Lawrence Job

It’s just come to my attention that a lot of people are purchasing cameras over the next few days or weeks, so here’s a quick tip for those still in the stage of choosing their weapon.

When it comes to choosing cameras, most marketing material targets the Mega Pixel count, which I’ll try to quickly explain in an effort illustrate my point. Inside a camera, the lens focuses light on a chip known as a CCD. This has an entire matrix of smaller sensors that detect individual blotches of light. The data from each of these is known as a pixel, and thousands of these make up an image.

My 12MP camera has 4000 of these dots across the picture and 3000 down the picture. This means I have a total of 12,000,000 sensors. Since Mega means 1,000,000, this should explain the name and why it is of importance.

However, even the cheapest cameras (£60 in the right places) have a rating of 10MP and above, which means almost no benefit for that extra £200. The real value of a camera is in the lens and the quality of the sensor. The number of sensors stops being important after a while because there’s little advantage to extra detail when all that extra data (or, I suppose, pixels) you see is used to store flare, grain or a poorly coloured photograph. All light needs to go through the lens, so any imperfections or dirt on or in the lens will be detrimental to every photograph you ever take.

Most of the time, these can only be detected or noticed by using the camera in low-light and other extreme situations, but many shops object to you unpacking, charging and wandering down the road with their precious stock. For this reason, people tend to purchase cameras from trusted brands, or branded lenses. For point-and-shoot photography, look for Sony cameras with Carl Zeiss lenses, or mid-to-high-range Fuji cameras. They are reputable for high-quality industrial design that works. Canon are good for SLR photography.

Another point to note is that you must ignore digital zoom completely. This is effectively as useless when it comes to close-ups as cropping and resizing the image on your computer. In fact, that’s essentially all it is.

OH! And do insist on trying out your weapon-of-choice before your purchase. Don’t do a silly.

Happy Snapping and Merry Christmas! (I have a feeling I’m going to regret not proof-reading this in the morning.)

I may have to vent here. Starting to notice the trend of recent posts, which I’ll have to invest some time in padding out. Anyway, on with the point.

Today, somebody accused me of being solely financially motivated when it comes to hack-days. I hope I don’t need to remind him/her that the very reason I’ve been involved in hack-days and conferences since the inception of the idea is that I believe in the value of them. There are far more lucrative things a highly-skilled consultant or even a freelancer could be doing in the space of an entire weekend (notably at the expense of sleep), but I chose not to do these things in favour of fantastically organised events.

The payment or prizes for such an event should not be regarded a motivation so much as a compensation for the time and brain-picking (or as the pros call it, IP). The real value should be found in contributing to organisations and the world around you as well as the contacts, colleagues and friends that you make in the process. These events are to be relished as social events and ultimately a step forward in our society.

Perhaps my professional/efficient style of work tends to threaten people in such environments, in which case, in future I intend to crack open a beer and take five minutes to show appreciation to the people that I am with, and the beautiful office-space lent to us. Let’s not squabble about frankly irrelevant points, and get back to thanking and promoting the organisers for the fantastic opportunities that they create. These are wonderful and under-celebrated people, and deserve all of the recognition that they get.

Just a few files I neglected to upload. Figured it’d be better to upload them to one place.

TubeSmart

• TubeSmart Presentation – PPTX
• Demo URL – SVG-friendly browsers

SocialLibrary

• SocialLibrary Presentation – PPTX (See TS presentation for intros)
• Following are screenshots/mockups.

Seems like only yesterday I was at the Google HQ, embarrassing myself with an appalling presentation. That was one of the (geeky) highlights of my Summer 2009, and so I couldn’t help but look forward to the 2010 event. This year saw a different format: a hack-week, spread across the country centres operating Monday to Friday in Brighton, London, Manchester and … Norwich.

The biggest challenge of the week was by far coming up with ideas. We spent the majority of the day in the sunny NixonMcinnes office racking our brains for ideas. Having thought about it recently, I think the secret to our success was not staring at the endless list of incomplete/hacky data, but actually asking ourselves what the government was doing wrong. Let’s face it – they’re not perfect (yet). Naturally, SocialLibrary (or Books.gov.uk as it was originally called) sprung to mind. We wanted to suggest a central and consistent way for end-users to use their libraries. The current system is fragmented, with a different library card everywhere you go, and frankly appalling online facilities. From this stemmed the concept of SocialLibrary – a solution to the dwindling (and ageing) userbase of the 20th Century library system. We’ve made libraries pretty, social and engaging.

