What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later - Remix

Still catching up with teh webz, but getting there.

Earlier today, I stumbled upon an excellent slideshow all about Social Media. A cracker, but IMO, it lacked something.

I've only uploaded 2 slideshows to SlideShare, both were PPT format.

I love remix.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later was uploaded a month ago, has had >145,000 views and 130 comments, so far. COOL =)

Apparently, you're not allowed to add MP3 music files to SlideShare, related audio speaking files only. That's not strictly true, though. Coughs

So, here is the same Slideshow with an embedded MP3 file I created 2 weekends ago. I have no idea yet as to how this will work as I've only just created this, with robot assistance.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later - music mash-up

View more documents from Graham Steel.

8tracks

Online music experiment 12.5

8tracks is a simple way for people to create or listen to a mix, a short
playlist containing at least 30 minutes — roughly 8 tracks — of music.



What is 8tracks?

PLoS & Mendeley live on the Web! Science Hour with Leo Laporte & Dr. Kiki

Thanks (again) to FriendFeed,



I was pointed in the general direction of something right up my street. In this case, a blog post from Mendeley alerting readers about Science Hour with Leo Laporte & Dr. Kiki featuring Jason Hoyt from Mendeley and Pete Binfield from PLoS ONE.

As the show went out at 11:00PM UK time on August 27, 2009, Sadly, I missed it in real time, but thanks to the benefits of self archiving, they made the entire show, warts and all, freely available.

This is an excellent free flowing discussion about Open Access, the future of academic publishing, science on the Web, the list goes on. The actual show starts at 05:30 so skip to there if you want to jump straight in....

PLoS & Mendeley live on the Web! Science Hour with Leo Laporte & Dr. Kiki from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

FHM - #fail c/o Robert Downey JR

Last Friday, McDawg purchased two packets of sandwiches, a Grande tea, a copy of New Scientist and FHM before alighting the Virgin Express train from Glasgow to Euston, London ahead of Science Online London 2009 and also indeed, the World Gala Premiere of Darwin's Lost Weekend, the latter marking my entry after 20 years of wanting to do so into the land of film-scoring.

Having only bought one previous copy of the "lad's mag" FHM before, I thought I had correctly picked up and purchased the latest edition of the mag. Terrific



Oops. Wrong mag, but a darn fine one actually which was quite appropriate under the circumstances and came into discussion several times during my travels.

PLoS's HQ in the UK is a house?? Surely some mistake.

McDawg had three scheduled meetings yesterday whilst still in London after attending Science Online London 2009.

For my final meeting, as planned, I took the express train from King's Cross Station to Cambridge and then took a cab to the offices of the Public Library of Science (PLoS).



I was rather perplexed however at what I saw:-


View Larger Map

In the centre of the above street view photo, you will see two blue doors. The one on the left is number 7. PLoS are based at number 7 Portugal Place. According to the Google map of that area that I printed off a week ago, I was indeed standing in Portugal Place:-


View Larger Map

So, I was left thinking that PLoS HQ (UK) is not an office, but instead, a small terraced residential house ???? Confused? I sure as hell was. For a nano-second, I was tempted to ring the bell of number 7 but my brain told me, "there's something not right here".

Placed a short call to PLoS. Essentially, I was extremely close to where I was meant to be, "stay where you are and I'll come out and get you". "I'm wearing a PLoS ONE t-shirt", I said. The above map is slightly misleading in that I was standing in Portugal STREET not Portugal Place.

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Whilst sitting in a meeting room (within PLoS), I couldn't help but notice a stack of colourful, in-print copies of PLoS Journals. I had no idea that PLoS used to publish in paper format several years ago. Interesting.

Very much enjoyed the discussions I had with Ginny Barbour and Theo Bloom. Thank you both kindly for taking the time out to speak with The International Man Of Mystery and Patient Advocate

Before I left, I asked if it would be OK to take a couple of photos inside PLoS HQ (UK). Since there were no objections from PLoS staff......





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Making the Web Work for Science

'Making the Web Work for Science July 28th 2009. A panel discussion on bringing digital tools to the world of science with panelists Stephen Friend, Jimmy Wales and John Wilbanks moderated by Tim O'Reilly'.

Making the Web Work for Science - Full from Jordan Mendelson on Vimeo.

Click here to the original source to view individual Chapters.

Major H/T to Lisa Green for putting this one together.



