mightaswell.

I moved to Manchester around the same time FutureEverything was on 4 years ago, when it was still called FutureSonic – and I never managed to figure out what exactly the festival was about (let alone pay for a ticket…), until last year where one of the academics at our department was invited to a panel discussion and I realised that it was probably something I’d be interested in. Luckily, this year they’ve had a few places for poor but proactive people like me, and I was fortunate (or poor and proactive enough) to get one of those places.

The festival officially launched on Wednesday evening, with a few drinks and some short welcome talks from FutureEverything organisers, our city council leader Sir Richard Leese (who, according to my neighbour, gave exactly the same talk as last year), the head of the Arts Council, and Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic politician, activist and geek, who will also be giving a keynote talk on day 2 of the conference.

I had to miss the morning talks on day 1 and arrived just in time for a presentation by the BBC on their digital coverage of the London 2012 Olympics. While I had not been particularly interested in the Olympics (except for the opening ceremonies – I just love the excessiveness of Olympic opening ceremonies!), knowing that there was some technology and possibly even data (loads of semantic web technology, metadata and even tagged videos) to play around with, especially during the Young Rewired State week which happens to be around the same time as the Olympics, sounded very tempting. The only downer came after the talk when I was told that the data were indeed accessible and could be used, hacked, and mashed by anyone, however, publishing the results of such a hack  might not be possible due to copyrights held on the data. I’m hoping to get some more information about the situation from the beebs.

The post-lunch sessions I attended where themed around personal data, identity, and security, which was both interesting and worrying. I am fully aware that my data is constantly being used, tracked, and analysed (after years of refusal I caved and got a Nectar card, which allows me to access my stats online and see when I shopped for how much at which Sainsbury’s… so if they haven’t yet found out that I’m a 20-something female with erratic eating habits who bakes a lot, they will know now), and avoid using social media in a personal capacity. You won’t find drunky pictures of me on Facebook, I’m afraid. Imagining, however, how insurance companies use personal data on, for example, shopping habits to estimate your life expectancy (Wall Street Journal article here) makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Next on for a short talk was Jeremy Newman, who introduced a strategy for preventing identity fraud: By building up a network of trust, where the identity of a person is confirmed by the people who know them and “vouch” for them by identifying their picture. Well. Nice idea, but it seems to have way too many holes (what stops me from using someone else’s name and picture to assume their identity? How can blind people vouch for others if they can’t see the pictures? Do I really want to go through the process of having other people verify my identify whenever I change my appearance?) that might need addressing first.

The last session I attended was part of the ongoing “Reuse and Replicate” talks and workshops, with some great insight into the MDDA’s wireless sensor network project that will monitor environmental factors along the Oxford Road Corridor. Back home, I tuned into I’d Hide You, a live online / real life game in which people with cameras mounted on helmets run around the Northern Quarter trying to “snap” each other with cameras, while the spectators can give them directions via a live-chat. I was pretty impressed by the quality of the game (real-time live video streaming of people moving, reading out the messages we sent them), and the players were all fun (“I might just go for a little drink here…”), but it felt like there was something missing – an actual goal. I’d love to see the concept used for a treasure hunt or a capture the flag type game, but simply running around the block and artificially creating clashes seemed a little pointless after a bit. Oh, and they should totally add point & click features – like “Player 1, read… poster! Take… book. Use… book…with…sausage.”, that kind of stuff. Having said that, they will be playing all weekend, so I’m quite looking forward to a live video-stream of the Northern Quarter on Friday and Saturday night.

I’ll report back with more FutureEverything funsies soon.

Just like every year around this time, the past few weeks have been pretty effing glorious up here. Sun sun sun, blue skies, and almost no clouds; a rare sight in Manchester. Newcomers, don’t be fooled – this was not the beginning of spring or summer, it *was* spring and summer combined into two fantastically warm and summery weeks. It’s only going downhill from now on, trust me.

Given the weather conditions, it would have been foolish not to get out of the city for a spot of walking and heat strokes. I’ve been hearing a lot about The Globe pub in Glossop lately, and I’m quite fond of veggie food stuffs as you might have noticed, so it didn’t take us long to plot a little round trip from Glossop to, uhm, Glossop, via Kinder Downfall and the Kinder reservoir.

Having been walking around Kinder Scout before (on a pretty ridiculous 9 hour march from Glossop to Edale with huge rucksacks through the wet snow a few years* ago – I never felt so much hate and love for nature at the same time), I was curious to see what was underneath the snow and ice covered fields of mud I experienced the last time.

