Personal

Personal — No Comments
17
Dec 11

The Year in Photos, 2011

This is a fairly personal post, so i’m sorry if you are a regular reader of the Scala articles here – those will resume from the next post!

The Years Events

As is becoming customary, I like to try and review the year nearly past as we look forward to the delights of the next. This blog is the second in a yearly series to make a conscious effort to note what the year was made up of and recall those awesome memories made.

Alpe d’huez, France

Most years I try to get some skiing in with friends, and this year we’d decided to go to France rather than my beloved Italy. Whilst the snow could have been better, we had a great time. I took this picture at the top of the highest gondola lift…

Bathoniean Sunsets

I’m fortunate to live in a beautiful area of the UK, and spring time is quite idyllic here. As the winter thaw gives way to things growing and spouting, the sun once again starts to bathe the evenings with glorious sunsets. This is one such evening looking out over the garden.

QConn London, Scala Community Dinner

March saw QConn return to London for a whole week and bring with it a heard of geeks from all over the globe. Many of my friends were visiting for the conference and with that decided that it would be a good idea to get the Scala folks together for some food, wine and all-round good times. Having people like James and Debasish was awesome fun. Can’t wait to do something similar next year during Scala days. James, we’re still waiting for “scala minus minus” ;-)

California Route 1: Pacific Highway

For anyone who’s been reading this blog over the past years, you may recall that last year I was stranded in mainland Europe during the volcano eruption whilst attending ScalaDays 2010. After rounding up a bunch of stranded folks for dinner, I ended up meeting Jon-Anders – making a long story short, we became good friends and one day decided that what we should do is drive the length of the pacific highway in a convertible Mustang. After a hastily organised flight to america we were all set. What ensued was an utterly hilarious time away where we had arranged nothing in advance and just took things as they came. From huge trees in Redwood country…

…to the winding roads and stunning coastline of BigSur and southern california:

The trip was a complete riot and finishing it off with spending time at Xerox PARC was a real high for me. It was literally like walking the halls of technology fame.

Early Summer Thistles

Getting back from Cali was somewhat of a come down, but I often go for hikes in and around where I live and was out one day and noticed a small set of thistles just growing on this open exposed hill face. Pretty nice, especially with the city backdrop.

Canada, Up-state New York and Niagara Falls.

In summer I was sent to Canada for a meeting (technically just across the boarder in Upstate New York) but this was a pretty awesome experience. Having booked a “Small European Saloon Car” before traveling, me and my colleague were surprised to be presented with a 4.0 litre land cruiser. Clearly “small” has some definition in Canada that i’m not familiar with. Anyway… it was fun to drive around in a tank truck for a few days and enjoy the delights of Toronto and New York scenery:

Of course, being in the area it only made sense to swing by Niagara falls on the way back to the airport. It was my first time here and damn, it’s far, far bigger than you might imagine. It really is a stunning natural spectacle.

End of Summer: Harvest Time

Back in England for the end of the summer is yet another lovely time. The UK was drenched in sunshine for the last few days (weeks?) of August which meant all the farms nearby were busy making the most harvesting their crops and preparing the land for winter. Being out on a walk I picked up this picture just after the field had been harvested:

JavaZone and M.I.T Arctic

Come September it was time once again for the most awesome conference of the yearly calendar: JavaZone! I love this conference; its always well organised, has great talks and really wicked parties. This year was no exception to that rule and proved to again be most excellent. This year we were also joined by some of our american friends, which just added to the delight. Following the conference, some of us head north from Oslo to the M.I.T Arctic lab for a few days of geekery and walking in the tundra. This was a really special highlight of the year and felt like a somewhat magical trip for everyone. Here’s a small sample of what we got up too (not all pictures taken by me, credits where credit appropriate):

(photo credit: Andreas Røe)

(photo credit: Andreas Røe)

And don’t forget the somewhat successful fishing in the fjords!!

It really was an amazing trip. If you’ve never visited Norway, you should, its a stunning country.

Lift in Action goes to production

So we’re nearly at the end of the year, so I should really mention Lift in Action going to print. This was a huge, huge milestone for me personally and concluded a two year unit of work. I should also mention that during the writing of this blog post I had originally neglected to even mention the book and that a friend had to remind me to mention it… I’m sure the psychologists would have something to say about that, but anyway!…

Personal — No Comments
18
Apr 11

Color: You Are Your Device

Disclaimer: This is mostly a rant.

If you’ve been living in a cave for the past months, you may not have seen Colour. These guys raised $41m in investment which in and of itself is seriously impressive. After that hit the headlines, I decided that just like everyone else i’d grab me a chilled bottle of tech koolade and try it out.

Now, I want to say here that my first impression of Colour was, well, underwhelming. When you’re alone, its useless. However, when you’re at an event, or gig, or somewhere else with a number of other people it was actually pretty awesome. Being able to collect a whole set of photos and events from a range of vantage points was quite awesome… It’s like event snaps, but on steroids because you automatically have everyone else’s.

