Where's Wil?

Man, that 200 barrier is getting close, but it's taking me forever to get there. My exercising stalled, but I bought some cool new kit in NY and am now signing up for a race to get me motivated. 5k, here I come!

No, not the crappy Outlook-a-like for Mac - the HBO series.

Yes, I know it's been on for ages. But I was too busy with House/Lost/whatever to get into it. With all those series' on a break, I've been watching some different stuff. I'm pretty sure I've already chronicled my love of The West Wing here - it's for sure my favourite TV series ever, and I'm glad I took the punt on it. I just ordered the sixth season box set, and I'm waiting for season four to arrive to get started on that.

Whilst that's waiting, I grabbed the first season of Entourage. It's a lot of fun. I have to give credit to my man Jason Calacanis for the suggestion on this one - he is a big fan of the show and I also heard good things about it elsewhere. I just watched the fourth episode, and I'm loving it. The characters are just so spectacularly, unashamedly shallow. It all seems very 'LA'. If you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out.

Having a conversation with Alex today made me re-think one of my pet peeves - personalised everything.

We're entering a culture where everything is tailored to our likes and dislikes, our exact preferences - we choose the news feeds we want, we filter feeds for things interesting to us, we abhor 'pushy' professional media setting the agenda, we claw back editorial control for ourselves.

But don't we miss out on the wider picture? When all the news headlines we get are filtered to the max by Google reader, don't we miss what's actually going on in the world? When our social news comes from Digg, don't we miss a little bit of intelligent commentary? When we open up our bookmarks, don't we miss skimming over something we might not normally be interested in?

I've recently got back into reading magazines and newspapers. Sure, a lot of it isn't relevant to me. But sometimes I spot something on the pages I flick past that does interest me that I wouldn't normally have seen. And that enriches my life a little. It educates me.

Which brings me to a point I've been pondering for a while. When I sat the entrance exam for my course at Oxford, I had one hour to write a paper on the following discussion point: "Should Government do what the people want or what is good for the people?" The question was designed to make us think about how far those in power should dictate to us from the position of superior knowledge, and how accountability should work in a modern age of dis-engagement from political and social life. I ask myself the same question about journalism - "Should journalists write what people want or what is good for people?"

If we swing in one direction, all we end up with is celebrity gossip, for the most part. In the other direction, we create total dis-engagement from the media. Digg and other 'power of the people' sites, as well as the 'filter to the max' mentality seem to me to be feeding our desire to opt out of anything we don't consider immediately relevant or entertaining. News isn't just about relevance and entertainment - it's about issues and responsibility. As citizens of the world, we have an obligation to keep ourselves informed as to what is happening in it, so that we can contribute to the conversation meaningfully, not withdraw into our filtered little bubbles.

I'm a big proponent of professionally produced media, of professional journalists and public service broadcasting. I think it's a great antidote to capitalist populist stuff. And I think we're going to have to look at how that is going to work on the web in the future, because I worry that we're going down a path that's going to isolate people, not bring them together. When there's no common literature for society, does society have any glue to hold it together?

From the BBC, here:

Heightened security checks at airports could create a potential new target for terrorists, MPs have warned. A report by the Commons transport select committee said queues of hundreds of passengers in cramped spaces could become a security hazard."

So now security checkpoints are a security hazard? There's some irony there, somewhere.

Bust A Name.

Oh yes. This is the web entrepreneurs dream. Kudos to Kevin Rose for blogging it.

Things I have learned this week:

1. Scheduling a church (ceremony) with a restaurant (reception) and an art gallery (drinks evening) is tough, and expensive, stuff.
2. Stag parties are fun to plan.
3. Families are mental and members have widely varying reactions to your news.
4. I need to earn more money to pay for this.

On the non-wedding front, I learned that:

1. Analysts are idiots. In fact, I knew that already. They created their own estimates of how many iPhones Apple sold, then cried when Apple didn't sell that many. So basically their job is to make stuff up then get upset when it doesn't turn out to be true? Way to go, bros.
2. Despite this, the iPhone is still the neatest piece of electronic kit I've ever owned.
3. Buying video kit is complicated when you don't necessarily know what you're doing. This must be what computers feel like to other people.

So I've had a few days to use this thing now, what's the verdict?

Well, obviousy, I love it. Even without the phone capabilities, this is an awesome device. Everyone I show it to goes mental. The cover flow, the quality of the video playback, all those things. The photo resizing - everyone looks like it does in the video, which is incredible.

The keyboard - I find it very easy to use. I have faily nimble, if pudgy fingers, and can happily bash out emails and web addresses on it without too many problems at all. Google Maps is awesome - if you can find Wifi wherever it is you want to be.

I love the fact that if you have a video podcast, you can also listen to just the audio through the iPod function - that means I can watch Diggnation on the Underground, then switch it to just audio when I'm walking around. That saves me having to have both the MP3 and the iPod video stream on the iPhone.

The volume slider on the side is very useful. Just being able to quickly up and down the volume without having to slide open the phone is very handy.

I love the new earbuds - what great sound quality. But - and this is a big one - I can barely get them to stay in my ears. It's like my ear lugs are too big, they just slide out all the time. Dammit.

Otherwise, I'm really liking it and using it all the time. It's also useful to just bust out in a coffee shop to check mail or a quick web address or something rather than bothering with a laptop.

Great stuff. Now to get it unlocked...

Thanks for everyone that emailed me offering to help with the video project. You guys rock! I've got you all in a folder and will be mailing people out when I work out our full task list and stuff :o)

So it seems like the people reading this blog are pretty awesome - every time I've put out questions and requests on here, I've had a great response. I found a great web developer through here, and the fatblogging help almost goes without saying.

