DECODE – personal data & the public good
I’ve joined the Advisory Board of DECODE, which is exploring tools that put individuals in control of whether they keep their personal data private or […]
Author
Author: Gavin
SDG Hackathon in Davos
I joined the judging panel at FutureHack, the first ever Hackathon to take place around Davos during the week of the World Economic Forum, as a […]
Difference trains
An experiment with an old track (2002) and more recent video (2018)… [best watched full-screen & if you like repeating patterns with tiny variations] Music […]
GAFA — the extractive industries of the mind
In the 20th century ‘globalisation’ was heralded as the future, but a subtlety that is lost in the ether is that this was only if […]
Provenance raises $800K for blockchain-based product tracking + appoints Starks as Chair
Provenance raises $800K to launch groundbreaking service for transparency in the food and drinks industry British tech startup Provenance, a digital platform enabling brands and […]
Adventures in acoustic cosmology
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PRESS RELEASE RAS PR 17/30 (NAM 13) 3rd July 2017 A project that explores whether there is a musical equivalent to the […]
Data is not the new oil. Data > Oil
“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data” says The Economist “Data is the new oil”, said Clive Humby and many others [*update: […]
TALK — Forms of Knowledge: Calculations and Creativity
“In celebration of a new installation of work by glass artist Dr Shelley James, The Hospital Club presents a panel discussion about the science […]
The AMEE story (part one)
In 2005, I was working with climate change charity Global Cool and global hedge fund Man Group (in my spare time) to try and create a global […]
DMA – Data Protection 2017
Slides from Data Protection 2017, https://dma.org.uk/event/data-protection-2017 “Culture is always left to the end in technology revolutions. Make no mistake, the web of data is a revolution: […]
Data as culture – summary
In October 2012, as CEO of the newly-created Open Data Institute, the first work I commissioned was … art. Why art? For me, artists help […]
Looking ahead: designing for open
The dataverse We are in an anthropogenic age in which the digital and physical blur. Where there are more sensors than people.Where everything, whether physical or […]
#MoreInCommon
Background Please see http://www.jocoxfoundation.org and follow https://twitter.com/JoCoxFoundation
Arctic continues to lose oldest and thickest ice
[via NSIDC] After a quick initial freeze-up during the second half of September, ice growth slowed substantially during early October. On October 20, 2016, Arctic […]
Ecocide
It’s almost as if “Destroying the Earth should be viewed as a crime.” The UN and Interpol report that environmental crime is a growing threat […]
The tweetable scientific method
Reposting from my tweet: ■ Observe→Question→Hypothesise→Create tests →Test→Adapt→More tests→Generalise→Repeat↺ [The Tweetable Scientific Method]
The porous city
This is not a thought piece, it’s a call to action. We have failed to create smart cities. We have failed to create truly […]
some themes emerging
Thinking about the sea http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/sunday-review/protecting-the-untamed-seas.html and webcasting https://dgen.net/blog/ms-hans and music http://rinse.fm http://store.darkclover.ro/album/sabo http://tidal.lurk.org http://lysuc888.blogspot.co.uk http://www.aec.at/aeblog/en/2015/08/03/rhythmus-als-dna-der-musik and long playing things http://longplayer.org/about/ and cosmology/topology http://www.binarydust.org/2012/09/21/evolving-language http://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/science-news/2014/simulations-reveal-unusual-death-for-ancient-stars and […]
Welcome back Philae!
To celebrate the news: Click the green flag and press S to start …. then press space bar to launch Philae. Arrow keys for left […]
When/where did you first see Bladerunner?
I first saw Bladerunner in 1984, at the Albacon science fiction convention at the Central Hotel in Glasgow. I was 13, on my first solo […]
Updated archives
Well, it’s been a while since I posted here (Twitter still winning), but here’s a long overdue synopsis of some of the things my first […]
W3 conf logo, meet AMEE logo
Nice to see the similarity in thinking here (2008 AMEE logo vs 2013 W3 conf logo)
Maxipok Zero – a quadrillion lives are in your hands
A quadrillion lives are in your hands. We often hear people talk of “protecting future generations”. There is certainly a lot of value in thinking […]
The Guardian as damn-you-autocorrect?
