The World is a dangerous place January 18, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentThere’s a dangerous storm blowing right now outside my window, more sustained than the fringe of the London Tornado. Probably worth checking Torro . meanwhile, the map below shows various hazard hotspots around the world as of today, 18th January 2007. That’s just a screenshot but if you go to the Havaria Information Services site you can click on each symbol on the map and read all about the various troubles. Then stay in, wherever you are! The world is a dangerous place.
via Happy Dave
Old blog migrated January 7, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentOne of the things I got around to over the break was to migrate my previous blog into distributedresearch.net. The old blog was on a Movable Type installation set up by Tom Smith and hosted at the now defunct ultralab. It was unavailable for a week or so and who knows when they might switch everything off forever, so the migration was well overdue.
First I tried to export the entire text using MTs inbuilt export. This created an enormous file which was 98% unpublished spam trackbacks, so I wrestled with the despamming interface for some time and tried again. Once the offline period started I had to make do with what I had, which involved some manual text editing.
Then I installed Movable Type on my server, spent some time trying to get it to work with the particular version of PHP here and gave it up as a bad job. In comes Wordpress 2 instead, which happily imported all of the posts and comments, and can be maintained or even developed if I feel like it. All that remained was to start moving across the image and movie files where they had been uploaded to MT, and then edit the posts to point to the new location.
Perhaps the SH-Autolink plugin would do the lot in one go, or a global find and replace within the MySQL database.
Anyway, the new version of the old blog is now at http://distributedresearch.net/blog2/
Nadolig LLawen December 24, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 3commentsNadolig LLawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.
Who longs to lead a normal life? December 15, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentHu is the president of China? (sorry)
Bao Xishun, the world’s tallest man, who was recently called in to rescue dolphins by reaching into their stomachs with his arm, longs to lead a normal life according to People’s Daily Online.
Bao was born in 1951 into a herdsman’s family in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. His family is said to be descended from the offspring of Genghis Khan, but he and his five siblings had a simple childhood.
Until the age of 15 he was of normal height, but then he went through a massive growth spurt, reaching 2.1 metres by the time he was 20. He developed rheumatism when he was young, as he often slept outside on the grassland with legs uncovered.
He shut himself off from the world until 2004
Bao remains shy: ” I want to live a normal life like my father, who is 94.”
Who else would like to lead a normal life? It often sounds tempting to me. First, find yourself a normal planet with normal people on it and then go and live there. Should be easy, but is it?
After the Prato Dialogue October 10, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 1 comment so far
I returned from Florence on Sunday afternoon, lacking of sleep and travel weary, but stimulated by the discussion, people, and experience. Then it was straight back into the routine for Monday morning, with just enough time to upload my photoset to Flickr, and relate glimpses of my weekend to family and friend.
Joining in with a new group of friends who already have some common history and traditions can be a bit daunting at first, 
but I’ve done it before with other groups and only once found it impenetrable. And when there has been online interaction beforehand then sometimes you can hit the ground running, because you are in fact dealing with people you already know to some extent, with ongoing issues and debates, so there is never any shortage of things to talk about.
I gather this was CPsquare’s third such event, roughly, following dialogues in Setubal and Milan. It says on the ‘about’ page of the Prato Dialogue blog that “For many of us, where a social perspective on learning is the subject and the means of inquiry and the rallying point that brings us together these events are works of love. They are produced in moments stolen from our jobs, families and friends.” I only managed to steal enough time to attend for about 36 hours, and it was touch and go right up to the last minute whether I would be able to make it at all. In the end the feeling that I would somehow regret not making the extra effort to find a way motivated me to overcome obstacles and I’m really glad about that.
On Saturday morning the discussion began over breakfast and just carried on all morning. I noted that the conversation kept returning to the subject of blogging, which I don’t at all mind weighing in on, but it slightly puzzled me as the hot topic for a group of Communities of Practice people. 
It turned out that there had been some debate before I arrived, with recent convert bloggers contrasting against reluctant non-bloggers. I was reminded that we had that same tension in discussions about blogging at Ultraversity. At the lunch table, we were each formally responding to two set questions about our own paradoxes, boundaries, and trajectories, written up on a flip chart parked close to the table. A continuous series of camera flashes went off just a few feet from my eyes whilst I was trying to listen. Derek and Patricia were both keen to hear about the radical Ultraversity online degree course which I have recently completed, and that took up a fair chunk of my speaking time.
