This was the first Geeky event that I’ve attended (I think it was the second one so far…). I found it intriguing and inspiring — there were no massively new ideas, but just people celebrating the ideas that interested and excited them.
The venue helped too — Forward Technology have very impressive offices with a bar that almost rivalled the Brewdog round the corner.
detached heads and the practice of empathy
Evgenia Grinblo, @grinblo
- how to design error messages…
- don’t do it like this: http://errorwallofshame.tumblr.com
- Talk human
- Don’t blame the user — users already assume they messed up!
- Tell the user what to do next
Little Printer
Alice Bartlett, @alicebartlett
- Little Printer from BERG — http://bergcloud.com/littleprinter/
- More personal than an email — a physical message arrives in your space
- First units available to the public in October
- Lots of publications available
- BBC Worldwide: foods in season this week
- Lanyrd, guardian, instagram, etc
- Daily feeds / stories in parts / collections
- API takes HTML and prints at 200.3 dpi
- Also running “after school clubs” at BERG to test out the printers
when zeppelins ruled the earth
Simon Willison, @simonw
- Norge: Italian zeppelin flew over the North pole
- British Airship R100 had a smoking room… lined with asbestos to be safe!
- USS Akron had a biplane inside it
- They could launch — and be picked up later while the zeppelin was still flying
- The “landing” was by matching speeds and being hoisted in from below
- Hangar One “Hangar One (Mountain View, California) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”) near San Francisco is a beautiful Art Deco building
crochet & pixels
Ruth Jones, @rumyra
- comparing crocheting and pixel design
- both done using squares of equal size but different colours
- crochet can be done at different gauges, going down to really fine thread
- crocheting starts with a 4” square swatch: allows you to measure before you start
- crocheting has a limit of the smallest thread you can manipulate — do pixels have the same?
See how dense you are with Rumyra’s test page
Internet of Things Saves the Day
Jessi Baker, @jessibaker
- Using internet of things (IoT) to help us make better choices
- choosing to be selfish or selfless?
- we’re becoming a society of quantified selves
- Jessi worked with the people who made http://sourcemap.com/: open source map of supply chains
- She then went on to design Open Object: digital shadows of real things
- when we get to out-sourcing part of your mind… (creating your digital daemon?)
- …how would you calibrate it with your morals?
Jessi gave a similar presentation at mLove: see it here.
5 Lessons from the ZX Spectrum
Meri Williams, Geek_Manager, http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk
- learning is fun
- creating is even more fun
- creating it together is awesome
- making stuff and sharing it with your friends is something we should all experience as children
- break something apart, mess with it and make it cooler than it was
Meri’s notes give a lot more detail on her talk