I know it can be hard sometimes to grasp and translate ideas in a single-shot, over the phone, but this Guardian “article” recounting their interview […]
RIP Patrick Moore
Very few public figures have influenced me over the years – Patrick Moore was an exception. As a friend of my aunt, he wrote to […]
AMEE at Strata – talk slides
My slides from O’Reilly’s Strata conference “Making Data Work” today. I described some of AMEE’s journey: through open data aggregation and distribution, accessibility, provenance, and […]
New role at the Open Data Institute
During the Olympics Opening Ceremony, the creator of the web tweeted “This is for everyone” to millions of people around the world. Decades since their […]
New record low for Arctic sea ice melt
I’ve been tracking Arctic sea ice melt for over 5 years – we now seem to have broken the 2007 record. There are a few week […]
NPG expands Linked Data Platform to over a quarter billion triples
This is good news: “Nature Publishing Group’s (NPG) Linked Data Platform now hosts more than 270 million Resource Description Framework (RDF) statements….The data is now […]
Energy Identity
[repost of my AMEE post on Energy Identity] Since AMEE’s inception in 2005, we have recognised that the emerging sets of data needed for carbon […]
ISEA 2012
I’ll be speaking at the Eighteenth International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA2012 Albuquerque. Machine Wilderness is a symposium and series of events exploring the discourse […]
Occupy & Climate Change: Hansen, Buffet, Chomsky
Two pieces really struck me today. I think we can expect to see this form of direct action increasing. The issues (control of resource, environmental […]
AMEE Makes Carbon Footprinting Easier and More Fun
via https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2012/amee-makes-carbon-footprinting-easier-and-more-fun/69781 At first glance, AMEE, a venture-backed UK company launched in 2008, looks like any other carbon tracking and management provider. But upon further investigation, it […]
Listen to the colliding “Antennae Galaxies”
A sneak preview of some of the work I’ll be presenting on Sunday. Below is a radio-image taken by ALMA of the “Antennae Galaxies” colliding. […]
The utterance of a cosmological model?
“On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space and the first to orbit the Earth. 2011 sees the fiftieth anniversary […]
Those are my stars…
Calling Virgin Galactic: “if we could get our political leaders to have a summit meeting in space, life on Earth would be markedly different” Alex […]
Educational biomes?
I’ve got some thoughts about a different way to create a distributed education. One I think could break through silo’s in our Psychogeography and Biogeography. […]
Binary Dust …
Well, it’s taken a little while to pull together, but Binary Dust is now live. Hope you enjoy.
RIP Dr David Fleming
A tragic and untimely loss. David is still a huge inspiration, his thinking, consideration and actions have touched so many people. I am glad we […]
Energy transformation is in the hands of the many
Hermann Scheer (1944-2010): German Lawmaker, Leading Advocate for Solar Energy and “Hero for the Green Century” in One of His Final Interviews [emphasis mine] “HERMANN […]
Webcasting radio = innovation
A big shout out to RinseFM who just got their FM license [Guardian, Evening Standard]. This is the second station I’ve helped with streaming that’s […]
Streaming the smart grid
While mixing up a number of metaphots here, I’m thinking that RTSP and multicast would be very good mechanisms to support smart grid/smart meter infrastructure. […]
Periodicity
Building on this two things: 1) add the cyclic patterns for every form of centralisation->decentralisation technology | politics | finance | energy | cosmology | […]
Data is not binary
Science, data, internet, ontology, work and non-work themes converging – my post on O’Reilly Radar, reposted below Why open data requires credibility and transparency. by […]
Fixing paths when moving wordpress
Keywords: WordPress, HostPapa, managed hosting, image upload, fix, migration I recently moved a friend’s blog to a managed (virtual) hosting solution (hostPapa in this case) […]
Obsfuscation as a method of closed data
Things wrong with Companies House Crown Copyright data disclosure (which allows free copying) Get the DVD rom of the data – SIGH £30 for a […]
a bit more than toothache
<not for the squemish…> I consider myself to have a high tolerance (albeit a low threshold) for pain: I can usually accept it and work […]
Δten / Δ10 / delta10
Many late night discussions over the last year from FOWA, IT@Cork, eTech, Green:net to Geekyoto, and with the AMEE team have led me to think […]
Possible futures?
