I have one good side. Sorry, but this isn't it.

Fast Forward, the Future Technology ShowAt the Gadget Show...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:45:10 +0100

Fast Forward, the Future Technology Show

At the Gadget Show Livethis week I recorded the first show for my new O2 Guru TV series. Called…

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Smartphone Creativity at Gadget Show Live 2013View Post

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:48:54 +0100

Smartphone Creativity at Gadget Show Live 2013

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5 top tips to safeguard against inadvertent in app purchasesIn...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:37:10 +0000

5 top tips to safeguard against inadvertent in app purchases

In app purchases have been in the news again recently following the revelation that one junior…

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GeekDad's daughter reimagines interactive TV (Wired UK)

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:35:09 +0100

GeekDad's daughter reimagines interactive TV (Wired UK):

Here’s a post I wrote for the Wired UK GeekDad column - from conversations I’ve had with other GeekDads, my daughter is far from unique in her attempts at TV tactility…

Chris Ziegler: Instagram is ruining everything

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 00:35:48 +0100

Chris Ziegler: Instagram is ruining everything:

chrisziegler:

A disclaimer: what you’re about to read is an exceptionally cranky rant. Forgive me.

The first time someone sent me a link to a picture on Instagram, I thought, “oh, cool, that’s a pretty neat effect.”

The second time, I thought, “I wonder what this actually looked like, before the colors…

Damn You Auto Correct! » The Top 15 Most Popular DYAC Texts Of All Time

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:25:14 +0100

Damn You Auto Correct! » The Top 15 Most Popular DYAC Texts Of All Time:

Juvenile, but funtastic nevertheless. I don’t believe a single one is genuine, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a cheap whore. Damn, that was supposed to read, ‘laugh’. Damned iMac autocorrect…

Rhetoric isn’t a bad thing—16 Rhetorical Devices Regularly Used by Steve Jobs | Duarte Blog

Sun, 15 May 2011 23:08:26 +0100

Rhetoric isn’t a bad thing—16 Rhetorical Devices Regularly Used by Steve Jobs | Duarte Blog:

Rhetoric is “oratory manipulation”. Or, put another way, it’s “sales technique” but with rounded edges and that’s why Steve Jobs is a master of this dark art.

This fascinating piece reveals the details of his rhetoric in the context of his 2007 iPhone launch presentation.

How a BBC Micro shaped the course of GeekDad's life (Wired UK)

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:23:02 +0000

How a BBC Micro shaped the course of GeekDad's life (Wired UK):

Here is a little story I wrote recently for Wired UK about a how a smart present I received from my mum and dad for my 6th birthday pretty much shaped the rest of my life.

There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere for present purchasing parents. No pressure.

URL Hunter - an experimental game using your URL bar as the game screen

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:43:00 +0000

URL Hunter - an experimental game using your URL bar as the game screen:

Forget Angry Birds, Farmville and Bejewelled: URL Hunter is an innovative, experimental, impossibly cool yet incredibly geeky ‘Web 0.2’ game.

The playing field? You guessed it - your browser’s URL bar.

Okay, so the graphics aren’t great, the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired and, to be honest, I only played it once or twice before moving elsewhere. But, of course, none of these are really the point here…

London Underground 2016 - A Vision of the Future!

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Like many a London local and tourist I will never tire of the classic London Underground map. However, this vision of the London Underground, as predicted for 2016, really sets my geekbumps going:

tubemap2016.png (1600×1282)

As the London Reconnections blog points out, this map was released back in 2004 to:

…give a potential vision of how both TfL and then Mayor Ken Livingstone felt the network may look by that time.

So, it turns out that some predictions have been more accurate than others but the now defunct projects, lines and stations give this map an equally interesting, if unexpected, political perspective of which the hot potato that was/is ‘Crossrail’ is a prime example.

If you’re a Londoner this map will almost certainly have you musing over what could have been your journey into work in an alternate universe: Richmond to the West End in 10 minutes flat? Bring back Big Ken Livingstone!

Should I Work for Free?

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 15:47:00 +0000

Should I Work for Free?:

Jessica Hische’s chart from earlier this year is a triumph.

Simply called, Should I work for Free?, it stylishly does pretty much what it says in the URL by giving you a helping hand to decide if that freebie bit of work you’ve been asked for is worthwhile in the grand scheme of things or whether you’re just being blatantly exploited.

In my experience, the pros and cons of working for free vary from trade to trade - for some it’s an essential part of building one’s profile and ‘keeping current’ outside of the restrictions of bread and butter paid work, for others, particularly where there are significantly more staff than potential openings, there is flagrant exploitation which can lead to the devaluation of an entire profession.

To be honest, I do disagree with much of what Jessica writes here but she articulates with a bluntness and humour that still productively challenge your thinking.

Moreover, the pure graphic design of the chart is a superbly executed, even more stunning considering it’s entirely coded in HTML and CSS without an in sight.

