BeedyG

Wired Sussex Media Fair

bG — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:03:16 +0000

Just got back from the Wired Sussex Media Fair.

I went to the last one just as I was thinking of taking the plunge to go freelance last year. The people and the sessions were pretty much the same but it’s good to get into a room with 100+ other freelancers, perhaps it’s just the safety in numbers. Hearing the panelists on the freelancing session talk, about experiencing the same things you have, is great for morale. There was plenty of advice (both working and financially) and I certainly felt I got a lot out of it.

Aleks Krotoski was the headline speaker for Enterprise Thursday who joined the fair for the evening session. I haven’t made the time to watch her BBC documentary “The Virtual Revolution” yet but since even my mum has recommended it I guess I will have to. Dr. Aleks is infectiously enthusiastic, and had the energy to give well thought out, passionate answers to the questions posed. Bit dissapointed that she considers “Bits” to be an albatros, but then although she’s a journalist, academic and TV presenter, she was never a geeky teenage boy.

That’s one of the best Thursday evenings I’ve had in a while and Thursdays are my favourite day! Came out of the event ready to do battle with the programming world once more and confident of victory (and met some lovely people).

Blue Marble

bG — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:48:53 +0000

I really love this picture

Mexican Sweet Potato Chilli

bG — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:17:05 +0000

Innocent, the people who make those lovely smoothies have branched out into veg pots. My favourite one is the Mexican Sweet Potato Chilli which is very very nice, so nice in fact that I decided to make it myself!

Here’s the recipe I used exactly although the addition of a small potato might help thicken up the sauce.

What you need:
(Makes enough for 4 (large) servings)

1 Sweet Potato
4 medium Carrots
1 small Onion
1 Cob of Sweetcorn (frozen will do)
1 tin of Beans in Chilli
1 tinned Tomatoes
1/4 jar of Jalepenos

Serve with:

Brown Rice

Instructions:

Fry the diced onion in a large saucepan (that has a lid)
Dice the Sweet Potato and Carrots
Once the onions have softened add the sweet potato and carrots
Fry for 5 minutes then just cover with water, bring to a boil and then turn down to simmer for 15 minutes (now is a good time to put on the brown rice)
Add the Tinned Tomatoes and Beans in Chilli and cover the saucepan, simmer for 15 more minutes
If the sweetcorn is on the cob then remove with a knife
If uncooked then add to the pot for the last 5 minutes
Chop the Jalepenos
Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the Jalepenos (and sweetcorn if cooked)

Enjoy with the Brown Rice!

For Charedy Mate

bG — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:14:08 +0000

I am a bit conflicted about this post: personally I can’t stand fund raising events, my view being that if you want to donate money to charity then you should do so and do so quietly and privately. I think this view comes from my Catholic upbringing, I remember being told, “the left hand should not know what the right hand giveth”, in other words don’t crow about what a good person you are, giving should be it’s own reward and other people knowing about it shouldn’t be your motive.
Unfortunately the economics of successful fund-raising seem to contradict this, the best way of raising money seems to be to create a big hoo-ha involving celebrities and give businesses a way of proving how community orientated they are by donating money and showing off about it. I suppose that’s the way human nature works; we copy our cultural figureheads.
Before I bore the pants off you with caveats, suffice to say I’m taking part in the London to Brighton bike ride this year (TBH I didn’t even realise it was for Charity) and it seems to be the done thing to raise money for the organising charity which is the British Heart Foundation. So I’ve set up a Justgiving page for donations so please donate if you want to.

Back From Japan

bG — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:03:48 +0000

As you may have noticed here I was in Japan - well I’ve made it back in one piece!

Japan is a fantastic Country- had a brilliant time,

there’s some photos up here and when I get a moment I’ll be converting the videos and uploading to YouTube (yes they are mostly of snow monkeys!)

Off to Ireland for Dairmuid & Aine’s wedding now (4 flights in one week, is it too much?)

Blogs for Corporations

bG — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:07:24 +0000

Last month several months’ of work finally came to fruition and the Rentokil deBugged Blog finally launched.

It’s been an interesting experience getting a blog set up for a large corporation, from educating the team from scratch to getting round technical issues. I can’t take the credit for the final design (that was Leyton Jay, whose design was much better than my prototypes) and the content has been written by various staff members especially Danusia but it does feel a little like my baby.

It’s going well so far, still early days but so far so good; there’s some good content up there and the feedback is positive. I won’t go so far as to match the tongue in cheek claims on Tom from Distilled’s take on the Rentokil deBugged launch (great graph Tom!) but it looks good.

