Journal tags: dconstruct2015

I know I say this every year, but this month—and this week in particular—is a truly wonderful time to be in Brighton. I am, of course, talking about The Brighton Digital Festival.

It’s already underway. Reasons To Be Creative just wrapped up. I managed to make it over to a few talks—Stacey Mulcahey, Jon, Evan Roth. The activities for the Codebar Code and Chips scavenger hunt are also underway. Tuesday evening’s event was a lot of fun; at the end of the night, everyone wanted to keep on coding.

I popped along to the opening of Georgina’s Familiars exhibition. It’s really good. There’s an accompanying event on Saturday evening called Unfamiliar Matter which looks like it’ll be great. That’s the same night as the Miniclick party though.

I guess clashing events are unavoidable. Like tonight. As well as the Guardians Of The Galaxy screening hosted by Chris (that I’ll be going to), there’s an Async special dedicated to building a 3D Lunar Lander.

But of course the big event is dConstruct tomorrow. I’m really excited about it. Partly that’s because I’m not the one organising it—it’s all down to Andy and Kate—but also because the theme and the line-up is right up my alley.

Andy has asked me to compere the event. I feel a little weird about that seeing as it’s his baby, but I’m also honoured. And, you know, after talking to most of the speakers for the podcast—which I enjoyed immensely—I feel like I can give an informed introduction for each talk.

I’m looking forward to this near future event.

See you there.

dConstruct 2015 is just ten days away. Time to draw the pre-conference podcast to a close and prepare for the main event. And yes, all the talks will be recorded and released in podcast form—just as with the previous ten dConstructs.

The honour of the final teaser falls to Nick Foster. We had a lovely chat about product design, design fiction, Google, Nokia, Silicon Valley and Derbyshire.

I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to these eight episodes. I had certainly had a blast recording them. They’ve really whetted my appetite for dConstruct 2015—I think it’s going to be a magnificent day.

With the days until the main event about to tick over into single digits, this is your last chance to grab a ticket if you haven’t already got one. And remember, as a loyal podcast listener, you can use the discount code ‘ansible’ to get 10% off.

See you in the future …next Friday!

The newest dConstruct podcast episode features the indefatigable and effervescent Brian David Johnson. Together we pick apart the futures we are collectively making, probe the algorithmic structures of science fiction narratives, and pay homage to Asimovian robotic legal codes.

Brian’s enthusiasm is infectious. I have a strong hunch that his dConstruct talk will be both thought-provoking and inspiring.

dConstruct 2015 is getting close now. Our future approaches. Interviewing the speakers ahead of time has only increased my excitement and anticipation. I think this is going to be a truly unmissable event. So, uh, don’t miss it.

Grab your ticket today and use the code ‘ansible’ to take advantage of the 10% discount for podcast listeners.

I remember when I first saw Paddy’s illustration for this year’s dConstruct site, I thought “Well, that’s a design direction, but there’s no way that Graham will be able to implement all of it.” There was a tight deadline for getting the site out, and let’s face it, there was so much going on in the design that we’d just have to prioritise.

I underestimated Graham’s sheer bloody-mindedness.

At the next front-end pow-wow at Clearleft, Graham showed the dConstruct site in all its glory …in Lynx.

I love that. Even with the focus on the gorgeous illustration and futuristic atmosphere of the design, Graham took the time to think about the absolute basics: marking up the content in a logical structured way. Everything after that—the imagery, the fonts, the skewed style—all of it was built on a solid foundation.

It would’ve been easy to go crazy with the fonts and images, but Graham made sure to optimise everything to within an inch of its life. The biggest bottleneck comes from a third party provider—the map tiles and associated JavaScript …so that’s loaded in after the initial content is loaded. It turns out that the site build was a matter of prioritisation after all.

There’s plenty of CSS trickery going on: transforms, transitions, and opacity. But for the icing on the cake, Graham reached for canvas and programmed space elevator traffic with randomly seeded velocity and size.

Oh, and of course it’s all responsive.

So, putting that all together…

The dConstruct 2015 site is gorgeous, semantic, responsive, and performant. Conventional wisdom dictates that you have to choose, but this little site—built on a really tight schedule—shows otherwise.

The dConstruct podcast episodes are coming thick and fast. The latest episode is a thoroughly enjoyable natter I had with the brilliant Carla Diana.

We talk about robots, smart objects, prototyping, 3D printing, and the world of teaching design.

Remember, you can subscribe to the podcast feed in any podcast software you like, or if iTunes is your thing, you can also subscribe directly in iTunes.

