Dr Laura James's writings

Michael and I had a lovely time in Paris last weekend.

AlertMe is keen to find out what our customers, and potential customers, think we should be creating in the future. Cast your vote, and leave us your thoughts, by taking our survey . (It's also a prize draw, if you need any more incentive!)

At the Silicon Valley Innovation Forum tonight (of which more later!) I met the delightful editor of Radio 4's In Business . Stephen Chilcott. He was quite rightly chuffed that more than 730,000 people downloaded the In Business podcast in September, thoroughly beating supposedly more popular shows. I've always enjoyed In Business, and wish Stephen and Peter Day continuing success with this excellent programme, which always has something new to teach me.

The Union debate last Thursday was a lively affair, with venture capitalists and other entrepreneurial types attempting to decide whether Europe, or the Valley, will be the best place to start billion dollar companies in the future. In the end I felt i had to abstain though - I can't bring myself to care much where innovation happens most. It was encouraging to see that some of the leading lights of entrepreneurship can also compose a strong speech and present it with panache, although most of the points were comical rather than intellectual. NESTA and Silicon Valley Connect had organised last night's forum in London, as part of a tour for visiting Valley luminaries. It had rather more content than the debate! (As ever, I am reminded of an old colleague of mine, who always called it the valley of the silly clones.) George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor, spoke coherently and well about the need for university and industry interaction, the importance of an encouraging tax regime,

It's been quiet of here late, although Michael has been tracking what we've been up to quite well! Last night we saw Paul Merton at the Corn Exchange, hosting an evening of silent film comedies. The pianist accompanying the films was excellent, and the selection of comic moments from Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and more was excellent. Merton introduced the films briefly, but didn't really give enough information for me. I caught references to names and years, but not enough detail about the world of films, or the stars and directors, to feel I'd learnt anything. Still, at least the presence of a big name has some of these wonderful films in front of people again. The second half was Lloyd's splendid Safety Last , which remains an engaging story after 80-odd years.

On Monday, a lecture by Jorge Cham, who creates the wonderful Piled Higher and Deeper comics. Yesterday, a Mitch Benn gig - actually Mitch Benn and the Distractions. I hadn't really known what to expect of this, as I only really knew of Benn through the Now Show on Radio 4 . But it was wonderful - a really vibrant live performance, and some stunning funny songs, reminiscent of Weird Al (only more topical, perhaps, and certainly more British). It turns out that Mitch is from Liverpool, has an accent that fluctuates madly, and does a very fine rendition of Macbeth in the style of Eminem. Tonight, we're off to see Stardust , which I'm really looking forward to! Tomorrow, less culture, at a Web2.0 discussion meeting. No idea of what to expect there!

Many engineers remember the annual Faraday Lecture, as an inspiration in their childhood or teens. The IEE (now IET), which ran it, took the decision that a lecture tour could only ever reach a small number of people, and have this year launched The Faraday , which is a set of videos and activities presented online, and supported by a team of Faraday Engineers around the UK. The website includes various games for you to try, and challenges for school teams to undertake (with the incentive of starring in a film, if their competition entry video is a winner). If they need any help, any school can call the IET and request a Faraday Engineer to come in and support them with activity help, careers advice, or whatever. Yesterday was the launch event in London, compered by Dr Jack , the "face" of Faraday 08. He seems a lively chap, with a real PhD (neuroscience), and very hip, which is undoubtedly what science needs these days. There was quite a party atmosphere.

AlertMe's first corporate video is out! You can play at spotting your favourite AlertMe staff in it.

A very nicely done example of viral marketing: Smart Enlightenment . Are you vacuuming the carpet of pain? If so, Dr Tridion can help. (Thanks to Mum for the link!)

then I'd strongly recommend going to see "I am Shakespeare" at the Arts Theatre. This was, sadly, somewhat poorly attended tonight, but was a great show, starring Sean Foley (of The Right Size, a duo I admire hugely) and Mark Rylance of the Globe. If you are interested in Shakespeare, or the internet, or just enjoy a lively show, go see it.