Summary

Digital technologies have greatly enhanced our ability to communicate and share information, but the scientific community remains largely untouched by these advances.

Why doesn't the web work for science the way it works for culture and for commerce? What will it take to make science digital?

Join the Commonwealth Club of California for a fascinating discussion on the movement to bring digital methods to the world of science.



BIO


Stephen Friend - Dr. Friend is currently a Senior Vice President at Merck & Co., Inc. where he has had scientific leadership of Merck's Basic Cancer Research efforts since September 2002. In 2005, he led the Advanced Technologies and Oncology groups to firmly establish molecular profiling activities throughout Merck's laboratories around the world, as well as to coordinate oncology programs from Basic Research through phase IIA clinical trials. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Friend was recruited by Dr. Leland Hartwell to join the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's Seattle Project, an advanced institute for drug discovery. While there Drs. Friend and Hartwell developed a method for examining large patterns of genes that led them to co-found Rosetta Inpharmatics in 2001. Dr. Friend has also held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School from 1987 to 1995 and at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1990 to 1995. He received his B.A. in philosophy, his Ph.D. in biochemistry and his M.D. from Indiana University.

Tim O'Reilly - Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O'Reilly Media also publishes online through the O'Reilly Network and hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and the Web 2.0 Conference. O'Reilly's blog, the O'Reilly Radar "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. O'Reilly is on the boards of MySQL, CollabNet, Safari Books Online, Wesabe, and ValuesOfN, and is a partner in O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

Jimmy Wales - Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama) is the founder, board member and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit corporation that operates the Wikipedia project, and several other wiki projects, including Wiktionary and Wikinews. He is also the co-founder, along with Angela Beesley, of the for-profit company Wikia, Inc.

John Wilbanks - As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark. John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He is a research affiliate at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the project on Mathematics and Computation. John also serves on the Advisory Boards of the U.S. National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central, the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Open Knowledge Definition, and the International Advisory Board of the Prix Ars Electronica's Digital Communities awards. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fedora Commons digital repository organization.

JISC - "Libraries of the Future"

Original Source here.

Don't know about JISC?

JISC Homepage

JISC = (the) Joint Information Systems Committee

McDawg says - "go look around the JISC website, it's brilliant".


H/T Tony Hirst via YouTube via FriendFeed

The Crew of STS 125 visits NASA Headuarters for a Tweetup

What goes up must come down.


Image (from) above: From the left are astronauts Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, both mission specialists; Gregory C. Johnson, pilot; Scott D. Altman, commander; K. Megan McArthur, John M. Grunsfeld and Andrew J. Feustel, all mission specialists. Image credit: NASA


Follows an excellent video on YouTube in which the crew of STS 125 discuss the mission in detail and take loads of questions from the floor and teh interwebz. Being one of the gazillions of folks who followed this mission online in real-time, it was a most interesting watch.



The vid is 1:23:35 in length. If you don't have the time to watch it in full, McDawg recommends watching the section featuring the video of the mission from the team, section 0:22:00 to 0:43:00.

H/T Karen James on FriendFeed

Walkman 'v' i-Player - A Case Report

Since McDawg's daily commute to work only takes ~ 10 minutes, unlike ~ 46.7% of fellow rail users, McDawg has not been that interested in succumbing to owning an i-pod, etc.

During 2001 - 2005 whilst flying and training it around the UK, for musical entertainment, having ditched ye olde Sony Walkman Cassette Player by then, one had moved onto a Portable CD Player and for the latter two years, had access to a Sony Vaio Laptop (albeit with an utterly shite battery life) thanks to my work in the voluntary sector.
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Two new gadgets I bought myself over the duration were my first ever digital camera and latterly, a portable mini-disc recorder/stereo mic. The former namely used when a fellow Trustee and I travelled across the pond for the first time in 2002 for a Conference and the latter for recording digital audio of various meetings.

I've since replaced the former with a much better model (with 2-Gig memory) in 2008. I thought I had left the latter in Wash. DC in 2004 but to my surprise, I found out a few weeks ago that it had been refound by my Dad in a travel case that I borrowed from him for that trip. I'll collect it shortly (he's currently on vacation, so arrangements in place for a pick-up from friends) as I intend to record some funky stuff next month in London.

