Russell Davies

snail

radiophonic interestingness

Crumbs. Interesting2008 is only three weeks away. Look forward to a flurry of posts as I remember all the things I've forgotten to do. But first, a little treat. Simon's made a fantastic, impressionistic radiophonic-style audio collage of Interesting2007. It makes it sound like a strange, secret, underground think-tank style event, as if The Rand Corporation had decided to reproduce the Festival Of Britain. Brilliant stuff. Thanks Simon. The MP3 is here. Picture from Corky's flickrstream.

lovely day

You can't beat a Welsh sunset.

who owns what?

A correspondent asks a question:

"Do you know of any resource out there that ties various brands and their corporate owners together, and is updated in something like reasonable time? I'm thinking about all the different labels that P&G own, or the members of the RIAA, or joint ventures like MSNBC. Does this exist?"

Anyone have any ideas on this? I don't.

dawdlr ticks over

I just updated Dawdlr. I've realised how happy it makes me that there's this lovely little job to do every six months until the end of time. W have a small but perfect selection, nicely stretching time out. Someone writes from before Christmas, hoping they've got a new job by May. And someone writes from Chicago, hoping they're pregnant. There are thoughts about moving long distances, and about lunch. That's what we're doing, more generally. I hope everyone got their wish.

I guess this update represents about minute 5 at the origins of twitter, so if I wanted to accurately replicate a slowed-down twitter experience I could take about 10 years off now. But I'm enjoying the pointlessness too much so we'll be back, regular as clockwork, on November 21st.

interesting amsterdam

Jeffre's just posted the speaker list for Interesting Amsterdam. It looks fantastic. It's June 14th. You should go. I believe tickets are still available.

BlackBoardPro

After my adventure with my phone I've got all excited about customising high tech things in low tech ways. And for ages I've been trying to make my Mac more useful for taking notes / to dos. The problem is, that whenever you remember something to do you have to switch it on, power it up, find the application, and then the moment's gone. And I can never find my notebook when I want it. So last night I attacked my mac with some blackboard paint, and this morning it's suddenly way more useful. I've gained a whole other display.

I guess you could do the same thing by just writing on it with whiteboard pens but that doesn't seem as interesting and there's something very satisfying about crossing off a to do by licking your finger and smearing it out.

last time la luna

Various people have got in touch with heart-wrenching stories about how they couldn't get hold of Interesting tickets and didn't know when they were on sale etc. To try and be fair to everyone we're going to put 50 more tickets on sale. Same price, same details etc. They will go on sale at 9am (BST) on Monday June 2nd. Details will be here. And that'll be it. That's how you get tickets off me.

Tickets do occasionally pop up here, so keep your eye on it, and if you realise you can't come, or don't want to, please let me know and I can refund you and get your ticket to someone else.

planninging

I get the occasional email asking for guidance on various planning issues (how to get a job, what to read, where to study etc). I'm no longer really qualified to offer such advice, but it seems churlish to say nothing, so I've made a quick page that gives links to people who might really know such stuff. It's here if you're interested.

an incomplete list of interesting speakers

For the last couple of months, whenever I've bumped into someone particularly interesting, I've asked them if they'd like to speak at Interesting2008. What I haven't necessarily done is write that fact down anywhere. That's the first reason this list is incomplete. So, if you think I've asked you to talk and you're not on this list, and you've not heard from me recently, will you get in touch and remind me please?

The second reason is slightly less pathetic. It's just that some people don't necessarily know whether they'll be able to make it or not. So I'm not including them so as not to raise false hopes.

Having said that, here's a list of people who are almost definitely going to talk, in no particular order.

Leisa Reichelt isn't exactly sure what she's going to talk about, but it'll be something to do with perception.

Andrew Walkingshaw promises he'll have a title / subject for his really soon.

Michael Johnson is so organised that he's already written a blog post about his talk, though I'm still not 100% sure what it means.

Kim Plowright originally volunteered to do something along the lines of her OpenTech talk, but, since it's been accepted there she's going to have to come up with something else.

James Bridle says he's going to talk about booze: "in part inspired by that Clay Shirky bit on gin (expanding on and arguing with it), some chat about booze and civilisation, work being the curse of the drinking classes, and so on. No title as such yet. Something in latin, perhaps. In vino civitas."

Simon James and Ken Hollings are going to do a live performance of Welcome To Mars. A story of weird science, strange events and even stranger beliefs with live moogery and noises.

George Oates doens't know what she's going to talk about yet, though she admits to getting a little nervous about it.

Andrew Dick says there's no digital manifestation of him I can link to, but that he's going to talk about "the curious case of the sleepless nights, or something."

Phil Gyford is going to have another bash at what he did last time, which didn't quite come off, but was fascinating. And I'm going to make him come back every year until it works.

Anna Pickard says: "I *think* I would like to speak on the relative funniosity of some words over others, portmanteaux and things.  Probably. It is only half formed."

Daniel Raven-Ellison is going to talk about 'Wire Wool Kids'. Which I think is the only proper title I've had from anyone, so thus far, he's winning.

We don't know what Matt Webb's going to talk about yet. We may not know once he's finished, but years from now, it'll fall into place and we'll realise he was right all along.

Gavin Starks has raised all sorts of possible topics from "Acoustic Cosmology" to measuring the energy footprint of everything in the world. Not sure what he'll settle on, it's bound to be good anyway.

I can't resist quoting the email that Max Gadney sent me about what he's planning on talking about:

"What it is I like. How I got into it. An example of an exciting area (the crazy knife stuff) that turns out to be only part of the picture. My ruminations on the whole picture (generational mental models about the war - and us on a turning point - loads of sven hassell covers! etc). Some examples of my new thinking about the whole picture."

Which, coincidentally relates to what I'm hoping Jenny Owen will talk about - Churchill.

And, I told a lie earlier, someone else sent me a proper title - Gemma Teed is going to talk about "Lions, Tigers and Bears - why horses are scared of crisp packets".

Max (see above) also helped persuaded Matt Dent (yes, that Matt Dent) to come and talk. Not sure what about yet.

Excitingly, Steve Hardy is coming all the way from Montreal to speak, which is bloody good of him. He says he's leaning towards addressing "What, specifically, do generalists do?" but he's not certain. Given that I've just discovered he's Marketing Director for WowWee I'm rather hoping he's going to bring some robots with him.

Blimey. That's a lot of people already isn't it? Hope you're all planning on being there until midnight.

Like I say, there are more names to come, some musical fun to announce and all sorts of desperate pleas for sponsors and help will undoubtedly follow as the enormity of doing this whole thing again begins to dawn on me.

But right now, having typed that list out, I'm bloody excited about the whole thing. If, for some reason, you're less excited now and want to get rid of your ticket you can go back to eventbrite and get your money back, no questions asked, or pop over to the ticket swapping wiki and someone there might snap it up.

Oh, just remembered another, Roo's going to do three minutes about Lego.