I wonder if anybody has offered her a job…

Oopsy daisy - Hasbro's heroine pales in comparison

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:30:00 +0000

The BAFTA award-winning “In the Night Garden”, known fondly to many parents and under-fives in the UK and beyond, is the jewel in the crown of the BBC’s pre-school programming, playing daily on the CBeebies digital TV channel in living rooms and nurseries up and down the country.

For some it is the modern successor to Playschool and Playbus (and even shares the same creative team, Ragdoll Productions, as the much-maligned Teletubbies) and it features the narration of none other than ever-dependable British luvvie Sir Derek Jacobi CBE. In fact, many may be left wondering why the BBC doesn’t put quite so many resources into its prime-time programming for grown-ups (the answer may well be down to merchandising, but we’ll come to that in a moment).

As a parent myself, I ritually watch this programme (with my daughter I hasten to add) during the lead-up to her bedtime. However, it was only recently that I noticed how one of the show’s main characters, a pull-chord wannabe prima balerina called Upsy Daisy, appears to have been suffering from a skin colour crisis rivalling even that of the late great Michael Jackson himself. Let me explain further with a bit of help from my mobile phone’s camera.

The upper picture here is taken directly by my phone from our television screen (apologies Aunty if this breaks any copyright laws); the bottom image is of the official Hasbro merchandise of the very same Upsy Daisy character, freely available from toy shops and even supermarkets (I believe ours was bought in a Tesco’s in Cambridge last summer).

Notice anything odd?

It would appear as though the journey from the Night Garden all the way to the High Street has clearly been a stressful one for poor old Upsy as she has tragically lost almost all traces of her on-screen dark-skinned colouring. Or perhaps she is simply missing her onscreen best buddy, the (miraculously unaffected by any such skin tone shifts) bright blue teddy bear, Igglepiggle.

So what’s really going on?

Now, let’s be clear here - BBC Worldwide and Hasbro make an enormous amount of money from the merchandise off of the back of In the Night Garden - in fact, the toy and game licence is worth more than even the likes of Winnie the Pooh and Thomas the Tank Engine, selling on average 4 plush toys every minute since launch [*] . Hasbro make toys under licence for many leading children’s brands and my instinct is to assume that they would almost certainly have a conscious commercial justification for feeling the need to give Upsy her paler off-screen complexion, however much they might beg to differ.

In fact, back in January 2009, after complaints raised to the BBC [*] about the lightness of Upsy Daisy’s skin colour in toy form, Hasbro had their knuckles rapped and were told to make her toy manifestation more representative of the figure portrayed in the television programme. But based on the evidence of the toys currently on sale, including the one that my daughter recently received, Upsy Daisy is still an awfully long way from looking anything like her onscreen-self once again.

Oopsy daisy Hasbro.

intercourse with biscuits: Look away while Lady Gaga molests the corpse of Polaroid

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:37:10 +0000

intercourse with biscuits: Look away while Lady Gaga molests the corpse of Polaroid :

brokenbottleboy:

Imagine Apple if Steve Jobs never returned. Imagine it had continued to allow poor-quality machines with the Mac OS onboard to be sold. Imagine if it had continued to dilute its brand and its influence, allowing everything good about the Mac to ebb away while a hardcore of fans cried foul. Without…

Clueless Clippers fail to woo stranded commuters

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 09:00:07 +0000

If anyone stands to capitalise from London Underground’s recent high-profile failings it is London’s riverboat service Thames Clippers, which connects major commuter hubs such as London Bridge and Waterloo with Canary Wharf and The City.

However, rather than wooing commuters away from the Tube’s congested platforms and carriages with its spacious boats’ onboard coffee shops and Wi-Fi, would-be Thames Clippers converts have instead become increasingly angered by what ought to be be the simplest aspect of any journey: buying a ticket.

During the course of the London Underground strikes last autumn and the major Jubilee Line failure during rush hour on Britain’s big ‘back to work’ day this week, Thames Clippers’ woefully inadequate ticketing arrangements have once again been exposed.

The first bout of industrial action in September resulted in disgruntled passengers queuing for over an hour in lines a kilometre or more in length whilst poorly-equipped staff attempted to sell tickets by hand, all the while as boats left piers often less than half-full.

Tuesday’s Jubilee Line misery may have left the spine of London’s underground network paralysed but rather than seizing the opportunity to entice disillusioned passengers back to the boat, commuters were trapped on bobbing piers and forced to queue for up to 20 minutes whilst Thames Clippers staff once again failed to cope with the sudden influx of passengers.

Londoners generally accept that they have to pay a small premium to travel by boat and have widely welcomed recent improvements to include Oyster card payments and Travelcard discounts on the Thames services. But if Thames Clippers are to elevate themselves beyond being anything more than a commuter’s ‘last resort’ mode of transport when other links have failed then surely serious work needs to be undertaken to revamp their desperately inefficient and inadequate ticketing infrastructure.

Have you had a poor experience queuing for a Clipper? Or are you satisfied with their sailings? Drop me a line, let me know.