Now I'm looking for some people to come work with me on the new video project. We are setting up a video production office here in Oxford, and we have some full-time staff coming on board. We are looking for either local people who want to come and work as interns on flexi schedules (think campaign politics, folks) or web-based people who want to help moderate comments, manage communities, tele-collaborate etc.

We don't have any money for these roles right now - we're spending all our seed venture cash on the full-time guys and on the massive amount of kit we have to buy. However, I can tell you from experience that this stuff looks great on the CV, will give you a chance to be part of a cool new startup which will be invaluable experience, and will also lead to paid work in the future. If you're interested either in coming and working with me in Oxford, or doing some web-based work, let me know (wilharris@mac.com).

1. I proposed to Alex, my girlfriend of almost 4 years, in Central Park. She said yes, which made me very happy. I got her a rather nice diamond ring from Tiffany's, which was neat.

2. I got an iPhone, which I then hacked to work without AT&T activation. Now being back in England, I have a sweet WiFi iPod with a touch screen, with a small glimmer of hope that at some point it might get hacked for unlocking. It's even sweeter than I first thought.

3. Last week, I managed to line up a round of seed funding for my video project which means we're going to be up and running ASAP - I am getting ready to fork out for HD cameras and 17" MacBook Pros as I write.



4. I also had some incredible food. I had a sirloin steak at the Four Seasons restaurant, which was cooked to perfection and served with an awful lot of style. I had the best brunch of my life - banana pecan pancakes - at Eleven Madison Park, so that's two restaurants I can definitely recommend as being amongst the best places in the world to eat.

All in all, a pretty good few days.

So I hit up NYNY over the weekend for a short break, which was awesome. I'd never been before, and have always wanted to go, so I took Alex out and we had an awesome time, taking in Avenue Q on Broadway, plenty of shops on Fifth Avenue, the Empire State, Wall St, Statue of Liberty, etc etc. We stayed at a great place called the City Club Hotel (small, boutique, and right next to Fifth) and flew Premium Economy on Virgin (post-Airbus-refurb, the experience is great).

Photos on my Flickr.

Just landed at JFK, got to my hotel, got on wireless. Alex and I are spending the weekend in the Big Apple for a well-earned break. Taking in Broadway tonight (Avenue Q), dinner tomorrow (Four Seasons) and brunch on Sunday (11 Madison Park) as well as the usual tourist traps - unbelievably, I've never been here before. Should be a good weekend, although, alas, no hacked iPhone as of yet, so no excuse to buy one. Dammit.

So I'm still 204 this morning. Dang. I was really hoping to be 203 after a couple of days hardcore dieting. Maybe tomorrow.

The news is out this morning that Jim Louderback has moved to Revision 3 and Veronica Belmont to Mahalo, both to work on new video shows. This is great news. Jim is a great camera type, and has plenty of experience, and the appearance of Patrick Norton on Systm suggests that Rev3 is increasingly leveraging the old TechTV crew to rebuild itself. Good stuff. Veronica is exceptional on camera, and I know that Jason is such a media starlet he will delight in having her do a new show and luring her from Cnet.

Bad news for 'old' new media? Good news for new new media.

Huzzah, seem to have made it here, etc etc. Fingers crossed I'll still be 204 tomorrow. Weather here is nice this weekend, which encourages lazing around. Watched Howl's Moving Castle today, which is an awesome movie if you like Japanimation.

So maybe I'll hit 204 proper by the end of the week. But this is good - seem to be sticking to my 2 pounds a week regime. Today is a day off exercise - I am trying to run 5x a week - and this means closely monitoring what I eat today. A 200 calorie breakfast of eggs and tomatos is a good start, and Alex has cooked up an awesome chicken salad for lunch. Good stuff.

So I did a podcast interview with Seb from MoofCast at the weekend which is up on the site. We chat about the iPhone, Pownce and GPL v3, amongst other things. Check it out - it's the first episode Seb has produced, and I'm sure he'd welcome feedback.

I wasn't aware of the cult of Moof or the Dogcow that spawned it. The Wiki article linked is just one example of where Wiki beats out Britannica any day. Can you imagine the phrase 'Dogcow' appearing anywhere in its numerous volumes? Thought not.

So I think this is probably a fake 204, and I'm more like 205, but it's nice to see the number on the scales nevertheless. Since getting back on the renewed fatblogging kick, I've dropped six pounds in a little over two weeks, which is pretty good stuff. I'm running 5x a week for a minimum of 40 minutes, and keeping strictly to my 1500 calories a day limit. I've gotta keep this up for another two months - until the beginning of September - when I'll re-evaluate again.

Jesus H Christ. That thing is unbelievable.

So I'm in Starbucks, doing my usual 'afternoon coffee and email' routine. A couple of (rather attractive) girls sit down next to me, and one of them whips out an iPhone. My eyes bulge.

I look. They're playing with it. She's showing off some photos and her music. I can't resist wandering over.

"Hi... err, is that the new iPhone?" I ask in my plummest British accent.

"Sure," she smiles back. "You want a look?"

I can't tell her how much I want a look.

I gingerly take it off her, start playing with the interface. Flip through the contacts, the iPod, some photos, switching back and forth between home. I give it back to her before I'm tempted to run off with it.

"Isn't it out here yet?" she innocently asks. I'm forced to grimace and inform her that it's not here for another 6 months or so.

I thank her for her time, smile at her friend, and go back to sitting at my MacBook, answering email.

Holy mother of God. Just when I thought I couldn't want that phone any more than I already did. I've been teased. By a cute girl with an iPhone.