Young Rewired State 2009

What is Young Rewired State?

Young Rewired State (YRS) is a initiative that aims to support young developers and coders in using public data to build apps, websites and anything else that people may use. It is about mashing up and getting out there with data people may not have seen or experienced before.

Who can take part?

Anyone aged between 15-18.

When is it?

YRS will take place *next week* between Monday 2nd August and Friday 6th August 2010

Where is it taking place?

YRS is taking place at centres across the country - there are centres in Brighton, London, Norwich, Oxford, Birmingham and Manchester.
In Manchester we will be based at the MadLab - a space well-known for digital collaboration in the city centre.

What will happen?

We will meet on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the MadLab and work together on ideas and developments. On Friday 6th August we will take the train down to London to meet the other teams, show & tell our work and perhaps win a prize!

I live in a flat, not a particularly exciting flat, in the centre of Manchester. It's nice enough, but a world away from what I grew up with in Glossop.

I thought getting some sort of plant might make things a bit more homely..

My new triffid:

You can now fan my Triffid on Facebook, if you're into that kind of thing!

Blame Loz Kaye for that!

It's been quite hot over the last few days...

On a quick trip back to Glossop, my dog Bess thought it was a bit too hot and flopped out on the lawn.

I got these photos on my phone...

When your fir is black, it gets hot in the sun.

A few weeks back I went to Barcamp Blackpool which was pretty awesome.

Rick Quick made a video of it with a slightly embarrassing few clips of me it.

Shout out to Keri Sholicar for the awesome T-shirt design!

Big thanks to Gemma Cameron for putting the leg work in to make it happen. I know what it's like - it's certainly not easy - but Gemma pulled it off - Well Done! :)

I made this video with footage I took of DFEY (Digital Freedom in Education & Youth) at Young Rewired State 2009.

Unfortunately, I lost the original footage before I could complete the video and this short is all that remains.

My apologies for the low quality and the overlaid time-code.

Shot on a Sanyo Xacti WH1 and edited in Kdenlive.

I'm helping to run an event on Thursday 8th July to introduce this years the next generation of coders and designers to Manchester's Young Rewired State event.

Young Rewired State is a decentralised, UK-wide, hack-week open to anyone aged 15 to 18 with an interest in data, coding or design.
This year, it's the first week of August.

It's a great way for young people to learn what skills are needed for industry, make friends with people at the cutting edge of technology and perhaps, develop the next 'killer' app!

My colleague, Naomi Rosenberg, recently wrote this short piece.

The Linux Lord’s Prayer

Our father, who art in /sbin,
init is thy name.
Thy PID is 1;
Thy children run
In user space as they do in kernel.
Give us this day our daily RAM
And forgive us our interrupts
As we are nice to those who interrupt us.
Lead us not into uncaught exception
And deliver us from SIGKILL
For thine is the system
And thou art the saviour
For ever and ever – until we upgrade yer!

Also translated into German by Andreas Pothe

I just heard Charlie McDonnell, AKA Charlieissocoollike presented the YouTube Audience Award to The Inbetweeners as part of the 2010 BAFTAs.

To be utterly honest, I can't see what the deal is with this kid (I say kid, he's about 20 days older than me).

His 3rd most watched video is this:

Need I say more?

You can tell me how awesome that is all you want but he'll still always come across to me as some really irritating youtube-drama-creator.

Anyway, Last year I went to a conference - Tomorrows [sic] Web Conference

Charlie gave a 45 minute talk. Here it is in full. Enjoy.

Click to Play

As some of you may be aware, recently I've taken up a new role:

I am running for Parliament, on behalf of Pirate Party UK, in the Manchester Gorton Constituency.

Let me introduce myself:

I am young person who understands the Internet. I studied at Manchester Grammar School and Cheadle & Marple Sixth Form College before trying to make a mark on the technology community in Manchester.

I hope to inspire other people, old and young, to stand up and speak up for the rights they are entitled to. No one deserves to be represented by out of touch politicians, out to live a life of luxury at the taxpayers expense and simply repeat the party line.

I feel the people of Gorton deserve something better than the career politicians, more than willing invade other countries despite their constituencies clear disapproval. Politicians who don't listen and fail to have a working understanding of the issues affecting their constituents.

I want to bring clear and honest talk to Parliament, politics people can understand, politics people can engage with. I want to come to conclusions about issues I don't understand with passionate members of my constituency rather than celebrity lobbyists.

I hope I can answer the questions people have - feel free to email me, twitter @me, say hi on facebook, drop me a call, or stop me in the street - I'll be happy to do my best to give you a satisfactory answer.

When I'm not doing politics or rushing to technology events, I'm a passionate (though not very talented!) dinghy sailor. I have an 8 year old Staffordshire bull terrier, Bess.

My day job is a Systems Administrator, specialising in VoIP Systems Engineering.

The funniest thing is, that despite todays date, this isn't actually a prank.

Social Networking

Facebook
Twitter
Identi.ca
Formspring.me

Press Details

Email: t.dobson@pirateparty.org.uk
Phone: 0161 8500 185
Hi Resolution images

Whilst the practicalities of the Digital Economy Bill, may seem like a complete joke, sadly this post is no April Fools Prank.

As you may be aware, the Digital Economy Bill is a piece of legislation which, if put through, would have quite serious implications for Digital Industries.

What is the Digital Economy Bill?

Whilst billed a law about preventing copyright infringement, the bill has far reaching powers, allowing the government to block websites, (social networks, wikileaks, wikipedia), at will and changing one of the basis's of UK common law in assuming you guilty until proven innocent.

THe bit I find particularly unhelpful the segment that holds the subscriber of the internet service liable for all activities on that line. This is essentially the death of open wifi in cafes and bars - its just unworkable if you are liable for the actions of your patrons.

Why are we protesting?

The DEB has been written at the behest of the media industry (some clauses were actually written by the BPI) with absolutely no regard for anybody else.

Furthermore, not only is this bill flawed, it is being rushed through parliament without debate using a process known as "wash up", which was intended for use on uncontroversial bills.

If you're coming to the flashmob then sign up to get a "ticket" on EventBrite so we can let you know the exact location of the flashmob shortly before it begins!

http://debflashmobmanchester.eventbrite.com/
We'll have plenty of flyers so just bring yourself and something to censor yourself with but we'll be providing black tape in case you can't.

I'm sorry it has got to this stage, however I hope you'll join me there.