--

What I found most attractive about this gadget was that it apparently allowed rapid transfer of data from gadget to computing device (my case, a PC) via firewire. What was extremely irritating however was that due to DRM (Digital Rights Management) issues, there was no connectivity between devices. This was more than frustrating bearing in mind the fact that I was a) harvesting original (not Copyrighted) material and b) was doing so for a Registered UK Charity. In the end, I sussed out how to slow-transfer data via an analogue connection, but this defeated the purpose of purchasing such technology.

--


As of late last year, one has on occassion borrowed (for long journeys) another mate at works' i-pod and since they have yet to learn how to add music to it, have done so for them, more than once and have a meaty/healthy i-tunes collection on my PC.

Two weeks ago, I purchased a 6 month old 8Gig Walkman for just £35 from a mate at work. They deleted their personal stuff (photos and rightly so) but left on their MP3 collection.

What was interesting to me was that the Walkman ONLY (emph on only) synchronises with Windows Media Player (WMP). Hell, I do use WMP for watching stuff, but my WMP Library only contains a small fraction of my files.

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I learned yesterday that i-tunes, apparently does not connect with other platforms such as Sony Walkman. I was going to ask about this via teh Interbewz, but did some digging, and after downloading a duff patch, found this one that did what I wanted it to do.

--

Whilst in theory, the i-tunes and Walkman platforms are not compatible, they do talk to each other (anymore) if you know how.



--

"There's Evian, then there's tap water"

"It's All About Steam"

What do you mean, it's all about steam ? was what I thought to myself when considering how to write this post. So let's STEAM on to the post itself.

But before we do, here's a cracking live version of a related song by Peter Gabriel et al to set the scene (sorry, I'm a Muso by trade):-




Yesterday, about 35 invited guests spent a most enjoyable afternoon on the Maid Of The Loch, Loch Lomond’s Paddle Steamer. Many of us (McDawg included) incorrectly assumed that we would be setting sail on her, but alas, whilst she's in the water, she ain't sailing at the moment. But there are plans well underway to change that. Read on.



(Photo c/o The Maid's website)

The Maid Of The Loch website can be found here. This page on Wikipedia is also quite informative.

Before alighting The Maid, guests were welcomed by a very special guest "Wedgie" who was parked up just next to The Maid:-



This event was a triple birthday celebration. "Wedgie" has just turned 50 and it's owners, both 70. See this related previous McBlawg post.

As per the invitation, all attendees were aware that aside from all the celebtrations, there was a fundraising for a good cause aspect to the days proceedings, and they gave generously, I am reliably informed.



After a rather superb lunch, McDawg nipped off to explore all three decks of The Maid, taking photos suitable for both private and public viewing. My favourite for public viewing is this shot of The Queen's Restaurant on the lower deck:-



Prior to everyone leaving The Maid, I caught up and introduced myself to Marie, who was our tip-top catering assistant for the afternoon. I explained that I was a blogger and would blogging about The Maid and tagging the post to highlight her (The Maid, not Marie - LOL) in the blogosphere. "Every little helps", as we discussed. The Maid whilst aquired by Dumbarton District Council in 1992, is very much in the hands of "a charitable organisation, the Loch Lomond Steamship Company (LLSC), to take over ownership and carry on restoration".

From this page, "Directors and volunteers are unpaid and LLSC has no staff. Yet this dedicated group have turned the Maid from a hulk in danger of sinking at the pier in 1992, into a successful business by 2001. Fortunately the Maid is in fresh water, so her hull is sound. Her steam machinery is also in good condition, and with further work can be made to operate for another 50 years. The original boiler was in a very poor condition, and had to be removed. Her wooden promenade and upper decks were so badly rotten they were replaced in 1996/7 with steel and aluminium respectively".



Oh yeah, the STEAM bit.

Just prior to departure from the car park, McDawg's Uncle Robbie (let's call him McRobbie) spotted something McDawg hadn't seen the last time he was here. (A drum-roll please - this is usually appropriate) The Balloch Steam Slipway Winchhouse !!


From here:- "Come and see us! You will be amazed at the engineering. The Winchhouse has not ever been opened to the public before, and our display panels will tell you everything you need to know. Parking is just 100 metres away and is also free".

McDawg & McRobbie entered the building JUST after it was due to close for the day. Whilst the machinery had just been powered down for the day, man it was rather hot in there.





