Planet ToL

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!

Do I need to have skills?

The nature of Young Rewired State means that people will get quite technical however we are looking more for a mindset rather than simply technical skills. 
If you have programming experience then you are very welcome and if you are interested in developing apps, websites or good uses of public data, then by all means come along.
Basically, we want you to have 'tinkered' with computers in your own time and of your own accord.

What time will it be each day?

We can meet at MadLab at 10.30am each day, and try and finish around 5pm or so.

Who else is involved?

In Manchester we are supported by the MadLab and staff from Substance, Blackpool Council and Digital Freedom in Education and Youth. All support staff will be CRB checked and we will always be in a group.

How much does the whole week cost to attend?

It's free to attend. Nada. Nothing. £0.00.
All we ask is that you commit to turning up on time each day. :)

Do I need to register?

Yes - there is a central registration form at YRS (http://events.osmosoft.com/recipes/yrs/tiddlers.wiki ), but if you would be as kind to email us to let us know that you've registered we can pass information straight over to you!

What else do I need to do?

We need to know that you've told an responsible adult as to where you'll be - particularly if you come to London. By all means, put them in contact with us, if there is anything not clear?

So, why should I do this?

YRS is the great opportunity to develop the next killer app whilst getting a headstart into IT and meeting people at the cutting edge of technology!

It's been a long time since I was 18 but this sounds rather exciting, is there any way I can lend a hand?

Yes!
Can you forward this email to anyone who would be interested in attending? Please do pass it on!
We are looking for extra sponsors and mentors.
Donations of developer time, money or prizes would be very gratefully recieved.

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Contact the organisers:

Tim Dobson/Steven Flower: yrs[at]tdobson.net

This weekend has been a kinda crazy hectic for me one, for various reasons, not all of which I will go into here. But one of the big ones was spending Saturday in London at ORGCon – the Open Rights Group’s first conference. It was great to be able to see people such as Cory Doctorow, Tom Watson and Julian Huppert (who will soon be my MP) speak for the first time. There were many interesting points raised by people at the conference, and I thought I’d discuss a few of these here.

There was much discussion in the first keynote about publishers use of copyright and DRM to restrict people. One point I thought was made well related to the possibility of using anti trust law to stop large content vendors (such as Amazon or iTunes) abusing their position. However, these firms are not actually monopolies, but rather laws such as those criminalising DRM circumvention give the power to abuse the market, to companies below monoply level, by allowing them to lock customers into their walled gardens. Thus, it is these laws that are the problem, rather than the nature of these companies.

One thing that struck me was how depressingly idiotic decisions relating to copyright law have been. Apparently, courts have suggested that resampling as few as 3/4 notes could constitute a copyright violation. The biggie that struck me was the stupidity of retroactive copyright grants. As late as 1978 the copyright term was 28 years (plus an optional extra 28 years, which quite a low number of people opted for) – which means absent this legal change, these works would now be open to us. But, as it is, we now as individuals have little access to the works created within our lifetimes. An even worse case is orphan works, who’s copyright owners can not be found, so no-one can use, and because copyright has strict liability, good faith assumptions are not good enough! Of course, copyright was originally meant to inspire creativity, so giving copyright extensions to people who are already dead, as happen with much of the retroactive extension, makes no sense at all.

“The odds of copyright extensions incentivising dead authors are relatively low.” — James Boyle

“Don’t they know the difference between composing and decomposing.” — Jennifer Jenkins

Its rather bitterly ironic, when you think about it, that in today’s time we have the technology for the mass dissemination of our shared culture and creativity, but we have legal barriers to doing so.

“Before the 19th century, musicians just needed to play, in the 19th century you also needed to be able to play and be literate. In the 20th century you needed to be an be able to play, be literate, and be a sound engineer.
In the 20th century you need to be able to play, be literate, be a techie, and be a laywer.
Is this a good progression?”
(Pirated from PPUK)

One of the of the other major issues were the two big horrible legal documents at the moment – the DEA and ACTA.

The Digital Economy Act (DEA) as the bill has now unfortunately become was a major point of discussion of the panel with the MPs. Apparently a cross party group is being formed to help seek the repeal of the bill, and some of the bills its measures do require Super Affirmative Resolutions (further consultation with the Commons, although maybe just in committee) before they can be enacted. There is also all the rhetoric around Nick Clegg’s Freedom Bill and Your Freedom website, but I still remain quite skeptical.

Also, some of the issues of the bill have gone to an OFCOM consultation which ends this coming Friday the 30th. I’m going to see how easy it is to respond to these consultations, and try to lend my voice to the discussion. I don’t know how much effect it will have, but I think as many people should try this as possible to send a very clear message.

Meanwhile, the issue with ACTA – Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement by name, but actually a treaty on “Intellectual Property” enforcement measures – is that its hard to follow exactly what is happening since the whole procedure is so secretive. Countries are deciding on issues that will strongly influence future law without any real democratic input or observance. One draft copy of the agreement was released a few weeks ago, but it is only the leaked copies that have the information on what entity is trying to add what conditions.

The interesting thing I learnt yesterday is that ACTA will make stipulations about criminal sanctions on copyright infringement. This could include things as broad as aiding and abetting infringement – which is very concerning about its possible use in squashing speech about file sharing. However, the criminal sanctions provide a weak point to attack, since some degree of proper democratic process must happen within the EU for such things to become law.

A last point about ACTA is that it is not just the text of the agreement that matters. Even if the text of it improves, it will set a precedent for agreements on other issues to be pushed through without proper democratic scrutiny.

However, despite all this, there was much optimism at the event (James Boyle had apparently hoarded some during the dot-com era). It was suggested that, people will migrate away from closed platforms such as the iPad, but such shifts will happen at a slow pace, so we may not realise it. Similarily it was said that the movie industry’s new Ultra-violet DRM standard, is simply the last gasp of DRM in an arena where it just isn’t working (people aren’t bothering buying DRMed movie downloads).

So, that concludes my little summary of the event. If you care about these issues I hope you will consider joining (if you haven’t already) the Open Rights Group, as I have done recently. They were kind enough to let me into ORGCON for free, as well as sending me a copy of Silent State. Hopefully I’ll get chance to read that soon and possibly post a review here.

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!

It's been quite hot over the last few days...

On a quick trip back to Glossop, my dog Bess thought it was a bit too hot and flopped out on the lawn.

I got these photos on my phone...

When your fir is black, it gets hot in the sun.

A few weeks back I went to Barcamp Blackpool which was pretty awesome.

Rick Quick made a video of it with a slightly embarrassing few clips of me it.

Shout out to Keri Sholicar for the awesome T-shirt design!

Big thanks to Gemma Cameron for putting the leg work in to make it happen. I know what it's like - it's certainly not easy - but Gemma pulled it off - Well Done! :)