To improve use of local libraries, particularly amongst young people, we want to bring book availability, recommendations and personal borrowing behaviour into people’s social networks.

• socialising the library experience and personal borrowing data.
  • integration with social networks
• providing reading recommendations based on online conversations.
• reducing paper waste by digitalising notifications and warnings.
• centralising the library system so anyone can borrow anything from anywhere (and therefore the data) - ’ok so this is a big ask.’

Quickly followed TubeSmart. Everyone, at some point in time, has been irritated with the excessive demand on select tube stations – anyone that’s been past Oxford Circus in rush hour will understand where I’m coming from. In addition, time is at a premium in London more than anywhere else – every minute lost waiting around for a train (or worse, waiting to get off of one) is a minute’s money. Our solution is to show people hotspots, and how to avoid them.

We know that TfL collect data quantising traffic at stations – in particular the number of people entering and leaving a station at any one point (through ticket barriers). Naturally, TfL won’t share – we spent the first day (Tuesday) generating ‘looks-roughly-like-it-could-be-real’ proof-of-concept data. We then plotted all of the Z1-3 points on a Tube map in a database (data we can happily share if you’re interested) and plotted them over a tube map thanks to a rather complicated mix of SVG, CSS and JavaScript. We used this to adjust the size of stations relative to the number of people using it at the time. The data will be collected at two-minute intervals, and after a few days, can be used to predict how future events will impact tube usage, along with standard on/off peaks.

This data can be used for a multitude of purposes – predicting events, looking at trends, structuring work/shift-schedules, checking up on employees (you were thinking it), improving Route-Planners and ultimately (when given to the population of London) begin to ease the problem itself.

On Friday, we all left to meet up in London, at the gorgeous Engine HQ, near Oxford Circus. It turned out to be quite an effort; smiling and nodding politely at the ‘You should’ve used TubeSmart!’ jokes. They were bad, and even by geek standards.

Anyway, it was a delight and an honour to be awarded Best in Show, and runner up. Just goes to show…

NixonMcinnes and our Mentors

Now, to celebrate the otherwise unsung heroes of the week. NixonMcinnes is a fantastic group kind enough to host the Brighton post of Young Rewired State 2010. Their mostly open-plan office is spread over the first floor of Lee’s House, a modern building no more than 50 metres from the heart of Brighton, arguably the UK’s most vibrant city. We were given a row of desks, some distractingly ergonomic chairs and a wall-sized whiteboard. I already miss their family-like attitude towards eachother, and democratic approach to the office stereo – just tweet at it, and your song will be queued (and thus no bias). I won’t comment on their collective (what I’ll loosely describe as) music ‘taste’ – a vibrant mix of dubstep / hiphop / tomjones.

Max, a consultant from NixonMcinnes, was a fantastic team leader; he lent us his expertise throughout – invaluable while managing time or presenting our ideas. I can say (without any doubt) that we couldn’t have won without him. Thanks, Max!

In addition, we were visited throughout the week by many invaluable mentors, all of which deserve credit:

• Max St. John (NixonMcinnes)
• Cennydd Bowles (Clearleft)
• Anna Debenham & Joe Holdcroft (Message)
• Jesse Speak & Alan Saikale (Cubeworks)
• Mike Parris (Southlynn)
• Jon Markwell (Inuda & The Skiff)

TfHell (2009; Google) | SocialLibrary (2010; NixonMcinnes) | TubeSmart (2010; NixonMcinnes)

Follow me on Twitter.

It’s rare that somebody has an event big enough to shake them from the inside out. I was naive enough to think, to believe, that I’d already had this epiphany. There’s a fragment of irony that it took a season finale of Ashes To Ashes to trigger it. I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs of late, and this has been enough to knock me from my path.

When I was younger, I set out a path for myself with a few criteria. Events of late (the past year or two) have been big, and personality-changing, but do not deserve the right to steer me from my path. Things have slowed, and it’s time to get back on the horse.

Time to step it up a notch.

