Roo Reynolds - What’s Next?

Aww. That’s sweet.

Posted by Roo - 15/06/08 at 12:06:41 am

One of the best bits about visiting different countries is picking up the local delicacies. I rediscovered my stash of American chocolate earlier. Here’s what I’ve been nibbling on today…

Don’t bother with the Skittles or the ‘Goobers’ (stupid name for chocolate covered peanuts). The Dark Chocolate M&Ms are definitely the highlight.

Back from New York - update

Posted by Roo - 06/04/08 at 12:04:11 pm

I flew back from New York today, to discover England where I left it, but covered with a light blanket of snow.

I will blog some more notes from the conference soon (I have already shared my flimsy summary on the panel I moderated on Eightbar. More to come) and I’m still uploading photos to Flickr.

For now, here’s a short video of an amazing busker we saw yesterday. (Update to use fancy new Flickr video feature)

NY08 Day 0

Posted by Roo - 30/03/08 at 11:03:33 pm

Another trip to the US. Unusually, I’m traveling with my office-mate and fellow Metaverse Evangelist, Ian. We tend not to travel together much (there’s more value in us doing our thing individually), but this trip takes in upstate New York for some team meetings before we move on to Manhattan for Thursday and Friday for the Virtual Worlds 2008 conference.

Today’s flight was delayed for about half an hour because of a delayed inbound flight, then for another 20 minutes on the runway because of unexpected ‘congestion’ between the terminal and the sky. This congestion is a constant source of surprise, not to mention annoyance and frustration, at London’s glamorous Heathrow airport. You’d think it would be possible to plan things in such a way that planes are able to take off at an allocated time. I’m always tempted to offer some help with logistics in such situations. I mean, how hard can this be?

American Airlines: ‘we know why you fly‘. Presumably we fly because we have to be somewhere else, quickly. What does this sinister ‘we know why you fly’ tag line even mean? I certainly don’t fly because American Airlines makes it enjoyable for me to do so, that’s for sure.

Speaking of which, American Airlines recently(?) upgraded their in-flight entertainment system. It’s still relatively crappy compared to Virgin Atlantic, but there is at least a slightly better choice now and you can join films on multiple overlapping runs rather than enduring the plane-wide multi track tape to end. On the downside, even if the person in the next seat is watching the same film, you’re not not necessarily watching the same part of the film at the same time, so there’s no longer the strange bonding experience of laughing quietly along with strangers.

Between my usual self-entertainment activities (reading books, playing Nintendo DS and listening to ‘Jordan Jesse Go!’ podcasts), I opted to watch ‘Juno’ on this fancy new, but rather cheaply designed, in-flight entertainment system. The standout line, in a film with many, is the exclamation “Phuket Thailand!”. It’s a charming film which made me laugh as well and very nearly made me cry, though not quite. Bonus extra: great soundtrack with lots of Belle and Sebastian. I think lilsmack might enjoy it. If nothing else, because the lead character (the eponymous Juno) reminds me very much of her. When she was 16, I bet she was just like Juno. Though probably less pregnant. Sadly, it (or at least my experience of it) ended unexpectedly after 60 minutes with a ’service temporarily unavailable’ error. Pesky new entertainment system. As with the cleaned up version of ‘No Country for Old Men’ the in-flight movie mainly makes me want to watch it at home at some point. It’s like a trailer.

The ‘bathroom’ on the plane contains two paper bags. Something I’ve seen before on AA flights. These are similar in appearance to massive teabags, but instead of delicious and refreshing tea they clearly contain some sort of foul-smelling potpourri. I appreciate that they do something to combat the naturally lingering foul-smelling toilet smells, but they don’t seem to smell much better than, well, poop. In fact, in conjunction with the poopy smells they make matters considerably worse.

I’ve arrived at the first hotel for the trip (the Danbury Sheraton) and am getting an early night. There’s a long week ahead.

Ambient Skype

Posted by Roo - 12/03/08 at 11:03:57 pm

For the first time in my life, I used a Skype video call with my wife today as an ambient backdrop to life, rather than just as tool for having a conversation.I’d always wanted to try it, ever since hearing my friend and colleague Dave Newbold mention, in a presentation he was giving a couple of years ago about the near future for technology and social interaction, something he’d heard described as ‘ambient Skype’, whereby people leave a voice client running in the background while they are away from home as a way of being almost-there.

Where the marginal cost of bandwidth is at or near zero, you don’t have to constantly talk to make use of realtime online communication tools. You can relax and enjoy being in each other’s company, as you would at home. A bit like Leisa Reichelt’s term, Ambient Intimacy, but less about easily staying loosely in touch with many people, and more about actual intimacy between two people by using a (normally) synchronous tool in an undirected way.

Time zones have often made it difficult in the past. I’m in the US and Rachel is back in the UK, our lives don’t overlap much, and we have to make an effort to find times we’re both online, or revert to text and email. Today though, I had some free time in the late afternoon and badly needed a nap. Since it was early enough to coincide with Rachel’s bed-time, we tried falling asleep together, apart.

