“I believe — really believe — in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can’t open it, you don’t own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better. If you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you bought her an Apple ][+."

As it happens, my parents bought me a video Genie (a TRS-80 clone) as my first computer, but that included schematics too. It wasn't long before I was designing and building my own software and peripherals, and even making a bit of a living from some of them. Computing wasn't a passive experience, it was an active, engaging, creative one. I don't see my kids doing that as much today. Sure, they play with Scratch, but it really doesn't feel like the same thing. It has something about it of the cut and paste mentality that has become so prevalent these days [boy I'm sounding like a grumpy old man - did I mention I've noticed I have more grey hair recently?].

To me the iPad is “Infantalizing hardware” as Cory puts it. In fact, around the same time I read “The Real iPad Review“, which gives a 3 year old’s view of the iPad (via the child’s dad - Adam Kmiec ). It says this:

“Is the iPad a killer device?  Is it a game changing device?  Will you love it?  The simple answer is YES…so long as you have the mindset of a 3 year old.  Harsh?  Yes.  But, it’s the truth.”

Yes, that is harsh. I mean no disrespect to the dear friends who have rushed out and bought one, but it is slightly distressing watching them going jab-jab-point-shiny-shiny. Adam also points out the hardware short comings that kill the iPad for me:

“No USB, no camera, no replaceable battery, no ability to create content and heck no cleaning cloth.  I could deal with all of these shortcomings and flaws if the price was something like $349.99 (in line with iPod Touch), but not at $499.99 (minimum).  At $349.99 it would be a nice affordable stretch and step up from an iPod and complimentary to a laptop.  But, at $499.99 I just don’t see how a current iPhone or MacBook user will find value in a device that does less than both of those devices.”

The lack of cleaning cloth is definitely a killer. What where Apple thinking?!? More seriously, the other features are a big issue… You see, my Windows Tablet PC has all of these features, and more, and it cost me a fraction of that price. Does it have the app store? No. Can I play angry birds with a multi-touch interface? No. Can I write my own apps on it (in a multitude of development environments)? Yes. Can I create my own rich content with it? Yes. Of course some have converted the iPad into a maker’s device, but there are other cheaper iPad alternatives out there. By the end of the summer there will be a veritable ocean of touch-screen web tablets.

I love Maker things. I love Dan’s Internet catapult. I love the devices people make with Arduino kits. I love the creative ideas of the kids at Teentech. I’m not a fan of things that make us passive consumers of information. I like creating things and planning things with people. Not everyone agreed with Cory, of course, and I’m coming from a slightly different angle. I don’t think we all need to be coders and soldering-iron-wielding-pcb-making geeks, but I do hope we can be a generation that doesn’t just consume, but that engages and creates!

It was almost two years ago that I went to the first Twestival, Harvest Twestival – Gathering with many of the people I had met via Twitter and listinging to Ben singing his (tongue in cheek) Twitter song, “you’re no-one if you’re not on twitter“.

Fast forward six months, and I found myself in the BBC’s London television studio (thank you Jaz and the team), explaining why thousands of people, may of whom had never met in real life, were gathering in towns and cities around the world at Twestival events to raise money for Charity:Water.

That event, or rather the money raised by it, resulted in clean drinking water in Africa, thanks to the ongoing work of charity:water.

Twestival Well Drilling – Day 1 from Ethiopia – charity: water from charity: water on Vimeo.

Now, it is true that the events might raise less money than some of the glitzy charity ball galas that go on, and that folks on social media give less (see Tom Watson’s CauseWired book), but the fact is that there were many people and businesses donating who hadn’t got involved in supporting charity work before. That’s got to be a good thing.

Twestival is a testimony to what a group of volunteers, co-ordinating their efforts using the web (and social media tools), can achieve. I enjoyed watching some of the images I shot spreading around the world, and meeting people I had got to know on-line, face to face. Today Twestival is an even bigger, more global affair, alternating between two events each year, Twestival Local and Twestival Global events. If you haven’t been to one before, then tonight is your chance. Go to the Twestival site to find an event near you, and go and meet some new people, have a great time and raise some money for Concern Worldwide.