Danusia has written a great article about her experience which contains useful insights both for ordinary bloggers and companies thinking of joining the Blogosphere (if we’re still allowed to call it that these days) which you can find here: 9 lessons I learnt putting together a new blog.

Big in Japan

bG — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:32:00 +0000

Hi - as you might have noticed Im in Japan!
Havent quite worked out the japanese keyboard, every time i try and do a bit of punctuation it all goes a bit wrong!
For updates you can follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/beedyg)
After 2 hour stopover in Helsinki we arrived in Osaka 10am local time to be greeted by Aya holding a welcome card, shes looked after us fantastically, booking the hotel in Osaka and taking us there on the train. We re in a \n area of Osaka called Minami its the posh part of town Area of Big Brand Name Shops (thats the name given to the area by our map!).
Its amazing clean here and super efficient and modern (it does feel a little like stepping into the future!)

We:ve seen Osaka Castle (Osaka-jo) and spent a few days wandering around the town - i did hear Osaka described as the Birmingham of Japan but that:s unfair - it:s really bright and colourful, plebty to do!!

Off to tokyo tomorrow, but first theres the drinks reception from after Aya and Cellos wedding.

Oh and it is really hot and sunny and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, weve conme at the perfect time!

Globalisation: A view from 2002

bG — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:53:20 +0000

With the G20 protests starting today I was reminded of the last time this happened back in 1999. I’ve had to look it up on wikipedia and it was the J18: Carnival Against Capitalism. I was working in the Financial Services industry back then, but we were based in Hammersmith so although people we dealt with on a daily basis were affected, we weren’t directly. I remember that our office was split down the middle; some dissapproved, but others, myself included, really wanted to take the day off and join the protests. That might sound strange, but our company reported on the perfomance of the industry rather than taking part directly.

This was a flash video I made a few years later in my final year at uni. We were given the song and told to make a video to accompany it. I don’t agree with all of the song, but the tone does resonate with me.

My NPWA Flash Video

The imagery at the end was taken from the protests at the G8 summit in Geneva 2001 - and I decided to dedicate it to Carol Giuliani who was killed during them.

Back in 1999 the greatest fear in the zeitgesit was that unfettered capitalism would turn into a monster. Naomi Klein’s No Logo (2001) explained how we were right to be worried - but just when it seemed that world governments would be forced to respond to the growing clamour for an ethical form of capitalism, 9/11 happened. Since late 2001 the “War on Terror” has had centre stage in our imaginations (something that probably won’t affect you, but would be terrible if it did, gets more mindshare than something that will definitely affect you, but probably in a subtle way - that’s just the way our brains deal with risk). But now that the recession is starting to affect people directly (myself included) the workings of the global economy are back in the spotlight. One thing that has changed in the intervening years is that our right to protest has been heavily eroded; the chances that police will use their new “terror” powers to discourage protest against the government seem pretty high.

My friend Benji is photographing the protests today so I’m hoping to be able to put up some links to them when he gets back.

Slumdog Millionaire

bG — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:40:33 +0000

I watched Slumdog Millionaire and I was very impressed. I don’t watch many films in the cinema (the cheapskate in me usually just files films I like the look of away in the “will rent from Lovefilm later” category) but I’m very glad I was convinced by my friends recommendations to go and watch this film.
From the TV adverts I’d the impression that this was some sort of rags to riches story using “Who want to be a Millionaire” as a Deus Ex machina, but instead it’s a very clever film that uses the TV show format to tell the life story of a young muslim man from the slums of Mumbai (Bombay in his early childhood). I haven’t seen the squalor of these slums conveyed with the same impact before - there are images, like the child wading through a rubbish choked river, that stick in your mind long after the film has ended. It really made me think about what the lives of people living in these conditions are like - so a little shaming and thought provoking. It also has a few scenes set from the other side of an indian call centre - which certainly made me question the way I’ve interacted with them in the past.
Although in some places harrowing, this is a great feel good film and I heavily recommend it - go and watch it now - you won’t regret it!

My First (public) Wordpress Plugin

bG — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:55:53 +0000

I’ve been doing a fair bit of stuff with wordpress at work but most of the plugins and themes I’ve written haven’t been releasable - this is my first plugin which is.

Multiple Comment Moderation

This is a simple plugin which allows you to set a number of moderated posts a subscriber to your Blog needs before their comments do not need to be pre-moderated before appearing.

It’s pretty basic at the moment, but I’ll add an options screen (so you can define the number of moderated comments needed - which at the moment is hardcoded to 3) and when I’m happy with it see if I can get it hosted at wordpress.org, which would be nice.

download v0.2 here

This actually works now - before it affected everybody, admin the post author etc now it works as supposed to (and is smaller to boot) next step to add the admin panel