I found this to be very comforting. It’s rather reassuring to drift off with the familiarity of hearing each other breathing and (for me) the everyday noises of home in the background. A nice way to reduce the distance during a long trip abroad. I don’t know why we didn’t try it sooner.

SXSW day 5 - Soulja Boy

Posted by Roo - 11/03/08 at 11:03:16 pm

Jane McGonigal gave a wonderful keynote on games and ARGs. Not dissimilar to her ‘Reality is Open’ presentation at GDC recently, so these are not her SXSW slides, but there’s an overlap.

Other people have made excellent notes already, which are much more complete than my own. Here are some:

• Brad King
• Dan Hon
• Kitten Fluff
• Tony Walsh

During the keynote, Jane mentioned that as part of playing an ARG, she had witnessed (and learned) the Soulja Boy dance, and offered to perform it at the end of the session. She kept her word.

SXSW day 0 - travel day

Posted by Roo - 06/03/08 at 11:03:59 pm

I was picked up at 8:30am this morning by something not quite fancy enough to be called a limo, but in a different league than a regular taxi. We could perhaps ignore my non executive status and call it an executive chauffeur service. Hursley Cars offer a great, reliable door-to-door service. Enjoyably lazy on the outbound portion, particularly useful on the return leg, when the last thing you want to do after a transatlantic flight is drive home. Especially because there’s a good chance that really would be last thing you do.

I checked in (checkind?) at the business class hut at Heathrow terminal 3. Despite traveling economy class, I can check in at the business class desk by saying the magic words “I work for IBM”. I was given an emergency exit row too. The nice lady doing check-in must have taken pity on my lanky tall 6′4″ frame. Would I be prepared to assist in the event of an emergency? For some extra legroom, I’d be prepared to do pretty much anything.

I bumped into both Jemima Kiss and Jo Twist during boarding. I’ve also seen a girl I don’t recognise wearing an Upcoming t-shirt, so I get the feeling she’s One Of Us. It seems that at least some of the British contingent of the tech invasion of Austin are beginning their journey together.

I love filling in the visa waiver form when I sit down in the plane. It allows me momentary glimpses into parallel universes in which I have to answer ‘yes’ to any of the scary questions on the back. It asks, do I have a “communicable disease, physical or mental disorder”? It asks whether I am a drug abuser or addict. Have I been convicted for an offense or crime involving “moral turpitude”? Am I involved in espionage or sabotage, or terrorist activities? Best of all, whether or not, between 1933 and 1945, I was involved in persecution associated with Nazi Germany or its allies. Fortunately, the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’, otherwise I’d have had to contact the American embassy before traveling.

The food is the predictable choice between chicken with vegetables, beef with the same vegetables, or a vegetarian option. I’m increasingly tempted to ask for the vegetarian option, despite not being one, just to have something different. Ah well. Maybe next time. Portions are meagre. I’ve always assumed that’s so we don’t put undue strain on the (frankly already smelly) toilet system. I weighed myself for the first time in ages this morning, purely out of interest, in order to see whether I gain or lose weight during the next 10 days. The small portion of sensible food isn’t going to make much of a difference either way. I noticed that the can of coke was an imperial 12 fluid ounces (355ml) rather than European 333ml (1/3 litre) size, so a gradual Americanizing of my diet has already begun.

As ever, American Airways in-flight entertainment system is sadly lacking, with a terrible choice of content let down even further by poor picture quality. They degrade this even further in the in-flight movies by printing “American Airlines” at the bottom of the screen after the film starts. Either because they’re proud of their trimmed down no-swearing and very-little-violence-indeed edits of the films, or perhaps to deter would-be copyright theft. As if even the most piratical pirate would stoop to attempting a screen-cap on a 777.

After exhausting both my eyes and my supply of podcast listening material by reading and listening at the same time, I watched, get this, ‘No Country For Old Men’. Yes, there is an American Airlines family-friendly in-flight-movie version. While I enjoyed the film, this was my first viewing of it, and I’m not making any judgments based on this version. I’ve been stung by the in-flight-movie edit before; for several months I didn’t realise Tim-from-the-Office was even in ‘Love Actually’. All of his scenes were cut. Who knows, perhaps in the cinema release of ‘No Country For Old Men’ there is some, you know, violence or something. Perhaps blood was spilled. The clumsy audio edits were easy to spot, but there are, I have no doubt, whole scenes which I have missed. How very disappointing. Another reason I love Virgin Atlantic, and would always use them if I had any choice in the matter over American Airlines. Virgin’s in-flight entertainment system is actually very good. Lots of choice, better picture quality, Video On Demand rather than Video On A Loop, and best of all, full uncut grown-up versions of the films.

Update: I met up with Dan Taylor, Deirdre Molloy, Jemima Kiss and Jo Twist in O’Hare, where we hung out and waited for the connecting flight to Austin together.

Jo’s stuffed cat, Alcat, is making Seesmic videos of the trip. Here was the update from the airport. Look out for the tall geek grinning in the background.

What’s in my bag

Posted by Roo - 06/03/08 at 08:03:32 am

I’ve been meaning to do one of these for ages.

See it complete with notes on Flickr.