One thing to note about myself – if you give me a goal, I achieve it — and with perfection. I’ve (as of the past few days) set myself some short(ish)-term objectives that are going to be hard to achieve, but never impossible.

• Of late, I’ve seen people lose faith in me. I’ve cost myself relationships with people out of ignorance and stupidity. I want every one of these people to understand exactly what they mean to me, and how little I am without them. I want them back, and I want them to think well of me.
• My career’s been bombarded with distractions. I founded GridFusions years ago with a sole objective – to make something of nothing. I promised myself that I wouldn’t lose track of this goal. This was, and always will be, essential to me. I was internationally recognised as game-changing and invited to travel from London to Sweden to Chicago and back. I put stupidity in front of this.
• My education is myself. I, again, am nothing without it. I started from a young age – a small child in Hove educated by a small school in Hove. At the age of 5, I earned scholarships at outstanding schools but could not afford to take them. I’ve moved strength to strength, with thanks to my wonderful mother and a (frankly useless) school in Durrington. Over the years I’ve learned to teach myself, and accelerated beyond expectations. I’m not sure when I lost sight of this, but I need to catch up with my aspirations.
• I’m going to change the world. It’s been woven into every one of my aspirations, and I lost sight of this. I do everything I challenge myself to do.

• I’m going to find old friends, old family members and current friends. They’ve been confused and misled by nothing other than my own drama. They’re about to find out who I really am.
• I’m going to travel the world. Starting with the next year. At minimum, I will to fly to California before university. That’s just the beginning.
• GridFusions is back. With a revised model, it’s going to be big. Think really big. Over the Summer, things are going to change. Over the next few years, I will be partnering with national and international businesses to achieve ‘our’ goals.
• I’ve lost focus on my education. My next year is going to see an enormous change. I will not be held back by money, resources or time. Education comes first.
• Everything else can wait. I’m Lawrence Job. You’ll be hearing from me shortly.

In short, I’m back.

I invite you, yes you, to join me on this journey.

Sometimes I have to stop and reflect just to understand how lucky I am, and how many wonderful people I have in my life. Follows is everything that is good about college and my friends in and around Brighton. Thank you all.

You’ll want to watch it in HQ if possible.

Presentation/Notes:

Available here.

To Get Involved, or Suggestions:

Please leave a comment with your comments or suggestions below until we sort something permanent. If you wish to get involved, please leave your contact details below. We’re looking for media, iPhone, Android (and other device) developers and web developers. Among others.

Remember to attend Rewired State events.

The Happiness Initiative

Just figured I should share this brilliance with the non-Facebook world.

I watch this video whenever I feel down. It gets funnier when you imagine 30 people in stunned silence behind the camera, glowstick-holding and MGMT-dancing (we’re retro) put on temporary hold. Sorry about the quality.

Andrew’s Trumpet Solo

It gets better at one minute in. Think it’s good so far? Prepare to get your mind blown.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since my friend – one that I’ve met just months ago – pointed out that she shared what was once my dream. Ever since the age of 6, and I learned about commercial air travel (I didn’t call it that), I’ve been looking forward to being old enough to travel. As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to fly to and live in America. However, it was only about a year ago that I began to question this. More to the point of this article:

Over time I’ve accumulated a list of ideals; ideals I wish to share with you in the following article.

Represent my town playing Hockey

Just field hockey. I used to be, well, I won’t kid myself: I used to be ever-slightly-above-average. Always told that if I took it seriously – invested time – I could join and train with a Worthing hockey team and play for my town. Since attending BHASVIC, my college, I’ve let this slip further – I don’t want to lose hockey, one of many important parts to my century so far.

Own a train

I decided (since founding the business) that I needed a measure of success. I wanted something to aim for with my life, and I’ve finally found it. I want a train. Not being a train-spotter, I don’t want an old-fashioned steam train to reminisce with; I just want to own an electric commuter train. I’d write ‘best not to ask’ but I realise quite how severely that defeats the object of documenting it; and I may want to save that line ’til the end.

