Day at KW

After 60 years my dept is quitting it's historical, hysterical head quarters- the much vaunted, dodgily vaulted Kingswood Warren. And today is my last day on site. There's a mix of emotions here- actually rather a strong mix due to some very sad news we heard this morning, which I shan't go into here. Relating to the move though, one can't help imagining one hears snatches of Elgar's "Nimrod" echoing down the halls.



As a place to work, KW (as it's known to it's denizens) has charms and quirks a plenty. Huge spaces purpose built to shoot and show films, and converted decades ago to demonstrate television. Grand meeting suites with oak panels, and bay windows opening onto the croquet lawn. Here too was, for many years, the core of the BBC's onlne presence, built out of the sheer bloodymindedness of our now Cheif Scientist, Brandon Butterworth.



[Edit- I've just had a walk around the old site- and a grumble about the past is not the right send off]



What I won't miss about KW:

• Having no clue what's happening in the rest of the BBC ever.
• Missing lunch by 5 minutes.
• The lingering debilitating depression of the Varney/Highfield era.
• Vile tea and coffee.
• No mobile reception.
• Baking in summer, baking in winter (the central heating pipes liquid magma direct from the earths core to every single room)
• Long tedious deeply depressing conversations about previous senior management in the canteen.
• Empty offices and corridors echoing with the rattle of dismantling equipment.
  

What I will miss.

• The Ceiling in A-Block reception.
• That there's almost always a secret short cut from one place to another (it's great fun to finish a presentation to a room full of invited guests and then disappear through a hidden door!)
  
• Mullioned windows
• Flying rockets on the feild
• Deer and fauns in the morning mist.
• Seeing colleagues knocking mud from the allotments off their boots in the hall
• Long facinating deeply technical conversations about everything from linear induction motors to victorial optical intruments in the canteen.
• Always finding new rooms I never knew existed.
  
• Bowling googlies on the lawn.
• Carols in the snow.
  
• Yoga in the club hut.
• The Canteen Staff- stars one and all.
  

I know I never made the most of this place. I don't know if I could have. It seemed it had been here for ever, and we would never leave, but in an hour, I'm off.


* I joined R&D around the time of this lowest ebb, so much of this is hearsay, and in the interests of legal boilerplating, it can be read as a largely fictionalised account of the past.

CC Attribution to Rainrabbit for the mullioned window pic- one of very many lovely shots of KW from Rain.

Brolly Brilliant

A few years ago I went for a walk, a biggish walk, which I do sometimes do. And I took with me a very excellent umbrella I'd been given by the delightful people at RTE when I did a workshop at the BISA event they hosted. That wooden handled brolly served me proud on my walk in Andalucia, keeping the worst of the sun off me as I tramped up through the Alpujarras, and making a very handy walking pole.


When I got up into the Sierra Nevada peaks proper, above the snow line the brolly kept on working- a decent walking pole now doubled as a stop gap ice axe, and a wind break on exposed ridges as I hunkered down with a few biscuits. It even stood up well as a photo monopod with the Gorilla pod grip for my compact camera.

My trusty brolly did me proud, and I actually rather liked sauntering around BBC facilities with another broadcaster's logo splashed about- it got looks, raised eyebrows. It was cool.

And I left it on a bus in Brighton, sigh.

Still, what this brolly led me to think it that there is a real gap out there. That the last piece of outdoor gear to get properly techno fetishised is the umbrella, and there's a hell of an opportunity there.

Firstly it's a stick. Shock absorbing, adaptable, strong, and extendable- so many options in terms of mechanisms and materials immediately spring to mind- carbon fibre being the obvious first choice.

It needs a handle, shock absorbing, comfortable, ergonomic, possibly including atachments for cameras, and small compartments for storage. And perhaps this handle can convert into an ice axe head?

Then it has a spike, or whatever ending is appropriate for the terrain, with a sleeve to cover the far end/ centre of the canopy and act as a temporary second handle.

And there's the canopy itself- this is already water and windproof, but we can go further, and ensure it's properly impermeable to UV, and perhaps radio waves too (see later) but just porous enough to act as a large area water filter.

The spokes, always the weak link of an umbrella design, could be so much better made- titanium is the obvious choice, light, strong, springy, it could be structured to give the perfect shape...

