via AfriGadget
⌘
Senior figures call for Obama to name chief technology officer
With less than three weeks until his inauguration, president-elect Barack Obama has yet to name a candidate for the post of CTO
⌘
Anna and Bobbie on Baker Beach, by Meg
⌘
I don’t have comments on this blog, but once in a while a spammer uses the internets to try and post one anyway. Usually they get deleted without a second thought.
But this one?
I’m keeping this one forever.
“You are doing a wonderful thing here on the Internet. I wish you the very best. Kindest regards.”
Thankyou, spamfucker. You have made me smile with your anonymous linkwhoring, and for that I salute you.
⌘
Beer is something close to my heart. Give me a hoppy, bitter pint and I’m a happy man.
It’s got me through a lot over the years.
I come from Greene King’s backyard, and remember the days before it was representative of Britain’s most popular corpo-ale. My parents moved to Cheltenham, just a stone’s throw from the Whitbread Brewery there, and my memories of visiting are tinged with the yeasty smell of the streets.
University was (as it tends to be) fairly beer-centric. I discovered with horror that students at my college had decided to rebrand Snakebite and Black as “Red Beer”, but fortunately stayed away from the sickening syrup in favour of other, more interesting brews.
When we moved to Brighton - just at that point when you arrive in a new city, unpack everything and wonder whether you’ve made a crazy insane decision, beer helped me realise we’d done the right thing. The day we arrived, we went to the great pub a few doors away and sank several pints of the best brew I might ever come across; a dark, fruity from a local brewery. Sad, then, that it was a beer made specially for the Brighton Festival and never to be seen again. But I was already sold.
Despite what they say, I’ve been very pleased by the popularity of good beer here in America. Anchor, the famous San Francisco brewery, does a selection of very fine tipples which are available pretty much everywhere I care to go. Other nice numbers - California’s Sierra Nevada, Colorado’s Fat Tire and so on - are on tap in most places.
Recently, at the Pop!Tech conference in Maine, I shared some drinks with Rob Katz of NextBillion.net, who took the time to introduce me to a brewery from Delaware (Delaware!) called Dogfish Head. I partook of several swift pints of theirs, and was much impressed… and left it at that.
Imagine my surprise and delight when the New Yorker’s Food & Drink issue carried a long report on Dogfish Head and the craft brewing in general. It seems there’s some sort of movement going on!
And then, as if by magic, a belated birthday present from Anna arrived - my membership of a beer club, which promises to take me on a tour of America’s finest microbrews.
It seems I am on to a good thing.
⌘
Three questions which are related, and maybe you can answer them for me
· Why do all teenagers have big hair?
· Why do all vampires have big hair?
· And why do teenage vampires have the biggest hair of all?
⌘
After the events of Tuesday night, Meg decided to start a Flickr group asking people what they’d say to Obama.
Here’s my submission.
I find that it’s not a bad dictum for life in general.
⌘
A lame attempt at DIY procrastination disguised as an attempt to engage via new media
⌘
We’re moving… to San Francisco
Being a technology writer at the Guardian means quite a lot of travel. Over the past few years I’ve visited much of Europe, as well as parts of Africa and Asia. Most of my journeys, however, have been to America. Most of those have been to the West Coast, and most of those have been to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
For a million reasons - most of them pretty obvious - it’s been a regular pilgrimage: heading out to attend major events, meet contacts, find stories and even (from time to time) see friends.
One of the questions I’ve been asked regularly while on these jaunts is “why don’t you live here?”.
It’s a good question, and soon the answer will be a lot easier. The Guardian, in its infinite wisdom, has agreed that it would be a good idea to cut my air miles and as a result I will shortly be making my way to set up shop in the Bay area.
I arrive in the middle of an almost-perfect storm; in the midst of an election cycle, and at a time when the Silicon Valley scene is (arguably) more powerful than ever. There’s a boom on, and lots of interesting things taking place. It’s an incredibly exciting time, and I’m privileged to be given the chance to help the Guardian push further out into the US and into the technology sector.
So what does this mean? If you’re scratching your head and trying to read into the news, here are a few things you might want to know.
When will you be there? Can we meet up?
I will be moving, with my girlfriend Anna, at the start of September. If all goes to plan, I should be operating normally within a week or two. Obviously my diary is going to be pretty full in the first weeks and months - but if you’re in northern California and think there’s something we should talk about, please drop me an email. Use bobbie at thisdomain.
Does this mean I’ve left Britain for good?
No way. There’s no official timeline on how long we’ll be in California, but I imagine at some point in the future I will be calling Britain home again.
Does this mean there’s no technology industry in Britain?
No. At the Guardian, we believe that the technology sector as a whole is vibrant, important and increasingly vital to the everyday lives of ordinary people. Britain is obviously really important to us, as is Europe. Our coverage - which is also provided by my colleagues who’ll remain in the UK - won’t be all about the Valley, but I will be able to offer up a view from the heartland of the hi-tech industry - one that we haven’t had before. If you’re in the UK or Europe, I’m still your point of contact.
Are you going alone? What about Anna?
We’re both moving. Anna will continue her life as a freelance writer: as journalists, we both have media visas which allow us to work in the US.
Since we can’t bear to abandon them, we’ll also be taking our cats - and, given that we’re both bloggers, we will also be running regular updates on West Coast life.
…
So that’s it. I’m incredibly excited, a little bit nervous and raring to get started.
There’s a lot to sort out in the next two weeks, but we’re ready to take up the challenge.
See you on the other side.
⌘
Drink yourself silly and turn into a muppet.
Photo by Anna.
⌘
Hello, you!
Sorry it’s been quiet. Since we last spoke, I’ve been to Manchester for the 60th anniversary of The Baby; I’ve been writing at Pop!Tech, where I’m helping them out as blogger-in-chief; and I’ve been sitting in the audience at Interesting 2008 (we’ve got some videos for you, too.
This sort of jet set lifestyle is, of course, reflected in my … which says I travel at the velocity of a butterfly.
⌘
There’s just something brilliant about being able to scrape back the patina of modern life.
I don’t really tote my own camera around (I should, but I always forget to take pictures so I don’t bother) and so when we were in New York recently, I just kept nudging Anna and saying ‘can you take a picture of that, please?’
⌘
Do you ever think life should be slower?
I do.
There should be more time for reading. More time for pondering. More time for thinking.
And *definitely* more time for playing on swings.
Awesome photograph by Meg.
⌘
Cyber-bullying is largely deemed to be a teenage phenomenon, but the indictment of Lori Drew is a horrible reminder that venality is not the preserve of youth. She was the middle aged woman from Missouri who used fake MySpace profile to tease her 13-year old neighbour, Megan Meier. The story ended in tragedy, with Meier committing suicide - and subsequently the behaviour of Drew, her husband and others has (rightly) come under scrutiny.
If you don’t know about the story already, here’s a fairly good account, a very thorough article in the New Yorker. Meanwhile the Associated Press has a rudimentary timeline and a piece about name-and-shame aspect from Wired.
⌘