Laura's Blog

autumn vacation

2008-09-30T22:30:00.001+01:00

Holidays are great. I recently returned from this one.

When screens go wrong

2008-09-16T14:28:00.003+01:00

One often spots display screens, particularly in railway stations, which have suffered from peculiar Microsoft faults and are displaying error windows on top of the information one is trying to read, or which have abandoned informing altogether and are showing just a blue screen of error codes.

I was, therefore, perversely satisfied to spot this giant iPhone model with a "which WiFi network would you like?" popup window, illustrating that even OS X can fall prey to this kind of thing.

Good thin clients must be the right solution here...

Sleepy

2008-09-05T12:27:00.002+01:00

Our office coffee machine has had a bad week. It broke; wanting always to be rinsed, not being any happier after rinsing, and never making coffee.

The repairman visited and told us off for abusing the machine. He fixed it up and left, and the coffee machine worked for about 40 minutes.

Then the machine got taken away for repairs. In its place was our warning sign for when the machine is busy with other things and cannot make coffee; gradually, people added magnetic poetry.

This morning the machine was back, complete with shiny new pump, and an admission from the workshop that they do not know what was wrong with it. It is still working. For now.

weekend on the Wirral

2008-09-02T21:46:00.003+01:00

We spent last weekend relaxing on the Wirral and catching up with my parents. The Klimt exhibition at Tate Liverpool was impressive, although the high tech audio guides (iPod Touches) suffered a variety of failure modes on our visit, at the end of the penultimate day of the exhibition, so we had to make do without.

Michael has put some pics up, of a walk at West Kirby Marine Lake and beach, attempts to find superlambananas (not as successful as we had hoped), a rather wet walk up Caldy Hill, and a tricycle we spotted at the M6 toll road services en route back to Cambridge.

construct

2008-08-21T14:42:00.004+01:00

This was on Botolph Lane this lunchtime.

I've spotted a few similar things around the area; earlier this week there were boards near the Pitt Building on Trumpington Street with cryptic phrases and some maths concepts.

It's coming...

2008-08-15T13:29:00.005+01:00

This, in Corpus Christi College on the corner of Kings Parade and Bene't Street, will soon be the home of the new Clock, part of the Library Court project. This clock will be incredible in a number of ways, but mostly stands out at the moment as a monument to the pre-web age, because I can't find any reference to it online. I remember that I read an article about it on paper some time ago, talking about the traditional mechanism and amazing art that will surround it, and now I can see where it's going to be, I'm really excited.

before the storm

2008-08-08T16:55:00.003+01:00

Before the intense rain and thunder last night, Dominic and I sat
outside at the Pickerel in the sunshine. He was sporting the new
AlertMe customer support team fleece - very smart! We managed to stay
outside under the nice green umbrella through most of the storm, and I
didn't get too wet cycling home afterwards.

It sounds as if Dominic, and James (who joined us later) and everyone
else are doing a great job. Thanks to all for the (rather belated)
leaving present, too!

BarCamb2

2008-08-05T14:19:00.002+01:00

Last Friday, it was BarCamb time again, with BarCamb2 being held at the Sanger Centre. Michael has put some photos up, and I blogged the event for work.

Highlights included being one of a select handful of presenters who have given talks at both BarCambs to date; Simon Ford's mbed update "embedded can do the internet too", including mention of their terrific Mashed08 demo of Packet Network; and a programme with a mix of biotech, community, software, and technology talks. The afternoon's panel session confirmed my view that git is the latest&greatest thing (either that, or it just happens to make people terribly evangelical) and that at work we should probably have a review of whether it's worth migrating from SVN, and maybe a tutorial session.

Once more, thanks to Matt Wood for doing a sterling job organising a barcamp!

Cory's Cambridge talk

2008-08-04T10:39:00.003+01:00

Video of Cory's recent talk - the first of the Cambridge Business Lectures - here. I enjoyed his lively presentation, although I felt the audience was more techies/hackers (a traditional Cory audience) than the business types I might expect for this talks series in general. The business-minded section of the Cambridge entrepreneurial community would probably have benefited from Cory's ideas.