The shape- why not a perfect parabola? Imagine the potential benefits of having an accurate parabolic reflector surface on hand in the wilderness to boost mobile phone reception (radio waves!), or to boost the visibility of signalling lights!

I tell yah this has got to be a winner! The Gentlemans Adventure Umbrella! I'd call it 'The Penguin'!

Mean while, these really do float my boat....

Victorinox Automatic Umbrella

The Blunt Umbrella

New Year Quiz

We just played this- have a go and feel free to post answers in comments:

TV
1. Arlene Philips was dumped as a Strictly Judge in favour of Alesha Dixon- what’s their age difference?
a. 25 years
b. 30 years
c. 35 years

2. Shudderingly odious toe rag Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time- how many complaints did the BBC get?
a. 110
b. 340
c. 1040

3. Gail Trimble won, but then was disqualified, from which show?
a. America’s Got Talent
b. University Challenge
c. I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here

Europe
1. Silvio Berlusconi was hit with what?
a. A fist
b. A tiny portable tv
c. A scale model souvenir of Milan Cathedral

2. Where was Roman Polanski arrested?
a. Rome
b. Switzerland
c. L.A.

3. Tony Blair wasn’t made president of Europe, but who was?
a. Angela Merkel
b. Herman Van Rompuy
c. Toad of Toad Hall

Science
1. What was discovered about the sheep on the Scottish Island of Hirta?
a. They swam there from the mainland
b. They’re shrinking because of climate change
c. They have no fear of helicopters

2. There was a total eclipse of the sun over India, Nepal, China, and Japan in which month?
a. April
b. July
c. October

3. The rocket to replace the space shuttle was test launched- what’s it called?
a. Ares?
b. Saturn?
c. Roger?



Film
1. Who said “She’s gotta have tit’s” ?
a. Tom Cruise
b. Mickey Rourke
c. James Cameron

2. What won the best picture Oscar?
a. Milk
b. Slumdog Millionaire
c. Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3. What was the biggest selling film in the UK in 2009?
a. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
b. Slumdog Millionaire
c. Up

Music
1. What living artist sold the most recordings this year?
a. Lady Gaga
b. Beyonce
c. Kings of Leon

2. Who did Kanye West interrupt with his “Imma let you finish” brain fart?
a. Britney Spears
b. Rhianna
c. Taylor Swift

3. Who headlined Glastonbury (Saturday, mainstage, closing act)?
a. Neil Young
b. Blur
c. Bruce Springsteen

Brighton
1. What was White Air 2009?
a. A climate change conference
b. An extreme sports event
c. An art installation on the south downs

2. Who was appointed to be the curator of the Brighton Festival 2010?
a. Simon Fanshaw
b. Anish Kapoor
c. Brian Eno

3. Brighton Rock is to be remade; who is not known to be in the new film’s cast?
a. Dickie Attenborough
b. Helen Mirren
c. Pete Postlethwaite

Breakfast is Best

I'm not a morning person. I owe many thousands of apologies for the growling sneering grumbling snarls I have inflicted on family and friends in the hours around dawn- and those soon after. I am however a tremendous fan of breakfast, probably becuase it's the only thing that can retrieve me from the slough of despond that leaving sleep thrusts upon me.

However, it was only last night, when attending a dinner in honour of an excellent friend (who gave us all a scare earlier this year, and whose birthday is especially precious) it struck me that evening meals are in fact less good than breakfasts. That is to say, a truly great breakfast can be much better than a great dinner. And further, that when I look back on my favourite meals, I can very easily produce a cracking top five breakfasts and still need to make a few explicit special mentions. Breakfasts are great!

The theory is thus: a great dinner, with superb service, excellent ingredients, exquisite presentation and all the rest, is really only ever going to leave me with one sort of feeling- a generally impressed, slightly smug, overstuffed tired indulgence. There just isn't the wiggle room, the option, for it to do anything else. A dinner is, at the end of the day, at the end of the day. You eat, then slump.

A breakfast on the other hand, has a FAR larger canvas to play with; it can set the stage for the whole day, for life itself. If the setting is good, with views and a bit of a breeze, it can be a springboard to adventure. If the service is sprightly, enthusiastic and attentive, your faith in human kind is essentially restored and all the people you meet for the rest of the day benefit, not just you. It goes on- energy, balance, excitment, engagement, all of these can spring from a good breakfast, not to mention the benefits of a goodly helping of fibre.