Michael has a new passport. It contains a wide selection of images of British birds. However, the note that came with it, full of puff about the high tech security features, fails to describe the birds! A great deal of effort with Google reveals one leaflet about the birds ( here , on a very unofficial site), but the bird on the "chip" page is unnamed. Does anyone know what it is? It's pictured in the leaflet I've linked- twice, in fact.

Yesterday, the podcast. Today, I was interviewed by Rory Cellan-Jones for BBC News 24! The video is linked from the image of a tasteful toy Post Office in that article, half way down. As well as showing some of the first bits of AlertMe kit we've revealed to the public, it was nice to be asked about the reasons I moved from academia to industry, too.

I'm featured in the latest SET Women podcast , produced by Cobi Smith. It's very strange to hear your voice and words, processed and tidied up by someone else! Cobi has done a good job on the podcast series though, even if I don't feature until number 6 :)

Our website is now live. Enjoy!

A pleasant consequence of living near a jam factory is that sometimes the village smells of strawberries. If you listen to the Archers , and have read all the Harry Potter books, you are likely to enjoy Lantana2's fantasy . Last year, Michael and I attended an excellent Wine Appreciation course at Impington Village College. It is on again during the autumn term and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about wine in an informal setting. If they don't get the numbers, the course will be cancelled, so do consider registering and joining us! It was so good, we're taking the course again.

We've had the Wattson at home for a while. Using the Holmes software (subtle naming there!) I can view our household electricity usage over the last few months. Holmes may be in beta, but it makes lovely graphs. We've been glad to find that our "resting" power consumption is quite low, even with the server running. You can see the kettle boiling and so on in the morning, and the washing machine (ouch!) in the evening. Our consumption goes up when Michael stays at home with a cold, boiling the kettle and running extra computers... We can also spot the weekends when we are at home more, and more likely to be running washing machines and so on: It's very interesting to see how our power usage varies over the hours, days and months. I look forward to the winter to see how that changes things! (Aside: I recently read Arthur and George by Julian Barnes - a fascinating book. I'd recommend it to all those who like the naming of Wattson!)

I've put up the photos from last week's Smart Festival . Everyone should watch the fascinating video (" shift happens ") about what the 21st century is probably going to be like - I spotted it here on John's blog .

I was unaware until yesterday that Cambridge had a Fringe festival, which starts this week. This year, the Fringe included a science comedy cabaret last night at Footlights, and all the hip scientists from the region were there. The evening started with Mark Stevenson , who did some traditional standup with a vaguely scientific spin. Lots of sex and a small amount of monkeys. (Photos are the traditionally bad mobile phone camera in bar style, I'm afraid!) Harry Witchel was up next, "you can see me on Big Brother, but you're better off not". He eschewed straight standup in favour of a lecturing style, well-suited to his audience, and presented some scientific analysis of dating and body language. It was a great act, only slightly let down by his audio-visual aids (movies are not best shown on a laptop screen, picked up by a CCTV camera, and relayed to an LCD panel!). Finally, we heard from Ron Laskey , the creator of Songs for Cynical Scientists, and the man who wrote

AlertMe employees apparently do not wash up their mugs. We have therefore been given our own mugs to force us to wash up. They are lovely mugs; although not the easiest to wash.

A Smart Festival at Mercedes World in Brooklands, Sam and Zoe's wedding, and another Impington sunset.

BarCamp is coming to Cambridge! BarCamb will happen on 24th August. It should be interesting to see how the web2.0ish BarCamp types blend with the science people local to Hinxton. Hopefully there will be some interesting sessions anyway. There's a MiniBar in London tomorrow too, which sounds like a hoot, although I won't be there.

A beautiful picture of "the graceful concentric arcs traced by the stars" as the earth rotates. (Thanks to Amyas for the link!) It's part of the wonderful Astronomy Picture of the Day series.

