Cute, clever & fun 🙂 Taking a cue from the Wii Remote, Future Feeder‘s Tilt SCREAM Pong uses a MacBook Pro‘s sudden motion sensor to control the paddle in a regular game of Pong – tilting your MacBook, moves the paddle! In a cute little twist that utilises the integrated mic, screaming at your Mac momentarily expands your paddle 🙂
For more tilting fun, try MacSaber, BubbleGym and Tilt Mania.
Download Tilt SCREAM Pong here…
Despite the incessant rain and a new home, OpenCoffee {Duo} was a another great success. We’re back with the third event on 7th August, again at Justin Whiston‘s Loftart gallery space.
We’d love to share some interesting developments on coworking spaces for Leeds, the progress of BarCamp, participation in Seedcamp and the exciting new .north community. We want to make the North of England an essential hub for the web industry and we want you all to help make it happen.
Please come along and join us for free wifi, coffee and cakes…geeks, coders, bloggers, investors, entrepreneurs, designers, developers and anyone with a passing interest in digital – come share+demo+network 🙂
Head on over to the event listing at Upcoming and let us know you’re coming…see you on the 7th!
‘Those who spend in Allah’s Cause,in
prosperity and in adversity, who repress anger, and who pardon men;
verily, Allah loves Al-Muhsinoon, the good-doers.’ {Chapter 3, Verse 134 – The Qu’ran}
In the next few weeks, my friend Mike Sierra will be riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge, to raise money for cancer research and treatment…he’s geo-tagging his route, so others can follow his progress in Google Earth (KML link). Mike lost his brother brother-in-law to cancer a few years ago. I’m sure his efforts are driven by his recent experience.
Separately, Andy Mitchell, one of the co-founders of local startup MeeCard, just took part in the Rickshaw Run to support Mercy Corps‘ work in India. Andy’s also behind MeeTimer, a charityware extension for Firefox, designed to help ‘curb your online procrastination’ and build awareness of Mercy Corps.
Lastly, I recently received a letter from World Vision explaining that my sponsored child’s project will soon be closing as the Peruvian village of Ipaumirim is ready to manage its own development. Samara Lima and I have written each other a couple times a year since she was five years old…she’s now fifteen and ready to contribute to her community. I hope I’ll be able to stay in touch with Samara and also be able to support another project.
Mike, Andy and I are amongst the wealthiest 1% of humanity that has ever existed and yet everyone – all of us – don’t do enough. Everything we do must be world-changing 🙂
UPDATE (7th September): With the Ipaumarim Area Development project drawing to an end, this eveningI wrote a farewell letter to Samara and received details of the next development project and the child I will be sponsoring. Benna Nakibirige is a young girl from Uganda who lives in an area around 120km West of Kampala. The Kibiga-Mulagi Development programme will focus on improving sanitation, HIV+AIDS awareness and school enrollment in those two sub-counties.
A Y Combinator for Europe…?
More here…
UPDATE – Saul’s just asked if I’d like to be a mentor during Seedcamp week this September 🙂
Despite the rain and a new home for OpenCoffee Leeds, the second {Duo} of our monthly networking events went well last Tuesday. We counted 21 attendees, a little short of last month – but I blame the rain 🙂 However, we were pleased to see a lotta new faces and just a handful of old friends.
So month two has been a little quieter, many of the people we met between the first and second events were busy, some of the people I wanted to talk to more weren’t able to return and the rotten weather kept many people away…however, everyone seemed to find someone of interested and we again saw a bunch of satisfied customers 🙂
OpenCoffee {Tre} is planned for 7th August…Justin W’s offered the use of the Loftart gallery again (great views of the City) and someone’s suggested The Living Room‘s Study…we’ll announce venue details soon…in the meantime enjoy the photos from {Duo}.
…the fedora’s back – it’s been eighteen years. I can’t wait 🙂
Carbon co-founder Ian Pringle presented a seminar on
Web 2.0 and the SME last night, exploring potential of the new web for small businesses. Ian did an amazing job of keeping the 30-strong audience engaged for almost an hour and followed with a lively Q&A session.
You can find his slides and references here; also a handful of photos and a brief video excerpt.
We met a few interesting people, including John Lambert, an IP lawyer from Huddersfield, Poulters‘ head of Digital, Ross Hewitt and Everythingability‘s Tom Smith.
Incidentally, looks like there was a great turnout for the first GeekUp Leeds too 🙂
A little clunky in places, more an essay than a study, but Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain has a wonderful coda…
it’s been a strange old story, a long march out of post-war austerity towards today’s swarming material profusion. For the last sixty years, Britain has been on the front line of change, From the Cold War to Thatcher’s Revolution; from de-industrialisation to online culture. Britain has been transformed form the planet’s most sprawling empire to an island that is now home to people from all over the world. The many coloured heart of the global economy.
The history of modern Britain, for all our increased wealth, has been surprisingly turbulent. Plenty of tight spots and loose living. Political mistakes and embarrassments of all kinds. Looking ahead, we ‘world’s islanders’, as we’ve become, are more open and perhaps more vulnerable than ever before.
And yet, to be born British remains a fantastic stroke of luck.
{ more… }
We’re back! After the runaway success of Leeds’ first OpenCoffee event, we knew we had to do it again…there were too many people we didn’t get a chance to connect with and we wanna make that right as well as meet some more friendly faces 🙂
Whitson Group CEO Justin Whiston has kindly offered the use of the Loftart gallery space on Vicar Lane in the City (photo)- as well as free wifi, coffee and cakes! Thanks Justin – we owe you.
We managed to get 27 people out for OpenCoffee {Uno} and found there was a real buzz in the room. Loftart can accommodate many more, so i’m hoping you’ll all help us get those numbers up…geeks, coders, bloggers, investors, entrepreneurs, designers, developers and anyone with a passing interest in digital – come share+demo+network 🙂
Head on over to the event page at Upcoming and let us know you’re coming…see you in a couple weeks!
…for the next six days, I’m back at the edge of the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited back to Foo Camp for a third consecutive year…it was a little weird as some of my friends didn’t get a callback, but others got a re-vite, after a year away. I can’t wait 🙂
Except that none of this is gonna happen. I had to cancel my trip yesterday and put my family ahead of myself…I’ve reset my Foo threepeat counter and will keep my finger’s crossed for 2008… 🙁
UPDATE (A) Tim’s impressions and the full schedule of sessions.
UPDATE (B) My family situation is resolved…my brother Farhan passed his re-assessments and graduated with a BSc (Hons) Computing – Computer Communications with a little help from Mohsin, Tarique and big bro 🙂