If you are in the TVSMC area, you can head to Reading Twestival or Farnham Twestival or even both!

This month’s competition has less to do with cooking and more to do with making. Last month’s winner chose a Summer Sandwich for this month’s competition, so the only heat was in the competion, rather than the food… Well, apart from the occasional chilli in one of the sandwiches.

The usual host for judging, Maggie Philbin, was being held hostage by family, so Caalie and I headed across the county border on behalf of Nickie Philbin, to meet the judge and show off the entries in a slightly rainy Farnborough in Hampshire. This month’s special guest judge was Darius Zvinis, Executive Chef, at the Landings Restaurant in Farnborough. I’ve blogged about the Landings before, over on the Redcatco blog, for their use of Twitter in their business.

Darius turned out to be a very diligent judge! He is Canadian, with Polish roots, and thoroughly enjoyed himself as we bemused him with antics from the Twitter community. The Landings is a wonderfully presented restaurant, with great food, so it was interesting to hear Darius talking about the importance of high quality ingredients and presentation that is practical as well as attractive - the dish has to make it to the table in one piece! “Less is more,” he said, “Great sandwiches can be spoiled by being too busy.” Caalie and Darius huddled over my laptop as they thumbed through the entries:

There were 15 entries in total. Here’s is the judge’s feedback for each:

• @M4ryDeNovo – great bread!  Too bad crusts were cut.  Good example of less is more.
• @Andyqsmith @nicolarse51 – prob v tasty, great marinade. Presentation not best, but  looked a lot of fun!
• @Redmummy – Not too keen on presentation. looks very tasty, especially smoked salmon.
• @edwardclarke – Pastrami looks good – this is key. Maybe too much flavour – perhaps gherkin, mustard and chilli would be enough.
• @squidge1997 – you’re like me in the kitchen – who needs recipes?!  Very Creative and a lot of fun!
• @caalie – looks like a real sandwich! Some good flavours.
• @annraulston – this made me laugh. More art than sandwich
• @shar13 – very nice, very creative, an interesting combination which  is definitely worth trying.
• @stu_art_ist – very creative and the flavours are there. How practical is it? It needs to make it to the table!
• @JimAnning – you know something about food. Great ingredients,  properly put together, looks good.
• @bubith – this looks really great and really tasty
• @maggiephilbin – a little crazy! (sandwich not person)
• @TrinityRhapsody – Nicely done, perhaps a little fussy
• @TrevorLamont – it should have been a stella!
• @nickiephilbin – too many ingredients, but a great steak sandwich

And last but not least: @handbagpets,  best unjudged entry and best bikini!

Darius opted for two categories in the end, a “fun category” and a serious one! First, the results in the fun category:

• 1st @Andyqsmith and @nicolarse51 – “well done!”
• 2nd – @squidge1997 “fantastic fun and clearly loves being creative.”
• 3rd – @TrevorLamont “(might’ve won if it had been a stella…)”

And, in the highly coveted serious category, the winners:

• 1st – @edwardclarke – this just looked so tasty, maybe it’s my Polish  roots.
• 2nd – @shar13 – really like that combination of flavours.
• 3rd – @nickiephilbin – it was the ginger with the steak that won me over.

With @JimAnning, @caalie and @bubith as runners up. As Nickie Philbin said, well done to Edward for winning for a 2nd time!!! Winner’s privilege is to choose the next challenge, and this time Edward has chosen “Summer Starter” for next month.

Well done to everyone who took part, and a huge cheer for Landings Restaurant in Farnborough (@landingsrestaur), and, as ever, to Maggie and Nickie for creating a little global community around food! Check out the pictures of the all the entries here. I look forward to next month’s adventures, huddled around a laptop, talking food. Once of these days I’m going to get to eat the winning entry!