The plants turned out to be from Michael's grandmother - many thanks! Michael did a good job of planting them out before we went away for the weekend. Whilst away we visited the red squirrels at Formby Point. Much of the weekend we had brilliant sunshine; hard to imagine the floods elsewhere. When we got back to Cambridge, it seemed as if it could have been dry all weekend, and there was a terrific sunset.

This morning, before 8am, the doorbell rang. It was a delivery man with 27 baby plants for Michael. "Must be planted within 24 hours." We have clematis and honeysuckle and pinks, and no idea who sent them. There should be an emergency gardener we could call out to identify homes for them in the garden, bring some pots, and do some urgent planting out.

I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman 's writing, both novels and shorter format work, although I've never managed to get into his comic books. Stardust has now been made into a film, and comes out in the US next month, and the UK sometime in the autumn. There's always a slight worry when magical and beautifully described books appear in film, but the TV spot for Stardust looks promising, and Gaiman seems happy with it too. I'm looking forward to the release.

Today a few dozen bikes rode in formation into Cambridge to mark Bike to Work Day. I was on the back of one of them. The police were there too to tell everyone what to do. The riders got free high visibility jackets with various slogans to encourage people to bike, "Fed up of traffic?", "I'll get there before you" and so on, along with a URL: http://takeyourbiketestnow.com . The bike test is changing, and so if you are thinking of learning, now is the time.

On Sunday we saw the current Harry Potter film, which was quite enjoyable, although perhaps less strong than the storyline of the book; the necessary trimming to fit within a feature length removed some of the subtleties of the plot. There was less showing the strength and potential of Neville than I would have liked, for example; and although the London flight scenes were lovely, whatever happened to stealth? Moody would surely have disapproved of buzzing tourist boats... I'm looking forward to the final book, although I fear my pre-order (from what a friend splendidly calls WarlikeSingleBosomedLadyDotCom) may arrive in a place where I am not, delaying my reading by a day or so. I don't expect stunning writing, but at least a rollicking storyline. Last weekend we went camping on the bike ; we managed to take all the usual stuff, and there was still plenty of space for me on the back. On Thursday we visited the former Millennium Dome, the interior of which is a pedestrian boule

I spent most of yesterday at a secondary school in central Cambridge, explaining the world of engineering and work to a large group of 14 year olds. We spent most of the day examining bridges - what factors have to be considered, what kinds of structure are strong and why, how you can model a bridge using computer aided design (CAD) tools on a PC, and how you can build a bridge from spaghetti if you try hard enough. I was impressed by the computer suite, which had enough PCs that each teenager had their own. Quite a few of them got the hang of the software quickly and were designing and testing their bridge ideas without help. Others struggled, particularly with starting afresh with a new bridge design. As I explained the process (click to open the File menu, then either Save your current design or click New Design to start again) I realised that in some cases the problem was not unfamiliarity with the Windows paradigm, but that some of the teenagers couldn't read . This startled m

Last night there was a huge amount of rain, and sun. At one point, looking out of the front door, I could see streaks of light sparkling against the dark sky as huge raindrops fell through a shaft of sunlight. Although my phone does not normally capture unusual lighting conditions at all well, I was quite pleased with this one.

The first Crucible Lab was last weekend. It was very tiring - lots of thinking, talking and drinking - but the awardees are a great crowd (following on from previous stars like Sue ). Michael has put the photos up here . The best speaker was Mark Miodownik , winning hands-down with his Materials Library and artistic collaborations. Best poster was Andrew Byde from HP, a talented artist, and best poster talk the enviable Jon Copley , who spends three months each year at sea (or under sea, for preference). As well as networking, pondering career aims, figuring out science policy structures and learning how to handle the media, I was finally able to thank Lord Oxburgh personally for providing the most excellent sausages on sticks !

I've enjoyed a range of web comics over the years. I check a range of comics daily, weekly, or on RSS, for ongoing storylines or random, thought-provoking content - from a long-standing love of Sluggy Freelance to a more recent fascination with Cat and Girl (whose shirts I can often be spotted wearing). Web comics are not all frivolous, as the Phoenix reports this week; there can be a lot more to them. It's good to see Dorothy Gambrell of Cat and Girl cited here! Having read that, I now feel I should go and read more Dinosaur Comics - I've only ever seen the odd one before... must wait until the weekend, though...

