Young Rewired State 2009

What is Young Rewired State?

Young Rewired State (YRS) is a initiative that aims to support young developers and coders in using public data to build apps, websites and anything else that people may use. It is about mashing up and getting out there with data people may not have seen or experienced before.

Who can take part?

Anyone aged between 15-18.

When is it?

YRS will take place *next week* between Monday 2nd August and Friday 6th August 2010

Where is it taking place?

YRS is taking place at centres across the country - there are centres in Brighton, London, Norwich, Oxford, Birmingham and Manchester.
In Manchester we will be based at the MadLab - a space well-known for digital collaboration in the city centre.

What will happen?

We will meet on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the MadLab and work together on ideas and developments. On Friday 6th August we will take the train down to London to meet the other teams, show & tell our work and perhaps win a prize!

I live in a flat, not a particularly exciting flat, in the centre of Manchester. It's nice enough, but a world away from what I grew up with in Glossop.

I thought getting some sort of plant might make things a bit more homely..

My new triffid:

You can now fan my Triffid on Facebook, if you're into that kind of thing!

Blame Loz Kaye for that!

I'm helping to run an event on Thursday 8th July to introduce this years the next generation of coders and designers to Manchester's Young Rewired State event.

Young Rewired State is a decentralised, UK-wide, hack-week open to anyone aged 15 to 18 with an interest in data, coding or design.
This year, it's the first week of August.

It's a great way for young people to learn what skills are needed for industry, make friends with people at the cutting edge of technology and perhaps, develop the next 'killer' app!

As some of you may be aware, recently I've taken up a new role:

I am running for Parliament, on behalf of Pirate Party UK, in the Manchester Gorton Constituency.

Let me introduce myself:

I am young person who understands the Internet. I studied at Manchester Grammar School and Cheadle & Marple Sixth Form College before trying to make a mark on the technology community in Manchester.

I hope to inspire other people, old and young, to stand up and speak up for the rights they are entitled to. No one deserves to be represented by out of touch politicians, out to live a life of luxury at the taxpayers expense and simply repeat the party line.

I feel the people of Gorton deserve something better than the career politicians, more than willing invade other countries despite their constituencies clear disapproval. Politicians who don't listen and fail to have a working understanding of the issues affecting their constituents.

I want to bring clear and honest talk to Parliament, politics people can understand, politics people can engage with. I want to come to conclusions about issues I don't understand with passionate members of my constituency rather than celebrity lobbyists.

I hope I can answer the questions people have - feel free to email me, twitter @me, say hi on facebook, drop me a call, or stop me in the street - I'll be happy to do my best to give you a satisfactory answer.

When I'm not doing politics or rushing to technology events, I'm a passionate (though not very talented!) dinghy sailor. I have an 8 year old Staffordshire bull terrier, Bess.

My day job is a Systems Administrator, specialising in VoIP Systems Engineering.

The funniest thing is, that despite todays date, this isn't actually a prank.

Social Networking

Facebook
Twitter
Identi.ca
Formspring.me

Press Details

Email: t.dobson@pirateparty.org.uk
Phone: 0161 8500 185
Hi Resolution images

Whilst the practicalities of the Digital Economy Bill, may seem like a complete joke, sadly this post is no April Fools Prank.

As you may be aware, the Digital Economy Bill is a piece of legislation which, if put through, would have quite serious implications for Digital Industries.

What is the Digital Economy Bill?

Whilst billed a law about preventing copyright infringement, the bill has far reaching powers, allowing the government to block websites, (social networks, wikileaks, wikipedia), at will and changing one of the basis's of UK common law in assuming you guilty until proven innocent.

THe bit I find particularly unhelpful the segment that holds the subscriber of the internet service liable for all activities on that line. This is essentially the death of open wifi in cafes and bars - its just unworkable if you are liable for the actions of your patrons.

Why are we protesting?

The DEB has been written at the behest of the media industry (some clauses were actually written by the BPI) with absolutely no regard for anybody else.

Furthermore, not only is this bill flawed, it is being rushed through parliament without debate using a process known as "wash up", which was intended for use on uncontroversial bills.

If you're coming to the flashmob then sign up to get a "ticket" on EventBrite so we can let you know the exact location of the flashmob shortly before it begins!

http://debflashmobmanchester.eventbrite.com/
We'll have plenty of flyers so just bring yourself and something to censor yourself with but we'll be providing black tape in case you can't.

I'm sorry it has got to this stage, however I hope you'll join me there.

DOWNLOAD the podcast in MP3 format

DOWNLOAD the podcast in OGG format

This marks the release of, Mashup! Episode Three. This time we have a mostly guitar based episode with an Interview with local band, The Fayre, ahead of their gig at FAC251. I thanked Peter Cannon for his review and feedback on Mashup Episode One and playing the winning track from the Don't Disconnect Us campaign as well as playing some awesome freely licenced music.
Let me know what you think!