So, what are the five best breakfasts I've had?

#5 Bacon and Maple Syrup and Pancakes, Angel Inn, Windermere
Not perhaps where you'd expect me to say the best of this sort of dish is to be found, but it is brilliant here. To be honest I've had bacon and pancakes in the US, and usually, they over do it, leaving one reeling into the morning with rather more ballast than is useful. This was spot on though. Setting is a gem too, looking down along the lake.
As a dish I'd long steered clear- bacon + sweet = wrong. But no, it's ace. Especially with a banana milkshake and a coffee.

#4 Masala Omelette, Goa
A simple curried omelette on the beach in Goa, with the salt of the spray just blowing on off the dunes and the morning sun dappling through the palms is a proper start to the day, washed down with a spicy chai.

#3 Eggs Benedict at either the Real Eating Company in Hove or at Bill's in Brighton
Both these places take an almost perverse pleasure in doing simple food incredibly well, and there is nothing to choose between their eggs benedicts- both have the eggs done to perfection, the hollandaise fresh and lush, the muffins lightly toasted just so, and the ham sourced from some valhalla for heroically tasty piggies. Pricey, but devine.

#2 Huevos Rancheros, Argyle Steakhouse, Fourseasons Aviara, Carlasbad CA
Weird venue. Wouldn't really recommend it normally, but it was part of some massive, Cloud City Bespin like complex north of San Diego where I was speaking at a conference, and the main hotel restaurant (which did a superb crab benedict (I know!)) was a bit too full of children to be tollerable. So I wandered down to the golf course for a walk in the morning and found the bar there serving breakfast. So there I sat- only customer there, with a glorious view over the greens being waited on hand and foot and provided with the greatest mexican peasant breakfast imaginable was a delightfully mind boggling way to ease into a day of California corporate excess. And a golf course without golfers is just a nice garden really.


#1 Boogaloo Diner, 22nd & Valencia, San Francisco
This one saved my life- the perfect example of all a breakfast can be- simple, served with genuine care, and beuatifully made. I entered Boogaloo with a hangover a that would have felled a Wildebeast, and left with a spring in my step and a passion for life.


And five honourable mentions:
Hard Mans Breakfast, Hicadua, Sri Lanka
Double espresso and a Rothmans cigarette in a beach bar (sadly later flattended by a tsunami)
Gut Buster, Market Diner, Brighton
Enough saturated fat to run a small powerstation, on a plate bigger than Belgium- Sausages, burger, beans, tomatoes, eggs, hash browns, fried bread, black pudding, the list goes on and on. They have tea on draft too. Fabulous. However, I've never had it for breakfast, only as a stupidly late supper.
nebulous potato thing, St Francis Fountain, 24th & York, San Francisco CA
Very very nearly as good as boogaloo, but a bit busier and more popular. Had a couple of great breakfasts here, thanks to the PWN Depot crew.
An Eagle's Breakfast
Look it up.
Rowan's Welsh Rarebit
Actually better than any of the above, but I thought I'd limit the list the breakfasts that other people might actually be able to get, but I'm afraid unless she embarks on a dramatic and unexpected career change, I and only I have been given the world's best ever breakfast. Lucky me!

Me and My Mo

And so Movember draws to it's long awaited, and yet precipitous close. For four straight weeks I've been growing the most absurd facial hair I have ever considered diplaying, and done so against all manner of insult and accusation. This tache has endured allegations of 'thiness', 'fatness', victorianism, 'Fred Dibnerism' and even, in the end, of making me look like an over fed hamster. It has iched and bothered, strained soup, and tickled, and on occasion, I must admit, has picked up a vaguely cheesy aroma, if not very vigorously and thoroughly washed. I now wash it vigorously and thoroughly. Lots.

And yet, here we are, three days and a couple of public speaking engagements away from being once more clean shaven, and I am beginning to wonder if I won't miss it. The 'Flashman' comparisons are well recieved, and I'll miss the subtle double takes of the general public. 'Yes madam' I inwardly respond, 'this is indeed the finest tache you've seen today!'.

There's still opportunity to go to the Movember page and show your appreciation, or sympathy, by making a contribution to the very decent cause of prostate cancer awareness and research.