Today SETWomen is launching the first of a series of podcasts about enterprising women and women working in technology fields. I was one of the women interviewed for the series, and I'm very much looking forward to hearing what we all had to say!

Of late, I've realised how much my web usage has moved on. I no longer want to work my way through a pile of comics pages each day, but most still don't provide RSS feeds. I prefer the ones which give me a feed, as they make my daily web trawl shorter. I now see that some comics offer Facebook feeds ! There's a side point there about RSS feeds and how minor, advertising supported websites can manage with them. With comics, I am very happy to subscribe to a feed with both the images and some news items, so I'll still see a request to buy a book or T shirt to support the site, but I won't see the site-supporting ads. I detest partial RSS feeds, and will opt to visit only rarely a site that uses them, rather than regularly headline-checking in a feed reader and sometimes clicking through. Now even my boss is on Facebook , raising the topical question of whether such people should be one's Friends, if they are just colleagues; but is it wise to refuse a friend inv

Michael and I had a full week away from the internet in Scotland. The scenery, and cloudscapes, were impressive. Once more we took a great many photos without really realising it - page 1 , page 2 , page 3 . Each lot is probably best viewed as a slideshow. Now it's back to reality and piles of email and a now-urgent requirement to produce an A0 poster about myself, which will require me to consume wine tomorrow night...

A diverting piece in the Indy today about how UK PhD candidates would benefit from more public examinations, to bring openness and, more importantly, a sense of occasion, to the end of an arduous process. Indeed, the end of a PhD here is a long drawn out affair. The first moment of triumph, and sense of completion, is at the submission of a thesis; after many months of writing, this large document is finally printed and handed over to the authorities. Most candidates then return to their jobs, no longer burdened with writing up at evenings and weekends, or start new employment, rapidly forgetting the trials of the PhD. Months later, after a stressful buildup (during which the candidate frets that they have forgotten what they wrote about, or that they will not be able to answer the questions of their examiner) comes the day of the viva. This is pretty much exclusively either anticlimatic or a nightmare. But afterwards, assuming the student has passed (which most do), life returns inst

I met the founder of Logiblocs yesterday. I'd never seen this plug and play, electronics and logic building block system before. It's like Lego Mindstorms but on a much lower level; AND gates and signals, rather than programming icons. The blocks are friendly colours and nicely translucent, and as well as hands-on building you can do simulations on a PC or Mac. There are energy blocks, input sensors, output devices, wires, logic gates, delays and so on. There's also a robot kit. Apparently it's huge in France, but hasn't really taken off over here. I felt embarrassed that I didn't know about it - the company has been going for 10 years! - but at least I've seen it now. Although it's clear that part of the company aim is to bring electronics, and the real basics of programming, to kids who would otherwise be unaware of these concepts, I was somewhat disappointed to see that the upcoming range of products, "Logimen", are mostly fighting machines

At the weekend, Michael and I went camping in Sizewell, at a site recommended by Gray . Although the bathrooms were not the best when compared to previous campsites, the location (right next to a nuclear power station, and the beach) was unparalleled. Photos are here . This week I'll be off to Techlinks and a MentorSET event in Birmingham. Next week, Michael and I are off to Scotland.

After working on research, product design, and finally development, AlertMe is now taking pre-orders from friends and family for a limited edition release before we launch nationally. This is an incredibly exciting moment for all of us, as the system we've been working on is finally becoming a real product. If you'd like to be one of the first 100 customers of a new kind of home awareness system, email me asap! We won't be billing anyone until we ship kits out, and we'll reconfirm your order before shipping. After all this time in development, and with so many great features, it's sometimes hard to step back and see the real user value in the system rather than just the overwhelming coolness and flexibility we have to offer. There will be more content on the website soon, but I can do no better today than to quote my colleague Nik in Marketing: What: AlertMe revolutionary home security & more! You’ll have the ability to check on your home and receive alerts