Many thanks to Peter Cannon for reviewing Mashup Episode one and providng loads of useful feedback.

Otra Dimensión - Atómica - CC-BY-SA 2.5 Peru

P-F-M - FOXAPET - CC-BY 2.5

Inertia - Josh Woodward - CC-BY-SA 3.0

Exclusive interview with Eoghan from The Fayre ahead of their gig at FAC251

Rose Queen - The Fayre - Licence Unknown

Exclusive interview with Barham from The Fayre ahead of their gig at FAC251

Graceland (crazy town) - darkmoon project - CC-BY-SA 2.5

I mentioned the Don't Disconnect Us competition to find the best protest song against Lord Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill.
Stephen Fry judged the competition and said the following about the winning track:

I am insanely in love with Only Idiots Assume. It's got the anger, the wit, the musical skill - all in a wonderful package that reminds me of the high days of my youth when punk roamed the land and the young were angry and funny and spunky and spiky.

Only Idiots Assume - Liam Mullone and Hils Barker playing as Broken Dongles - Licence Unknown

Track to download

Overjoy Dub - PistONE - Free Art Licence

Download Overjoy Dub - licence

Thanks for listening, I really hope you enjoyed the show.

Let Me Know What You Think:

Let me know what you think about the music on the show or pretty much anything else. If you are someone who makes music, or know people who do, by all means, feel free to send me suggestions or tracks. I'm very happy to listen to new music and share it with people. If you've got any fantastic awesome ideas, please do let me know.

Send all feedback and suggestions to – mashup AT tdobson.net

You can also find me on Identi.ca and Twitter.

Music Sources and Licensing:

A few of the tracks in this show are from the artists own personal websites and don’t contain licensing information. That’s why they are listed as unknown. The individual licenses are listed next to each track, where known. If there is no license listed you must assume all rights are reserved on that song.

Mashup! by Tim Dobson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Update 1

I've received an email with an apology and explanation from FAC251. I'll explain in more details soon I hope..

As some of you may know. I've spent quite a bit of time recently at the new FAC251 superclub located in the old Factory Records building.

I was there on the opening night, til well into the morning, I was at the White Lies gig (it was awesome!) again, I stayed well into the early hours and had an amazing time.

I was, therefore, amazingly excited that my friend's (unsigned) band, The Fayre, were playing FAC251 - I couldn't agree more with them that it was "one of the best things to happen to the Manchester music scene in years".

After my epic nights at the clubnights afterwards I was particularly pleased to see on the official FAC251 Facebook event page that entry to the gig also got you entry to the DysLEXIC students night:

"Tickets £3 Available at www.factorymanchester.com - Tickets also allow entry to DYSLEXIC @ FAC251 following the gig"

I was quite confused, unsuprisingly, when after the gig, the bouncers started clearing Space 1, the live venue, and asking everyone to leave.

I'd payed for entry to the DYSLEXIC clubnight hadn't I?
Why were we all being chucked out into the outside?

I couldn't understand. I tried asking the bouncers if I could get upstairs to the clubnight, but they were unhelpful, essentially ignoring what I was saying and pointing me in the direction of the door.

I tried asking other people why we were being directed out. They didn't really know either. Like me, they had thought their tickets were valid for the clubnight, but had been told that they were not.

We were directed outside the club, without having my hand stamped or being given a wrist band and let out onto the street. There was a massive queue of people waiting to get in for the DYSLEXIC clubnight.

I was extremly confused and annoyed. Why wasn't I allowed entry to the clubnight?

As I stood there in the damp and cold, I watched a group of girls try and reason with one of the bouncers. Instead of attempting to enlighten us as to the situation, or giving us any sort of indication as to why everyone had been kicked out or what was going on.

Eventually, as the girls persisted inquiring why they were stuck in the cold and rain, the bouncer got increasingly aggressive, unhelpful and confrontational and told them to all go away because they weren't going to be allowed in whatever happened.

Frustrated by the lack of information, and be deprived of what I had hoped would have been a good night, combined with the bouncers arrogant attitude.

Sadly, I walked home in the rain.

I'm a bit hurt that FAC251 have done this. It's made me a little more cautious about taking their word for things and has also deprived me of an enjoyable clubnight. I'm quite hurt really, that a brand I have had so much confidence in, over the past few weeks, has delivered such an un-enjoyable end to my night.

I've always believed that they can make a really venue, and I'm certain they still can.

I'm sure that this incident is not a frequent occurrence and certainly wasn't intended to happen. There has to have been a degree of confusion at some level. It's a fairly new venue and I'm sure the teams don't have everything planned and rehearsed as much as they will do in a few months time

I'm also confident that the FAC251's management will listen and accept feedback. Positively take it onboard and use it to make FAC251 run more smoothly in future.

At the end of the day, I want FAC251 to be an awesome place to go, and so do they.

From this...

