There's a song about it.

After I went to Primrose Hill for the first time, as soon as I got back I wanted to learn and record Loudon Wainwright III’s song about it. My version is not particularly original, but it has the edge that I did used to be a busker myself.
download mp3

See more progress on: Primrose Hill

blog

remove trackbacks
change comment system
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review or remove categories
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See more progress on: redesign my blog

Tested

I tested it, broke it, got kicked out a couple of times….
Some things have been half fixed but it’s still a bit broken and they’re releasing it live soon. And I’m just an amateur, wait til the professionals arrive!

See more progress on: Help test Tootietails: the next new thing from The Robot Co-op

Languages and versions

Ok so this is only a test version and there will be future developments but some things have to be got right very early on.
I notice there are at least French, German and Spanish versions of 43things ( fr.43things.com, de.43things.com, es.43things.com ) and I’m concerned that what we are testing here will develop into en.43places.com if not us.43places.com .

I already made a suggestion about translations, which would be the ideal way to go, but until that becomes a possibility it’s vital to have multilingualism built in all the way through.

So what is needed?

• One 43places, not multiple versions


• Alternative names for places leading to exactly the same pages.


• Automatic Flagging of which language an entry or goal is written in based on the writer’s default language, but changeable


• Options to filter entries by language when reading, but with ‘all’ as the default.

See more progress on: Multilingual version

Make a taglist type diagram

First I need to find out what these types of diagrams are called, the ones with words of different sizes as used by all of the social tagging systems like Flickr, deli.cio.us and 43. I’m sure I’ve seen a web service which creates them mentioned on a blog somewhere, but I don’t know what to search for so I need to ask the right people or get lucky.

Then I need to jot down all the keywords which mean something to me, find some way to weight them and generate the diagram. I could always do it manually I suppose, but then that would be more difficult to update and I’d prefer to learn something useful along the way.

See more progress on: Make a taglist type diagram of my learning

One week left

My internet connection gets cut off soon, and frankly I’m not that bothered. If I haven’t finished the last ultraversity module by then I can upload it from work. Who needs broadband in the summer holidays?

See more progress on: Choose a new broadband ISP

Registration

In order to complete Year 3, first I have to register and pay for it. This entails undertaking a whole series of smart tasks and comprises a substantial project all of its own which rightfully should be worth about 15 credits towards the degree. Anybody who is struggling right now is quite likely to fall at this hurdle.

See more progress on: Complete Year 3 of the degree

How to survive?

It’s a race against time. If I survive until May 2006 then I can redesign my lifestyle to spend less time on these unhealthy computers. But if I’ve already gone completely bonkers by then, I could make all the wrong decisions – if there are any. When I die, I would like to leave my mind to science for use as a case study.

See more progress on: Survive

for places I've been and want to

I’ve added Tasmania as a place I want to go to, and that’s turned the whole of Australia Orange even though I’ve been to Queensland which would normally make Australia blue.
I don’t want Australia to be divided up into states and no longer count as one country like US and Canada because I don’t think that’s right, so I propose a third colour for where both apply – maybe a different shade of blue.

See more progress on: add a third colour

Border

Whilst touring Alberta in a Campervan truck RV thingy, I accidentally strayed across border in the middle of the the Rocky Mountains somewhere. So I spent a few minutes in British Columbia, then turned around and went back to the main road through the National Park from Banff to Jasper.

See more progress on: British Columbia

Not in Summer perhaps

I went to a tourist resort called Bodrum and the best things were the boat trips, in fact that was the only bearable way to stay cool in the hot summer months.

See more progress on: Turkey

Midnight Sun in Tromso

I stayed for a few nights in June and saw the midnight sun. It never gets dark at all, the sun just dips behind the mountains for a short while then comes up again.

See more progress on: Tromsoe

conveyor belt sushi

I’d like to sit at the conveyor belt and watch all the nice food going past, then pick out the most tempting morsels.
There’s one in Liverpool Street station which I’ve walked past and looked in at several times now, but not yet been and gone and done it.

See more progress on: Moshi Moshi

Climate Change

I’d like to go to the Maldives before they become the first country to disappear beneath the rising ocean.

See more progress on: Maldives

Overnight

I can’t say I’ve really visited Japan as I only stayed overnight to connect a flight from the UK to Australia, but there was enough time to take a walk around the roads near the Hotel, which was a bus ride away from the Airport.
I looked at the roof tiles and the trees, and saw a group of council workers taking a break from sweeping the streets to practise their golf swings.

See more progress on: Japan

King Arthur

For some reason although I grew up in Cornwall and go back there quite a lot, I’ve never actually been to Tintagel – home of King Arthur’s castle. It’s probably for the same reason I never went up the Eiffel Tower all the time I lived in Paris. When you live somewhere, you just don’t always get around to doing the popular tourist things – with the exception of London of course, where you have to make some kind of use out of the fact that you live there.
Anyway, This is an entry on the trial 43places site which I’ve added in under UK > Cornwall rather than UK > England > Cornwall in order to test how the system deals with the inevitable conflict which arises over hierarchical taxonomies, especially with anything to do with the National Question.