Since signing up for twitter , along with the rest of the world, to see what it was like, I haven't thought of many genuinely useful things to do with it. It could, of course, be a way to alert people to things happening at home for AlertMe . But there are many other ways to do that, too. We used to use a whiteboard in the office as an IN/OUT board, and this worked well when there were three of us there on most days. Now there are 18! In addition, we now have phones, which ring when people aren't at their desks, leaving one wondering where they've got to. The solution is clearly that we all use twitter for our current status/location, and that we have a CamVine screen showing the latest tweet for each of us on the office wall. This means at-a-glance where people are information, and it can even be updated remotely using SMS. It's a great idea, only partially marred by the unreliability of twitter. As I thought of it earlier, and explained to my Instant Messaging but u

Both Michael and I have won places on this year's NESTA Crucible scheme. This is good - three weekends to visit new places and to meet people and work on our interdisciplinary creative thinking - and bad, as Michael being there too makes one fewer new person to meet!

It seems like an age ago now that I ordered a Wattson from DIY Kyoto . It arrived on Friday. This is a very highly priced "limited edition" product (mine is the 89th of 250), made from translucent white acrylic and wood, and £350. This seems a huge amount, and probably is, but is slightly less painful when compared to the Electrisave , at £60-£80. The Wattson is a much more attractive unit, and also comes with a USB link so you can log and process your data yourself (although this requires the use of one of those high-power-consumption computer doodads) - a major selling point for me. Also, as well as a numeric display, there is an ambient colour indicator of how much power you are using. The box is fairly simply made, but looks good. The manual is large and friendly. My first hand-stitched manual. This is the first page of the manual - great text there. Over the years I have bought many products which came with cloths - usually screen cleaners. This is the first to come wit

Last week Michael and I went to Paris, and filled my camera (!) with photos ( one , two , three , four ). This week, I am in London for Usability in Practice training camp. The basic camp is probably not as intensive as you might expect, but it gets more so if you use the filler time to write out a detailed plan for your own company! We are all dedicated enough to attend on a Sunday and a Bank holiday, anyway. There's a lot of people here, from all around Europe and beyond, mostly web people, more non-profits than you'd expect. I'm envious of those who simply have an e-commerce site to test!

Terence Blacker in the Independent derides the aggressive style of The Apprentice . Although as a rule I agree that this kind of ruthless competitiveness is counter-productive, I wonder how many of today's successful executives still exhibit it; I doubt that it is as out of date as Blacker suggests. The current vogue for entrepreneurship is in evidence outside the world of reality TV. In Cambridge, it has been popular for at least the last decade to trumpet the ability of anyone (and everyone) to have an idea, get some funding, and have a blast running their own business. From undergraduate lectures to seminars for people looking for a career change, starting your own business is sold as the ultimate aspiration, and whilst there is normally a mention of how it might be hard work at times, it is assumed that anyone could do it, particularly with the support networks available in the area. The goal is, of course, not as material as a simple personal fortune, but that the aspirant

On April 24th 2002, AT&T Laboratories Cambridge closed down. Daisy organised a great reunion for ex-ORL people last night, and Quentin has put up some photos of us all. It was great to catch up with people, and see that everyone seems to be doing well. Thanks Daisy!

As Michael reported , we had a nice short break on the Norfolk Broads last weekend. You can also get these images as a Photocast , which your RSS reader will eat, or iPhoto might if you have the right version of it. As John commented the other week, this was Coot Club territory - many of the place names were familiar to me, and it was lovely to finally see the environment I read about in Ransome 's books. The area around Wroxham in particular may still be home to Hullabaloos , but most of the trip was very peaceful, and the River Ant where we canoed was idyllic.