Then an adjournment to an internet cafe, where I bought 20 minutes time without any pressing need. Peter Jones commenting on this blog confirmed that it doesn’t display properly in Internet Explorer 6, and I could see that this was true in front of my own eyes. I’m going to upgrade to Wordpress 2.0 and find a new skin when I find some time…
Back in the grandly adorned but not always comfortable venue, the afternoon session 
began without any suggested theme or topic. Since we were in a room with walls covered in post-it notes from the previous day’s excercise, there was felt to be a need to explain the process which had led to them, and the conversation drifted on from there. I had little to contribute at first, and admit to feeling perplexed as to what the purpose was. I’ve never attended an Open Space event, nor an unconference so I would sit back and try to see how it works. In some ways it did allow some important topics to arise, and in other ways it may not have used valuable time as constructively as could be. At the other extreme, I wouldn’t want to be subjected to a series of mini lectures - monologuing - but I feel there is still a place sometimes for a prepared lead-off to initiate focussed dialogue. Etienne Wenger provided this in his own way by speaking of the concept of Knowledge Citizenship and his proposed research into Learning for a Small Planet.
And so on to a nearby restaurant where the conversation continues unabated and free wheeling. Some of the more peripheral topics which arose during the day included the world technology divide, politics of language, how open source developers earn a living, current world issues, Etienne’s original vision for CPsquare, group blogs, public and private, moral obligations of knowledge, um, and lots of other stuff.
When we got back it was late but somebody still wanted to discuss tomorrow’s agenda. Having spent all day indoors in rainy Florence I hoped if the weather was fine to at least see a small part of the famous city, particularly the bridges. There was also a suggestion to hear a bit more from me since I was having to leave before midday, so written on the flipchart were the words “Andy in the hotseat” which I thought at the time was just humour…
The Weather in Florence October 6, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 2comments
Communities of Practice for Pirates September 19, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentArr, tiz today the day, true and right enough.
It’s the annual open day for the international community of practising pirates. Normally by nature a secretive bunch, they tend to operate away from the public glare behind the password protected environment provided by the high seas.
Andrew Roberts - History of English Speaking Peoples September 18, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentOne of my namesakes has a new book out…
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“A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900″
In 1900, where Winston Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Meanwhile, the British Empire was in decline, but did not yet know it. Any number of other powers might have won primacy in the twentieth century and beyond, including Germany, Russia, even possibly France. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-Speaking peoples who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser’s Germany, Axis aggression, and Soviet Communism, and are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
Andrew Roberts brilliantly reveals what made the English-speaking people the preeminent political culture since 1900, and how they have defended their primacy from the many assaults upon them. What connects those countries where the majority of the population speaks English as a first language—the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and Ireland—is far greater than what separates them, and the development of their history since 1900 has been a phenomenal success story.
Authoritative and engrossing, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an enthralling account of the century in which the political culture of one linguistic world-grouping comprehensively triumphed over all others. Roberts’s History proves especially invaluable, as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest, and most dependable allies.
Andrew Roberts writes: “As the first rays of sunlight broke over the Chatham Island, 360 miles east of New Zealand in the South Pacific, a little before 6:00am on Tuesday, January 1, 1901, the world entered a century that for all its warfare and perils would nonetheless mark the triumph of the English-speaking peoples. Few could have suspected it at the time, but the British Empire would wane to extinction during that period, while the American Republic would wax to such hegemony that it would become the sole global hyper-power. Assault after assault would be made upon the English-speaking peoples’ primacy, each of which would be beaten off successfully, albeit sometimes at huge and tragic cost. Even as the twenty-first century dawned, they would be doughtily defending themselves still.”
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“A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900″
Pensive July 23, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a comment
It’s the start of the holidays and I’ve celebrated my degree result but I’m in a pensive mood currently due to the failing health of my father and my mother’s distress about it all. A difficult time during which it’s hard to make any firm arrangements, but the priority for the next couple of weeks or so is to be there and help where I can.
Juillet Quatorze July 14, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentToday is July 14th, Bastille day. Greetings to all readers in the jolly old republic of France. “Liberté, fraternité, egalité, ou la mort!”
There’ll be fireworks before the night is out.
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