There is however a rather huge “but” that has just reared its ugly head today. Colour identifies devices not people. This small but subtle difference is somewhat of a killer for Colour. Case in point: At the weekend I dropped my iPhone 4 by accident and totally destroyed the screen… this meant I had to get a replacement, which I did this morning. Upon reloading Colour from my backup, I no longer have all the pictures and groups from my old device because it thinks i’m someone “new”.

Guys, really, $41m and you cant make a login? I actually really liked the app, but having it not come with you when you change device is just such a killer. People these days have a really high turn over of mobile devices, so it simply doesn’t make sense to bind to the device… the service is meant to be about people and the photos they take, so perhaps it would be a super great idea to stop using the device ID as a route to identify people.

It generally feels like this could have been a really cool app, but its just lacking in some key areas.

End rant.

LIA Book / Personal — 7 Comments
13
Feb 11

A Long Road To The Final Chapter

Today is a landmark. I’ve been working on Lift in Action for one year and one month, and finally, this evening, I’ve reached the last chapter. The manuscript alone is currently sitting at around 120,000 words and represents the single largest body of work I have ever completed in my entire life. To that end felt the need to share this jubilant moment with you, dear reader.

Chapter 6 is the only remaining part of the book and I have now started writing it! If you have bought the MEAP and and given feedback via the forum and emails, I thank you – your feedback thus far has been utterly invaluable. I have many corrections and revisions to include based on your comments and they are coming (promise!), so you should see them appear in the MEAP over the coming weeks accompanied by the as-yet unreleased chapters.

It’s been a seriously long road thus far but the end is finally in sight! Cheers to all my readers, friends and family for their support and contributions!

Personal — 2 Comments
28
Dec 10

The Year in Photos, 2010

Wow, the 28th of December. This year has utterly flown by! What a year its been; i’ve done a lot and experienced a whole set of new countries, met some awesome people at different conferences and generally had a great time! With this in mind, I thought I would just share some of my favourite moments from 2010 as we look forward to 2011.

New Years Day, 2010

The 2010 new years day was a crisp but cold day and I decided to go for a walk along the canal and managed to snap some great pictures of the bridges and people from the barges.

Livingo, Italy

In early January I went skiing with some friends to the beautiful mountain village of Livingo, Italy. I absolutely love Italy and this was one of my favourite shots from the holiday. Everyone is super friendly, the food is amazing and the skiing is great. What more could you want?

Sestiere, Italy

After having been persuaded by my friend that going on another ski holiday would be a good idea, we ended up in the Olympic resort of Sestiere. Unfortunately I had a nasty accident on the first day and received a broken hand. Amazing scenery though!

Scala Days, Switzerland

At long last Scala Days 2010 was upon us! This was easily one of the best conferences of 2010, anywhere. Really great people and going to EPFL was like a complete pilgrimage.

As some of you may remember though, there was a the small matter of the icelandic volcano eruption which made flying impossible. An adventure then ensued as we all tried to get back to our mother countries by whatever means possible. For me that meant trains, hitchhiking and ferries! I took this one as we steamed away from France and I can tell you now, i’ve never been more relieved to be on a ferry! It was a truly epic adventure.

Road Trip!

A friend of mine was getting married in June and his best man has the rather genius idea of doing a Top Gear-style rally up to the most northern point in the great british isles… there was however a catch, we had to buy the most crappy car we could lay our hands on for no more than £300, drive up there and back, and then sell it. This was one of the most hilarious weekends of 2010 and with all the breakdowns and poor weather it was just awesome as we drove a car that was older than me 1500 miles over four days. Epic.

Beautiful June

This time last year I moved into a new house that has the most amazing wildlife in the garden; all year round there are things growing or living there. Being a country boy at heart, this has been really enjoyable and I snapped this flower on a fine summers day in the garden.

Florence, Italy

As the summer came, work was taking its toll and the need to visit Italy again was becoming irresistible. So, one Monday evening I booked a flight to florence the next day and just got on a plane and relaxed in the tuscan country side for a week of serious culture-vultur’ing. Florence is an amazing city and if you ever get the chance to visit, either with a loved one, or solo, its amazing. I took this picture from piazza michelangelo, the highest lookout in Florence. The bridge in the scene is the famous Ponté Vechio. L’amo Italia.

Hyderabad & Mumbai, India

“Viktor” and Sandra came to visit me in the summer, and that was just awesome. Whilst they were here work decided that it would be a great idea to send me to India the following week! I reluctantly accepted the assignment and started to arrange visas etc, as India was not somewhere that really appealed to me travel-wise. How wrong could I have been… India was AMAZING. Every single corner of every view you could take is crammed with vibrant colour and people with smiling faces. Its a truly humbling country and a must-visit place for any westerner. The two pictures below are from some time spent sight-seeing; this first one is Charminar, an ancient lookout post.

The second one here was a moment captured at the top of Golconda Fort; these two lovers had been looking out over the landscape for ages; and what a view it is looking down on the ~7million inhabitants of Hyderabad.

Israel

As November came, I was once again sent to Israel to work on a research project. This trip was specifically memorable thanks to Gal and Erik. This view was taken over the Herzliya beach early evening. Israel is awesome!

Snowpocalypse!

With December came snow. Lots and lots of snow! This picture was taken about a week ago, and reminds me why I love living in the UK. Its like a winter wonderland!!