And he’s posted more about What to Expect at TweetCamp:

The aim, is to bring people together in person who know each other through Twitter, but don’t necessarily know each other well in person. Given that, of the people coming, there is the full spectrum of people who have never been to an unconference style event before, aren’t technical, and just use twitter as a social tool. There will also be hard core geeks and techies who make social platforms that use twitter, and regularly go to unconference style events. It’ll be an interesting mix of people, with one thread in common we all use twitter.

Looking through the attendee list, it is certainly a diverse crowd, which will make for some energetic conversations.

Unlike previous BarCamp events, where there’s been a high level of structure to the day, and clear starting and stopping of sessions, TweetCamp won’t be so defined in the same way. Since we’re not focussing on the ‘learning and sharing’ element of BarCamp as much as building relationships with people we know, we want for people to take as little or as long as they need to have the conversations they want to have with the people they want to talk with. There’ll be plenty of people there who will be having interesting conversations, and will warmly welcome you to join them!

The usual BarCamp / unconference two feet rule applies – if you decide you don’t enjoy the discussion you’re in, then you can vote with your feet. There are some knowledgeable and creative people going along, so most angles will be covered. I’ll put photos up in the usual place after the event, and I’m sure I’ll have something to write up on the Redcatco Blog too!

More on the logistics of the day by Jon: The Fun stuff happening at Tweetcamp.

I’ve been out buying gadgets to save on standby power. The exciting one mentioned in the video is this fellow:

It is a Standby Saver Energy Saving Unit – as seen on Dragon’s Den, apparently. As explained in the video, it shuts of the power to all of the sockets when the computer powers down. There is a version for for AV equipment too, which works off of the infrared remote control, and apparently one for use with games consoles in the works.

There was an alternative which I looked at, the Intellipanel – Desktop version, but it was a fair bit more expensive, and had things like a telephone line filter that I didn’t need.

The other device mention in the video doesn’t seem to be on-line, other than in the Maplin shop: Remote Powered Extension lead. If your plugs are more spread out, the Bye Bye Standby Energy Saving Kit might be a better alternative.

It turns out that the standby saver has a little button to turn the computer back on, which turns out to be a bonus. The PC it is wired too is tucked away under the desk, so the standby saver button acts as a remote power switch, on the desk itself and right by the keyboard. That saves reaching under the desk to switch the PC on.

The RF remote powered extension seems to be doing sterling service so far too.

Finally, after a few tweets between Drew Benvie, Matt Brady, Neville Hobson and myself, it is all systems go…  

Drew has written a post about his hopes for TVSMC, and Neville gives a good background on Tuttle/SMC. There are a number of people out this way who regularly trek in to London Tuttle, so that gives a great start. It is wonderful to have something local to the Valley here, which will hopefully open up the opportunity for many more people to experience what happens when on-line and off-line merge.

As Matt Brady says, “[Reading] and its environs is chock-full of digital talent“, so it is time to show your stuff, if you are in the area sign up on the Thames Valley SMC  wiki. Any problems signing up, catch me on twitter or drop me an email and I’ll sort you out. I’ve built three RSS feeds into the site so far:

• RSS feed of the Wiki pages, to keep up with changes/sign ups.
• RSS feed for TVSMC blog (first post pending!).
• RSS feed from the calendar to keep track of dates.

The first gathering is at 10AM on Friday 13th of March. I’ll be there in spirit (since I’ll be in the thick of South by South West Interactive), but there is a healthy crowd going along!

It might not look like it, but that is a wondrous thing. It represents the next step in home hacking with the current cost meter. It is a lead which connects the current cost meter to the serial port on a lower power PC that runs a simple Perl script that records our power usage. The PC runs a script that captures the information from the current cost meter (current power used, in Watts, and temperature in ‘C) and build pretty graphs that are then published on a local web server.

Here are some of the useful resources I used to get it done:

• This original post from jibble.org: making graphs using the current cost device.
• Crouching Badger’s experiences with the USB version of the cable with links to a simple perl script.