Blogging for Auntie

This is by way of an apology and an explanation of why this blog has tended not to get many posts just lately, and yet were you to ask me to my face, I'd tell you I've been blogging like mad. And the reason is- I've launched a new BBC R&D Blog!



Last Wednesday we went live, starting off with a great post from Matthew Postgate, controller of R&D, and since then we have posted on our recent triumphs at the RTS Innovation awards, the Distribution Application Layer research team, and the Ingex project in some detail. We're busly producing loads more posts and the plan is to have at the very least two a week appearing, but ideally rather more than that.

This does take a fair bit of coordination, cajouling and general whip cracking. As I've probably mentioned ad nauseam, the R&D team at Kingswood Warren is relocating early next year, and we're now counting the days (I've lost count, 91 today I think) till we go. That move will be pretty scarey- we have a two week window when both the new base and the old are open! Submitting blog posts is often a fair way down staff members priority list, and fair play to them for that.

Getting posts out at the same time as rebuilding the complete R&D website is proving very time consuming. Hey, it's near enough 1500 pages, it takes a while! Right now our plan is to have a big public hoo har and synch that with the move to Centre House (Feb 15th 2010) but we expect a soft launch some weeks ahead of that. May even let you know here.

Next week I'm up to MCR for BeeBCamp 3 which will be great I'm sure. maybe see a few good friends up there too!

Guardian Triumphant over Carter-Ruck

RT @arusbridger Victory! #CarterRuck caves-in. No #Guardian court hearing. Media can now report Paul Farrelly's PQ about #Trafigura.

It's a good day to tweet.

Guardian vs Carter-Ruck and Trafigura Over Parliamentary Questions

Very very quickly posting this in order to join in with the mass bypassing of what appears to be a vile and heinous miss application of legal restraints over parliamentary reporting. I sincerely hope that Rusbridger and co crucify the shits of Carter-Ruck on appeal (and that the judge involved takes a goodly chunk of gardening leave too, ideally slopping around in this mess).

So what is that the Guradian have been gagged from saying?

(292409) 61 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

With thanks to Nevali, Bill Thompson, and slightly grudgingly to Guido Fawkes.

And hoping like hell that every news channel in the country, online and otherwise, covers this like a virulent rash!

EDIT- After having this up live for two years I am now blocking comments on this post.  This is due to concerted attacks by Chinese spammers, either in an effort to counter any allegations against Trafigura or just homing in on a post for commercial ends.  I figure the former.  Well screw you, and screw your paymansters.  You're grubbing away at a pointless effort, and the people paying you are abject fucking scum.  One day you'll get democracy, a free press, the liberties to see the people screwing the worlds people and environment to make a yuan out of your desire to have the shiny toys you think make me and the rest of the west happy.  You can no longer comment on this post.  It's mine.  I've decided that I'll close it.  Don't like that?  Don't like the denial of liberty I'm imposing?  Sorry, perhaps you should vote or protest or something about that.  Perhaps even overthrow the government.  Trust me, it's about time.

IBC Conference and Exhibition Reflections

I may have given a bit of a false start to my IBC coverage this year. Sadly, after the enthusiasm of the first day I found the week long event a rather draining, and truth be told, demoralising experience. It wasn't without highlights though, and I think it's only fair I give a potted account of the best and the worst of the conference and the exhibition.

OK, so, highlights: Eric Huggers keynote was really good- in fact the session was excellent with great insights from IBMs Saul Berman and the hugely entertaining Rory Sutherland of Ogilvey- Rory's speech was a master class in erudite education disguised as a joyful ramble, and the image of a McDonald's drive-through full of half naked gluttons will be with me forever! However, these three luminaries, and their able interlocutor Raymond Snoddy, were among the very few in the exhibition who appeared to be prepared down the barrel of the gun of IP delivered content.

Quick sidebar here- The Canvas demonstrations shown (just a mocked up UI in fact, but ratjer a nice one) by Erik seem to have lit a fire under those in the broadcast market who had hitherto let such ideas slide them by. Now at last, some 3 years after the BBC rolled its sleeves up and started to see how a fully joined up IPTV platform could work, the great and good of european broadcast have started the HBB-TV project. This work is good, but it's late, and though the BBC are facing fair criticism for relying on proprietary components (especially from Adobe) it's perhaps salutary to recognise that this lumbering industrial standards approach from the old guard of european broadcast technology is years behind the reinvigourated BBC approach. Having said all that OFCOM and the BBC Trust may yet mandate that an open standards based approach be taken- who knows how that would turn out!?

