but I don't think that means I have a brain the size of a planet...
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
#RaspberryJam Cambridge - the starting point of something quite special?
Today was a really great day at RaspberryJam; a well managed and timed series of short sharp presentations on what people thought of the Pi, had done with the Pi, had done *to* the Pi (addons etc), and would like to do to the Pi!
Sitting in the crowd the image I took below struck me as reminiscent of something
The Home Brew Club Home Brew Club in 1979.
More links here:
http://opencollector.org/history/homebrew/index.html
and
http://www.bambi.net/bob/homebrew.html
So, will we look back in 5 or 15 years (things move faster now!) and see an organisation and product that has become folklore in our industry and the source from which many good things sprang?
Comments invited!
Sitting in the crowd the image I took below struck me as reminiscent of something
My friend, @JerryDHarper who was photographing the event for the organisers took this one [coming soon!], which much better illustrates my thinking.
The image that stuck in my mind? This one
With the hindsight of three decades, we can see that this club helped start many careers and business (see the Wikipedia link above for more details) - if you want to read more about that era and what came from it, I recommend reading Stephen Levy's book Hackers which I (quite oddly) found on sale in the second hand section of a hotel in Pico in the Azores some years ago. You can currently buy it second hand from Amazon and Abebooks
http://opencollector.org/history/homebrew/index.html
and
http://www.bambi.net/bob/homebrew.html
So, will we look back in 5 or 15 years (things move faster now!) and see an organisation and product that has become folklore in our industry and the source from which many good things sprang?
Comments invited!
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Meet my friends…
At the beginning of the year when (after about 30 years off the bike) I started training for the Help For Heroes Big Battlefield Bike Ride my early runs barely left the house and left me knackered!
As a sharp winter evolved into a wet, cold, breezy, spring my training runs extended and I took in a stretch of country road (1 car wide, no road paint, poor surface) alongside a stretch of river. Within a few weeks I spotted a couple of swan who had setup a nest and were caring for 7 eggs.
Although most times I would whizz (well, whizz-ish) by on a few occasions I would stop and take a few pictures - more interesting as the nest appeared to be mobile and was to be found anywhere in a 2-300 yard stretch of the river.
A couple of months later and just before the bike ride I returned to that part of the world (my routes had taken me further afield) to find that the eggs had hatched, and seven string cygnets were heading for the water to swim with ma & pa; however their necks were still too short to bottom feed - so they would nibble on the bank's grass before setting off.
A month or so, 350 miles, 10,000 feet of elevation and £3,000 of fund raising later…
I was passing the river again stretching my legs after an fortnight off the bike to commence my preparations for the H4H Ride to Recovery at Colchester in September. I was pleased to see the family about and all able to bottom feed. Perhaps not surprisingly the cygnet count was down by 1 - I guess that's probably a success against average attrition rate.
I look forward to a few more sighting over the coming months until they move off to pastures new…
As a sharp winter evolved into a wet, cold, breezy, spring my training runs extended and I took in a stretch of country road (1 car wide, no road paint, poor surface) alongside a stretch of river. Within a few weeks I spotted a couple of swan who had setup a nest and were caring for 7 eggs.
Although most times I would whizz (well, whizz-ish) by on a few occasions I would stop and take a few pictures - more interesting as the nest appeared to be mobile and was to be found anywhere in a 2-300 yard stretch of the river.
A couple of months later and just before the bike ride I returned to that part of the world (my routes had taken me further afield) to find that the eggs had hatched, and seven string cygnets were heading for the water to swim with ma & pa; however their necks were still too short to bottom feed - so they would nibble on the bank's grass before setting off.
A month or so, 350 miles, 10,000 feet of elevation and £3,000 of fund raising later…
I was passing the river again stretching my legs after an fortnight off the bike to commence my preparations for the H4H Ride to Recovery at Colchester in September. I was pleased to see the family about and all able to bottom feed. Perhaps not surprisingly the cygnet count was down by 1 - I guess that's probably a success against average attrition rate.
I look forward to a few more sighting over the coming months until they move off to pastures new…
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