DVD Swap - Because it's good to share your toys


Screengrab of me talking to camera.

Inspired by Vikki Chowney's Swishing Party.... The idea is simple. You bring along some of your old DVDs that you think other people will enjoy. You get a token for each DVD you bring. You look through all the DVDs everyone else has brought along. Swap your tokens for some awesome new films! We're still […]

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Police, Camera, Action...


As I was walking home from work, I spotted an unusual sight - a police van parked in a disabled bay near my local train station. I snapped a picture of it. As soon as I had taken a shot, PC Smith (40144) came out from the train station and asked to speak with me. […]

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You Know You're A "Citizen Journalist" if...


The Twitter logo.

Every single one of your tweets starts "RT". You've no idea who controls that honeypot proxy, hell, you don't even know what a proxy is. Your "source" has an "Islamic" sounding name and uses a hashtag. That's practically evidence. The plural of rumour is news. Unreliable stories should be tagged "UNCONFIRMED" rather than investigated. You're […]

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Why "Raw Data Now" Could Fail...


Tim Berners-Lee giving a TED talk.

Tim Berners-Lee has made a call for governments to open up their data. Indeed, Tim's been appointed by the UK government to do just that. His central thesis is that we, the taxpayers, have paid for government research and data - we should be able to access it. Easy, free and unfettered access to raw, […]

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MDA Presentation


I was deeply honoured to be asked to present the keynote address at the Mobile Data Association's "Monetising The Mobile Internet in Tough Times".  I was a last minute stand-in for Henry Stevens of the GSMA. You can download the day's presentations directly, but as slides only tell half the story, I've written a brief […]

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Prime - My New Addiction


My new gaming addiction is Prime by 59Pixels. The premise is very simple.  There are blocks bouncing around the screen. You have a limited number of shots to remove a set number of them. Each shot creates an explosion which, if it touches another block, causes that to explode. This can cause a helpful chain […]

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What I Want From SpinVox


Screenshot of a voicemail which has been poorly transcribed to text using the SpinVox service.

[Full and utter disclosure, I get a free SpinVox service through work. I've also given James Whatley a man hug.] I love my SpinVox service. For the uninitiated, I turns your voicemails into transcribed text messages.  I no longer have to interrupt my day to dial in and listen, I get send a text and […]

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An Open Letter To The Labour Party


Logo of the Labour party.

Hello! I'm what you would probably describe as a natural Labour voter. I'm middle class, the son of teachers, University educated, member and representative of the NUS, I'm employed by a big British company, I'm a proud union member and a home owner.  I even spoke at the TUC before Gordon Brown took the stage. […]

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