Across the conference the best attended sessions tended to be those with the most 'conventional' view of broadcast. This is not to say that 'conventional' is bad- I'm thinking here of the excellent in depth DVB-T2 review gave possibly one of the best insights to the incredible engineering work that's gone into developing the next generation of Freeview in High Definition- that's to say FreeviewHD- and slot it into the Digital Switch Over in UK broadcasting. (For more good introductory guides the EBU stand at IBC was excellent). For all this excellent work though, it is worth considering for a moment what wasn't at IBC....

There was a very modest mobile presence- Qualcom had a big stand, which I thought looked very quiet. Nokia had a modest stand, but Apple weren't there at all. Does that matter? It does when you think of the massive impact the iPhone has had on the way we think of people buying content. App Stores were an unseen buzz all over the show, and to think I actually heard someone, a well respected senior engineer from a major broadcaster, say without a flicker of irony that 'There are no new business models'. That sounded a lot like denial to me. (Not to his fellow panelists, who nodded sagely at this mantra.)

What clearly does matter is that this year Sony saw fit to skip the show entirely- usually they'd have had a stand covering several thousand square metres, showing off displays, cameras, broadcast and domestic kit. Their absence left a gaping hole. I think it also matters that there was no Google, no Twitter, no Yahoo, no Nintendo, no Electronic Arts, no Facebook, no computer games publishers at all. The way I see it IBC is a wake for the dominance of linear broadcast- I'll accept that most living rooms have TVs still, and that most people watch most of their TV linearly, but the days when this was the big picture, and all other forms of electronic media were fringe niches, has finally passed.

I'll go next year, briefly, and I really hope there's more of a realisation evident that TV in it's "lean-back" form is a niche in a bigger world of mobile, internet entertainment, social media, games, online movies. And what's more, that TV is better when it does recognise this- better for its engineers, better for its creatives and most importantly better for its audiences. Signs are not good though- a year ago, my esteemed collegue late of this parish, John Ousby, wrote a similar piece for the BBC internet blog, and I doubt he'd have noticed a great improvement.

Still, Amsterdam was nice.

IBC Conference highlights- day one

Thursday at RAI for IBC, and the programme starts way too early for me to get to see. Shame, session one looked good. Then came the keynote with Roger Mosey looking at advanced ways to present sport. Would have loved to see that too, but at just that moment I got a call for help from a colleague setting up his project on the EBU stand. God project, good chap- had to go help.

What I did get to see included:

• Thomson Grass Valley analysis of noise in HD video- very interesting because it specifically looked at High Frame Rate which the BBC has explored as an alternative to 3D for high fidelity video.
• A presentation from NHK on a new Java based distributed home network model for interactive video based on Broadcast Markup Language (rather looking forward to digging around their stand later in the week).
• A really interesting juxtaposision of the Sony/Sky and BBC approaches to adding 3D graphics into football and rugby coverage (rugby is harder, and only the BBC are doing that right now). The philosophy of the approaches was different, but complementary, and both presentations included great video examples.
• A great map of the mobile marketplace and revenue streams- in such a complex business these sorts of graphical analysis are invaluable! Good work from First Partner!

Right, time I went and mingled- I want to try and get the ball rolling on an IBC UnConference/ barcamp next year. This event so needs it!

To Amsterdam for IBC

OK, just a quicky this one- for the next week or so I'm in Amsterdam attending the largest broadcast technology show in Europe, IBC. I'll be attending as many conference sessions as I humanly can, visiting as much of the show as I can (it's colossal!) and also supporting the Avatar-M stand in Hall 7, stand A08e. This trip marks a sort of a transition- unlike NAB my responsibilities this time are not just to the one project, but to the whole of R&D in the BBC, and I'm going to try my best to find the most interesting, most transformational technologies and companies there to take the knowledge back to colleagues in the UK.

The number of BBC personnel at IBC is a sensitive subject, and I'm not going to state numbers here. However I can say that this year everyone who is going has had to fully justify their attendance, and many, like me, are doing several jobs out there. Plus, most of us are still doing the day job via the internets (I'm typing this on the train from Brussels to Amsterdam!).