The Jibble post got me started, although not being a PERL programmer or RRD user meant some of the “easy to make” changes weren’t actually that “easy to make”. Having learnt RRD a bit more, I’m impressed with it – great for performance monitoring of all sorts of thigns. It will take something more to move me to PERL as a programming language – PHP is as non-visual as I’m going to get. Some other pointers that helped (and give you an idea what it is all about):

• Dale Lane has done a fair bit – it was good to meet him at HomeCamp (I like Dale’s daily electricity bill too – I’ve build something similar, but taking the Kilowatt hours figure from the Current Cost Meter).
• Likewise Nicholas O’Leary has a series of posts.
• There is also a Google code repository.
• Ben Smithurst’s posts were also very helpful – a full script that updates rrd and an sqlite database too.

A slight warning: the commonly used PERL script fails when the temperature goes bellow 10′C though (since the current cost prints a leading space then, which causes the perl string matching clause to barf) – keep your current cost warm or fix up the script .

I have been amazed at the power of measuring usage in changing behaviours. Measuring really is the first step to managing. Even more excitingly, I have noticed that my gas meter is readable (via a magnetic or optical sensor) so I should be able to track that too soon – as if I’m not driving the family crazy already. Here’s a day of our electricity use (with min, max and average power):

With that said, making an old Apple G4 quieter is a fairly simple job. There are three fans that need replacing, two 60mm fans in the power supply, and one 120mm fan that cools the CPU. Some would argue that the two smaller fans make the bulk of the noise, but my G4 is in an audio environment, so I wasn’t taking any chances. Besides, the bearing on the 120mm fan was wearing out and emitting that telling grind of death noise.

The best on-line piece on dealing with the G4 noise is on xlr8yourmac. Normally I get components for quieting machines from QuietPC, but because of the special fan sizes this time I went to FrozenCPU (an insanely large collection of PC bits and pieces, but a carbon foot print fail, since my fans went: China -> US -> UK). It turns out you can actually get a full kit here, but not so cheap. 

I ordered a SilenX 120x120x38mm – 18dBA – 90CFM iXtrema Pro Fan and two Cooljag Everflow 60mm x 25mm Fans with grommets. Just enough to hush the mac, although potentially not enough airflow for a fully loaded system. You can laugh at my exploits in these Qiks:

Part I – wind noise:

Part Ib – going in:

Part II – getting it out:

Part III, the result:

Current Cost Meter

Phase I is already underway, as we now have a current cost meter installed (get yours here thanks to Southern Electric’s discount). Setting it up took about 10 minutes. The unit has already paid for itself by identifying a few unsuspected power-hogging devices – our ambient power consumption has already gone down from 700 Watts to under 350 Watts. The kids want to get it under 200, and are now militant about turning every unused device off – in the case of my middle son that also includes power sockets with nothing in them, bless him.

Current Cost Sensor Unit

Our peak-burst power usage is around 3Kw for very short periods, so it may be feasible for us to go off-grid, at least from an electric perspective. The next step is to do a wind survey and see if that could supply our ambient power needs.

Later this month I’ll be heading along to homecamp, a UK gathering of home hackers, and will hopefully pick up some good ideas there…

I haven’t see a complete round up of the talks (there were a lot!). The venue (Wallspace, St. Pancras) was absolutely stunning, the food delightful and Vero’s organization seamless.
I’ll write up my presentation on FOAF and Dunbar’s number (’6 degrees of seperation now 3′) and get it up on slideshare (to join this lot) just as soon as I’ve caught my breath. In the mean time there’s a nice mention here  (thanks @edent!).

The tag for the event was smclondon08, which should enable you to find the relevant blog and microblog posts, QIKs, and flickr photos.

As ever, my photos from the day are up and and tagged here on flickr. Feel free to add tags, faves, notes and comments, if you are a flickr user. If you aren’t, why not sign up for a flickr account, it is free….