Straight To The Point: Developments in local media and new location based services.
  • My Flickr RSS feed My Flickr RSS

Monday, June 29, 2009

James Thornett Photography To Buy

Finally got around to setting up a Photobox gallery to sell some of my own prints.

Only a couple up at the moment but will try and work through the back catalogue over the coming weeks.



All the random stuff is still making it onto Flickr of course.

Labels:

Friday, June 26, 2009

Cake Orchestra

Ever doubted the power of the cake?
Here is, to quote, "A prototype of a musical interface, driven by cakes."

cake orchestra (test) from mook studios on Vimeo.

Labels: ,

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Birmingham Photospace - Flash Swap Exhibtion

Gutted! I'm away when this is on but I suggest anyone in the Birmingham area on Saturday 21st March should go along and take part.

Basically, take along some of your own prints to be included in the exhibition and, for every one of your own that you are willing to give away, you can take away someone else's print.

Here is the full press release with all the info.





Labels:

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Lego Brick Stick

Isn't this soooo cool?

£17.50 for your 1GB lego stick, and four colours to choose from, green, red, yellow and blue.

Labels: , ,

Friday, January 30, 2009

Finally... Twitter has 'got' me

It was really only a matter of time and two days ago, on Wednesday 28th January 2009, it happened. I finally 'got' Twitter.

Or Twitter finally 'got' me, I'm not sure which is more correct.

I signed up with a Twitter account some time ago but have never really understood why it was deserving of my time, never feeling that I was getting back anything worth the effort I was putting in.

After further prompting from Cybersoc I pushed myself to explore the world of suitable PC and mobile applications that might change the balance, pushing me over the edge and into the group of regular twitterers.

A couple of less successful attempts later and it was finally the combination of TwitterFox on the PC and Twibble on my N95 that did the trick.

These apps allow me to use twitter, to post tweets and read other people's updates, without having to constantly visit the website on my computer or mobile phone.

They bring Twitter to me, rather than me having to keep going to Twitter and check for updates.

It has only been 48 hours since the revolution but I'm fairly sure that the job is done. I've been converted and this, I think, is why.

Twitter fulfills a number of different conversational requirements that other methods of communication don't do very well.

The Conversation
I know many people that I would like to speak to quite frequently but I generally don't have the time, or am not in a suitable place, for a proper phone conversation, let alone a face to face chat.

Twitter allows a one-to-one conversation to take place over a period of hours, days or longer, with each small piece of the conversation fitting into the small, convenient gaps I have in my day.

Yes, it's true that these 'conversations' can generally be followed by anyone else paying attention to my twitter stream - but if I'm chatting over coffee or talking on the phone in the office or the street then there are just as many random strangers listening in anyway.

There are other tools for this kind of interaction, Facebook and email to name just two, but the 140 character limit on Twitter really keeps each segment short, simple and, above all, convenient.

The Announcement
The Twitter mechanism is equally useful for asking a question, soliciting feedback or making an announcement to multiple people at the same time.

I've long been a fan of Facebook for it's ability to communicate in this way with a large group of 'friends' in the same moment.

Twitter isn't necessarily any better then Facebook for this purpose but, here's the key, by installing the twitter application on my Facebook profile, my Facebook status now updates automatically with my Twitter updates.

So I'm still using Facebook as much as before, but now I'm using Twitter as well, with no extra effort. Two birds, one stone, etc.

The Gossip
This is for those in the "I'd really like to know what everyone else/that person is doing" category. And let's face it, there's a bit of that in all of us.

With Facebook, and other similar social networking sites, you need to obtain a reciprocated 'friend' link with somebody before you can start seeing each others status updates.

With Twitter, if you can find them, you can 'follow' them, and keep an eye on whatever they wish to share with the world.

Along with 90,000+ other Twitter users I am following the well known comic, TV personality and general genius Stephen Fry.

He doesn't know me, we've never met, he doesn't need to accept my friend request or agree to share any web-relationship-status with me.

But I can still tell you that he had a "Lunch of oysters and sole at Quo Vadis" today and obtained a visa for travelling to Mexico yesterday afternoon and, for the small part of me that likes to share gossip and see what other people get up to, this is both interesting and enjoyable.


I can still see why people don't 'get' it, why it seems unnecessary or without obvious benefit.