An appetite for APPEITG lunches

2008-07-31T13:48:00.004+01:00

It's not the best abbreviation, but the APPEITG (All Party Parliamentary Engineering and IT Group) do host a pleasant meal. The group exists to promote the role of engineering and the future of engineering in the UK, and I've been happy to see that they are keen to involve younger engineers (like me!) as well as the usual grey-haired examples. I look forward to being more involved, and perhaps to more delicious lunches on the beautiful House of Lords terrace.

At the lunch in mid-July, Sir David King spoke about the challenges of climate change and how engineers should be stepping up to tackle these. His key points were not particularly novel but bear repeating, in the context of a call to arms for engineers (and others).

The "City big bang" should be a drive for the UK science, engineering and technology sector to deliver new solutions for climate change
It should be possible to hit the carbon reduction targets set for mid-century, and still grow GDP
Engineering skills are desperately needed to deliver new nuclear power stations, zero carbon homes, and (very important for the UK) the technology to retrofit homes and other buildings to reduce carbon output. This means technicians and apprentices, as well as Chartered-level professionals. We need more engineers of all types
Don't forget that reducing emissions can save money
We need new, novel solutions. The Prius, for example, is great, but this is an example of a transitional technology - we need fully electric vehicles and a decarbonised grid
There is still a need for real cultural change. The media are happy pushing Tesla roadsters, because it's a bit like a Ferrari; but instead we should look to a future where a flash car isn't a status/sex symbol

I was also encouraged by Baroness Platt of Writtle to look into joining the Worshipful Company of Engineers. (I fear that I'm not quite senior enough for the Company yet, and couldn't really afford the membership fees, but I've bookmarked it for the future.) The APPEITG lunches always remind me that although women are scarce in engineering, they are present at all professional levels and represent all generations. A little bit of a boost for those of us who are starting out in our careers - or feel as if we are!

live music Tuesday

2008-07-29T18:33:00.001+01:00

Cambridge was full of buskers today, in unusual places (outside the
Chop House on Kings Parade, or here, outside Carluccio's by the Grand
Arcade / Lion Yard). These guys were pretty good.

Proper engineer

2008-07-25T19:31:00.004+01:00

From our fascinating tour of Tate Modern's oil tanks.

Polite notice

2008-07-25T19:26:00.001+01:00

In the bathroom of my room at Keele University, where I was for the
JISC Innovation Forum.

Other people's toys

2008-07-19T14:50:00.002+01:00

If this worked, this photo is tagged with a location on flickr.com :) I couldn't resist playing.

Sent from Michael's iPhone

non-words

2008-07-09T19:56:00.002+01:00

The Local Government Association says that the following are "non-words." I find this very encouraging, and look forward to seeing some clear communications from local public service organisations in the future, as this list is adopted. Although at a first look, words such as "welcome" seem quite innocuous, when I recall how they are used in some official documents, I can see why the LGA picked them out.

Ambassador; Agencies; Beacon; Best practice; Bottom-up; CAAs; Can do culture; Capacity; Capacity building; Cascading; Cautiously welcome; Champion; Citizen empowerment; Community engagement; Conditionality; Consensual; Contestability; Core Message; Core value; Coterminosity; Coterminous; Cross-cutting; Customer; Democratic mandate/legitimacy; Distorts spending priorities; Early Win; Empowerment; Engagement; Engaging users; Enhance; Evidence base; External challenge; Facilitate; Fast-track; Flexibilities and freedoms; Framework; Fulcrum; Good practice; Governance; Guidelines; Holistic; Holistic governance; Improvement levers; Incentivising; Income/funding streams; Initiative; Joined up; Joint working; LAAs; Service users; Level Playing Field; Localities; Meaningful consultation/dialogue; MAAs; Menu of options; Multi-agency; Multidisciplinary; Outcomes; Output; Participatory; Partnerships; Pathfinder; Peer challenge; Performance Network; Place shaping; Predictors of beaconicity; Preventative services; Priority; Process driven; Quick hit; Quick win; Resource allocation; Revenue streams; Risk based; Scaled-back; Scoping; Seedbed; Shared priority; Signpost; Single point of contact; Slippage; Social contracts; Stakeholder; Step change; Strategic/overarching; Streamlined; Subsidiarity; Sustainable; Sustainable communities; Symposium; Synergies; Tested for soundness; Third sector; Top-Down; Transparency; Transformational; Value-added; Vision; Visionary; Welcome; Wellbeing

(Thanks to Denis Payne for the link!)