Each day as and when I find cool stuff I'll be posting a few links, and hopefully images, on this blog. I'll also tweet from the various conference sessions- possibly as Meeware, or potentially as a new Twitter account I may be setting up for this sort of job- "Ant Miller BBC R&D" or "BBCResearch&Development"- tbc. All part of the KM job you see.

Through this marathon geekout I shall do my best to avoid dwelling on the fact that I am missing out on probably the best festival of the summer- The End of the Road. Terrific line up, perfect size, and it looks like the weather will be spot on too! At least Rowan's going- look out for her updates as @Rowstar and for a full review on Breakfast in Bed.

P.S. If you too are in Amsterdam for IBC (or even just chilling out in what is a superb city), direct message me on twitter or drop me an email, or even comment here, and I'd be glad to catch up.

Summer of Gnnnnr

I'm not taking much of a break this summer- the US jollies Rowan and I went on back in April were our big hols of the year, so the summer has been nose to the grindstone time. The trouble is though that is dashed difficult to get a huge amount done when everyone else is off on their jollies.

This is just a general observation- I've no idea how it gets fixed unless we return to the Victorian era practice of entire towns taking a break for the same week over the summer- Blackpool grew up on this practice, and to this day the town has a distinct atmosphere in the Liverpool week and Glasgow week.

Getting an organisation like the BBC to lock in to this sort of practice hasn't a snowball in hell's chance. Would be nice if just once a week, or even a fortnight, back in 'term time' we had 'office days', where for just one day everyone would be doing their jobs, at their desks, answering phones and emails, not doing any training courses or on team 'away days' or at conferences or on holiday and if at all possible avoiding being ill. I can imagine the productivity would be startling- we could get a months work done in a day.

Meanwhile though I feel like I have spent the summer dragging boulders uphill on my own. Gnnnnr

My laptop is driving me insane

I'm not a designer- I have had the very great pleasure to work with designers, and engineers and scientists, and all are capable of really great things. When a designer gets it wrong though, like an architect, it is a rather more insidious outcome than either an engineer or scientist cocking up. Those last two, when their stuff doesn't work, it just doesn't happen- things, usually just don't get built. (Granted occasionally they do and people die horribly, but that fact doesn't illustrate my point well so I shall arbitrarily ignore it).

On the other hand, when a designer cocks up, they just spread misery. I have recently taken delivery of a new work laptop (another one! yes damnit, I have several laptops, but the aim with this one was to get something small and powerful enough to avoid carting two around (as I have been for months)). So I got what Siemens (don't ask) currently issue to us here at the BBC, and it is this-

The HP Elitebook 2530p.



Sweet looking thing isn't it? I got 3gig of ram and a bigger battery too, and in essential regards it has all the chops I need- good battery life, tough, lightweight, grunty and can draw pictures (driving large monitors is something it gets asked to do a lot, and transcoding video too).

It is however a cluster of niggles. As my darling wife is all too weary of hearing- 'it does annoy'.




Annoyance 1. The little light.
This was, initially, a delight. A little design touch that really pleased.? When one presses the little button next to the webcam, a tiny light pops out and illuminates the keyboard to enable hunt&peck fun in the dark. How sweet! How useful! What an utterly bloody stupid way to solve that problem, and a wasted opportunity at that!


I have big hands. Approximately how many keys are visible when I am poised to hunt and peck? Eleven- rtyu, ghj, and vbnm. Why?- BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE GLASS HANDS! There is an excellent reason why backlit keyboards are considered 'really good ideas'- they light the keys, not the fat fivesomes of sausages that waft above the keys. I don't much care to see the back of my hands at night; I do want to see the keys, SO LIGHT THE BLOODY KEYS!
Then, they take this tiny but remarkably bright light, that routinely proves its worth in illuminating human flesh, and don't think to give the hinge it's on another 70 degrees of rotation so that it could also serve to light the face of the user when using the web cam. Because that's never a problem!?!?! Why why why!? This is so obviously an element that has had some design thought go into it- how on earth could it have ended up producing such a powerfully unfulfilling experience I HATE THE LITTLE LIGHT! It promised so much, it does so little, and what it does is rubbish. But because it's such a cute idea, I always use it and it always drives me up the bloody wall! Argh! Driving me mad!