Learn to ice-skate

Now, ice skating is something that’s astounded me since I was introduced to it at a very young age. I just can’t comprehend balancing on two thin treads with almost no control over speed or direction. I couldn’t understand why anyone’d want to do it, and didn’t question that until a Twitter follower (I feel terrible, but I have no idea who this was) questioned me on why I haven’t touched ice hockey. At the time I was broadcasting tweets regarding the results of our team’s matches. It was then that I realised: there’s no ice rink for miles and every time somebody even mentioned skating, it’d result in an excuse for their painful limp (“I know I can’t walk; I’m not weird; I tried skating, that’s all. Honest”) or bruised arms.

Meet:

• Stephen Fry
  Stephen Fry, as a person, is one of the few that have always fascinated me, though on a far deeper level than his apparent omniscience. His back-story, his biography, is fascinating and explains a huge amount of his traits. My urge to meet him is to simply to see him in person, how he is beyond the camera. A sick curiosity, if you will. Either way, I’ll never stop admiring him.
• Michael Palin
  Having met him only a few weeks ago, I intend to meet him again one day – I found myself so awestruck at his wisdom that I lost words and watched Georgina make a (I’m sorry) terrible joke about missing trains.
• David Tennant
  Many awards support my argument that Tennant (naturally, a stage name) is the single best actor to grace the century. Another aim of mine is to see a live performance of his; since he is one of the few people whose performance I’m proud to admit shedding a tear to.
• Anthony Horowitz
  The inspiration for a majority of comments I Tweet, document or share aloud – I’d be nothing without his creativity and talent. He inspired me to start writing, to focus my energy in linguistics (in particular phonetics). To be fair, I’ll give him ‘loose credit’ – at no point did he suggest this, but it was his writing that inspired that very thought path.
• Derren Brown
  Doesn’t he just fascinate you? As a result of his hit TV appearance and reading his biography, I’ve long wanted to meet him. The field of Mentalism will never cease to fascinate me, especially when people like Brown prove films like Sherlock Holmes and TV series like Mentalist to be true.
• My Father
  Having contributed roughly half of my DNA, I’ve always thought it to be my responsibility to find and meet my father with an open mind. I owe him dismissal of my preconceptions for at least a day – I haven’t seen him for over a decade, and I look forward to the day I finally discover what he looks like.

See the northern lights

I’m a geek, yes. I’m a geek that appreciates a beautiful sight, yes. Anyone to catch a glimpse of the Sun’s electrons bombarding the Earth’s outer atmosphere, resulting in marvellous glows of any colour you could so much as attempt to imagine, is captured. They become bound to evangelise the sight for the rest of their lives.

Explore Sweden

Sweden (perhaps an odd choice, you may think) has long fascinated me. Not for the gorgeous snow-ridden landscapes (though, that is an attraction) but for the creativity at the heart of the country. Many of the most fascinating people the invention of the internet has given me the pleasure of conversing with were born in (and a fair majority remain in) Sweden. The socialist, clean, contemporary environment has been slowly edging into my focus for the last few years. I want to see this for myself; albeit for a few days or weeks.

Live in America, Travel the UK, and otherwise disappear.

This used to be my biggest priority. Always having wanted to live in America, I’d never really given the time to question this. Is ‘the land of the free’ really a step up from the thriving country I’ve been brought up in? I intend to document my thoughts on this question in a different article.

Either way, I don’t intend to move anywhere permanently until I’ve given the U.K. a chance. This is a mistake of my friend’s that I hope to rectify: I’d hate to see her leaving for the U.S.A. without having experienced the wealth of diversity that England, Wales and the rest of the U.K can offer. If it means I have to drop everything, drag her onto a train to be taken around the country, I’ll do it. For myself, if for no other reason.

It means a lot that I’ve got someone with similar dreams, similar thoughts and exceptionally similar views that I can rely on; and I hope that my open mind is gift enough for us to remain friends for a long time to come. If you’re reading this, know that you’re inspiration for this article, among potential others to come.

GridFusions DMD

It’s coming. The GridFusions “New Wave” is almost here now. The first step is our new record label, GridFusions DMD. I’d also like to welcome a valuable new member, Jack Spencer, to the team as a Director.

We’re beginning to talk to artists, venues and recording studios, and everything’s looking good for the big 2010 launch. Naturally, since we are GridFusions, we’re not going public until everything is perfect, but we’ll keep you posted informally from the Twitter feed, and the blogs. You can also sign up for notifications as a consumer on the GridFusions DMD website.

Remember, this is just the beginning. Watch this space.