Five things on Friday #22

Things of note for the week ending June 1st, 2012

Summer is here

1. Good times
Writing this blog throughout the week as I do (picking up links throughout the week and saving them to WordPress on the fly), means there is often a close kind of overlap with some of the awesomeness out there. As I type this particular segment, it’s 9:30 on Sunday May 27th and the sunshine is GLORIOUS.

Yesterday was the first picnic of the year and, as well as hanging out with friends and generally having a laugh, there was Frisbee (see above), Lasagne and then later, EUROVISION. Which, thanks to Twitter, was actually quite bearable.
Note to self: add this to your ongoing 2screen case study collection

As the girl quite perfectly put it: super fun time

2. Love this from Steven Sanders

First, I found this from one of my new favourite tumblrs, and second, I have a soft spot for awesome-pencils-on-white-backgrounds because they totally work with my blog theme (thanks again Vero).

Oh, and I just really love the picture too.

3. Awesome Brothers
I have an awesome brother. Fact. Having this guy as a brother would be awesome too. For his sibling’s birthday not only did he go out and find a pair of Iron Man bracelets (if you haven’t seen Avengers Assemble yet, you won’t know how awesome these are) but he also drew this pic of him using them. AMAZING.

I guess that’s what happens when your brother works at Pixar.

4. Empty Underground
I like to take photos of the London Underground when there’s noone else around. I’ve blogged about it before, others have too. There’s a hashtag and a Flickr group but it’s just a hobby more than anything else, and it’s fun. Anyway, this one is from last week. It’s one of mine and it’s probably top five favourite all time Empty Underground shots.

You get a coffee on me if you can guess where and how I took it.

5. Amazing comic book people are amazing
I admit it. I cried.

If you can’t bear to sit through the 30second ad at the start (sorry – can’t do anything about that),why not go read the story instead. Either way, it’s a lovely piece of good news to sign off with.

Bonuses are all long-form pieces again this week; How to Spot the Future, via Scroggles, is very similar to Where Good Ideas Come From in its nature, but still worth a read all the same; Beating the anxiety of online reading; and A Guide to Influence(rs) Chapter One has made me want to write my own guide on how to engage with communities.

 

Festival season and mobile: The ugly truth

There now follows a minor rant by James Whatley…

‘Here in the UK, festival season is kicking off a plenty and with the great and the good outdoor musical bonanzas just ’round the corner it falls to the mobile industry to produce a veritable banquet of hand-held software and hardware to help the savvy, mud dwelling, sun-loving festival fan this season.’

You’ll probably be reading this kind of opener quite a lot in the national press over the next month or so. Both online and off, journalists and bloggers alike will extolling the virtues of what you should be packing in your tent-rammed sack this year

So, instead of doing the same old, same old – I’m just going to offer some pointers. Having done the mobile festival thing a couple of years running, and having also sent a few tweets from the middle of the Namibian desert, I’d like to think I can offer a bit of first-hand experience when it comes to travelling light while maintaining a degree of connectivity.

Continue reading “Festival season and mobile: The ugly truth”