I was at the House of Lords on Monday for the inaugural meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Engineering and IT Group, which was essentially an excuse for a very fine lunch, and some useful networking. Alec Broers introduced the main speaker, Lord Browne of Madingley (and of BP). His speech was fairly lightweight, although the topic (raising the profile of engineers and engineering in society) was quite serious. As well as the challenges of education, he discussed the role engineers play in the "greening" of society (climate change and One Laptop Per Child got mentions). One thing which struck me was the call for the constituency of Chartered Engineers to push for more debate of technology topics, demonstrate how they are driving development of cleaner technologies, and so forth. Although I gather there are still a fair few CEngs in traditional industry, even amongst younger engineers, I do not think there are many in the high tech field - AlertMe has just hired its sec

Karen Spärck Jones died yesterday. She was an amazing woman, both in her own research and her support for other women in the Computer Lab at Cambridge. "Computing is too important to be left to men."

Apparently not just any red wine is good for the heart; you have to pick the right one , says the Independent . Luckily I'm quite fond of tannat grapes, and don't mind the old world style tannic reds; or the dark chocolate and cranberries the article also recommends!

Last night I was in London for an event at the Science Museum 's Dana Centre (where there is a nice cafe; I'd not been there before). Some of the authors of the Royal Academy of Engineering report entitled "Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance" were there, and I'd recommend the report , a fascinating read, and clearly the mix of engineers and social scientists on the working group found the process of interdisciplinary discussion enlightening. It's a very pragmatic study, considering where the world is going and where we are now, not just where we might like to be. The real purpose of the evening was "Keeping an Eye On", a workshop to explore the implications of the report, and part of the Science Horizons project. The scenarios presented weren't great, I thought, particularly the second in which the main point appeared to http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifbe that the radical new technology didn't actually work correctly, but the dis

AlertMe has a blog , which we're starting to post on more often as we gradually emerge from stealth mode. The RSS feed formatting isn't quite right for some reason, for which apologies, but it should be fixed soon. Meanwhile, you can read my first post on the site itself.

We managed to get Michael's bike home OK. Here it is with only the top box, and not the side luggage: I think it looks great; a fairly unusual look compared to other bikes, although I'm aware my eye is extremely untutored in this!

There are various plants gradually coming out in the garden here. Some of them I can identify, and some I can't; some photograph reasonably with my phone, and others don't.

is a Buell Ulysses .

As mentioned in my previous post , I have a new surface on my desk to help plan my day. You might be able to see I have tasks of various kinds, my own status, a calendar... I also have some documents, one of which is currently on Amyas's surface as it's his problem at the moment. We might collaborate on it later :)

If you've been checking out the alertme webcam, you might have noticed more gadgetry on some of our desks. Five of us are trying out a prototype tangible interface system, called TIPSY, to help us manage our time and collaborative documents. It's the PhD project of Darren Edge at the Cambridge University Computer Lab . At the moment we're fixing teething problems - like the dazzling lighting in this office - but it's a fun system to play with, and getting more stable by the hour.

Don't they come around quickly ? This year, I had a break from jitterbugs and instead helped out on the (new) IET Cambridge Younger Members "Engineers Explain" stand. We had a great turnout of people, and amazingly managed to give away nearly 100% of the freebies we had - about 5 minutes before we closed. If you were one of the many people asking for schools resources, check out the IET 5-19 site . If you missed the fun, you can capture some of the atmosphere from the photos .

Last year, we had a friendly robin, who endlessly peered into our office from the tree outside, and who broke in once or twice through our open windows. This year, we have a pair of bluetits, who can even sit on the windowsill! They gaze adoringly through the glass, and I'm sure as the weather warms up will threaten to invade as we are forced to open windows.

At the recommendation of a NESTA staffer I met at their Speed Networking event on Tuesday night, I've just ordered a DIY Kyoto Wattson . We'll see what it is like in the office - I'm hoping it's expensable! But it looks like an interesting project, and has good synergy for alertme . (Thanks Gerard!)

Whilst typing up his (long) bike review , Michael sat out in the garden. This is a first in this house - our first very good weather weekend since we've been here.

Yesterday, after spending some time out test driving motorbikes in the glorious sunshine, there was a lovely sunset. Michael is blogging about the bikes at the moment. I expect an epic essay, given the time he has spent on it!