The walk up to Mill Hill which leads to Kinder Scout was… bleak. Brownish grass. Heather. A few rocks. Sheep. Streams. The usual. But as soon we had climbed up the rocky path of doom up to Sandy Heys I couldn’t stop talking about THE ROCKS. Rocks. Everywhere. Wind, rain, and thousands of years of the earth moving had shaped the gritstone into magnificent marshmallow-like layers and fascinating rock formations, some silently sitting on top of the hills in solitude, others gathering in large groups like crowds around the buskers on Market Street. I was stunned and amazed. Imagine Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks pointing out the impressive trees at his arrival to the town… but with rocks.

After a quick lunch near Kinder Downfall (speaking of which, you might know that “Kinder” means “children” in German, which always leads me to think of “Kinder Downfall” as a place where children were tossed down the rocks in ancient times… I know, I know.), we took the route down the hill towards the reservoir and over the moors back into Glossop. Thanks to my unsurpassed navigational skills (“yeah this only like, an inch on the map, I’m sure it’s really close”) the walk back along the main road wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it led us in a straight line to our final destination: The Globe. Just in time for dinner we fell into the pub and found it absolutely crammed. I was a little surprised that vegan food would be so popular, but as soon as my walking companion returned from the bar with a broad smile I found out what may contribute to the Globe’s popularity: pints of ale for £1.80.

The next pleasant surprise was the food menu – the meals were only marginally more expensive than the drinks. This encouraged us to assemble a balanced meal based on all the major food groups (rice, curly fries, chips, bread), including some delicious parsnip chips and the much talked about chick pea curry, which managed to live up to its reputation. Several pints, lemonades, and starchy foods later, we returned to Manchester with full bellies and bright red faces. Hey, Peak District – we’ll be back in you soon!

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

* Bloody ‘ell. A few years ago. Come May I will celebrate my 4 year anniversary in Manchester. Bit of a detour from my original “I’ll just do my MSc here and then go back to Germany” plans.

HUuuuauaaaaaaaahhhhRRrrrrrrrggggghhzzzzz.

That’s the sound of me stretching my hands, positioning my chair, neatly arranging that cup of tea in front of me, stretching again, trying to remember the URL of my blog, checking Twitter first, having another biscuit, and finally logging in to Wordpress to write… a blog post! It’s been a while, bah bah bah, the usual. But hey, I’ve brought something back from the many trips I made in the past couple of months: Stories. And piktchas. That’s what you’re here for, right?

Now, let’s start in non-chronological order with my short visit darn sarf. We went to the wonderful Butlin’s holiday park in Minehead for the Nightmare Before Christmas ATP (curated by Les Savy Fav, which I ended up missing twice in one day, Battles, and Caribou, just in case you’re wondering) at the beginning of December, and, being the ueber nerds we are, somehow did not spend the  whole weekend getting drunk and chasing seagulls (and by that I mean making out with Dutch girls) like my German friends. In fact, we got up early every morning and went on excursions around Somerset and Devon to see some more of the South than just the inside of the chain restaurant and arcade games lined Butlins pavilion.

On the first day, we tried to explore the rather magnificent looking Dunster Castle near Minehead, only to find that it is closed to the public over the winter months (it’s okay, I only cried a little). A short walk around the ‘medieval’ (for some meaning of medieval) village did not bring up any more interesting sights and so we returned just in time to watch the first set of Battles.

The next day, we stretched a little further and simply drove as far west as we could, finally landing in Lynton/Lynmouth on the north coast of Devon. As expected, the town had already gone into winter hibernation – except for the big and cold Arts & Craft centre, where we interrupted the reading pleasures of a lady in a thick winter coat. Back outside in the pouring rain, we followed signs to the Cliff Railway, just out of curiosity. Much to our surprise* the cafe at the top of the cliff was open for business, and we did our best to support the local economy by purchasing coffee and stale apricot cake.

And this was my breathtaking account of a spectacular holiday. The highlight of the weekend was when I got a text of my ex-housemate, who kindly agreed to look after the rabbit: I had dropped the wrong set of keys into his letterbox, leaving the rabbit locked into our flat for the entire weekend with quickly dwindling supplies of hay and water in his cage. Images of the rabbit doing this while trying to survive on a diet of newspaper cropped up in my head. Thanks to our landlord however, the situation was quickly resolved, the ex-housemate got into the flat to feed the rabbit, and all three of them (including the rabbit) just sigh and roll their eyes a little bit whenever my name is mentioned.

We didn’t meet Bracken, resident dog of the Cliff Railway Cafe in Lynton.

* I must apologise for the number of clichés I’ve used in this blog post. This is what happens when you only write scientific papers for months. You lose all ability to communicate and default to clichéd language. Just like all those scientists that write for the Daily Mail. Q.E.D.