Over the summer period, I helped develop a one-day course for teaching people Wordpress. Today I ran the first course I’ve done by myself (having had far superior teachers to hide behind in my previous sessions).
They’ve all been graciously hosted by Newcastle’s Polytechnic, and I’ll be posting up links to their excellent websites as soon as possible… or they could leave them in the comments! Hint hint!
I often seem to myself like some sort of internet-appliance-made-flesh. And this month, we have the phone bill to prove it, with a massive overcharge for 47gb of ‘excess internet usage’. Thanks, BT! I love you too!
However, after my last post I managed to climb out of my stained office chair, throw on some clothes, and accompany Paul Grimmer on a video shoot. Paul was awarded a Triparks residency earlier this year, and he has been shooting high-definition video across Northumbria. He offered me the chance to go with him this week, and I got really excited and said yes without really thinking what it would mean.
What did it mean? Well, getting in a car, driving a while, getting out of the car, looking confused for a bit, getting back in and driving to a hill and then carrying a bad-ass tripod for a bit. Of course, that was just what I did; Paul, being a seasoned pro, carried the camera.
Paul was looking to take panoramic shots of the area, and we didn’t manage to get many before the rain rolled in.
While he shot the hills, I was looking at the countryside. On a bike, this is the sort of area I guess you don’t see, and I would like to go back there sometime. Even in the downpour that followed, the landscape was quite fun.
As an aside, I must point out that my recent injuries left me confined to a few small rooms for the best part of two months. This means that while a lot of my friends are complaining about this seasons horrible weather, I’m just happy to be outside.
Eventually, the rain got the better of us, and I convinced Paul to go back to the car for the thermos of hot coffee I’d brought with me. But not before mugging for one last shot - check out that water saturated look!
I’d like to thank Paul for letting me accompany him out to the country for the day, and if you want to follow his progress on the Triparks residency, check out the blog hes doing with fellow artist Bridget Kennedy here.
I decided to go to Mashed08 when I was stuck in my invalid bed by my dislocated knee, unable to really move, and so the offer of travelling to a far-off Alexandra Palace in London for a developer conference sounded really fun.
This morning, however, it’s a different story. It’s also a story that starts at 2am, when myself, Brian and Alistair got picked up by a specially laid-on bus. However, there was, er… just us.
It got even better when we pulled into Sheffield at 4:30am, by which time it was completely light owing to the solstice. Lovely views of the city, which looks like a really fun place, but there were no nerds to be seen. Again, we had the entire bus to ourselves.
Essentially, the mashed08 bus from Newcastle was an all-expenses paid lift for me and my mates down to London (but only because no-one else showed up). I’m referring to this as the “Jonathan Ross Economic Trickledown Effect”.
I was curious as to how the ‘gallery’ function worked, after seeing Brenda’s beautiful collection of images called ‘Fence‘. Most of these images are of the time that myself and the other people from the Waygood’s Radio Club.
For a long time, I had a website under the alias petehindle.textdriven.com, which suited me fine. I love the written word, and I like to do a lot of things with computers that really rely on having a firm grip on the power of the written word. Hence, I felt, having the word ‘textdriven’ really let other people know that I was going to be writing.
But I know that some people are not as word-oriented as I am. Topsy, for instance, really functions as a visual person, and I have to wonder if perhaps I should include more of my cameraphone wanderings within my blog-posts.
I’m in the studio, with Brian, most days now. Above, you can see a picture that reflects our usage of the studio.
(Yes, I mean Brian working hard and me goofing off
I’m working on a series of portraits of people playing computer games. There are several problems with this - getting the picture right, getting people to play the game, etc - but I’ve nearly worked out all the kinks. I’m not entirely sure where this goes though, but I’ve drawn up a plan and I thought I’d share it with the entire internet.
We’ll have to see how this one pans out… I’m still working on that third part.
Click here to see the map I’m talking about.
Being offically ‘old’ this year, it’s my ambition to ride the route know as the coast to coast before I become thirty. As part of that ambition, myself, Alan, and Brian did a training ride today along some of the excellent cyclepaths in the area. We were riding into the strong headwinds on the entire trip out, giving us an average speed of about 10mph, and at one point one of those old gnarly cyclists with legs like granite sped past us.
(I think we got pwned, but Brian says it’s something to look forward to - being old gnarly cyclists, that is, not being pwned)
On the way back we stopped off for a beer and burger combo at a Lloyds sports bar on Newcastle’s Quayside. Although it was only midday, already there was a hen party wearing masks at the bar. I felt a little self-conscious in my cycling gear, but mainly knackered.
This isn’t a real podcast. This is kind of a stopgap measure, inbetween other podcasts…
newcastlegraft-podcast-4.5 “What Kind of Cheese are You?”
Sometimes, things just don’t work out. This podcast just failed to work, with a combination of tiredness, a massive echoing space, and a microphone-shy guest. So, because I said I’d make a podcast this week, I’ve released the best bit of our conversation, where Iain Clark quizzes myself and Topsy about what kind of cheese we are.
Note that there is no discussion of art in this podcast, and only slight reference to actual cheeses. Cheese photo provided by Chris Buecheler. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
That’s some delicious cheese. Thanks, Chris.
My flatmate Alan has been having a rough time with his bicycles recently. After I convinced him that cycling was a good way of getting around, he got his bike stolen. Our friend, Topsy, then lent him a replacement which turned out to be one of Matt Seaton’s bicycle-shaped objects.
But no more! I went down to recyke-yr-bike on Saturday and selected him a bike. It’s a shiny yellow bike, with front suspension, and the best gearset I’ve seen in ages. I always get jealous of people who have steel chainset’s because they look fantastic…
Mmmm, baby. Alan got me a fantastic christmas present (and card), so I changed his street tyres over to his new bike, which now looks scarily sexy. In fact, I’m pretty jealous of his bike, and considering using it for a few trips along the Tyne.
Of course, that’s all for next year. This Christmas, I’m taking a break from the glowbikes project that I’ve been working with Brian, and I’m not doing any more work until the 28th. The past few weeks have been continual soldering in order to make a large number of SpokePOV’s, for display on New Years Eve. Until that point… I’m going to eat as much food as possible, open presents, and consume as much coffee as possible.
Two of my friends, Clare Ruddock and Ele Carpenter, are working on a project they are calling Open Source Embroidery. As part of this project, they are making a patchwork quilt, made up of six-sided patches, with each patch a different colour from the 216 listed ‘web-safe’ colours. This is an open project, and anybody can submit a colour swatch using the handy list which they are creating using google docs, join their Facebook group, read about the project on their respective blogs. Hurrah for web 2.0.
Now, if each patch has a number in hex notation embroidered on top, that makes this it visualisation of the hexadecimal notation scheme. The wikipedia page also points out that there are several words you can spell in hex, including c0ffee, which works in the paired-triad format that these HTML patchwork colours are represented in. For those who are wondering, c0ffee is a pale blue.