Last night Michael and I toured parts of the House of Commons with MP Liam Fox. We were able to visit the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, which isn't part of the public tour route. This is an incredibly beautiful and old (begun in 1292) chapel in a very unusual style, most similar spaces being destroyed. However, one of the most interesting parts of the chapel for me was the broom cupboard at the back, where the suffragette Emily Davison hid during the 1911 Census, ensuring that her address would go down on record as "House of Commons". The cupboard is small these days, with bits of maintenance equipment in it, only fitting two very friendly people in at once. As Fox said, if this was America, the cupboard would be "a major feminist shrine". As it is, it is almost unmarked. There is, though, a plaque and a portrait of Davison - on the inside of the door, making it almost impossible to view. The main point to me though was not that she hid there, or that the memor

Our website went live today.

Some more pics of progress with house now up here . As of today, we even have revitalised heating!

There is a petition on the Downing Street website, supporting protected status for the term Engineer, preserving it for professional engineers only. Despite the flakiness of the site, it's doing well with over 4000 signatories.

No, not today's Today interview. Last night, Radio 4 aired a 15 minute piece by Adam Long, co-founder of the amazing Reduced Shakespeare Company . For some reason, it wasn't an RSC production, but it retained much of their style. Still on Listen Again, the Condensed History of Tony Blair is definitely worth a listen. The RSC also have a weekly podcast now.

A gap in blogging whilst I moved house and waited for the ADSL to recover. Michael and I are now fairly settled into our new home . You may notice that we have already made our mark by replacing the old number with a geekier version.

and now we are returning to it - or at least, something resembling it, with textual interfaces, according to Don Norman . Good to note that at alertme.com we are doing something similar!

Last term I attended a wine appreciation class, in an attempt to increase my knowledge to the point where I could pick a wine based on more than the prettiness of the label, or the menu's description. I now know more than I did, including how easy (or otherwise) it is to describe the taste or nose of a wine in comparison to other things. I'm not the only one to struggle with this on occasion; Colin Bower in the New English Review discusses this problem.

Ah, a way of disposing of old mobile phones to a charitable cause, without needing to spend money on mailing them. How convenient, just as I try to declutter - I can get rid of stuff without simply migrating the clutter to my office.

Offshore windfarm pictures , including destruction in storms (not so pretty) and construction phases. (Thanks to Mum for the link!)

Last night I caught a new Radio 4 comedy show, Recorded for training purposes . I don't know that it will age particularly well, but at the moment it's fresh and funny. A mildly surreal look at modern life, with more IM and MySpace than your average Radio 4 show.

I just found Sizeasy , which lets you visualise the size of an item and compare it to known items. Useful if you are shopping for a new gadget, or designing one!

The new alertme bunny, ibunny28, is up and working. Emails to him are now enabled, so if you mail ibunny28@nabaztag.com he will read out the subject line, and play any mp3 you happen to have attached. NB: you need to have registered your email address on the Nabaztag site (as an account without a bunny, assuming you don't have one); this is to prevent spammers playing random audio at my desk. Poor old Razmatag is going to migrate, taking his newly upgraded ultrashiny ears elsewhere. I'm not sure where he will go yet - to the lab, perhaps, or maybe home.

I've been a fan of the Independent since it was founded, although it has developed and changed substantially over the years. I've had an annual subscription to the online form for some time now, as I rarely get around to buying a paper paper. Today, I was delighted to get an email saying that the Indy is moving to a free online version, and my subscription is being refunded for this year as content is gradually migrated through the paywall. It will be great to be able to send links to people at last!

Violet's servers seem to be back up, pretty much, and so our second company Nabaztag - the Nabaztag/tag - is up and running. This one is called ibunny28. Alas, there seems to be no RFID or microphone support yet, but the audio does seem to work better than on the old bunny. You can check out some of the internals here . Big architectural changes, including an ARM replacing the PIC of the original Nabaztag. It's complex in there - the number of custom plastic components is scary.