"The rebuilding of the Balloch Steam Slipway is a major success for LLSC. Firstly, the project was completed to budget (at £620,000, and LLSC has no staff – we are all volunteers). Secondly, we were honoured to have a Royal visit; and thirdly it means that we can now seriously plan for the Maid to be overhauled ready for being brought back into sailing condition again. Without the slipway, this would not have been possible as any survey must include inspection to the hull, paddles, etc".

Whilst I didn't realise it at the time, the following shot (taken from the upper deck of The Maid) captures the steamhouse and slipway rather nicely even though I had zoomed in on the foreground activities.




All in all, a smashing day out and I think it's rather fitting to end on this note (from here):-

Maid To Sail Again!

"2008 was our best year so far: We secured MCA approval for the maid to sail again. An independent economic study demonstrated that an operational Maid would be viable; and we put two new aluminium masts on the ship. We also completed the renovation of the engine room with new lighting, and the complete refurbishment of the lower bar. Photos of both achievments are on the ‘Restoration’ page.

This year’s targets include concluding our plans for a public appeal for funds to get the Maid sailing again, adaptation of the Balloch Steam Slipway to take private boats out of the water for overhaul, renovation of the ship’s old crew accomodation, and painting the hull from bow to stern".

++Just spotted++. This is a superb piece of computer generated animation/graphics uploaded by Maxmodeller in Jan 2008

"The Maid of the Loch is currently undergoing a complete renovation and this sequence was produced as an educational aid whilst the engine is rebuilt". Maxmodeller, Jan. 2008.

"There's Something About Sarah"

"The advert was deemed to distressed to be broadcast"


There's Something About Sarah - Chapter One

So there I was. Stepped off the train from my daily commute to and from Queens Park and Glasgow Central Station, albeit at the weekend, working overtime.

Since the train was lengthier than normal (due to a certain Take That gig at Hampden Park that evening), one alighted the train at a part of the platform I rarely have navigated before.

And that’s where and when it struck me and prompted this post. 15.27 pm, Saturday 20th June 2009 to be precise.



Hang on a minute. I actually know the person featured on this poster. Blimey. How did that happen – what’s the story?

A billboard that normally is posted with adverts for fizzy drinks and all sorts of various advertising shite-ola.

My journey home (2 min walk) continued as usual, but I was understandably most perplexed. So I did what I would normally do, and logged onto the web for informationz.

The person in question was none other than Ms. Sarah Ezekiel, an individual I have had contact with via PatientsLikeMe, Facebook, and now, email.

But just who is Ms. Sarah Ezekiel readers of this post may ask. Previous post on McBlawg here.

Sarah is an extremely active individual who other than looking after her two children (Eric now 9 and Aviva, 12 years old) campaigns tirelessly in terms of raising awareness about Motor Neuron Disease (MND).

Chapter Two

When I got into my flat and logged onto the web, and specifially, PatientsLikeMe - ALS, a theme was clearly already well under construction.



"Have to post this photo taken by my carer in Tottenham Court Road tube station! The irony is that I may never see it because London Transport isn't very accessible for wheelchair users..." Sarah Ezekiel - Jun 13, 2009 04:26PM

Chapter Three

"Our Sarah's Story awareness campaign is being promoted on national billboard space for two weeks, thanks to the generous support of CBS Outdoor media.

The poster campaign aims to raise awareness of MND and encourage visitors to www.sarahsstory.org.uk

The campaign will run for two weeks from 15 June. This means that the second week coincides with our MND Awareness Week (20 – 28 June).

There will be 48 sheet posters on 18 London Underground poster sites in zone one and over 80 mainline railway station sites right across England, Wales and Scotland.

This is the first time that the MND Association and MND Scotland have developed a joint awareness campaign".

LATEST: Some posters will remain at stations. View the Sarah's Story mainline poster sites beyond 28 June (13 kb) London Underground poster sites beyond 28 June (9 kb)

Chapter Four

In January, I placed a link to the video, Sarah's Story on FriendFeed. On 23rd June, I updated that entry to alert people to the fact that I was writing another blog post about it and asked people to consider leaving a comment. Follows the interesting discussion that took place.



Here is the poster in question (click to enlarge):-



As displayed in the above FriendFeed thread, the poster, the media and over the internet, the video has evoked wide ranging reactions.

Sarah has now created her own website and blog (coming soon).

Finally, I would like to publicly thank Sarah for her assitance in composing this post and for her continued role as an active patient advocate in the field of MND.