Pick a future?
Age of Stupid
Official website: http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/ageofstupid Watch it here: http://www.ageofstupid.net/screening/pp/london_vue_acton
A Climate of Polarisation
(copy of my post on the O’Reilly Radar) We’re all aware of the emotive language used to polarize the climate change debate. There are, however, […]
The Climate Change Act
Below are some highlights from a great summary on the 2degrees site (which requires registration and I’d recommend if you want to get involved). I’m […]
Soundcloud Terms – more rights fuzziness
I’ve been a SoundCloud member since Feb 2008. My most recent login threw up a “we have new T+Cs” message with no option to continue […]
Tim O’Reilly: “Instrumenting the World” (archive)
Archive of http://www.ugotrade.com/2008/11/02/tim-oreilly-instrumenting-the-world/ (in case Tish’s site vanishes) Tim O’Reilly: “Instrumenting the World” Sun, Nov 2, 2008 Tim O’Reilly has outlined some of the world’s […]
Virtual conferencing at HEAD conference
I presented at <head> at the London Hub (in person) on Friday, and today online (from home). I wanted to capture some of my thoughts […]
Cape Farewell
Cape Farewell sets off today with a slightly different crew to norml; including Jarvis Cocker, KT Tunstall, Laurie Anderson, Ryuichi Sakamoto and many other remarkable […]
Sea ice – update (sept 2008)
(source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of […]
Can’t everyone define the future?
At least once a year I refer someone I meet to Danny’s superb piece on Wired UK. I wanted to write about this now, partly […]
The Great Global Warming Swindle swindle
Further to the outcry at the time, this weekend The Guardian reports; “Channel 4 to be censured over controversial climate film” “Channel 4 misrepresented some […]
Delia Derbyshire does it again
As if she needed to leave a greater legacy, a tape recovered from her attic 7 years ago after she passed away resets the “baseline” […]
Cloudcast :: a next step in the evolution of broadcast
At last, I think the nature of [AV] transmission is beginning to reveal itself. Do we need a new term? Probably – many other terms […]
Fundamental UK science under threat
The Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK has managed to create a terrible situation which could destroy fundamental research across the country. This […]
Acoustic Cosmology at Interesting 2008
Interesting2008 lived up to its name today. I gave a rather rapid (7 minute!) summary of Acoustic Cosmology. As a few people mentioned afterwards that […]
Dopplr do it again
Lovely stuff.
Rest in peace
STEAD James, age 107 (b. 1901), passed away peacefully in his sleep on Sunday 8th June 2008 on his beloved Isle of Arran. Loving father […]
Food, population, climate, trade
As the UN sets out its food crisis measures, and setting aside the climate change, population growth and other globalisation issues, this image caught my […]
Remarkable insights
The Long Now essay by Daniel Hillis on “Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine” contains some fantastic, inspiring nuggets, which I couldn’t resist quoting from […]
Not at all pleased about this…
Blogs are very useful to gratuitously vent one’s disappointments out into the Ether… Dear Bicycle Thieves, As a thief you’ll never consider that you are […]
Quite pleased about this…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ For (mostly my own) reference, here’s a scan of the printed version Thanks to Wendy.
Dopplr and PMOG
Some people are too clever by half. (to the dopplr, batbit) Flying with radar, gaming trashes the internet, passively.