(Rough) plans for SXSW 2008

Posted by Roo - 05/03/08 at 06:03:08 pm

I’m packing for SXSW tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

I’ve pulled together a (rough) schedule, thanks to the lovely SCHED (sched.org). This is a bit more complete than my previous list of things-not-to-miss. Of course, that list still contains the panel I’m sitting on (’Stories, Games and Your Brand’) with Rachel Clarke, Jeremy Ettinghausen and Dan Hon. We might have a quiet time of it, since the Mark Zuckerberg keynote is scheduled to happen at the same time. So we’re going to be ultra-careful not to even mention you-know-what, in a first panelist to do so buys the beers type way. Isn’t everyone bored of it by now anyway? :-)

My event wishlist is long, but I’m particularly excited by Andy Baio’s unpanel (including Merlin Mann and many more) entitled ‘Worst Website Ever: That’s So Crazy, It Just Might Work’ a chance for “smart people to be stupid” and propose their “worst possible startup ideas”, which sounds like it will be very funny.

In addition to the various panels and keynotes, there are a great many informal events running too. There are even more parties and events on Upcoming. Here are few which are catching my eye:

• Saturday morning: Kick! - an informal kick-ball (whatever that is) game, hosted by Six Apart
• Saturday afternoon: Flickrite meetup
• Saturday evening: Google party
• Sunday night: Moo/Etsy/Timbuk2/Threadless party
• Monday night: 20×2 (Twenty speakers. One Question. Two minutes each)
• Monday night: The Great British Booze-up

I’ll also be dropping into BlogHaus and hoping to catch Hugh MacLeod there and maybe even get an original cartoon-on-the-back-of-a-business-card.

Update: Note to self (and anyone else who is affected) it’s really really important not to forget that daylight savings time starts on the morning of 9th of March. (I don’t think it starts in the UK until the 30th of March this year.)

Weekend in Wales

Posted by Roo - 04/02/08 at 02:02:13 pm

Some friends got together this weekend to celebrate Kyb’s birthday in a cottage just outside Wales, not far from Hay-on-Wye. There was wine, helium balloons, port, fires (the log-burning stove reminded me just how much I like fire), Baileys, cakes and board games.

I slept in a bunkbed for the first time in years. There were no streetlights for miles around, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been somewhere with such low light pollution. The stars are amazing, particularly on Friday night when the sky was clear. On Saturday we drove to Hay-on-Wye. It was my first visit to the town, which is twinned with Timbuktu (honestly), and apparently has more books per square mile than anywhere else. Having walked around the town, I can believe it. If you know what you’re looking for there are bargains to be had. I was choosy, and picked up 8 books (a mix of new and second hand) for a total of about £15.

The evenings were full of cake, board games and laughter. It was a huge amount of fun, and the most relaxed I’ve been for a long time. I always forget how good it is to spend quality time with good friends. Thanks everyone, and Happy Birthday, Kyb!

2007 Travel

Posted by Roo - 29/12/07 at 03:12:53 am

Andy’s 2007 travel roundup reminded me I did something similar last year, and I want to make a habit of it.

My international travel this year included the following

• San Francisco (where I had some meetings and took some photos).
• New York (and CT for team meetings. I took some photos).
• Paris (for a big IBM internal conference. Of course I took some photos).
• Iceland (for pleasure, not work. Iceland Airwaves 2007 and general sightseeing. I took photos and even made a hungover podcast with my brother).
• Derry (for the Awakening Serious Games conference, at which I presented. I really liked Derry, and took some photos of Bogside).
• Zurich (for the IBM Innovation Forum. I gave the IBM CIO 2010 Outlook presentation for the first time, as well as a virtual worlds presentation of which I’ve given modified versions at various conferences. Of course, I couldn’t visit Zurich without also taking some photos).

Which looks a bit like this. Thanks to the Great Circle Mapper for the map.

This doesn’t include all the domestic travel I did by the way. There’s a fairly comprehensive list of conferences and speaking engagements for 2007 on my bio page if you’re interested, or this list of my slideshows gives a flavour of the work highlights.

Even without train and road journeys, that’s an estimated 22,062 miles of flights alone. I’m glad to see it’s slightly fewer than last year’s total of 24,375 miles, but it’s still too high. My personal target for next year is to get below 20,000, preferably more like 16,000.

Since photography is a recurring theme of my travels, I’ve decided to invest in a better camera. Something I can carry and transport relatively easily, but bigger and better than my existing Canon PowerShot S2 IS. I want to finally make the jump from compact to DSLR. I imagine it’ll be a Canon EOS 400D, or whatever similar thing exists in a couple of months. Someone kindly tipped me off about the big industry event in January, and the rumours of a 450D are encouraging me to hold off purchasing anything just yet.

Updates, many of which make me feel like a travel lightweight:

• Euan Semple has done one too (47,416 miles)
• Euan inspired Dave Snowden to do the same (285,054 miles. Horrific.)
• Bobbie Johnson has done one too (53,000+ miles)
• John Tolva updated his travel roundup (75,080 miles)
• Ewan McIntosh shares his (51,281 miles)
• Andrian Spender (22,541 miles)
• Russell Davies (67,231 miles)