Annoyance 2. The scratch resistant lid.
Mmm, shiny metal, mmm, brushed alloy, nice. I might hold off stickering you cos your so purdy. Oh damn, Siemens have already stickered you (philistines!).



Ah well , I'll keep you safe and purdy, slip into my bag and then... WHAT THE?!*&&?>


This is by no means a scratch resistant- it is rather a foil soft canvas, a field upon which to pirouette creatively, and leave ones mark. For you see these scratches were made by laying the powerbrick upon the surface- THE POWER BRICK- as if that would never go near the casing!?!

Annoyance 3. The power brick.
Which is just shit. Not bad, not wrong, not lethal. In it's defence it's small, unassuming subtle, but quite clearly nobody at HP has so much as looked at this non-entity since forever- and the result is undesign. The result is annoying tangles of wire, scratched lappy lids (see above, about which I AM STILL FUMING!), and a good three minutes of grief every time one unpacks to set up. Why HP? Why do you not realise what a tedious ball ache you are foisting on us? I unpack the laptop twice a day, maybe six days a week. For five minutes a day, half an hour a week, one whole solid day a year I faff with your utterly apathetic approach to power supplies. It's a thing I buy from you- BLOODY DESIGN IT YOU LAZY SODS! Oh, I'm sorry, was this feeble flap of Velcro your idea of a design for managing cables? Hmm? WRONG!

Annoyance 4. The nipple.
Why?? I mean really, the nipple is rubbish- always was. As soon as the track pad came along we all breathed a huge sigh of relief, uncramped our hands and got on with life. And this isn't even a good one. So why? It's just pathetic. Drop it.


Annoyance 5. The trackpad.
Oh, maybe this is why: You can't design track pads can you? You've properly stuffed this one up. Those buttons need a bar between them and the pad, especially if you dome their backs otherwise.... oh, yes this happens. Hard to explain in text, but basically whenever you touch a trackpad button, the pointer jumps 2 inches up or down, because your thumb brushes the pad, creating a second contact and stuffing up the pointer. So now it takes twice as long to move anything, and I routinely misfile emails and folders. You pillocks- it's not like this is the first laptop with a pad- did you not SEE that every other pad has a safety bar? DID YOU NOT TEST!?!



Annoyance 6. the '1' key.
Ok just a little one this, but it's smaller than all the other keys. Why? I know the number is smaller- I don't need to be reminded. Did you just run out of space? What? It doesn't actually matter- it doesn't affect the usage of the keyboard (which is, in all honesty, very mediocre- the Dell XPS m1330 I'm moving off has a far nicer keyboard) but it does look shit. I mean really really compromised and nasty and shit. And like you don't care.



Annoyance 7. The lid latch.
Is this really the best you can do- after decades of designing laptops- a round peg?? With an all around latch grove?? Which only latches on one side?? That sticks out of the lid ALL the time?? and doesn't even latch shut properly 1 time in 5?? It fits the pattern, I'll give you that- the half-baked awfulness of it. It's actually quite well made too- just a really really rubbish idea that doesn't work.

Annoyance 8. The volume control.
Ok, you're not the only ones to get this wrong- touch sensitive buttons for specific functions on a laptop are a pet hate of mine, and everybody does it. The only laptop I have with a decent volume control is the Alienware Aurora M9700 (an incredible beast- I can't actually carry it any distance without damaging myself though) which has a little dial- a physical rheostat or some such, actually controlling the volume of the output amp. It's brilliant. I can turn it down before I turn it on, and it works with any and all software and isn't slowed by software multithreading. HP, your solution sucks.



Your slider thing has an AWFUL mode of interaction- it took me ages to figure out I have to slide my finger along, and no two slides have the same effect. Volume control is trial and error- deafening error- every time. For the record- the Dell also has shitty touch sensitive volume buttons and the Alienware had some other functions with the same type of button, which I had to deactivate. People- touch sensitive is rubbish. And we all know you put them on because they are cheap. Stop being so obviously cheap. It's nasty. And that is HP's shtick.



In conclusion then, this is a good laptop wrapped in a shell of unfeasibly annoying design disasters, and drags down HP's reputation every time I look at it. I'll soldier on with it- I have to, and if truth be told it is good enough in many many ways, but it will gnaw at my soul every day. If I go postal, you'll all know why!