Status-Q

Fun today at BarCamb. For those not familiar with the Bar Camp model, it has nothing to do with mixing drinks. Usually. It's basically a conference where you turn up prepared to give a talk but where the agenda is unknown until you arrive. The first activity of the day is that everybody who wants to then signs up for what they're going to talk about.

It was a one-day event on a much smaller scale than Tim O'Reilly's Foo Camp, which I was lucky enough to go to a couple of years back. But it was good fun and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I wanted to do this and couldn't find any examples, so I've posted some notes on how I did it.

Keith Shaw has a short video over at NetworkWorld demonstrating the DisplayLink technology in a couple of different forms.

This is an interesting site: TheFunded.com allows people who have received VC or similar investment to review and rate their investors. An intriguing idea.

Suppose you're a successful UK high-tech company with an interesting loudspeaker technology. Who would you naturally partner with?

Why, Hallmark greeting cards, of course.

At CamVine, we're starting to experiment with using an AppleTV as a server component of our CODA architecture. Being engineers, the first thing we had to do was take this beautiful piece of kit and dismantle it. Michael has a great photo on his blog.

I'm always a little bemused by those who make bold comparative statements without specifying to what they're comparing something.

Here's an example. I find myself tonight in a Bed & Breakfast near Gatwick airport. The little sachet of shampoo in the bathroom says:

Well, that's good. Mmmm... Wait a sec....less harmful than what? Than the animals, presumably?

I've moved Status-Q to a new version of WordPress on a new server. Please let me know if you notice any hiccups...

We are approaching the time of year often known in the British media as 'silly season'. There's usually relatively little real national news, and so a variety of completely daft things end up in the papers. Oliver Burkeman, writing in the Guardian this week, offered a wonderful "sneak preview of some of the other scoops you'll be reading over the coming weeks".

Extracts:

Gatwick terror panic

The government has banned airline passengers from wearing green hats after a man in a green hat was arrested at Gatwick airport carrying a bottle of potentially lethal hydrogen peroxide. Holidaymakers who flout the new rule face severe penalties, although hats of other colours will still be permitted, as will rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Bohemian Rhapsody triumphs in 'Top 100' lists

Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen, has been named the greatest film of all time following an administrative mixup among Sunday newspapers preparing this weekend's plethora of "Top 100" lists. The glam-rock band's celebrated anthem also won the title of funniest British comedy of all time, and most powerful person in the British media. A source at the polling company contracted to produce the lists blamed human error. However, a corrected version of the Best Musicians list still showed Arctic Monkeys several places ahead of the Beatles and Johnny Cash, a result that pollsters attributed to people these days having absolutely no taste whatsoever.

There's an article about Ndiyo in the Technology section of today's Guardian.

It's not bad - a few mistakes, but no more than the typical column. My main concern is that it sounds as if I did everything singlehandedly! Apologies to everybody else!