Today was the first homecamp - “an unconference about using technology to monitor and automate the home for greener resource use and to save costs”.

Whilst I hadn’t entirely planned to, I found myself stood up front leading a couple sessions; one on what I’ve been doing with arduino and one a brief overview of what MQTT is.

As the wireless was only staying up for 30 minutes at a time, my arduino talk is split over a couple UStream videos. I come in at about 22:40 of this first one…

…and the rest is here with only a small gap missing between them.

Here’s the brief piece I did on all things MQTT, RSMB and MicroBroker. You should listen to Chris talk about his SketchUp plugin for Pachube at the start of the video, or you can skip to me at 14:20.

The rest of the videos are worth watching - they can be found on the homecamp ustream page.

Here are the slides I was using for the arduino talk. I will add some notes to them over the next couple days, so be sure to check back on slideshare.

One other contribution I made to the day was winning the race to respond to Andy’s request for a homecamp logo. You can see my effort at the top of this post as well as on the official homecamp friendfeed room. Since then, @ribot has produced this decidedly more shiny one.

Today was a lot of fun with plenty of interesting and inspiring conversations. A big thank you and well done to Chris and Dale for putting this together so quickly. I look forward to HomeCamp ‘09.

Yesterday’s Playful conference was a lot of fun. The day was packed with a lot of varied talks with no low spots. Here’s a very brief summary of what happened. It’s brief as I don’t take notes at conferences. Not because I don’t believe in it, but because I forget.

• James Wallis spoke about OuLiPo
• Roo rocked out
• Matt Irvine Brown talked about drawing more dots to enable others to join them. His TrumpetHero and Singing Sock Puppets were inspired.
• Adrian Hon gave a very honest account of how gaming can be addictive as well as cause addiction.
• Eric Clough took us through the incredible New York apartment he designed as one big puzzle.
• Chris Delay of Introversion Software demonstrated how procedural content generation can be used to generate entire city-scapes.
• Kars Alfrink did something interesting.but my brain has ejected it. Sorry Kars, I look forward to rediscovering your talk. He has put a full transcript of his talk online. Thanks Kars!
• Alex Fleetwood spoke about his project to combine virtual and real world dramatic experiences
• Tom Armitage went from saying “all games today are multiplayer” to “all games have always been multiplayer”.
• Sandy Spangler from Sony stepped in at the last minute to talk about the history and future of the EyeToy.
• Eric Zimmerman gave a very energetic performance. Again, my brain fails me this morning.
• Matt Biddulph explained how game controllers can easily be tinkered with to provide new and interesting uses
• Iain Tate talked about why the Highscore is a key feature of social gaming.
• Jolyon Webb talked about teeth with some very life-like CG heads
• Kieron Gillen ended the day encouraging us all to plagarise ideas. Why has no-one cloned The Sims yet?

Well done to the guys at Pixel-Lab for putting this together. I look forward to next year.

I saw Roo twitter about Playful a while ago and thought it looked like fun. Then I realised that as it was on a Friday there was next to no chance that I would be able to go. Then I realised I’m on holiday that week - not a going-away holiday, but a not-at-work holiday. Then I realised my Sister-in-law is coming down from Norfolk on that Friday to stay with us over the weekend. Then I realised we’re going up to London to meet her on the Friday. Then I realised that would involve a long day shopping in London with my wife and Sister-in-law and possible a trip to see Mamma Mia!*

Then I realised I have a wonderful wife.

Then I realised this all means I probably get to act as a roadie for Roo’s one-man (rock) band.

Then I realised I had over-used a certain linguistic technique.

(In case you don’t get it… I’m going to Playful)

* The ‘!’ is part of the name; it in no way signifies any excitement on my part.

Roo and I presented at Open Tech 2008 this weekend on the Current Cost hacking that has been going on in these parts. It was my first time presenting to quite such a large audience and all things considered, it was a lot of fun and went very well.

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Although I took some notes through the day of the other talks I went to, Roo has done a much better write-up than I would. So I’ll point you his way.

Yesterday was the awesome Interesting2008 organised by Russell Davies. Roo had told me all about last year’s Interesting2007, so I was very much look forward to it - and I wasn’t disappointed.

The talks covered a diverse range of subjects and they were all interesting - as you would hope for such an event. Here are some of my highlights of the day.

Roo opened with 3 minutes on Lego. With 30 slides playing through behind him, he even remembered to breathe. A great start to the day. Roo has now posted his slides with audio on slideshare.

Michael Johnson gave us tour through the history of guitar music and graphic design. Was this just an excuse to play Jimi Hendrix on a stage in front of 300 people?

Matt Dent spoke about the new coin designs he did. Fascinating insight to the amount of detail that goes into this type of thing.

Lloyd Davis played the ukulele and then helped the whole room meditate and bring the mountain within. And relax.

Anna Pickard just about kept a straight face whilst talking about unintentionally funny words. I was most pleased to see Plinth on the list.

Andrew Walkingshaw explained why naming things is hard.

Jim Le Fevre amazed us all by showing off his turntable-based zoetrope. I could have watched this for hours. Definitely something to play with in the future. Update: Russell has linked to a YouTube video of this stuff - amazing.

Russell did a great job of organising the day - I’m very much looking forward to Interesting2009.