Tim Berners-Lee at NESTA

2008-07-09T11:53:00.002+01:00

I was at NESTA last night for a debate about the future of the web. Sir Tim was at NESTA to launch the web science research initiative. I won't bother blogging most of the talk content or the WSRI as I'm sure this is better covered elsewhere.

You are spared my mediocre camera work, as conveniently Bill Thompson was sitting in front of me, and did a good job of recording the event with his superior tiny camera. I was too
awed by the beautiful character sketches of the speakers and audience being produced by my neighbour, Chris Meade, from if:book, to take many photos myself.

TBL's presentation was given in Firefox, which made a nice change, and contained quite a number of typos. Either that, or he's invented a new field called Electroncis. His strongest analogy was comparing the ecosystem of the web with the blob of gunk which you find when you unblock your sink - full of historical items like fishbones and niches where new bits can settle. Nice.

There was no answer to Charlie Leadbeater's question about whether a fully open web could solve the spam problem. Maybe the answer is not to faff around with the web, but just read books; Charlie referred to at least 4 books during his talk, but no online content.

Well done NESTA, especially Roland Harwood for valiant tweeting in the face of laptop crashes. (There was a slight contradiction between the encouragement to twitter, and the instruction given in the main auditorium that everyone should "turn off your mobile phones because they interfere with the equipment".) Excellent canapes, as usual at NESTA :)

Party animals

2008-07-01T14:56:00.001+01:00

Unusual sweets, kindly sent by Steffi some weeks ago

Green gadgets?

2008-06-26T20:45:00.004+01:00

A lot of companies are bringing out green gadgetry of all kinds at the moment. I often feel it's a little strange to be buying yet another gizmo to try to help combat climate change, but anti-consumerism isn't flavour of the month in the UK yet. Energy metering seems to be the latest thing; and I do wonder if in fact loans are the way to go for these bits of kit, as HICCA (Histon and Impington Climate Change Action) are offering. Most people aren't going to keep an eye on an energy meter every day or week, however pretty it is, and even if they do, I wonder how effective mild personal guilt is at changing ingrained comfortable behaviour patterns. However power-hungry you tell me my washing machine is, I'm still going to wash clothes; yes, on the lowest temperature setting, and the shortest wash, still using a lot of power, but you aren't going to get me bashing clothes in a sink full of water any time soon. I might turn off lights, put a jumper on and turn down the heating, but I don't need an energy meter to help me do that - I already know what the right behaviours are, I just need to get my act together and feel motivated. Nonetheless, the odd week with a meter to help me check there's nothing wasting power in the background could be helpful, but I'm not sure that having one full time will really reduce my power. (I speak as someone on to my second meter, which is all very well, but I know I don't really do much differently after the first few days of excitement about the new gadget. If anything, my energy usage in those few days goes up, as I test out each electrical device in our home to see how much power it's using!)

We'll see how the range of energy meters work out in the mass market over the next 18 months or so. I'm particularly interested to know how the manufacturers of these devices will find evidence of their gadgets reducing energy consumption, especially at a time when energy costs are due to soar, which is a driver for new behaviour at least as much as an LCD screen flashing scary messages at you is.

If you are going to buy something to try to be greener, it's worth considering keeping it simple. Michael and I each bought BodyFliks a few months ago. These are nifty plastic curves, which you use to remove water after showering. Since you are then much drier when you hit your towel, the towel doesn't get as wet, so needs less drying out, and the bathroom needs less airing and heating. They work well, come in a range of bright colours, and get a definite recommendation from us. Designed by a woman inventor, too!

Blast from the past :)

2008-06-12T10:11:00.002+01:00

I'm talking about AlertMe on this week's BBC Digital Planet. Listen whilst you can...