I've just got back from the FAC251 Launch gig!

This is how my night went:

My ticket said it started at 7pm, Facebook advised a 7.30pm start so I rushed to get there and got in the queue at about 7.10pm.

TV crews were all over the place, rushing around, getting panorama shots of a queue, filming signs. It looked like dull work.

A reporter from Key103 came down the line and asked us all our thoughts on the FAC251. I couldn't really think of anything meaningful so I just blubbered out a few incoherent sentences about how Manchester would have great expectations of a venue with a background like this ones. I went on to speculate as to whether this would be the Hacienda of the nouties...

At about 8pm the line was really getting quite long but we were finally ushered in, had our printed out digital eticket (with 2D barcodes) scanned and had our hands stamped. FINALLY, we were in.

The stage!

On the ground floor we have the live space. It's quite a nice live space in my opinion. It's fairly small, intimate, friendly.
The stage basically fills the opposite end of the room to the end you come in through. There is a stone/concrete floor, a bar at the opposite end of the room.

Hooky!

I managed to get right at the front at the barrier, but the amount of people with SLRs or commercial-grade video cameras was almost stunning for me.

At times, I couldn't work out whether it was a press conference or a gig I was at.

All I had was my Nokia N900, no 3G and only 1/2 my battery!
It kicked off and I immediately realised that as I was behind the main speakers, I wasn't getting the sound quality I might have expect had I been stood in the middle 3 metres back. However, with people squashing me from 3 directions, the last thing I was going to do was move to get better sound quality!

Guitar!

Throughout the evening, I was microblogging persistently and my followers and subscribers had taken quite an interest. Some people's response was along the lines of "Lucky Git" where as others remembered The FAC51 Hacienda. Some felt that FAC251 would just be full of chavs where as others were really happy to see something rise out of the ashes of the Hacienda...

The crowd were loving it!

For me I think there were two highlights from a musical perspective - two times when I thought the music was absolutely outstanding (not including The Blue Monday Song).

When Rowetta started to sing (confusingly a Joy Division cover! )I was mesmerised. Although she only did two songs, it was clear by the crowd reaction that I wasn't the only one enjoying listening to her.

Hooky mentioned, that, before Joy Division's Ian Curtis killed himself, the band had been working on a song that had been left unfinished.
Hooky went on to explain that him and some others had gone away and finished the song and then proceeded to debut it to the wider world.

I couldn't believe how good it was. It really was all there, fantastically delivered vocals, catchy guitar riffs, a driving tempo. Yes, I'd quite like to hear that song again whatever it was called...

Rosetta and Hooky

They finished off the set with the pace getting ever faster. Finally, as an encore, the played The Blue Monday song. As New Orders probably most iconic track, it turned the the group of SLR wielding yuppies crowding next to me back into headbanging teeny-boppers again. Memories, hey!?

I really enjoyed the gig, and the subsequent club night, however details of the club night will have to be another post, as I now desperately need to go to bed.

Creative Commons

All my photos and videos of the FAC251 Launch gig are available on flickr.

Please reuse and remix and remember to attribute Tim Dobson as the photographer. :)

Any links to tdobson.net are always appreciated! :D

All content was taken on my Nokia N900 mobile phone.

All content is be licenced under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.

More than ten years since the legendary Fac 51 Haçienda closed it's doors and almost three years after the death of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, you would have been forgiven for thinking that Manchester's "Madchester" era had all but died out.

However, it would appear this is not the case!

Peter "Hooky" Hook from legendary Manchester bands New Order and Joy Division is launching a new club with help and support from the Gary Manny "Mani" Mounfield (Stone Roses/Primal Scream) and former members of the Happy Mondays.

FAC251 as it will be known, is based in the original Factory Records headquarters on Princess street.

There is a slight bit of irony involved. In October 2009, Hooky released a book entitled "How not to run a club" detailing his experiences running the Hacienda and swearing he'd never run a club again!

Anyway, I've managed to get tickets to the official launch event which is tonight, .

Apparently this is what I'm going to be looking forward to:

PETER HOOKS 'THE LIGHT' Live gig

A special one off performance featuring PETER HOOK joined by MANI (Roses), ROWETTA (Mondays), HOWARD MARKS performing RARE AND EXCLUSIVE Joy Division and New Order tracks plus a WORLD DEBUT from Hooky and Mani's new project FREEBASS..

Should be good! Stay tuned to me on identi.ca and twitter and watch my flickr page for live updates!

On Wednesday I'm going to the Manchester Werewolf Chapter again.

If you've not heard of it before, Werewolf is a game. A social game. A game about how to lie, how to tell when someone is lying and how to drink and do the previous two things.

It's a bit wacky but everyone is really friendly and it's sooo funny! :)

Anyway, here's the details:

Manchester Werewolf Chapter

7 – 11pm, Wednesday, 3rd February

Pure Space, 11-13 New Wakefield Street, Manchester