Beej and I are off to surf Newquay (and the surrounding area tomorrow). We are going for 4 days (taking Friday and Monday off work). The forecast (see below) looks reasonable, plenty of swell, hopefully the wind won’t blow it out.

We just need to decide which boards to take (the age old dilema), hopefully there will be enough swell to merit using my shortboard. As much as I love using the 8′2 Mitch, I really fancy getting a little more technical and speedy, rather than using the usual cruiser, we’ll see!

Watch this space for some nice lomo-style photos (and maybe even some video).

I came across these interesting data visualisation projects whilst working on the IA for the redesign of the Freeview website. There are some great ideas here involving the presentation and manipulation of data objects. As IA is very much about communicating ideas to clients and teams I am hoping to use some similar presentation techniques on future conceptual IA.

MooWheel

MSNBC Spectra Visual Newsreader

Reclam Literatur Doner

For more info about cool data visualisation experiments and projects check out: visualcomplexity.com

There’s a really good free art and photography exhibition called Free Range on at the moment over at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, London.

Rose and I stumbled across the 3rd week of the show a few week’s back, whilst walking around the East End on a Sunday afternoon. There was some really inspiring photography exhibited by recent Uni graduates which prompted me to try to experiment more with my new Canon. Id’ thoroughly recommend checking it out.

So after a year’s break from working for myself, I have taken the leap and re-established Hungry Browser. I left Crayon in April 2008 and re-started my Freelance career in the form of Information architecture and User experience consultancy. I’ve set up a Hungry Browser as a UK limited company with the view to have more control over my scedule and work/life balance. All is going well so far with great demand for IA and User experience skills.

I was reading one of the free London papers on the way home from work the other evening and stumbled upon an article about recycling. It detailed a poor 74 year old man who had put his rubbish bins out only to return to them the next morning to find they hadn’t been taking away and a note had been left on his bin.

On closer inspection of the note it seemed that because he had left 1 teabag in the bin that it had been branded as “contaminated”. Now I am a stickler for the rules as much as the next guy, but refusing to take away a whole week’s rubbish due to 1 tea bag is just pathetic.

This leads on to a similar story in which an old lady who struggled to lift her heavy bins out for the dustmen was greated by a ’sorry we can’t take them away’ response from one of the dustmen. The reason this time was because they were too heavy and against EU legislation with regards to the health and safety.

It seems to me that the government is completely out of touch with the real world and when it comes to common sense, there is none.

The UK Government plans to build 3 million houses by 2020. Part of this is the proposal is to build an ‘Eco Town’ between Elsenham & Henham. This will constitute 5,000 new houses being built on a Greenfield site. Currently the population of Elsenham is about 1500. So even with a low estimation of 2 people per new house, this would increase the population from 1500 to 11500.

A blow for village history, character and the environment

To cut a long story short this will ruin the scenery, history, atmosphere and environment of both Henham and Elsenham. The current infrastructure of roads and railway can’t cope with the present population (I travel to London every day and the train is already operating at capacity a.k.a overcrowded).

There is an online government petition where you can sign up with an email address (that won’t be spammed) to show your support against this proposal.

Sign the petition

There are currently 558 signatures on the petition, please show your support and sign up here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/kenmcneil/

Thanks!

NB. You must be a British citizen or resident to sign the petition.

Update 18 June 2008

There are now 714 signatures on the petition, that is nearly 200 additional signatures over the last 7 days which is great news!

Current pictures of Elsenham/Ugley Green

For reference, currently Elsenham/Henham and Ugley Green look like this, with your help we can keep it this way!

It’s been a while since Pete Murray has released any new music, but after a few years of waiting (and contently listening to See the sun and Feeler) his latest album “Summer at Eureka” is here and it is well worth the wait.

I first stumbled across Australian Pete Murrary’s music when I was travelling round the world surfing, back in 2006. He has a great voice and writes really good, moving lyrics bIended with skillfully crafty guitar playing. I would thoroughly recommend checking it out.