Thanks Bill Thompson and Anna Lacey for putting together such a great piece!

I guess that's why they call it hardware

2008-05-30T09:29:00.004+01:00

Undoubtedly, many readers will already know that it's challenging to make computing/electronic hardware, compared to just producing software. But I have observed a number of challenges that I would not have anticipated until I actually tried to do it myself.

Disclaimer: I've met lots of lovely technical people who understand the challenges of hardware and the business world, but I have also met some arrogant and annoying people who don't, and who won't accept that they don't know everything about everything to do with technology. Luckily, they are a minority, and us hardware-aware types are tenacious and hard to put off...

Firstly, when you decide to make some hardware, you need to commit some time (just as you would to write software), but you also need to set aside some funds to buy actual physical goods. (You will also need a computer for most projects, but let's assume you already have one.) In addition even though you are making hardware, you will most probably need to write some software too, so that's another chunk of time gone. You carefully assemble your hardware, and maybe write some software, and then you have a prototype, which is splendid, until you spill coffee on it - there are no backups with hardware.

This is such cool technology that you probably want more people to see your nice hardware, and a single prototype won't be enough. You're going to have to make lots of these things - maybe thousands. This is where things get trickier; you're going to have to find lots of money, and that means you'll probably need a business plan of some sort to help you access ready cash. You will have to alter your design so that it's something that can be assembled easily (and possibly automatically), you need to produce some test kit so you can make sure your product works when you've made it, and you might need to reduce the cost of the thing so you can afford to sell it (if that's what you plan to do), so you may need to find cheaper parts and re-engineer everything. Of course, if you are sending your device out into the world, it will need a case (to stop that darned coffee from getting in it again), and some packaging (so that it reaches whoever wants it in one piece) and of course some safety certification to make sure it's all nice and legal. Huge amounts of time and money are draining away here, and that's without mentioning extras, such as if you decide that for cost reasons you want to make it in another country, or if for a laugh you've decided to patent something.

Anyway, this is already a jolly sight harder than slinging together a bit of a website, and you're mighty envious of your friend who took that route, and already has lots of users, praise from bloggers, invites to cool startup parties, and possibly even potential for revenue in the future. You're still trying to get your software to work on the third iteration of the hardware design, the thing heats up inside the improvised metal case enough to melt the surface of your desk, and you can't remember when you last went to a party.

It's clearly time for a bit of shameless promotion, so you go along to speak at a techie event - a conference, or seminar, or pubmeet - mostly internet and web 2.0 types, people from all the latest startups, and the people who blog about them. You tell them a bit about what you're doing, and the audience swoons with excitement, and you feel very pleased. But next come the questions, and this is where things get harder again.

You always thought that techies were pretty smart - probably smarter than you, in fact - and it's a familiar crowd, one you hang out with occasionally (or used to, before you started making hardware and ran out of time). Some of them even know about the business world as well as C++, they have diverse interests and knowledge, and they can usually keep their coffee inside their mugs. You figure you'll get some inspiring questions, maybe even some helpful comments.

In fact, what you get is two questions.

The first might actually be relevant, but you'll get it whether you are making an intelligent kettle (containing a tiny microprocessor which runs a couple of hundred lines of logic, and could no more run an operating system than a marathon) or a fancy internet appliance (which is almost certainly running Linux already, because otherwise you'd still be writing code for it in 10 years time). "Can I run Linux on it?"

So, this isn't a bad question - unless the answer is no. You then explain that the kettle doesn't need to run a powerful operating system, but now the audience are grumbling and twittering that you're worthless. (Later, when you quiz someone in the bar, it will turn out that they could possibly ignore their religious requirements for everything to run Linux, but they also desperately want an API so they can access data from your device, and they believe that APIs are only possible with Linux. The USB port which you included so you could publish data openly is totally ignored or dismissed, and you feel a little sad, because it was only to please these kinds of people that you added it anyway.)

