February-March projects and ideas
leila johnston
Bit of a delay on the Feb newsletter, sorry (I usually aim for
somewhere around the 20th). I'd been waiting to tell you about
something but it turns out I still can't. Oh well. Next time,
hamburglar.
//////What you missed//////
*****The Event*****
As you know (especially if you've been following these messages since
the start) I had been planning a February apocalypse-fest for a while.
It was exciting from beginning to end, and just like an actual
apocalypse, two weeks have been about long enough for the dust to
settle. I ran two, 4-hour sessions of talks, questions and fun on
Sunday the 12th and 19th of Feb in the basement of The Albany in
London. Speakers included scientists, journalists, authors, nerds,
zombie sympathisers, musicians, cult researchers and my old history
teacher. The site is still up here: http://thisistheevent.com/ with
some photos and details here: http://thisistheevent.com/speakers.html
and here http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovemaus/sets/72157629362111749/
Some nice journalists came, and some nice folk wrote some nice things
about it afterwards. I stil have some spare goody bags -- let me know
if you want one.
*****Domestic Science with the Festival of the Spoken Nerd*****
On Tuesday 28th, I spoke at Helen Arney's FOTN Edinburgh preview night
"Domestic Science", comedy and experiments taking place in a room
above a pub in London. It was an enthusiastic crowd and I learned a
lot of things about science from the other speakers. I talked about
apocalypses, of course, and suggested a contingency plan.
Among the audience was one of the organisers of the British Science
Festival which will take place in Aberdeen this autumn, who said she
came because she heard I would be speaking. I've had a pitch accepted
for this (apocalypse-related of course) so will be hosting something,
with a friend. More on this in the next newsletter no doubt.
//////What's happening right now//////
I've got a few article deadlines this week. I'm also meeting Writing
Partner so we can do some concentrated work on 2012 Book. There may be
some more recording on the cards next week. I've agreed to be some
sort of judge for some sort of social media competition. And I've just
been invited to be ed at large of an online magazine, so no doubt I'll
soon be using these letters to appeal for 'stories', like a real
journalist.
//////What's coming up//////
*****Secret Summer Project*****
I would say The Event was my thing of the year, but something else has
just come up, which I can't tell you about yet, but which will involve
me relocating for part of the spring and summer. I know, I feel like
Woody Allen or something. I'm very excited about it. It's part-time,
so I'm expecting to have a bit more free time over there, at my
Mystery New Location. I have, however, had to resign from my full-time
position at Made by Many so that I can do it. I'm hoping to continue
to contract for them.
*****BBC BASIC*****
I'm (re) learning BBC Basic. It's only been a couple of weeks and I'm
not very good, but for laughs (laughs!) I have started work on a
Twitter simulator for Beebem (I know about the Spectranet of course,
it's not like that). With Raspberry Pi going mental this week, and the
old home computers all turning 30 this year, I'm feeling a new wave of
love for friendly, blocky programming languages. The result of this
intensive practice is a sort of quantum keyboard ghosting that means I
can never find asterisks, colons or brackets anymore. It's not all for
nought though -- having promised to help them with a forthcoming
Teletext exhibition, I've been offered BBC on loan from the National
Museum of Computing at Bletchley. I pick it up next week. Not sure
where I'll put it yet...
Related: there's a major retro-computing event coming up in London in
the next few months, which I'm involved with. Again, I can't really
say more than that at this stage. Annoying, aren't I?
I have half a plan to demo some of my BASIC stuff at another Domestic
Science in the forthcoming months, and possibly the Cambridge Geek
Night on the 23rd of April. If you are interested in updates on this,
just email me and I'll let you know what's happening. If you are
interested in updates on this *and* have downloaded the latest version
of Beebem, I'll send you 100 lines of code in an email.
That will probably do, for now. Sorry it's all secrets this time, but
next month will be a different story. If you're interested in pursuing
any of the mystifying dead-ends in this email, drop me an email and we
can discuss in a private break-out room.
Leila