I, however, now have a different problem to solve.

There are only so many hours in the day.

Take away life's essentials such as sleeping, eating and going to the pub and what's left is an unsatisfactory number of 'web hours' available.

I am already struggling to keep up with my overflowing RSS reader, my neglected blogs in need of a new post, and my Facebook friends waiting for overdue replies to messages. How is Twitter going to help with any of that?

Labels: ,

Friday, January 16, 2009

Turning the web into print

Thanks to Matt Locke for pointing me in the direction of this lovely newspaper, created by the Really Interesting Group and featuring web content from 23 friends that they thought would work well in print.

Mine only arrived yesterday (#163 from a print run of 1000) and they are now sold out according to the website so I consider myself doubly fortunate to have a copy.

Three things caught my attention on my first browse through the pages, from back to front of course.

1) I've never really understood why so many people on Flickr take photographs of their food. Turning the page to see a full double page spread of 'food' tagged photos from Flickr user Antimega and it suddenly seemed to make sense. Very cool, and very possibly of some practical use as well.

2) Twitter. I'm a user, occasionally, and I can understand why some people find it useful, particularly when covering live events/conferences and so on. But I still don't quite get it. I've yet to find a killer reason why twitter is a necessary tool in my life. But somehow the four pages taken up entirely with tweets from @marsphoenix makes complete sense... and fascinating reading.

3) Russell and Ben's epilogue on the back page, titled "There May Well Be Mistakes", explains their reasons for collating this work in newspaper form, apologises for any errors that might be present, and ends with my favourite sentence of the year so far. "2009 feels like a year for printing and making real stuff in the real world. It's going to be exciting"

Now I'm going to start from the front page and read every single word.

(image taken from Matt's Flickr photostream)

Labels:

Monday, January 12, 2009

ByeBush

The idea is simple, as are all good ideas.
At the moment President Elect Barak Obama takes the presidential oath and becomes President Obama we all do the following:-
  • Take a photo (of anything around us at that moment)
  • Upload it to the web
  • Post a twitter with a link to the image and the tag #byebush
And if you really need to be told:-
"Byebush" is what you want it to be - it doesn't have to be anti-bush or pro-bush, it's just #byebush.
Sometimes the web is fun, and that's a good thing.

Labels: , , , ,

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

My 2008

The last 12 months may not have been the best year ever, but it certainly was not the worst either.

I managed to walk the Great Glen Way from coast to coast in the Scottish Highlands, re-vamped the garden (before -> after), finally printed some photos onto canvas frames for the lounge, and raised £405 for charity by running two half marathons in 7 days.

Some musical highlights...

Top 5 favourite albums released in 2008
1. Jack McNeill & Charlie Hays - Light Up All The Beacons
2. Frank Turner - Love Ire & Song
3. Jim Moray - Low Culture
4. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
5. Ben Marwood - This Is Not What You Had Planned

Top 5 most listened to albums of 2008
1. Bright Eyes - Cassadega
2. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
3. Brad Paisley - 5th Gear
4. Newton Faulkner - Hand Built by Robots
5. Mike West - New South

And let us not forget Satchel Blue's (are you one of our Facebook Fans?) thoroughly enjoyable journey to the regional semi-finals of the Surface Unsigned 2008 competition.



Roll on 2009...

Labels: , ,

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Photo Travel Diary - 2004/05

I've finally finished scanning in my photo-a-day travel experience from 2004/05 - and it only took just under 5 months. I wasn't exactly working around the clock to achieve this but it certainly illustrates the effort required to digitise old media.

In total, 336 photographs covering 11 months spent in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US.

View the slideshow:

Labels: ,

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Guitar for sale

I own four guitars. I want to buy another one. This seems slightly extravagant so I've decided to sell my largely un-played classical guitar to raise funds for the new purchase.

Details on eBay of course, but if you can't be bothered to click then here they are:

RRP: £185

Details below from the UK Admira website.

The Admira 1907 Sevilla is a 4/4 size solid top guitar. A solid cedar top complemented by attractive sapelli grained back and sides enhanced by binding.

Specifications:

  • Top: Solid Cedar
  • Back: Sapelli
  • Sides: Sapelli
  • Neck: African Mahogany
  • Fingerboard: Mongoy
  • Machine Heads: Nickel

Labels: ,