See more progress on: Tintagel

ILM2-07 LA6 Hot Stitching

The main problem I’m facing getting this module finished now is the heat. My workstaion at home is upstairs where all the heat collects and I’ve got the windows open and the fan on but it’s still too hot to think straight. I’m sure the conclusions would benefit from coming back after a few days but that’s not an option at this stage. I’ve got my data, findings, conclusions and reflections all mixed up in the LAs so the hot stitching is far from straightforward. I’m reduced to consoling myself with the thought that when the time runs out, it’s all over.

See more progress on: ILM207 LA6 Stitching

ILM2-05 LA3 data

After the problem with extracting some Wiki data I’ve now found problems with analysing mailing list data as well. This is because I don’t have a pop3 email client set up on the Mac, and gmail search results are not as convenient as having individual messages in your own database because of the way in which gmail presents its results only in a threaded view, without any option to sort by date or by author. How I miss Forte Agent!
I’m not too fed up about this though, because finding problems with the data collection method is a valid finding in itself, especially now that the emphasis for next year seems to be shifting towards researching the process of research itself rather than doing anything useful. If I decide to pursue my own methodology of ‘Distributed Action Research’ ( see report9 ) then it will stand me in good stead to have uncovered these problems in year 2.
The findings from the data which I have obtained so far are looking good though – the traffic on the COP mailing list has actually increased substantially since the Wiki was introduced, while only a minority portion of the increase can be attributed to discussions about the wiki. This throws up the question of whether it may be possible to conclude that there is a causal link between the vigor of the COP and the success of the Wiki project.

See more progress on: ILM205 LA3 analyse mail and wiki data

Subscriptions

I’ve noticed that 43things have now added the functionality so that you can subscribe to each others’ activities on the website quite easily. It’s quite prominent in the right hand side of members’ pages, a bit like adding contacts in Flickr. It may not be worth doing if you already use RSS, but it’s probably worth trying out.

See more progress on: use 43things to develop collaborative Ultraversity work

Why learn mySQL?

This has arisen out of a setback when when trying to analyse MediaWiki Recent Changes data.
It would be much better in the long run to set up my own saved queries which directly interrogate the MySQL database and provide me with the analysis I require.
My web hosting service provides a web interface to MySQL and I have had some previous experience with Oracle SQL so it’s a realistic goal.
Interesting that when I added ‘learn MySQL’ as a goal on 43 things I was told “3 people are willing to help you with this goal. Read their advice or ask them a question.”

See more progress on: Learn MySQL

ILM2-05 analyse wiki data - unexpected setback

I tried setting Recent Changes to display all the edits ever made but it won’t list further back than 12th April – this is an unexpected setback!

I know the data is still on the MySQL database, because the history for Main Page will list edits going back to 30th January.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to learn enough about the syntax of MySQL query language to be able to construct my own direct searches of the database, so I’m stuck without being able to retrieve some of the data which I had assumed I had access to when I framed the question. So how can I get around this?

Well I do have the quantitative data which was compiled for report 9, which covers the period 31st Jan – March 12th

And I could still gather total number of edits data for the last two months.

13April-12thMay

13thMay-12thJune

and compare it to the month 13thFeb-12thMarch. This would give me a very good comparison between how much the Wiki is being edited now compared to the period in the first flush of activity.

and from the Special Pages statistics I can work out an average number of edits per month since the Wiki began as well. Then I could draw a histogram diagram which shows the bulk for those periods being depicted ( as well as the gaps) along an accurate timescale.

See more progress on: ILM205 LA3 analyse mail and wiki data

Asking the right questions

I spend some time thinking about how I was going to analyse the data before gathering it. Then I sent the draft questions for peer review. This is what I have now:

3. Gather data from the mailing list and Wiki. Design questions about the data and answer them through analysis.

A list of questions about the data

The essential research question is to investigate the effect of the Wiki on the COP, so with this in mind:

Quantitative

• How many edits have been made month by month since the Wiki was set up.

• Which pages have been edited the most and viewed the most. Which the least.

• How many posts were made to the email list during the same period.

• How many posts were made per month during the period immediately before the Wiki was set up, and during the same period as the WIKI but for the previous year.

• How many active posters in the mailing list duing the same period

• How many people editing the Wiki

• How many posts on the mailing list are about the Wiki , what percentage does this represent.

Qualitative

• What do people say about the Wiki?

• What issues have arisen?

• Which type of pages are working well, and which not so well.

• What have I learned by talking to COP members at F2F meetings?

So now I need to press on with some answers

See more progress on: ILM2 LA3 - analyse mail and wiki data

open ended

I seem to be finding appropriate literature all the time now, sometimes it just arrives in my RSS..

Time to stop reading any wider, concentrate on the most relevant extracts and get on with writing up.

See more progress on: ILM2-03 – LA2 Research Literature

Miss Genie's Trip

As an act of blogvangelism, I've helped to set up a travel blog, Miss Genie's Trip so that the year 4 children can follow online Miss Genie's trip to the Australian Outback which they have been researching, writing and painting about with her.