McFilter

Winter Stroll Around Scammonden Water

In the run up to Christmas I was meant to catch up with one of my mates, who lives over in Yorkshire. Luckily, in hindsight, for a number of reasons that didn't happen, and got rescheduled to the Saturday between Christmas and New Year. That meant that we headed out onto the hills for a walk the day after the snow had swept across the country.

I'd found this walk around Scammonden Water which turned out to be almost the perfect route: up on the moors but easy to get to from Huddersfield (which is easy to reach by train from Liverpool), not too strenuous or long, and - apart from a short stretch alongside the M62 - lovely views.

There were a good three or four inches of snow, which made everywhere look fantastic and provided good yomping. A perfect way for us to catch up on life and build our appetite for a trip to the curry house later. Recommended.

There are a few (not particularly great) photos in my Scammonden Water walk album.

Interesting Things on the Internet: December 29th 2014

• Trending Market Forces: Women in Tech. More progress needed, obviously, but we're heading in the right direction.
• HAPPIDROME - Part One. Adam Curtis on good form. Could the Internet remove our hierarchical control systems and lead to a better future, or are we just being controlled and kept happy and sedate by a technocratic elite?
• Dada Data and the Internet of Paternalistic Things. A great snapshot of a potential vision of an IoT future, although not a good future. I (and we, collectively) need to work on better visions for IoT.

Interesting Things on the Internet: December 22nd 2014

• The secret to the Uber economy is wealth inequality.
Who's the Boss? "The Elf on the Shelf" and the normalization of surveillance. Normalising acceptance of the panopticon, and no technology in sight.
• Have fun and be silly. I brought this up in class but it bears repeating. If you are working on something and its not fun, take that as a sign that you should try something else.
• Apache (and other foundations) considered useful. What new institutions do we need for the new open-source, Internet age?

Interesting Things on the Internet: December 15th 2014

• Start-ups and Emotional Debt That is, treating “the money problem” as a strict subset of “the life problem” is a mistake. As tempting as it is for programmers, it’s impossible to divide-and-conquer the good life. Like it or not, “the money problem,” “the love problem,” “the friendship problem,” and “the true-passion-in-life problem” are all intertwined, and they develop together. That’s part of what makes life so interesting.
• Stewart Lee: “I don’t mind causing offence when I intend to, but I don’t like causing it accidentally”. Great interview on all sorts of topics like social mobility and politics.
• What I Learned From Building An App For Low-Income Americans.
• Why I Joined The New Artists’ Union. In the recent art project I've worked on about 30 years since the Miners' Strike there's been some thought-provoking discussion about the place of unions; whether I'd strike if the same situation arose; and which union I'd be part of. So it's interesting to see that there is a fledgling union for artists. Not that I'm sure that I'd qualify.
• Inside the brain of a designer. A lovely video showing the (/a) creative process.
• Sarah Churchwell: why the humanities matter Let me answer the question: what’s all this art for? It’s for us.

Interesting Things on the Internet: December 1st 2014

• The End of Imagination. A wonderful short story about the future.
• Is saving Newcastle a mission impossible?. Distressing reading, as it brought home that this isn't just happening in Liverpool but across the country. It'd divide and conquer politics, and the challenge is finding a way beyond that, to counter it.