MEAK UK - Three Peak Challenge

Raising money for
Medical And Educational Aid To Kenya
Charity Registration No. 1093115

"MEAK provide medical and educational supplies to Kenya as well as carrying out open heart surgery in Nairobi on sick children using a team of medics recruited from Guys and St Thomas' Hospital, who all provide their services free of charge. It also runs eye camps in remote areas of Kenya".





Welcome to the MEAK Three Peak Challenge 2009.

MEAK made history, on the 19th of May by carrying out a rare and complicated open heart procedure on a 6-month old boy, the first operation of its kind to take place in all of East Africa. Some of the money raised from this page went towards that Heart Mission.

"We are now home and safe after our successful attempt at the Three Peaks. It was a fantastic experience with many challenges, one of which was the travelling for hours in a mini bus with a sat nav directing us the long way around the country. the lack of sleep for over 24 hours but the hardest and most scary part was hiking up Scarfell Pike in the driving rain, high winds and in the dark. We only had head torches to see where we were going. We must have been crazy"!


Thank you from the challenge team, MEAK and of course the children.

Please keep giving - we need more money.

We are attempting the National (UK) Three Peak Challenge on June 11th-13th 2009 in aid of MEAK. ++UPDATE - THEY'VE DONE IT++

Medical and Educational Aid to Kenya was founded 14 years ago by a dynamic British couple, Mike and Dee Belliere, after they fell in love with Kenya and its people. Their mission and passion is to establish and execute medical and educational based programs across Kenya and bring a positive awareness about this extraordinary country. New Yorker Jess Atkins discovered MEAK on the web and after one Mission found that she had to help MEAK and joined the team. Their renowned international medical teams lend their time and expertise, without charge, to save Kenyan lives, and provide a better quality of life for thousands, with an additional focus on sharing knowledge and training with the local staffs. MEAK donates large quantities of medical consumables to our many affiliate partners in Kenya.

MEAK HEART MISSION SEEKS to work in tandem with the local medics, share knowledge and training, and execute free screening clinics for children with pediatric heart conditions. They then operate on those patients that are in a critical condition.
It is said that MEAK is now responsible for about 25% of all of East Africa’s annual pediatric heart operations. To date, MEAK has completed 10 heart missions, screened 1,741 patients, and performed 196 operations. The charity also carries out eye missions to remote parts of Kenya.

The MEAK Three Peak Challenge team as been organised by Graham Sewell, Trevor Harrison-Phipps and Serge Janssens.

The people involved and who are looking for sponsorship as a joint event are as follows:

1

Alistair Sinclair

Hiker

2

Andy Woodard

Hiker

3

Bill Tebbitts


Team Leader

4

Carl Dalton

Hiker

5

Chris Christopher

Hiker

6

Christopher Nichols

Hiker

7

Damien Sainte-Cluque

Hiker

8

Darren Smith

Hiker

9

Gary Roberts

Hiker

10

Graham Sewell

Organiser / Driver

11

Ian Rhodes

Hiker

12

John Rogers

Hiker

13

Joyce Sewell

Catering

14

Lee McCready

Hiker

15

Michael Dunbar

Hiker

16

Michael Sewell

Backup Driver

17

Mike Fels

Charity Ambassador / Driver

18

Neil Newing

Driver

19

Richard Knight

Hiker

20

Ryan Duane

Hiker

21

Sam Young

Hiker

22

Serge Janssens

Project Manager / Hiker

23

Tony Blyth

Team Leader

24

Trevor Harrison-Phipps


Filmmaker / Hiker

25


Yogi Foottit


Hiker

We are aiming to walk up Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike in one day to then rest over night before attempting Snowdon on the second day. We are not attempting this challenge over 24 hours because of safety issues, the money we raise is for MEAK not for Mountain helicopter rescue. This challenge will be of endurance, hardship and probably quite a bit of pain but if we can fund a heart mission then it will be well worth it.

Thanks for visiting our fundraising page.

Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor us: Medical And Educational Aid To Kenya gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

Please be as generous as you can because for 20,000 pounds sterling we could fund a heart mission to Kenya and save childrens lives, please sponsor us now!

Trevor Harrison-Phipps will be filming the challenge as he is currently making a documentary about MEAK. For more information about MEAK please visit : www.meak.org

Thank you in advance.

The MEAK Three Peak Challenge.