And don’t forget to use the discount code ‘ansible’ when you’re buying your dConstruct ticket …because you are coming to dConstruct, right?

The latest dConstruct 2015 podcast episode is ready for your aural pleasure. This one’s a bit different. John Willshire came down to Brighton so that we could have our podcast chat face-to-face instead of over Skype.

It was fascinating to see the preparation that John is putting into his talk. He had labelled cards strewn across the table, each one containing a strand that he wants to try to weave into his talk. They also made for great conversation starters. That’s how we ended up talking about Interstellar and Man Of Steel, and the differing parenting styles contained therein. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to rid myself of the mental image of a giant holographic head of Michael Caine dispensing words of wisdom to in the Fortress Of Solitude. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Kal-el!”

The sound quality of this episode is more “atmospheric”, given the recording conditions (you can hear Clearlefties and seagulls in the background) but a splendid time was had by both John and myself. I hope that you enjoy listening to it.

I have a feeling that after listening to this, you’re definitely going to want to see John’s dConstruct talk, so grab yourself a ticket, using the discount code ‘ansible’ to get 10% off.

The fourth episode of the warmup podcast for dConstruct 2015 is here, and it’s a good one: it’s the one with Chris Noessel of Sci-fi Interfaces fame.

I enjoyed myself immensely geeking out with Chris about the technology presented in sci-fi films like Logan’s Run, Iron Man, X-Men, Metropolis, Under The Skin, and of course, Star Wars. I shared my crazy theory about Star Wars with Chris and he was very gracious in humouring me.

Oh, at the end of the episode, we reveal the special event that’s happening the evening before dConstruct:

The night before the conference, Chris Noessel, one of our fab speakers, will be hosting a very special screening of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.

Don’t miss it. And don’t miss dConstruct. Remember, as a podcast listener, you get 10% off the ticket price with the discount code “ansible.”

The dConstruct podcast episodes are coming thick and fast. Hot on the heels of the inaugural episode with Matt Novak and the sophomore episode with Josh Clark comes the third in the series: the one with Ingrid Burrington.

This was a fun meeting of minds. We geeked out about the physical infrastructure of the internet and time-travel narratives, from The Terminator to The Peripheral. During the episode, I sounded the spoiler warning in case you haven’t read that book, but we didn’t actually end up giving anything away.

I really enjoyed this chat with Ingrid. I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it.

Oh, and now you can subscribe to the dConstruct 2015 podcast directly from iTunes.

And remember, as a podcast listener, you get 10% off the ticket price for dConstruct using the discount code “ansible.”

On Monday, I launched a new little experiment—a podcast series of interviews with the lovely people who will be speaking at this year’s dConstruct. I’m very much looking forward to the event (it presses all my future-geekery buttons) and talking to the speakers ahead of time is just getting me even more excited.

I’m releasing the second episode of the podcast today. It’s a chat with the thoroughly charming Josh Clark. We discuss technology, magic, Harry Potter, and the internet of things.

If you want to have this and future episodes delivered straight to your earholes, subscribe to the podcast feed.

And don’t forget: as a loyal podcast listener, you get 10% off the ticket price of dConstruct. Use the discount code “ansible”. You’re welcome.

I’m very proud of the three dConstructs I put together: 2012, 2013, and 2014, but I don’t have the fortitude to do it indefinitely so I’m stepping back from the organisational duties this year. So dConstruct 2015 is in Andy’s hands.

Of course he’s only gone and organised exactly the kind of conference that I’d feed my own grandmother to the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal to attend. I mean, the theme is Designing The Future, for crying out loud!

To say I’m looking forward to hearing what all those great speakers have to say is something of an understatement. In fact, I couldn’t wait until September. I’ve started pestering them already.

On the off-chance that other people might be interesting in hearing me prod, cajole, and generally geek out about technology, sci-fi, and futurism, I’m taking the liberty of recording our conversations.

That’s right: there’s a podcast.

The episodes will be about half an hour so in length, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. There’s no set format or agenda. It’s all very free-form, which is a polite way of saying that I’m completely winging it.

The first episode features the magnificent Matt Novak, curator of the Paleofuture blog. We talk about past visions of the future, the boom and bust cycles of utopias and dystopias, the Jetsons, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Apollo programme.

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe to the podcast feed.

Needless to say, you should come to this year’s dConstruct on September 11th here in Brighton. As compensation for listening to my experiments in podcasting, I’m going to sweeten the deal. Use the discount code “ansible” to get 10% off the ticket price. Aw, yeah!