You should not attempt to explain your answer to the second question on stage, because it will be incomprehensible to most of the audience, who may be bright but don't seem very practical. They will ask if it's 100% open source; and again, if you say no, you're in trouble. (If the honest answer is yes, then have a banana! You are probably having fun and doing something beneficial for society; you might need the banana though, because what you're doing may not pay that well in monetary terms.) All you can really say to justify your wanton anti-openness is that you'd love to open source it, but you couldn't get any money to manufacture it if you did, and you'd rather the technology got made and shipped somehow, than just remaining a fun (albeit coffee-stained) prototype. The audience will not believe this. They will Google some of the components you mentioned were in your device, and will find out a price for some of them (less than a dollar, say); and then they will berate you for not understanding that cheap components mean a cheap device, because you have a recommended retail price that is greater than the component cost.

At this point you will give up and retire to the bar, where the few remaining audience members who haven't written you off as closed-source scum will ask you moderately technical questions. You will answer these cheerily, buoyed up by drink, until you realise that you've now tried to explain two dozen times that your device cannot run for years off a single, tiny, non-rechargable battery, whilst continuously using WiFi, and so you're using another wireless system to network your device. Not WiFi, no. Yes, your laptop does WiFi, but the battery runs out after a few hours, doesn't it? And that's a pretty big battery. And I need this device to work for years, not hours. Well, there are these other wireless systems out there which don't use so much power. Yes, I suppose the one I'm using is a bit like WiFi, in that it doesn't use wires. Have I thought about changing to WiFi in the future? No.

Even with the booze, your connection to reality seems rather stronger than that of your questioners; you know you can't maintain your polite tone much longer, and depart. You realise you won't be able to enjoy parties with these people ever again, or at least not until you're working on a new project; but that's OK, as you've enough practical challenges to deal with that you'll be stuck at work with no time to socialise anyway.

You reassure yourself that your product will sell perfectly well to normal people, and that geeks represent such a minuscule proportion of the market that your sales team won't notice that they aren't buying. You would normally be dismissive of the sales people as clueless about technology, but in fact your faith in them has just been restored: sales and marketing people evidently know just as much about hardware as the web 2.0 crowd.

This would have been a terrific retort, if only you'd thought of it earlier.

transitioning

2008-05-27T13:34:00.003+01:00

I've been working at AlertMe for 2.5 years now, and it's been a great ride going from a back-of-the-envelope idea (broadband home security) to a real product selling in volume to genuine customers.

But I decided it was time to move on. I'm leaving AlertMe today, and will be starting a new job on Monday: a project at CARET to look at embedding emerging technology into the university (amongst other things).

I'm looking forward to a fresh start in a different field; everyone I've told has been very encouraging, and I've been surprised by how many diverse folk have contacted me with suggestions of people to talk to in my new role.

One benefit of a job change is a welcome chance to clear out crud from my computer, and blithely to delete emails and files I'll not need again. My desk drawers are empty now, too, and I'm hoping that in my two days of unemployment this week I will find time to go through their former contents, along with sorting out long-neglected paperwork at home.

Alternatively, I may just find out what it's like to lie on the sofa and watch daytime TV.

Flat Earth News

2008-05-20T22:03:00.002+01:00

A fascinating debate last night at Wolfson about Nick Davies's new book, Flat Earth News, discussing the underbelly of UK newspaper reporting. I'll have to add it to my reading list! Photos from Michael here. I'd had a busy day, and so need longer to properly absorb the contents of the debate fully...

Ireland holiday

2008-05-05T09:34:00.001+01:00

Snaps here.

the science of why

2008-04-16T14:59:00.004+01:00

Last weekend Michael and I were up in Disley for another NESTA Crucible workshop. The best bit was jamming on the Saturday night; first time I've played maracas in ages.

Duncan Lockerby - our star fluid mechanics expert - entertained us with one of his own compositions, a delightful Newtonian song. Worth a listen, because there aren't anywhere near enough physics-themed songs in the world.

Tom Webb also demonstrated extensive musical talent, but I don't have any mp3s of him to hand...

RAEng on TV

2008-04-09T15:21:00.002+01:00

For a few days more, see the Royal Academy of Engineering on University Challenge, via iPlayer.